Two chemical tanker companies — Turkey's Chemfleet and US-based Sokana Chartering — appear to have boosted their fleets with a homogeneous string of small carriers acquired from London-based Union Maritime.
The 13,100-dwt chemical/oil product tanker Barnet (to be renamed Owl 2, built 2008) would be the last ship of Union Maritime affiliate Hudson Chemical Tankers, a shipowning venture formed by the company's main shareholders — the Cadji and Kansagra families — plus DVB Bank with a 25% shareholding.
Hudson was one of the remaining legacies of a joint-venture investment strategy across all sectors that DVB pursued under former boss Dagfinn Lunde. Ventures included partnerships in car carriers, feeder containerships, LPG, offshore support vessels, cruise, chemical carriers, bulkers and product tankers.
No price has been reported on the sales and it is not known whether the deal was done en bloc.
Union Maritime still owns several ships in that tonnage bracket, but none through Hudson.
At the start of 2021, Hudson owned seven ships at the beginning of the year but now they are all with Yildirim-controlled Chemfleet and Interunity-controlled Sokana, save one that went to Raffles Shipping Group.
Reference source IHS Market indicates that the Barnet has been sold to an affiliate of Interunity Management.
All the former Hudson vessels except the Raffles ship now trade under the same “Owl” series of names, and VesselsValue attributes several to Chemfleet, but Interunity's US operating affiliate Sokana mentions all six on its online fleet list.
Sokana chief executive Lars Ebbesen and officials of Turkey's Chemfleet did not respond to requests for comment.
As TradeWinds has previously reported, Union Maritime has built up its dry bulk fleet this year at the same time as it sold down in small chemical tankers.
Although it is Africa that is at the core of Union Maritime's tanker business, it has connections to Turkish shipping as well, not least through its 25% shareholding in Dutch-based Tune Products Tankers.
