The ship acquisition program was carried out in different phases;

1. 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.
2. In the second phase, 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.
3. The third phase involved an addition of 10 similar ships from December 1992 to December 1993 with a total capacity of 185,923 DWT.
4. 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. During impact of the sub-prime crisis, PSL sold 10 ships in 2007 and 25 ships in years 2009-2010. During 2006-10, only 2 ships were added, thus reducing the fleet size to 21 at the end of 2010. After which, PSL started a consolidation and rejuvenation programme, which is witnessed as follows: