The Hansa Tankers chemical tanker pool has swelled with five modern ships from Arne Blystad’s company Songa Shipholding and five from Wilbur Ross’ Transport Recovery Fund (TRF).
Hansa chief executive Hans Solberg said all the 19,900-dwt tankers are set to have scrubbers installed.
TradeWinds reported in May that Bjarne Rieber Group, which is a pool member, decided to install scrubbers on seven chemical tankers, which means that the pool now will have at least 17 ships with exhaust gas cleaning systems.
In addition to Rieber-controlled Inventor Chemical Tankers, Hansa already has tankers from Nisshin Shipping, Midgard Shipping, K Line, Bochem, Marnavi and Doun Kisen. Solberg said the Hansa fleet now totals 40 tankers with the addition of the fleet from TRF and Songa.
The TRF tankers are 19,900-dwt ships built between 2008 and 2016.
The purpose of the pool is to beat the results that can be achieved in the spot market, and Solberg expressed no doubt that Hansa manages this.
“So far, no company has left us,” he said. The main criteria for success is what Hansa manages to pay out to its pool partners, he added.
He claimed the company now is among the five or six biggest operators in this segment.
Pool company Hansa Tankers Holding had total revenues of $233m last year, down from $236m in 2017.
Pre-tax profit totalled $1.9m, down from $2.5m. The company sends most of its profits back to pool partners.
Inventor has 50% of the shares in the pool company and local investors hold the rest.
Solberg had been commercial officer of Hansa Tankers since 2010, before taking over as chief executive from Magne Morken this year. The company was established in May 2010 as an independent pool operator for stainless-steel tonnage.
