Hafnia’s chemical tanker fleet is developing more rapidly than planned as owners approach spontaneously to pool vessels.
Dubai-based chemicals veteran Atle Sebjornsen told TradeWinds he is busy developing Hafnia’s new chemical business, while pool players come knocking unbidden.
He and his quickly assembled team of mainly former colleagues in Dubai and Houston have been up and running since April and will be trading 31 owned and pooled ships once all planned deliveries to date are done.
Singapore-based Hafnia will not be competing directly with the big specialised chemical fleets, but trading chemicals that can easily be integrated with the trading of its product tanker fleet, the world’s largest with about 242 ships under management.
“I think the parcel tanker owners are very much aware of Hafnia’s new presence in chemicals, but we stay in the more commoditised, less complex end of the chemicals range. We do parcel, but it’s not going to be 40 grades per ship, it’s not going to be 28, it’s going to be five to 10,” Sebjornsen said.
Several of the ships are departing from Odfjell-managed pools, some as a result of changes of ownership. Perhaps more notable is the move of seven ships in the fleet of Oslo-owned, US-backed TRF Ship Management from Odfjell to Hafnia.
Sebjornsen said he had not set out to build a third-party pooling operation so quickly, but that the TRF ships are welcome.
“The scale you need here doesn’t come from the number of ships, it comes from having interchangeable ships,” he said. “And the TRF ships are literally sisters of ours.”
Word of mouth is doing some of his marketing work in reaching further potential pool members.
“We’re letting people know we’re open for business,” he said. “We thought we would need more time, but we caught people’s attention.”
Some are approaching based on what other owners have experienced with ships already in other Hafnia pools.
“These are owners that do their own benchmarking. They want to see the fee structure, and it’s a short conversation. Our pool management is simple and transparent,” he said. “Complete transparency is the way this company is put together.”
He has no size target but personally has long viewed about 50 ships as an ideal size for his kind of operation, and he is agnostic about growing through pooling, acquisitions or chartered-in tonnage: “I wouldn’t be shy to go long on charters.”
But there is less scope for rapid growth by another big fleet acquisition.
“There are a lot of MR tankers out there, but fewer IMO Type 2 tankers [intended to transport products that pose severe environmental and safety hazards] are pool candidates because they are largely in the hands of owner-operators rather than financial owners. There is nobody obvious that we’re going after,” he said.
The pace of fleet-building and reshuffling since the CTI vessels started coming in has been rapid. After its CTI deal in November, Hafnia sought and largely secured expedited deliveries of incoming tonnage — “before the market popped”.
The CTI fleet, formerly Navig8 Chemical Tankers, changed ownership twice last year, first in August when Navig8 sold its share to financial partner Oaktree, and again in November when Oaktree handed them on to Hafnia, which took a 21.5% shareholding in exchange for 32 ships.
Sebjornsen came on in January after consulting with Hafnia about its plans in chemicals in connection with its planned acquisition.
Integrating with Hafnia meant getting rid of the smallest in the package, eight 25,000-dwt stainless steel-tank chemical carriers. They were sold off to Idan Ofer’s Ace Tankers in March, soon after delivery.
“They were not strategic, next to Hafnia’s CPP [clean petroleum products]-trading handy and MR fleets,” said Sebjornsen.
That left the Hafnia chemical operation with ships of about 38,000 dwt and 50,000 dwt.
Talent bound for Copenhagen
It also required a rapid build-up of staff with experience in running both stainless-steel and coated chemical tankers, so Sebjornsen stayed in Dubai, where the talent is, instead of moving to Copenhagen as planned. Of 11 team members in Dubai and a couple more in Houston, only two or three are not his former colleagues.
A Norwegian veteran of Stolt-Nielsen as its former Dubai-based regional director, Sebjornsen more recently filled the top roles at Gulf Navigation, Navig8 Chemicals and Bahri Chemicals. He joined Hafnia following a non-compete period after leaving GTLK-backed Aurum Leasing.
Hafnia reported that it earned a net $19.4m on trading its new chemical tankers in the second quarter alone, and their value, not counting the ships sold to Ace Tankers, had appreciated by around $72m.
