Amid a new focus on product tanker consolidation, the private Scorpio Group is taking first steps in what it promises will be a bigger expansion of its commercially managed fleet.
Monaco-based Scorpio has increased its handysize pool with the addition of two Peninsula Petroleum units as it eyes a larger build-up across its four products pools.
“It’s safe to say we are expecting more ships,” Scorpio’s Dubai-based pool director Ugo Romano told TradeWinds.
“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.”
Global bunker group Peninsula is contributing the 37,800-dwt sisterships Mount Kibo and Mount Everest (both built 2010) to Scorpio’s handysize pool, taking the fleet to 36.
“Peninsula’s close relationship and ongoing collective business with the Scorpio Group made the decision of joining the pool a natural progression of existing synergies between the companies,” Romano added.
Emanuele Lauro-led Scorpio currently provides technical management to two Peninsula panamaxes, the 70,700-dwt Conqueror (built 2004) and 72,900-dwt Gladiator (built 2001).
The new vessels push Scorpio Services’ overall pooling operation to well over 200 ships.
It counts 75 MR product tankers, 46 LR2s, 15 LR1s and about 65 bulkers split between the ultramax and kamsarmax sectors.
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But it is in product tankers that the consolidation push has recently been most active.
Singapore's Hafnia failed in a bid to buy Ardmore Shipping in June, but Denmark's Norden announced a strategic partnership with Diamond S Shipping a few weeks earlier.
The earlier agreement saw Connecticut’s Diamond S contribute 28 MR tankers to a venture with Norden’s Norient Product Pool. Norden owns 24 product tankers, mainly MRs, and also an operated fleet.
The Norient pool will control more than 150 product tankers overall.
Hafnia’s offer, which was rejected as undervaluing Ardmore, would have created the world’s largest product tanker fleet, a distinction currently held by Scorpio's publicly listed Scorpio Tankers.
Scorpio Tankers also has been a prime mover in consolidation.
Trader Trafigura contributed 19 product tankers in exchange for Scorpio shares last September. Scorpio also scooped up the 27-strong Navig8 Product Tankers fleet in 2017 in a $1.1bn cash-and-shares deal.
