The ships will be delivered during the next couple of months and take the number of vessels in the Clean Products Pool to 32.
The four ships are the 73,400-dwt UACC Ibn Sina (built 2008), the UACC Ibn Al Haitham, the UACC Falcon and the UACC Eagle (all built 2009).
“It’s a first class company and they run their fleet to a very high operational standard,” said Soren Steenberg, chief executive of the Singapore-based Straits Tankers.
“We very much welcome the return of UACC. The four vessels will complement the existing fleet very well.
“We believe that our market leading earnings performance and transparent framework are contributing factors for the decision to return.”
Straits Tankers and UACC say they are also contemplating to expand the chartering services in the Middle East and capitalize on UACC's presence in the region.
UACC withdrew its four ships from the Straits Tankers LR1 pool in late 2012 in order to go it alone.
Then chief executive Jen Gronning explained the rationale behind the decision in an interview with TradeWinds in November of that year.
“It is not a decision that was taken overnight. Although the vessels have performed well in the pool, we feel now that there are good synergies we can take advantage of with other parts of our fleet and with our customers and their trading patterns,” he explained.
Existing members ofthe MOL and Hafnia Management run pool include Marinvest, Gotland Tankers, NordicShipholding, Tankers Inc, Tailwind, Reederei Nord and Oldendorff OverseasOperations.
This latest deal completes a busy few days for UACC which recently secured a $300m credit facility agreement to help fund its expansion strategy.
Early last week Navig8 chartered in UACC’s 46,000-dwt chemical carriers UACC Manama (built 2010) and the UACC Shamiya (built 2011).
The two former MISC ships will be placed in Navig8’s Chronos8 Pool in May and July 2014.
