Signal Maritime notched up an addition to its MR pool, bringing the total number of product tankers under its direct management to eight.
The 50,000-dwt Alpine Link (built 2010) joined the Signal pool on Friday of last week, according to its website.
This is a vessel listed in the fleet of Greece’s Sea World Management.
TradeWinds understands, however, that the Alpine Link was put in the pool by the shipping arm of Swiss commodity trader Mercuria, which is currently employing the vessel and has worked with Signal in the past.
Signal set up its MR pool in the summer of 2021. The structure got a big boost later this year when Shell put in 10 product tankers.
The energy giant, however, withdrew the ships after the two parties’ contracts expired — probably as a result of an internal decision to reassert full control over this fleet.
Signal compensated for some of those outgoing ships by attracting other clients into its MR pool. Most notable among them is Eastern Pacific Shipping, which has three vessels currently listed with the structure.
The flexibility Signal grants to clients often cut both ways as the company lost some vessels from its original aframax pool as well — following owners’ decision to sell the ships at sky-high prices to Asian clients in the aftermath of the Ukraine war.
Signal, however, still counts nine aframaxes from long-term partners in its fleet, including Greece’s Ionic Shipping and Performance Shipping, as well as India’s Great Eastern Shipping.
The company earlier this year even made inroads into the LR2 segment by striking a partnership with SKS, in which the Norwegian outfit uses Signal’s technological pool infrastructure and data-driven chartering tools.
The joint set-up called “SKS LR2 Pool – powered by Signal” has seven SKS vessels in its fleet, up from an initial five.
