Teekay Tankers is laying off three of its senior ship management executives in what it describes as a transition of leadership functions.

The New York-listed company, a spin-off of Vancouver-headquartered tanker giant Teekay Corp, said the redundancies were a result of a shrinking fleet.

TradeWinds has learned that Ray McNamara, head of ship management; Mukund Sharma, director of fleet management; and Pradeep Kale, director of HSSEQ and strategic projects, will cease their employment with Teekay Tankers in March.

All three are based in the company’s Singapore office.

Asked about the impending departures, a spokeswoman said Teekay was “transitioning ship management leadership functions as part of the organisation’s evolution and we expect this transition to be complete by the beginning of 2021”.

Consolidation

“These changes were made in part as a result of the sale of our non-US ‘ship-to-ship’ business as well as a reduction of our fleet size due to vessel sales earlier this year. As such, we will be consolidating our ship teams from four to three,” she explained.

Teekay Tankers controls a fleet of crude and product tankers, including the 105,583-dwt Limerick Spirit (built 2007). Photo: Teekay Corp

Teekay’s spokeswoman confirmed there are no plans to move any ship management functions out of house.

“The ship management functions will continue to be managed in-house and there have been several internal promotions as part of this leadership transition to reflect the requirements of the organisation going forward,” she said.

Senior executives at third-party ship managers in Singapore said there have been no indications Teekay plans to outsource management of its vessels.

They were aware of Teekay’s shake-up, and claimed that news of McNamara, Sharma and Kale’s departure had initially taken them by surprise.

“They are ‘gold star’ employees at the company,” one manager said.

“My guess is that their expertise did not come cheap.”

McNamara joined Teekay in 2015 from Wallem, where he had been managing director of ship management. He previously held similar roles at AET and Hanseatic Lloyd.

Sharma’s career at the company spans 18 years. He joined in 2002 as a chief officer and master before rising through the ranks of its technical and operations departments.

Kale, also a former master, joined Teekay in 2007 and has held various senior marine operations roles.

VesselsValue indicates Teekay Tankers sold three suezmax tankers at the beginning of the year, while Teekay LNG Partners offloaded two LNG carriers around the same time.