A second shoe has dropped in the private Scorpio Group’s efforts to promote consolidation in the product tanker sector by expanding its pools membership.
Italy’s Premuda is the latest owner to join, contributing three MR tankers and one handysize vessel to Scorpio, according to Dubai-based pool director Ugo Romano.
Premuda’s MRs — the 46,500-dwt PS Tokyo (built 2009), 50,300-dwt Grazia (built 2010), 51,000-dwt Silver Point (built 2011) and 40,400-dwt Nina (built 2010) — have joined up with Scorpio, Romano said.
He described the additions as “sealing an obvious cooperation between the two groups”.
Romano said the recent growth in Premuda’s fleet “has triggered the attention to our pools as a valid employment alternative to the traditional spot and time-charter employment”.
As TradeWinds reported in June, Premuda has expanded its fleet to 35 by picking up distressed vessels in the Italian market, furthering efforts that have trebled its numbers since installation of a new management team led by chief executive Marco Fiori in January 2019.
Scorpio Group also has been building, telling TradeWinds last week that it had added to its handysize pool two Peninsula Petroleum tankers, the 37,800-dwt sisters Mount Kibo and Mount Everest (both built 2010).
That pushed the handysize pool to 36 — now 37 with the new Premuda unit.
The three Premuda MRs fatten that Scorpio pool to 78, alongside 46 LR2s, 15 LR1s and about 65 dry bulk vessels split between the ultramax and kamsarmax sectors.
“We see growing interest from third-party owners to join our pools as we are determined to consolidate further in all segments by aligning common interest combined with top performance,” Romano told TradeWinds last week.
The Peninsula development followed other instances of consolidation in the products tanker sector — notably, the transfer of tankers from Connecticut-based Diamond S Shipping into a pool run by Norden or Denmark.
After the Premuda recruitments, he added: “The addition of Premuda’s units consolidate further the position of our pools in the product tanker space thus maintaining the homogeneity of our managed fleet that is paramount for our trades.”
The private Scorpio Group is the entity behind two New York-listed public companies, Scorpio Tankers and Scorpio Bulkers. Both are jointly headquartered in New York and Monaco. Scorpio Tankers is the world’s largest product tanker owner.
Private Scorpio is controlled by the Lolli-Ghetti family of Scorpio Group chief executive Emanuele Lauro.
