Bahri and Petrobras were chartering more tankers in the first half of 2020 despite an overall slowdown in spot activity, according to Poten & Partners.
The US-based broker ranked Petrobras as the world’s third largest dirty tanker charterer by total spot cargo volume, up from the 13th spot between January and June 2019.
Bahri rose to become the 12th largest charterer from No 53.
“Many rankings have stayed the same, but the unusual oil and tanker markets of this year have led to some interesting changes,” Poten said in a mid-term tanker charterer update.
Petrobras fixed a total of 130 tankers to carry 21.8m tonnes of crude and fuel oil in the first half of this year, compared with 84 vessels for 12.9m tonnes during the same period pf last year.
With Brazil’s oil production on an upward path, the state-owned energy firm moved up to the second from the fifth as a VLCC charterer.
With about 40 spot fixtures, Petrobras was also the seventh largest suezmax charterer, according to Poten. The company did not make it into the top 10 in this segment during the first half of 2019.
Bahri chartered a total of 95 tankers to carry 13.2m tonnes between January and June. Poten did not provide the charter data of the Saudi state owner for the same period of late year.
When Saudi Arabia launched an oil price war in March, Bahri went on a chartering spree by fixing 25 VLCCs in spot trade mainly for the country’s export requirements.
“The massive number of spot market fixtures that the Saudi owner concluded in March and April in support of Saudi Arabia’s production surge,” Poten added.
Bahri finished the first half of 2020 as the fifth largest spot VLCC charterer, with about 50 fixtures.
Slower market
However, Poten data suggested a total of 4,305 tanker fixtures to carry 633m tonnes in the six-month period, down from 4,623 vessels for 653m tonnes between January and June 2019.
The development came as a large number of tankers were fixed on period charters for floating storage use and crude exports from the Opec+ sharply fell in May and June due to a historic supply pact.
“The overall volume of reported dirty spot fixtures in first-half 2020 declined compared to the same period of 2019, a reduction of 7%,” Poten said.
“The overall spot cargo volume declined by 3%, indicating that the average cargo size increased relative to last year.”
Unipec and Shell remained the two largest charterers. Vitol, IndianOil, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total and BP were still on the top 10 list.
| Rank | Charterer | Total fixtures | Total cargo* | % of total | 1H 2019 rank |
| 1 | Unipec | 499 | 106,569 | 16.8% | 1 |
| 2 | Shell | 275 | 23,050 | 3.6% | 2 |
| 3 | Petrobras | 130 | 21,787 | 3.6% | 11 |
| 4 | Vitol | 198 | 21,745 | 3.4% | 3 |
| 5 | IndianOil | 125 | 21,668 | 3.4% | 5 |
| 6 | Chevron | 151 | 19,133 | 3.4% | 6 |
| 7 | ExxonMobil | 168 | 15,880 | 3% | 4 |
| 8 | Total | 110 | 15,520 | 2.5% | 7 |
| 9 | BP | 145 | 13,920 | 2.5% | 8 |
| 10 | Trafigura | 115 | 13,790 | 2.2% | 17 |
| 11 | Sinochem | 49 | 13,535 | 2.2% | 15 |
| 12 | Bahri | 95 | 13,245 | 2.1% | 53 |
| 13 | PetroChina | 76 | 12,281 | 2.1% | 9 |
| 14 | Equinor | 90 | 11,035 | 1.9% | 24 |
| 15 | Repsol | 99 | 10,180 | 1.7% | 12 |
| 16 | Lukoil | 94 | 9,858 | 1.6% | 10 |
| 17 | Glencore | 72 | 9,306 | 1.5% | 13 |
| 18 | BPCL | 50 | 8,900 | 1.4% | 16 |
| 19 | Reliance | 70 | 8,625 | 1.4% | 14 |
| 20 | Mercuria | 69 | 6,747 | 1.1% | 22 |
| *Unit: 1,000 tonnes |
Poten: The table has been assembled from market intelligence and the ranking is based on reported spot market activity. As such, it may not provide a complete picture of the market due to the private nature of many spot market fixtures.
