Edgo has formalised a plan to extend the Group’s activities into Sri-Lanka. The initial focus will be logistics and support to the country’s oil and gas, power and water industries. The venture will support and facilitate efforts to explore, extract and develop hydrocarbon reserves in Sri Lanka whilst also considering infrastructure projects. The relationship with the 138 year old Hayleys PLC, one of Sri Lanka’s oldest and most respected conglomerates was formally ratified this week.
The JV agreement signed in Colombo on Monday, 27 October brings together the combined resources and synergies of Hayleys Advantis, one of the region’s significant marine services and transport logistics businesses, and the extensive expertise in oil and gas exploration of Edgo Merap (part of Edgo), in a new business entity seeking to provide support services and to participate in both the oil and gas exploration and production sector and the infrastructure ventures which are anticipated in Sri Lanka in the coming years.
Koosum Kalyan, Chairman of Edgo Merap Limited said “the company is very pleased at the prospects for the joint venture, to which it would also provide senior oil industry experts of Edgo, an oilfield services provider which serves energy markets in more than 21 countries with 33 bases in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America”.
An announcement from Hayleys Group Deputy Chairman Mohan Pandithage, one of the signatories to the joint venture agreement, said “Hayleys Advantis already has at its disposal one of South Asia’s more comprehensive transport and cargo logistics infrastructures covering sea, air and land. With the sector-specific international expertise, experience and contacts of Edgo Merap, this joint venture will be up and running as a formidable total-service provider when exploration, and hopefully extraction, begins.”
Both partners in this joint venture have long and well established histories and originated just two years apart, Edgo in 1956 as one of the first privately-owned engineering companies in the Middle East and Hayleys Advantis in 1958 as the Shipping Division of Hayleys Limited. Today, Hayleys Advantis is a group of over 30 business units that has a strategic presence in the United States, Western Europe, the Far East, the Indian sub continent and the Pacific Islands. It accounts for one eighth of the container throughput of the Port of Colombo and handles a sixth of containerised exports and a fifth of containerised imports in volume terms. It also owns ships and provides seamless integrated logistics solutions.