German shipowner Carl Buettner is keen to grow its fleet but needs to see that the pandemic is under control first, managing director Thorsten Mackenthun said.
Mackenthun, who has headed the Bremen-based company since 2015, argued that vaccines are crucial to the health of the tanker sector.
"The problem the tanker industry has at the moment is that we are all energy transporters," he said.
"Every lockdown is for our industry a full break on the business. And every extension of the lockdown is also postponing the recovery of the national economies.”
Mackenthun noted that lockdowns have reduced the demand for energy products such as gasoline for cars, marine gasoil for ships or kerosene for aircraft.
So a speedy vaccination drive in Europe is essential to allow companies to actively conduct their business again, he said.
"Once the different nations are vaccinated, the politicians have the possibility to ease restrictions and open economies again so they can start to recover," Mackenthun said.
Recovery in sight
Mackenthun believes the oil product markets will recover from the pandemic in the coming months.
He noted that storage and stockpiles that built up last year are beginning to decrease, suggesting the tanker market could follow the container and tanker sectors later in the year.
"We believe that in the second half of this year, the tanker industry will recover again," he said.
"It will not be like an ice hockey stick, but it will be continual improvement of the market."
This confidence explains why the shipowner has retained options for two chemical product tankers at China’s Jiangsu New Hantong Ship Heavy Industry.
The options stem from an order placed in 2017 for four 38,000-dwt product tankers — the CB Adriatic (built 2019), and CB Baltic, CB Caribic and CB Pacific (all built 2020).
"This was by far the biggest investment in the whole history of the company," he said.
"It was very successful, and that’s why we negotiated two more options which have been postponed. But it is our intention to grow the company, size-wise and tonnage-wise,” Mackenthun said.
Partnership
The shipowner has sought to expand the trading range of some of its smaller tankers.
This led to it establishing a partnership in March with Ireland’s Ardmore Shipping, which will handle the commercial management of four of the German owner's handysize tankers.
Carl Buettner is a German tanker owner and operator.
Founded: 1856
Headquarters: Bremen
Owned fleet: 10 product and chemical tankers of between 15,000 dwt and 38,000 dwt.
Leadership: Thorsten Mackenthun, managing director; Christian Mackenthun, director of chartering; Matthias Jahn, director and head of finance/controlling; Lars Bremer, managing director of Carl Buettner Shipmanagement.
The 24,000-dwt sisterships Apollo (built 2003) and Avalon (built 2005), as well as the 23,400-dwt Admiral (built 2002) and Aurelia (built 2006), will be commercially managed by the Cork-based owner.
Mackenthun believes that teaming up with Ardmore was a strategically important move that gives the small German tanker company the ability to bid for larger contracts of affreightment (COAs) as it seeks to grow and modernise its fleet.
The 24,000-dwt vessels were purpose-built to operate in the clean product (CPP) trades for exports from the Baltic Sea and Russia.
But by 2016, such smaller tankers were becoming obsolete in the trade as Russian terminals were upgraded to handle bigger ships.
Other markets on the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean took their place, but these too were hit by decreasing cargo volumes due to the pandemic.
“We made a strategic decision to step out of the CPP market with those ships,” Mackenthun said.
“And then it was a very logical step to join forces with Ardmore.”
Win-win situation
The vessels managed by Ardmore will operate in the veg oil trades where they will be able to work until they are 25 years old.
“It’s a real win-win situation because with more ships of that size you can negotiate better COAs and bigger COAs,” Mackenthun said.
The 24,000-dwt vessels have been replaced in the Baltic trades by the larger of Buettner's tankers.
Buettner’s two smallest vessels, the 15,000-dwt Levana and Lemonia (both built 2009), operate between UK and continental Europe.
The 165-year-old company is today family owned by a fifth generation, Maike and Jorn Buettner, who are shareholders in Carl Buettner Holding.
They remain as advisory board members, although management of the company has been delegated to professional managers since 2002.
Mackenthun joined two years after leaving Hanseatic Lloyd in 2013, a company he co-founded in 2001 with the late Harro Kniffka.
