German based owner Bernhard Schulte has agreed to place 7 chemical tankers of 16,500 dwt in Navig8’s BRIZO-8 Pool.
The agreement, which comes one year after the Ruth Schulte, a 13,000 dwt chemical tanker joined the Taras-8 Pool, will bring the total count of Schulte vessels in Navig8’s pools to eight. The vessels will be delivered into the pool over the coming months upon expiry of their current employment. Brizo-8 will soon be operating a chemical tanker fleet of 29 vessels ranging in size between 16,000 and 21,000 dwt coated vessels.
“This is a very important step towards growth and consolidation with a top class Owner” , said Santiago Busch, Navig8 Chemicals Director . “ With this addition, the Brizo-8 Pool is now the market leader. Our pool participants and customers will highly benefit from this move. We will continue to offer attractive earnings and ever improving world-wide service. Especially as the vessels are of high quality and come from a reputable owner like Bernhard Schulte.”
Ian Beveridge, CEO of the Schulte Group , commented: “Due to problems with our shipyards only about half of the ships ordered for the Hanseatic Tankers Pool will finally be delivered to the pool partners, which make it unlikely that an adequate scale of operation can be achieved. We therefore decided to reassign our vessels to the pool with the best performance in the last 12 months, thus also helping the consolidation of the chemical market a bit further. We expect that the global set up of Navig8 Chemicals and the significant reach of its fleet will enable us to improve the utilization of our ships.”
Navig8 Group currently manages a combined fleet of 135 vessels, out of offices in Singapore, London, Oslo, Connecticut, Dubai, Shanghai, Seoul and Mumbai through a series of 7 Pools ranging from Chemical through Product Tankers and VLCC’s. To date, more than 40 ship owners, operators, traders and financial institutions have placed their vessels under Navig8’s management.
The Schulte Group is a worldwide leading, family owned ship owner and ship manager. Overall the Group employs 15,000 seafarers and 1,000 people onshore in a global network of more than 30 offices. It owns more than 90 and manages more than 500 vessels.
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Source: Navig8, October 28, 2011