Russia's two largest shipping companies, Novoship and Sovcomflot, said on Thursday they had bought Spanish company Marpetrol as they seek a larger share of the European market for chemical product shipments.
The two Russian firms, which plan a merger aimed at creating a leading world energy shipper, said they had each bought a 50 percent stake in Marpetrol. They did not say how much they paid.
Marpetrol has a fleet of 12 chemical carriers with dead-weight between 5,000 and 20,000 tonnes and total capacity of 130,000 tonnes. Sovcomflot said Marpetrol was Spain's biggest shipping company in the area of chemical products shipments.
"The acquisition of Marpetrol reinforces the company's presence in the European market for chemical product shipments and in the Spanish market, which is a big importer of liquefied natural gas," Sovcomflot said in a statement.
State-owned Sovcomflot is Russia's top energy shipping company. Its fleet operates 41 tankers with a total deadweight capacity of 3.9 million tonnes.
Novoship, also controlled by the state, owns 58 vessels with a total deadweight capacity of around 3.55 million tonnes.