Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) is spending $400m in an all-cash transaction to acquire the 36-strong fleet of New York-headquartered Fairfield Chemical Carriers (FCC), a subsidiary of Fairfield-Maxwell Ltd.
MOL, Japan’s largest shipowner by dwt, said today it sees the chemical tanker business as a sector with strong growth prospects with plans to proactively invest in this field. Subsidiary MOL Chemical Tankers already has an 85-strong fleet, which will now hit triple figures when the FCC transaction is completed.
Fairfield Chemical Carriers was established in 1996. Its fleet today has an average age of just 4.69 years and totals 791,166 dwt.
Revenues in the global chemical tanker market were projected to expand at around 5% in terms of compound annual growth rate between 2023 and 2035 in a report published last month by New York-based Research Nester.
The market is expected to garner a revenue of $45bn by the end of 2035, up from a revenue of $31bn in the year 2022, according to Nester. The growth of the market is attributed to the increasing demand for vegetable oils.
