French oil major Total has continued its march to the top of the suezmax chartering rankings, taking first place in the first half of 2023.
The energy giant ranked 10th just two years ago in 2021, but by last year had climbed up the table to second place, according to Poten & Partners.
Total completed over 60 suezmax spot charters between January and June 2023, pushing former number one ExxonMobil into second place.
There were other major moves in the suezmax sector, with Brazilian oil giant Petrobras, which was third last year, dropping out of the top 10, as did Indian Oil Corp (IOC), which was fourth last year.
Unipec, the trading arm of oil major Sinopec, remains the world’s largest dirty tanker charterer in tonnage terms, according to Poten.
But the Chinese chartering giant saw its share of the market drop from 19.2% in 2022 to 17.8% in the same period of 2023.
The total number of reported fixtures for Unipec also declined from 490 in the first half of 2022 to 468 in the corresponding period this year on the back of the lacklustre recovery of the Chinese economy.
ExxonMobil and Shell remained the second and third-largest dirty tanker charterer in the first six months of 2023, while Total moved up to fourth from seventh place last year.
Glencore saw a major improvement in its ranking jumping from 23rd last year to 12 in the first half of 2023, according to Poten’s figures.
Poten said the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 remains a key factor driving the rankings, with Russian charterers dropping out of the standings completely because most of their business is not reported.
In the VLCC space, Unipec maintained its position at the top of the VLCC segment, despite the decrease in its number of large tanker fixtures.
Poten said Indian charterers took a “step back from last year”, which could be related to their increased crude oil purchases from Russia.
The broker said IOC dropped from third to fourth place, while Reliance Industries, which ranked sixth last year in terms of VLCC charters, dropped out of the top-10 rankings altogether.
In the aframax segment, Poten said Chevron and BP shared the top spot, with 59 fixtures each.
Total improved its ranking in this segment as well from 10th in 2022 to a shared third position with Vitol, both with 51 fixtures.
Unipec, which was fourth last year, gave up a few places and ended the first half of the year in 10th spot. Meanwhile, Italian major Eni is a new entrant in the list of top aframax spot charterers at number nine, replacing Saudi Aramco.
