Qatar-based industrial manufacturing, trading and distribution company Aamal has made its first move into shipping, setting up a new subsidiary Aamal for Maritime Transportation Services (AMTS) for the purpose of shipowning.
AMTS will take ownership of an unspecified number of vessels to be managed by Germany’s Peter Döhle Group, initially to transport aggregates from the United Arab Emirates to Qatar for Aamal subsidiary Gulf Rocks, an importer and provider of gabbro aggregates used in concrete products essential to Qatar’s infrastructure development.
AMTS will also ensure additional capacity is available to third party operators to optimise vessels utilisation and profitability.
Sheikh Mohamed Bin Faisal Al Thani, vice chairman of Aamal, commented: “I am very pleased that we have taken this decision to expand into maritime commodity transportation with the establishment of a new subsidiary, Aamal for Maritime Transportation Services. Owning our own vessels will give us greater control over security of supply of the raw materials that we need to import, whilst operational risk is minimised through partnering with Peter Döhle Group, a leading and highly respected global provider of shipping services, to manage this subsidiary.”
AMTS has acquired its first vessel, a 56,726dwt bulker, and will begin commercial operations immediately.
A spokesperson for Aamal told Splash today that the company is looking to expand the fleet further, although the exact number of vessels it will own will depend on demand. Both newbuild and secondhand vessels will be looked at as part of the fleet build up, they added.
Aamal is diversified conglomerate with operations across 24 business units, some of which have been operating for almost 40 years, and has market capitalisation of around QAR 8.3bn ($2.2bn).
