Who is the Biggest of the Clean? In our January 9, 24 opinion report, The More Things Change The More They Stay the Same, we tracked the top charterers in the spot market for dirty cargoes. But the dirty market is only one part of the tanker market. Who are the largest charterers of clean fixtures? Recall that 2% of charterers in the dirty spot market are doing a solid 8% of the business, and perhaps predictably the clean charterers are doing about the same. In both 22 and 23, 2% of charterers did about 75% of the business, but there were slightly fewer fixtures in 22 than 23. 1% Fixture Activity vs Charterers % Fixtures 8% 6% 4% 2% % 22 23 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9% 1% % Charterers 1
Small Ship, Big Sister Poten s internal databases of clean cargoes tracked 3,576 total fixtures in 22 and 4,32 in 23, excluding failed fixtures. A total of 152 different charterers fixed ships in this market in 23. As they do in the dirty market, Shell tops the spot chartering list in the clean product market. As shown below, the top five charterers accounted for 27% of all fixtures and the top 2 accounted for 55% of all the spot fixtures. 23 Rank 23 Total Clean Fixtures Charterer # % Cumulative Fixtures Fixtures % Fixtures 1 Shell 331 8.2% 8.2% 1 2 Vitol 25 6.2% 14.4% 2 3 BP 186 4.6% 19.% 3 4 Citgo 176 4.4% 23.4% 7 5 Itochu 141 3.5% 26.9% 4 6 CSSA/Total 14 3.5% 3.3% 5 7 Adam/Alpine/Glencor 134 3.3% 33.7% 9 8 ExxonMobil 118 2.9% 36.6% 6 9 Trafigura 14 2.6% 39.2% 8 1 Projector 9 2.2% 41.4% 22 11 ChevronTexaco 83 2.1% 43.5% 1 12 Addax 7 1.7% 45.2% 23 13 Repsol 62 1.5% 46.7% 12 14 Hess 59 1.5% 48.2% 13 15 Marubeni 52 1.3% 49.5% 11 16 Navion 52 1.3% 5.8% 19 17 PDI 49 1.2% 52.% 14 18 Petco 45 1.1% 53.1% 29 19 Agip 44 1.1% 54.2% 18 2 PMI 42 1.% 55.2% 27 22 Rank 2
The comparison between clean charter activity for 22 and 23 is shown below. Much of the increase in fixture activity is associated with Handymaxes. Total Clean Charterers 22 Vessel Size Handymax Small Panamax Aframax Other Suezmax U/VLCC Total # of Fixtures 1838 13 344 264 85 14 None 3576 Total Clean Charterers 23 Vessel Size # of Fixtures Handymax 224 Small 1115 Panamax 345 Aframax 289 Other 68 Suezmax 8 U/VLCC 3 Total 432 Flexible Fleet As you might suspect, Handymaxes remain the number one choice for charterers to fix clean cargoes and Shell remains the number one charterer in this ship size. For Handymaxes, fixtures are fairly evenly spread throughout the world, with the most active load zones being the Far East (19.5%), Southeast Asia (19.1%) and the Caribbean Basin (17.5%). 3 25 2 15 Top Five Charterers for Handymax Fixtures 263 187 174 156 133 1 5 Shell Vitol Citgo BP CSSA 3
The Second Tier Vessels Panamaxes finished well behind Handymaxes with 345 fixtures of which 114 were completed by the top five charterers. The Arabian Gulf loadings accounted for 57% of the total number of fixtures. In second place was the UKC with 16% of fixtures, with the Med a distant third at 6%. 5 Top Five Charterers for Panamax Fixtures 4 3 37 34 2 1 16 15 12 Vitol Shell Itochu BP Addax Aframaxes totaled 289 fixtures of which the top five did 99. As seen in the chart below, Shell and Vitol tied for first. 72% of all fixtures are Arabian Gulf loadings. The most common cargoes are naphtha to Japan. 3 25 2 Top Five Charterers for Aframax Fixtures 25 25 2 17 15 12 1 5 Shell Vitol PDI Addax BP 4
Largest Vessels, Smallest Number of Fixtures Only eight Suezmax tankers were chartered to carry clean cargo in 23. The charterers included Shell, Morgan Stanley, Glencore, Addax and BP. Charterers used the largest of the lot, U/VLCC tankers, sparingly in 23 with only three charterers fixing one voyage each - Formosa, OTC and S Oil. The ships were used to mostly carry gasoil cargoes. Two VLCC loadings were in the Arabian Gulf and the one ULCC loaded in the Far East. The Future For 24, Handymax tankers will again be the vessel of choice for clean market charterers. However, with about two-thirds of Panamax newbuildings being coated, charterers will have greater flexibility in choice of vessel size for moving clean products. This may become the sector to watch in the future. 5