Precious Shipping Public Company Limited ( PSL ) is a pure dry cargo ship-owner operating in the small handy size sector of the Tramp freight market. This segment is extremely fragmented & characterised by companies owning 2 or 3 ships. PSL's 44 ship fleet makes it one of the largest, if not the single largest, company in the world operating in this segment. PSL was established in December 1989 and commenced commercial operations in March 1991 after obtaining the approvals from the Bank of Thailand and the Board of Investment. PSL was granted "listed" status on the Stock Exchange of Thailand on the 16th of September 1993.
The ship acquisition program was carried out in different phases. In the first phase, PSL acquired a core fleet of 7 ships having an aggregate capacity of 101,925 Dead Weight Tons (DWT). All these ships were dry bulk / general cargo ships in the size range of 10,000 - 20,000 DWT. Then in a span of 7 Months, commencing July 1991 up to January 1992, 6 ships were added to the fleet, these ships were of similar size and type as the core fleet and added 102,107 DWT to the fleet capacity. The third phase involved an addition of 10 similar ships from December 1992 to December 1993 with a total capacity of 185,923 DWT. The fourth phase came in 1996-1998 when the fleet grew to 48 ships.
With the collapse of the Asian economies in mid 1997, the freight markets collapsed and PSL commenced its first ever exercise of de-leveraging and slimming down of its balance sheet. From 1999 till the 3rd quarter of 2003 PSL slimmed down its balance sheet and ended up with just 28 ships. That was the precursor for the next phase of expansion which saw the fleet grow from 28 ships in 2003 to 54 ships by the middle of 2005. At present, PSL's fleet size is 44 ships with a total capacity of 1,130,280 DWT.
PSL has signed 12 shipbuilding contracts on 20th July 2007 for delivery of 12 new ships of DWT 34,000 each double hull, open hatch, semi box shaped, craned log-carriers/bulkers from ABG Shipyard. These 12 ships will be delivered at the rate of 3 ships a year beginning in 2010 and completing in 2013. The fleet rejuvenation continued with the contracts signed in September 2007 for an additional three 54,000 DWT double hull, Craned, Supramax New Buildings from ABG Shipyard, for delivery in 2010 (1 ship) and 2011 (2 ships). Now that ABG Shipyard has confirmed availability of main engines for three more ships, we have just recently signed contracts for an additional three similar Supramax ships to be delivered in 2012.