Pacific Basin has also sold two barges and is in the process of downsizing its New Zealand and Australian offshore towage organisation. "Our towage activities continue to face increased competition for fewer oil & gas and construction employment opportunities and reducing port volumes, which is impacting both our offshore and harbour towage businesses," it said in the update.
Reiterating its new direction, Pacific Basin said: "We are steering the focus of additional new harbour towage activities towards exclusive ports and have recently won licenses in two exclusive ports in Australia."
This strategy would seem to be a counter to the risky client-dependent model as seen by the announcement last month that its towage customer Western Desert Resources (WDR) had gone into voluntary administration resulting in the redelivery and subsequent unemployment of four tug and barge pairs, and a potential charge of about $6.7m for debts owed.
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