Poten: Unipec tops dirty charter league

Unipec held on to the top slot in both spot crude fixtures and cargo volumes last year, Poten & Partners says in its weekly tanker opinion.

Poten counted overall spot fixtures of 10,264 in 2016, a 2% gain relative to 2015.

The Sinpoec trading arm led by Zhao Dai Ming moved some 176 million tonnes of dirty cargo last year, accounting for 13.5% of the total dirty cargo volume moved, Poten says. The company's total fixtures were 878 last year.

The vast majority of those fixtures were for very large crude carriers with Unipec fixing some 524 ships last year. Poten analyst Erik Broekhuizen noted that was the same amount as the next five largest VLCC charterers combined.

Ben van Beurden-led Shell retained the Number 2 slot at 65 million tonnes moved on 562 fixtures last year. At the vessel level, Shell was the fourth largest charterer of VLCCs and suezmaxes, and third in aframaxes.

Ian Roper Taylor-led Vitol clinched the third slot cargo-wise moving some 61 million tonnes last year on 651 fixtures. It was the top aframax charterer, but sixth in terms of suezmax charters.

India Rising

Many other Western oil majors and trading shops managed to hold on to their 2016 rankings, but of particular interest to Broekhuizen was the rise of the Eastern majors in the big ships segment.

The ranking "illustrates the growing dominance of China and India as crude oil importers, since five of the top seven VLCC charterers are either Chinese or Indian."

All the Indian firms managed to move up a notch from the previous year. India Oil Corporation (IOC) moved up a rank to No. 4 at 50 million tonnes moved on 248 fixtures. Reliance Industries hit the 10th spot at 37 million tonnes on 179 fixtures. Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) moved into the No. 20 post.