Industry veteran Jesper Bo Hansen has been charged with helping to rebuild the shipping pools at Denmark’s Maersk Tankers after its latest management shake-up.
Chief commercial officer Eva Birgitte Bisgaard stepped down from her role this week as the tanker pool specialist grapples with losing tonnage linked to industry changes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Maersk Tankers does not own ships but manages six tanker pools of about 150 vessels, down nearly one-third from the 220 on its books at the start of 2022.
They include 50 supplied by Maersk Product Tankers — a separate but connected company owned by AP Moller Holding and Mitsui & Co — that are commercially managed by Maersk Tankers.
Maersk Tankers has been hit by the indirect impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has seen tanker rates spike and has sent secondhand prices soaring as new entrants to the industry seek to tap the improved market.
Pool members have taken advantage of soaring asset prices to sell their tankers with some new owners not rejoining the pool and taking their chances on the spot market. Clean tanker rates hit some of their highest levels for 25 years in 2022.
The management changes are not linked to an incident in February, when a Maersk Tankers vessel fell foul of European sanctions regulations and was stopped from unloading an oil cargo in Spain.
The 50,000-dwt Maersk Magellan (built 2010) was turned away from the port of Tarragona after receiving a cargo in a ship-to-ship transfer that had previously been carried by a former Russian-flagged carrier.
Hansen joined Maersk Tankers in December and as acting head of partner sales and service will be looking to cement and build ties with owners.
Bisgaard had been leading the sales and services operation for shipowners following the last management shake-up in September.
On joining the company in December, Hansen said he would be “part of the mission to grow the partnership platform and thereby create better opportunities for shipowners to benefit from scale both in driving commercial results but also in the fierce field of competitiveness around the decarbonisation of the world fleet”.
Hansen had spent the previous nine months at AP Moller Holding-backed ZeroNorth, a voyage optimisation platform with investment from Cargill and PSG Equity, serving as the firm’s chief revenue officer.
He will report to Maersk Tankers CEO Christian M Ingerslev, who has taken over responsibility for sales and service after the departure of Bisgaard.
Her departure leaves HR head Annelise Goldstein as the only woman on its six-strong management team.
Announcing Bisgaard’s departure after two-and-a-half years, Ingerslev said: “Under Eva Birgitte’s leadership, partners’ satisfaction with our services increased significantly.
“In particular, in a disrupted tanker market, we have maintained close dialogue with partners and launched new digital solutions to boost their vessels’ environmental and economic performance.”
Bisgaard joined Maersk Tankers in October 2020 from telecommunications firm TDC.
