Major Move for Siba Ships

Italy’s Siba Ships has carried out the largest ever cattle shipment from Australia to South East Asia. Its livestock carrier Deneb Prima loaded over $9.7m worth of cattle from Townsville, Queensland, for Jakarta, Pandjang and Pasir Gudan in Indonesia and Malaysia in early June and safely discharged the animals this week. The cargo consisted of 20,060 cattle and 2,564 sheep and goats.

Mauro Balzarini, CEO of Siba Ships, said, “This is a massive exercise which could only be carried out by a world leading livestock shipper and carrier with the expertise to ensure the safe and comfortable handling of the stock. Our sister company, Wellard Rural Exports, put in place 28 road trains in Queensland to bring the cattle to the ship, and they have been loaded and transported under the highest standards of care and supervision. There has only ever been one larger shipment of cattle in the world, which was 100 more than this, on the same ship from Freemantle to the Middle East in 2002.”

The 213 m Deneb Prima is the world’s largest livestock carrier, and is part of Siba Ships’ fleet of livestock carriers, which has an average age of only nine years.

Siba Ships is the Italian shipowning arm of the Balzarini group that specializes in the trading and transportation of livestock. For more than 40 years the company has transported livestock mainly from Australia to the Middle East, South East Asia and South America. Siba Ships also operates a fleet of bulk carriers, a product tanker and a mining resources fund, and is expanding into other areas of shipping.