RIO - Transpetro studies put 23 ships for sale, or almost half of its own fleet of 53 vessels to assist Petrobras divestment program. The company estimates get, according to a study obtained by GLOBE, about $ 270 million (about US $ 845 million) with the operation, but industry experts fear that it is a bad deal: Transpetro would be at the mercy of contract charter, lose speed and even sell assets that are highly profitable.

The matter is confidential in Transpetro, which is a subsidiary of Petrobras. But the list was drawn up on the basis of ships for which the company has no obligation to pay, as funding remains. As Transpetro has little leeway to sell pipelines, this would be the only way to assist in the effort to disinvestment US $ 13.7 billion ( 42.9 billion) planned by Petrobras. If confirmed, the sale of ships may represent only 2% of the total that the state wants to sell.

Market sources believe that there is interest in these assets, because they believe that once they buy these ships, shut contracts of affreightment with Transpetro. Other, cheaper, can scrapped. The amounts estimated by the state are considered consistent, because they are based on insurance of ships.

SCRAP TO NEW VESSELS

The list of vessels is heterogeneous: ranges from new vessels, highly profitable, even scraps and newly renovated ships but whose amount invested will not be recovered in the sale. The state is, since 2004, making a major renovation program of its fleet. Only two ships worth each, $ 78 million (about US $ 166 million): Ataulfo Alves and Top Hat. Both considered new, are highly profitable: bill, each $ 50 thousand per day, according to internal sources of Transpetro.

In the rest of the list, the other 21 ships worth a maximum of US $ 7 million ( 22 million), while some were held for only $ 2 million ( 6.26 million), an amount considered scrap in the industry if the Guapor and Guaruja.

FOR ANALYSTS, INITIATIVE BRINGS TO INSECURITY SECTOR

In the list of Transpetro, there are still three ships, Lages, Lavras and Lambari, which were held, each for US $ 3.750 million (R $ 11.8 million) but have recently undergone reforms, such as double hulls, which were invested up to $ 5 million on each vessel (about $ 15 million). Many of these ships still have useful life exceeding 15 years.

Because the state does not intend to reduce its activities, the company will have to charter vessels - sometimes you just closed a deal with the owners of the ships that will sell. That, experts say, may mean higher costs, loss of flexibility in operations and opens up margins, according to another analyst who asked not to be identified, deviations, as these charter contracts are poorly supervised.

In addition, the sale of these ships creates greater uncertainty in the shipping industry, which began to recover just with the orders in the oil and gas sector. Transpetro had decided to buy 49 ships, but only eight have been delivered to date. A change in own fleet policy could put into question all other orders.

STATE NOT COMMENTS

Questioned, Transpetro did not respond to the request of GLOBE, on the grounds that it would not comment.

Asked about the possibility of sale of ships, Severino Almeida, president of the National Union of Officers of the Merchant Marine (Sindmar) says that this business will occur bad for Transpetro.

- It is a great effort for Transpetro, which will have a strong cost increases with the chartering of vessels for a relatively small value before all the much larger effort that Petrobras needs to do in this scenario is not economically interesting, there is no arguments to justify this deal - he said.

He also noted that the Transpetro has hired several ships, even as part of former Program for Modernization and Expansion of the Fleet (Promef) under the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) with estimated investments of R $ 11.2 billion. In addition to the insecurity to these orders, the sale would mean almost anything close to what Transpetro to pay for contracts already signed within this program