Tanker News

The outlook on the product tanker market is very positive, said Paolo d’Amico, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of d’Amico International Shipping .On the demand side, the world product seaborne trade is expected to grow by 3% already in 2019 supported by an expected strong underlying oil consumption growth and by forecasted global refinery capacity additions of 4.9 million barrels a day between 2019 and 2021, he pointed out.In particular, 2019 is expected to be characterized by one of the largest annual increases in refinery capacity in years…

Marittima Emiliana, a company owned by the Amoretti family’s Armatori Group, has placed an order for the 4,500 dwt  tanker duo at Ningbo Xinle Shipbuilding, a Chinese shipyard specialising in small chemical construction.Watson Farley & Williams (WFW) advised Crédit Agricole Italia on two financings for Marittima Emiliana for the construction of the two chemical tankers.Construction will start in 1H 2019m, with delivery is scheduled for 2020. This transaction represents the Amoretti…

Global energy trader Vitol has agreed to acquire a further 50 percent share of the global asphalt trading company VALT to integrate the asphalt trading business into the company.VALT is the bitumen joint-venture it established with Sargeant Marine in 2016.The Swiss-based company said in a press release that it would acquire the final 50 percent of the joint venture which it established with Sargeant Marine in 2016. This means, on transaction completion, Vitol will own 100 percent of VALT.The acquisition will make Vitol a leader in the trading…

Euronav has chartered a tanker to bring a 30,000 tonne cargo of low-sulphur fuel oil from northwest Europe to Malta, where its megatanker, Oceania, has been parked offshore since Jan.

Navig8 Chemical Tankers  entered into sale and leaseback agreements with ICBC Financial Leasing for four ships.The tanker company focuses on the maritime transportation of Chemicals worldwide said in a press release that the net proceeds from the transaction of four of the Company’s IMO2 37,000 DWT Interline coated tankers  were $94,710,000.A portion of the proceeds was utilized to repay existing loans used to finance the Vessels’ newbuilding contracts under the multi-bank loan facility announced by the Company on February 3…

Russian maritime shipping company specializing in petroleum and LNG shipping Sovcomflot (SCF Group) said that Yevgeny Primakov (Icebreaker Ice-15) joined the fleet, the final vessel in a series of four new generation IBSV’s, engaged under a long-term time-charter agreement with Sakhalin Energy.The shipping company added that this makes a total fleet of 10 supply and standby vessels servicing Nogliki Base Camp (SEIC and ENL) at Sakhalin island (Sea of Okhotsk).The world’s first Aframax tanker to use LNG as her primary fuel Gagarin Prospect (114…

The energy shipping company PAO Sovcomflot (SCF Group) has managed to increase its revenue base and achieved a profit of USD 11.9 million against a USD 106.2 million loss in 2017.The annual results reflected a strong contribution from the industrial shipping business (comprising offshore services and LNG transportation). These activities now account for 57.2 per cent of the Group’s TCE revenues (up from a 50.9 per cent share in 2017).Taking into account the challenging conditions in the conventional tanker markets…

Top Ships Inc, which owns and operates tanker vessels worldwide, said that it took delivery of the 50,000 dwt newbuilding product/chemical tanker M/T Eco Marina Del Ray.According to the international owner and operator of modern, fuel efficient "ECO" tanker vessels currently focusing on the transportation of petroleum products, Eco Marina Del Ray is constructed at the Hyundai Mipo shipyard in South Korea.The Greece-based company also said that the vessel is scheduled to commence its five-year charter employment with Cargill on March 18…

Danish shipping giant Norden is opening an office in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, as part of the Company’s continued global expansion.The office will generate new business and focus on contributing positively to the development of the region, the dry bulk and tanker owner said in a press release.“Norden opens offices and employs people with a long-term horizon and that is also the case for our move into West Africa. We wish to come even closer to our business partners and increase our business presence and at the same time be part of and help the region develop by investing manpower…

The marine energy transportation company Teekay Corporation and its associate company Teekay Tankers have announced changes to its Board of Directors.Teekay Corporation said that C. Sean Day, Chairman Emeritus and Director, Tore Sandvold, Director, and Peter S. Janson, Director, are retiring from the Board after a combined 50 years with the Company’s Board. Day will remain as a Director of Teekay GP LLC (the general partner of Teekay LNG Partners LP).William (“Bill”) P. Utt will be stepping down from his role as Chairman and Director of the Company and as a Director of Teekay GP LLC…

A second maritime firm has told Venezuela's state-run oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela it would end all charter contracts with the company as a result of U.S. sanctions, according to an internal document and a person familiar with the matter.U.S.-based McQuilling Partners Inc, which provided PDVSA with four contract tankers, joined German tanker operator Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) in withdrawing from providing oil-shipping services to Venezuela.The United States levied…

Croatian shipping company Tankerska Next Generation (TNG) has fixed out another of its MR tankers on a period charter.The conventional ice class product tanker MT Velebit  has secured one year contracted employment with immediate effect, it said in a press release.The tanker will be chartered out to a prominent charterer at approximately USD 14,500 per day with usual market terms.Additionally, the charterer has an option to extend the contract for an additional eight months at approximately USD 15…

Maritime contractor Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) is considering to stop managing Venezuelan state-oil company PDVSA's tankers by the end of this month or in April following U.S. sanctions against the country, BSM said on Thursday.It also said in a statement that recent political developments made managing assets for the Venezuelan government "an almost impossible task", and it was working on returning Venezuelan vessels to PDVSA's maritime arm PDV Marina and its subsidiaries.The German firm…

Maersk Tankers, owned by A.P. Moller Holding, uses the methodology Bunker Adjustment to distribute payments to pool partners based on the bunker consumption of their vessels compared to the pool average.The methodology has now been reviewed by Lloyd’s Register, confirming its conformity to recognised industry quality standards, said the product tanker company operating 164 vessels, one of the largest fleets in the product tanker industry.The Bunker Consumption methodology calculates…

Iran is running short of options to replace its ageing fleet of tankers and keep oil exports flowing because renewed U.S. sanctions are making potential sellers and flag registries wary of doing business with Tehran, Western and Iranian sources said.Since U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions in November, exploratory talks with South Korea for up to 10 new supertankers have stalled and Panama has also removed at least 21 Iranian tankers from its registry forcing Tehran to put the vessels under its own flag…

On August 18, 1990, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) was enacted into law. Section 4202 of that Act amended the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA or Clean Water Act) to require tank vessels and marine transportation-related facilities to prepare and submit to the US Coast Guard plans for responding, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worse case discharge, and to a substantial threat of such a discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance carried in bulk as cargo.

GAC has handled the first tanker to berth at the newly constructed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal inside Kamarajar Port, Ennore in Chennai, India. The Marshall Islands-flagged LNG carrier ‘LNG/C Golar Snow’ was carrying the first consignment of 78,037m³ of LNG from Ras Laffan in Qatar for the commissioning of the terminal.Agency operations were overseen by Captain Srinivasan Sethumadhavan, General Manager of Shipping Services at GAC’s Chennai Office, who is optimistic about…

Iranian naval forces intervened to repel pirates who attacked an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, state television reported on Friday.The broadcast said pirates in 11 speedboats attacked a tanker with a cargo of 150,000 tonnes on Thursday. It showed naval forces opening fire on speedboats, without saying whether the footage was from the latest incident.Iran’s navy has extended its reach in recent years, dispatching vessels to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates. (Reuters, Reporting by Dubai newsroom Editing by David Goodman)

Iranian naval forces intervened to repel pirates who attacked an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, state television reported on Friday.The broadcast said pirates in 11 speedboats attacked a tanker with a cargo of 150,000 metric tons on Thursday. It showed naval forces opening fire on speedboats, without saying whether the footage was from the latest incident.Iran’s navy has extended its reach in recent years, dispatching vessels to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates.(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by David Goodman)

United States will soon export more oil and liquids than Saudi Arabia, thanks to the continued rise in oil production from US shale plays and the increased oil export capacity from the Gulf Coast.According to Rystad Energy, energy research and business intelligence company, it is a a pivotal geopolitical shift. The US has for decades relied on large-scale imports to satisfy its thirst for oil, but this is about to change.The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported last week that the United States exported more crude and petroleum products than it imported.

Danish product tanker operator Torm has joined Glencore subsidiary Inatech on an app to tackle the anticipated complex bunkering landscape in shipping post-2020.Inatech, which specialises in energy trading risk management systems, has built the ‘Smart Trader’ app to enable companies to map their entire fleet of ships and visualise best routes given sea and port conditions to achieve lowest prices for the desired quality of fuel.The toolkit leverages bunker alerts and pricing data from S&P Global Platts…

The global floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) market was valued at around US$ 25 Bn in 2017 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of around 12% from 2018 to 2026, said a new report.Based on type, the global FPSO market can be divided into converted, new-build, and redeployed, said a new report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) on FPSO market.In terms of value, the converted segment dominated the global FPSO market in 2017. Low capital requirement and faster…

Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA declared a maritime emergency on Tuesday after Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) disclosed plans to return 10 tankers over unpaid fees, according to a document from the state-run firm and sources.BSM, operator of a portion of PDVSA's tanker fleet, last month confirmed its crews would abandon the tankers Rio Arauca and Parnaso, which were held in Portugal over unpaid fees to a shipyard and port authority. A third vessel also operated by BSM, the Icaro, separately was seized in Curacao by a group of shipping firms claiming unpaid bills from PDVSA.(Reuters reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)