Tanker pool manager Signal Maritime has achieved a significant increase in its Aframax Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) earnings thanks to a decision to increase the share of the fleet which has been trading west of Suez up to 70%.

Repositioning the ships from East to West from August to October has enabled Signal Maritime Aframax Pool (SMAP) to achieve net TCE of US$ 20.8K and 18.1K in November and December respectively. The year-to-date average TCE performance for SMAP has been $11.0K.

Commenting on the performance, Signal Maritime CEO Panos Dimitracopoulos said:

“This was a bold strategy based on detailed analysis of seasonality, COVID related effects and vessel supply-demand. Whilst the autumn move did have an impact on short-term performance, we were able to find attractive backhaul cargoes for the ships repositioning from East to West. Our considerable West exposure resulted in long and strong fronthauls significantly lifting our pool partners’ earnings. At the same time we have kept a sufficient local presence through cross-USG voyages.”

He added:

“We love transparency and strongly believe that any interested party should be able to easily access the performance of all commercial management options. Therefore our performance results are publicly available and weekly updated on Signal’s website. We look forward to seeing more commercial operators publishing their net of all fees results.”

Signal Maritime manages two pools of 21 Aframax and16 MR tankers respectively.

The pools use Signal Ocean technology to boost freight trading performance. The software platform supplies Signal Maritime’s chartering team with detailed competitor intelligence, the best trade routes, CO2 and voyage profit estimates which enable the participating fleet to be deployed strategically. The patented technology continuously processes and combines streams of private and public data including AIS, tonnage lists, cargo lists, vessel positions, port costs, port line-ups and freight rates. Using advanced algorithms and AI, data is transformed into private and actionable insights on the freight market.

Today, companies controlling 60% of the world’s large tanker fleet and 47% of the corresponding crude cargoes are using Signal’s technology to boost freight trading performance. The technology can be accessed by clients or partners via an intuitive user interface or embedded directly into proprietary systems via its APIs.

Source: www.thesignalgroup.com