Qatar's S'Hail Shipping has handed over its latest addition to the Baumarine by Maruklav pool.
The shipowner bought the 86,000-dwt post-panamax S'Hail Lusail (built 2007) from Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) in November for a reported $10.2m.
The company's biggest bulker becomes its sixth addition to the pool run by the Maruklav joint venture between Torvald Klaveness and Marubeni.
Baumarine by Maruklav is now the world's largest panamax pool, with 32 ships.
S'Hail has eight bulkers in total, including two supramaxes.
"Having been able to assist one of our members to build their fleet ground-up is significant for our strategic journey as a partner and enabler of earnings optimisation," said Baumarine by Maruklav managing director Michael Jorgensen.
The pool has been working with S'Hail for three and a half years. The owner first joined in 2017 with its first secondhand panamax acquisition.
Immense potential
"This collaboration has immense potential to grow the value of our relationship," added S'Hail's chairman and managing director Mohamed Khalifa Al-Sada and chief executive Rajiv Pal.
Ignacio Pizarro, senior manager of strategy and innovation at MaruKlav, said the journey with S'Hail has been "truly inspiring".
"Having been able to add value to S’Hail during the sale and purchase phase, including vetting of vessels for potential procurement, I believe has brought us even closer," he added.
The two sides hold monthly status meetings discussing their overall portfolio management and exposure, combined with mutual updates on commercial and operational matters.
"The two organisations are now very much synched." Pizarro added.
Big-name owners on board
The Maruklav venture was formed in January and big name shipowners have been contributing tonnage ever since.
The venture initially brought together vessels operated by Marubeni's MG Harrison Shipping and Klaveness' Baumarine pools from early April.
In June, Norwegian owner Lorentzen Skibs was the latest to join, adding the 79,000-dwt Golden Eclipse (built 2010).
The vessel had just come off a bareboat charter to John Fredriksen’s Golden Ocean Group, where it was reportedly earning $28,025 per day.
Before that, Indian iron ore miner MSPL added two of its four post-panamax bulkers. They are the 92,870-dwt Indus Victory (built 2013) and 92,967-dwt Indus Triumph (built 2012).
Jorgensen said he believes the key to success comes through empowering shipowners, instead of "waiting for vessel redelivery at market lows as we have traditionally seen from the standard structure of period deals".
