How has Mercator Lines capitalised on the freight market buoyancy?
We have been judiciously using our tonnage. As of now, one-third of our tonnage is deployed in the spot market and two-third on time-charter and COA basis. In the time-charter segment, we have long-term contracts. For example, we are moving 6.2 million tonnes of crude for MRPL this year from Gulf to India, for which we have taken three Aframax tankers on charter also. We have a five-year contract with British Gas, which will give us enough returns to wipe out our entire debt up to March 2004. This give us that psychological cushion that through one ship we are able to wipe out our debt. For the spot market, we have one VLCC and one Aframax, which is roughly one-third of our tonnage, because the VLCC tonnage is big. The remaining vessels are either on time-charter or COA. But the spot earnings are significantly more than time-charter… Definitely yes. But we have to cover ourselves and for that we must have a balance between time charter and spot. At the moment, spot rates are three-fo
