join forces

Two shipping lines join forces to New Guinea

Burns Philp and Australia West Pacific Line will combine

their shipping operations on

Australia-New Guinea services from May 1.

Between them, they will control over 54 per cent, of the market, about 200,000 tons a year, a per centage which is nearly double that of the number two carrier, China Navigation, which carried 55,452 tons, or 28.94 per cent, of the market, for the last six months of ’69.

Under the BP-AWP agreement, BP’s will be AWP agent for Aus tralia and BP (NG) Ltd., AWP agent for NG.

Following the recent sale of its Braeside, BP’s will now sell its four year-old 4,000-ton freighter Moresby, probably to a Singapore buyer in May for over $500,000.

BP’s 16-year-old 2,600-ton Tulagi will be sold later this year for not much more than $200,000 and hopes also to dispose of 14-year-old Montoro at a later date.

These sales will, oddly, leave BP’s with no ships of its own, apart from the chartered sideloader, Marsina, from China Navigation, which ends in May next year. However, the com pany still plans to buy another ship.

In March a buyer in Europe was examining a $1 million Danish ship for BP’s.

The BP-AWP tieup will operate with three ships—AWP’s modern unitloaders Delos and Nimos, and BP’s chartered Marsina.

Plans are to sail these ships under their current flags. BP’s are to take over runs to Rabaul, AWP to take over runs to Madang. Containers could be introduced by July and an Australian transport group, Mayne Nickless Ltd. will operate a NG shipping depot in Sydney with BP’s.

With these two groups controlling the majority of NG cargoes, pressure will be on competitors.

BP’s major competitor, W. R. Car penter, hasn’t had the success it would have liked in recent shipping moves of its own and this group could even ally itself with the Nauruans or Karlander. NG’s num ber three commercial group, Steam ships Trading, is associated with China Navigation and some initiative can be expected from this corner.