each of around . Næss knew that this was a new area for P&O and arranged a meeting with the chairman, Sir Donald F. Anderson, whom he knew well from his Nortraship days. Næss proposed that the two companies should cooperate and pool their vessels into one joint owned company. P&O found the idea attractive and Associated Bulk Carriers Ltd. was established on 8 April 1964. The joint company was a huge success and by 1970 ABC contained 36 vessels with a total of . Part of the success was that Næss was able to persuade the more conservative P&O to order a number of OBO carriers, thus adding flexibility to the concept. The OBO carrier Næss was always searching for increased efficiency, and the long voyages ballasted for tankers posed an intriguing problem. In the mid of the 1950s, he started to think about a combination ship that could carry both oil and bulk cargoes. Oil and ore ships had been in operation since the 1920s, but a vessel with the capability of carrying both oil and bulk cargoes seemed impossible to construct. Næss pushed his chief naval architect T. M. Karlsen to keep researching the combined vessel, also checking in on various failed projects like the Mando Theodoracopulos. One of the deficiencies of that vessel was the small hatches, too small for efficient discharging. In 1964, the Naess group started a collaboration with P&O in the form of the jointly owned company Associated Bulk Carriers, thus giving them access to P&O's vast technical department. The last hurdles were cleared under a meeting at the A. G. Weser shipyard in Bremen on 6 April 1964, and a contract for building the first combined vessel was signed. The vessel was christened 16 June 1965, as Naess Norseman. The German industrialist owning the shipyard proposed the type to be called Naess-type. Næss found it more appropriate to name it after the cargoes carried. Thus, the name for the new type was to be OBO for Oil-Bulk-Ore. The vessel performed as expected, with some 75% of the time with cargo and only 25% in ballast. The much increased time with cargo would then more than outweigh the 15% higher cost of the vessel. Adding to the versatility of the type was that the oil and bulk market often developed differently. The OBO ship could then trade with bulk cargoes when that market