Captain Ashok Sabnis, a leading figure in Singapore’s ship management sector, died on Saturday.
The founder and managing director of Goodwood Ship Management, one of the largest ship managers in the city-state, died in hospital on Saturday after a brief illness, close associates told TradeWinds. His illness was not related to Covid-19.
Sabnis, who was born in India, began his shipping career in 1970 as a deck cadet with Shipping Corp of India (SCI), working his way up the ranks to become a captain.
Most of his seagoing career was spent on SCI's tankers.
In 1982, Sabnis came ashore to work as a marine superintendent in SCI’s tanker department, where he was involved with newbuilding supervision for suezmaxes built in South Korea, various retrofit projects and the conversion of dedicated storage tankers.
Sabnis next joined Reliance Industries as general manager of its shipping division. During his tenure from 1989 to 1994, he was first involved with setting up the shipping infrastructure at Hazira Petrochemicals Plant as well as overseeing the building of and operations of a fleet of ethylene carriers.
Sabnis was then seconded to Reliance Refineries, where he was involved with drawing up the shipping infrastructure for the giant Jamnagar oil refinery.
A move to Singapore came in 1994, when Sabnis joined Sembawang Johnson Ship Management, a joint venture between the Sembawang Group and the Johnson Line of Sweden. He began as a quality assurance manager, but was quickly promoted to fleet manager and then general manager, responsible for a fleet of 45 vessels including tankers, car carriers and cruiseships.
In 2001, Sabnis was promoted to managing director after the sale of the company Norwegian interests. He would remain in the role for the next seven years.
Branching out
Sabnis branched out on his own in 2008, setting up Goodwood Ship Management, with Samco Shipholding and Grover Shipping and partners.
Goodwood’s main focus was on tanker management and its preference from the beginning was for the bigger ships.
A client base of top-tier tankers developed quickly, as did the scope of services offered and the types of vessels taken under management.
Goodwood’s current fleet under management stands at more than 12m dwt. VLCCs make up the largest proportion of this total, which also includes suezmaxes, aframaxes and capesize bulkers, chemical and product tankers, VLGCs and containerships.
Industry sources credit Sabnis’ success, and the enormous respect he garnered, to his honesty and close attention to every detail.
“He was very low key. He never sought the limelight or to be in the papers. He just quietly did his job,” said N2 Tankers managing director Madhu Vadakkepat, a former vice president of Brightoil Petroleum who worked closely with Sabnis when he set up the Hong Kong-based oil trader’s tanker division in Singapore.
Sabnis leaves behind a wife and two daughters.
Goodwood, in which DHT Holdings is now also a shareholder, said its management team has taken over the running of the company and there will be no changes in its day-to-day operations.
