Tradewinds: Shell Continues to Rule the Roost as the World’s Top Charterer in Terms of Dirty Spot Fixtures

“Shell had 691 reported fixtures in 2009, up five from 2008. The total number of reported spot market fixtures last year failed to reach levels achieved in 2008 in all but one of the major tanker segments.  In total, 8,800 fixtures were captured by the Poten & Partners Fixture Database last year, an almost 9% decline on the 9,587 in 2008.  The top ten overall charterers have remained essentially the same group over the past two years, while some jockeying for position among them led to minor changes in 2009.  Brazilian oil giant Petrobras fell to number 11 after breaking into the top ten last year, while Unipec moved up one place to the ninth most active charterer.  ‘With refinery utilisations low and volumes on long-haul trade routes sapped by a 2m bpd drop in worldwide demand, it comes as no surprise that 2009 saw a slowdown of activity in the tanker market,’ Poten said.”