Ostas Flote profit reached LVL 424,700 in 2007

The 2007 profit of Ostas Flote Ltd. (OF, Latvia) reached LVL 424,700, or almost 2.4 times less when compared to 2006, said Sergei Odintsov, Member of Ostas Flote board. The company’s profit could have amounted to a record-breaking LVL 1,4 million, however, OF had to put aside around USD 2 million as security against a loan of approximately USD 2 million that the company “Baltic  Juice Terminal Ltd.” has not returned yet.

Ostas Flote provides tugboat services at the Ventspils Port.

In 2007 the company’s tugboats took part in three large-scale rescue operations, including the pulling of dry cargo ship Golden Sky off a sandbank.

In 2008 the company will continue expanding its business. As already reported, the Competition Council in 2007 banned Ostas Flote’s merger with the tugboat company PKL Ltd. for establishing a single joint-stock on the basis of the two companies. OF Member of the board points out that there have been significant changes on the Latvian tugboat market lately. Large Lithuanian tugboat company have started doing business in Latvian ports. One of the opponents of the planned merger of the Ventspils and Riga tugboat companies, “Amberholdings Liepāja Ltd.”, a subsidiary of “LSF Holdings Ltd.”, sold one of its most valuable assets - the tugboat Amber which worked with large tonnage ships at Liepaja and Ventspils ports - to the Finnish company Alfons Hokan. The unexpected sale of one of the most modern tugboats in Latvia could have caused significant problems for Latvian ports unless Ostas Flote had not speedily provided an as powerful tugboat for operations at the Ventspils port.

“The recent tugboat sale by the company Amberholdings Liepāja demonstrates that the company has no intention of developing its business on the Latvian market, as it had stated in materials presented to the Competition Council. Moreover, developments on the tugboat market in 2007 and 2008 showed that the Competition Council’s decision to not permit Ostas Flote and PKL to merge gave an implicit advantage to other European tugboat companies wishing to do business at Latvian ports. With the arrival of the Lithuanian company at Latvian ports last year, the Competition Council’s reasoning that the proposed merger of the Ventspils and Riga companies would damage the development of competition on the tugboat market of Latvia, and affect customers, is no longer relevant,” said Sergei Odintsov.

Source: Transportweekly