Navig8 has added a former Signal-managed aframax to its pool operation as it revealed more details of its cooperation with Trafigura.
The tanker operating giant said it was pleased to welcome Greek owner Kondinave as a client with its 113,000-dwt Leo (built 2010), which will be the tenth ship in its V8 aframax pool.
Kondinave operates a fleet of 16 tankers and bulkers.
Equasis lists Leo as coming back under Kondinave management in April after it had joined Heidmar's Sigma pool, which is now run by Signal, in May 2019.
Heidmar, a rival tanker operator based in the US, has seen many high-profile departures from its fleet and TradeWinds reported earlier this year it had told staffers it would be winding up its operations this month.
Navig8 on the other hand has been adding ships from big-name owners.
Last week, the company confirmed it was taking over seven vessels controlled by trader Trafigura through a combination of pool membership and time charters, without giving details.
Big-name owners
Now the company has revealed the vessels are a VLCC, three suezmaxes, an aframax and two LR2s.
The 310,000-dwt VLCC Duqm (built 2008) is listed as owned by Oman Shipping, while the first suezmax, the 165,000-dwt Barbarosa (built 2009), is owned by Libya's GNMTC, an existing pools partner of Navig8.
The second suezmax, the 158,500-dwt Suez Vasilis (built 2011), is owned by Empire Navigation of Greece, while the third, the 110,000-dwt Marlin Santorini (built 2019), is owned by China's Bank of Communications Financial Leasing.
In the LR2 size range, the 110,000-dwt Seriana (built 2015) is owned by Neda Maritime and the BW Despina (built 2019) is controlled by BW Group-controlled Hafnia. The 108,000-dwt aframax Ionic Artemis (built 2009) is owned by Ionic Holdings.
This deal was Navig8's biggest addition since the capture of eight Ridgebury suezmaxes last year.
The Sigma aframax pool had been Heidmar's biggest remaining arm when it said in January it was joining forces with the Signal group on management.
The pool had 11 partners and 18 ships at that point, including chartered-in tonnage from Heidmar.
Members included Kondinave, Aktif Shipping, China Merchants Group, FSL Trust Management, Great Eastern Shipping, International Seaways, Liquimar Tankers Management, Nan Fung Group, Phoenix Energy Navigation and Qatar Petroleum.
The new alliance suffered the first of predicted tanker defections with the loss of three International Seaways aframaxes.
