The Chinese state shipping company Cosco Shipping is entering into a strategic partnership with the energy group BP.
The shipping company, which operates a total of 1,394 vessels, announced the collaboration today.[ds_preview]
“To further leverage the business advantages of both parties, enhance synergies and achieve complementary benefits and joint development,” it said in a statement, adding that this agreement was made to expand the scope of cooperation and explore “new avenues of collaboration”. These include Castrol marine lubricants and hydrocarbon transportation, offshore construction work and exploring cooperation opportunities in areas such as methanol supply for bunkering – a segment in which Cosco is already looking to become more involved.
Cosco and BP have been partners for years
In view of its market position, the potential is not insignificant. Cosco Shipping Corporation is a state-owned company based in Shanghai. It is the merged company of China Ocean Shipping Company and China Shipping Company. At the beginning of the year, the total fleet comprised 1,394 ships with a capacity of 113.82 million dwt. The container fleet has a capacity of 3.02 million TEU, making it the third largest in the world. The bulker fleet (437 ships / 45.14 million dwt), the tanker fleet (228 ships / 29.18 million dwt) and the fleet for general and special cargo (175 ships / 5.78 million dwt) “lead the world rankings”, according to the shipping company.
William Lin, Executive Vice President of BP Group, and Lin Ji, Executive Vice President of Cosco Shipping, were present at the signing ceremony. Simon Yang, Senior Vice President of BP Group and President of BP China, and Chen Wei, Deputy Head of Operations Division of Cosco Shipping, signed the document in Shanghai.
BP has been active in China since the early 1970s and, according to its own statements, is “one of the leading foreign companies in the Chinese energy industry”. BP and Cosco have a long history of cooperation, including the transportation of energy products, the manufacture of offshore equipment and the supply of marine fuels and lubricants.
