ABSTRACT
On Tuesday, 18 April, Mr. de Mello's secretary telephoned to ask if I could come to Lisbon for a discussion with Lisnave the following Friday. I flew to Lisbon on Thursday, 20 April and again stayed at the Ritz. At 10:00 the next morning a car came to take me to Lisnave, about a 30-minute drive across the imposing Salazar bridge, and then along the south bank of the river to Almada, where the huge cranes of the shipyard loomed above the surrounding fence. I had seen many photographs of Lisnave, but had never seen the yard, which was made more impressive by the high hulls of empty VLCCs waiting to dock. There were three in dock and nine others tied up, either waiting to dock or being worked on alongside. All the famous funnel markings were there - Esso, Shell, Texaco, Livanos, Onassis, Bergeson, Salen. There were probably five million DWTs of crude oil carriers in the shipyard.
