Bulk shipping venture in constant negotiations for guaranteed reefer cargo
STILL NO pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
For Rainbow Shipping that is. The proposed US/SA joint-venture (65% held by United States Reefer Express Line and 45% by a group of black investment groups) is a bulk shipping line intending to put five, 12 000 ton, fruit-carrying reefers (refrigerated vessels) on the SA export trade.
But - with a need for a volume equivalent to 50% of the current bulk reefer-borne fruit market to justify building these ships for the trade - Rainbow has been struggling to find guaranteed cargo quantities to match its desires.
"We're still striving to get contracts of affreightment from various parties," said Lionel Jacobs, c.e. of Siphu Melele Investments in Cape Town, one of the black investment groups in the SA equity shareholding, and administering the early stages of development of the line.
"We are in constant negotiations."
