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Tankers are like Uber, says Kristian Jasper, managing director of Maersk Tankers’ Singapore activities and head of chartering for Singapore. A strong believer in increasing the use of data and real-time information in order to optimise earnings and emissions, Jasper points out that having the right ship in the right place at the right time is immensely important for tankers. "It's a very volatile market we operate in. That means that one month we might be earning $10,000 per day on a vessel, and a few months later that might be in the $50,000 region, which amounts to a $2m difference on a 50-day voyage if the timing is right or wrong," he asserts. Maersk Tankers does not own any ships. Instead, the company provides commercial management for shipowners in the tanker industry, with roughly 150 ships operating one of the largest fleets in the world. The company conducts about 3,000 voyages per year and has invested $30m in data solutions and different kinds of information both internally and externally, which it uses day-to-day to make decisions on a fleet that is trading globally. Asked about how it works, he says that it's not just one system. "It's a very complex market we're operating in, and there are a lot of different parameters that we need to consider. For each of these parameters, there are different data sets that we need to use." Over more than two decades in shipping, Jasper has remained a one-company man, working for various parts of A.P. Moller – Maersk while spending the majority of his career at Maersk Tankers. He started at Maersk by a bit of a coincidence as he was in the army at the time and thought of having a career there. "My father sent me the job ad for the trainee program, and then I actually never looked back," he says, adding that he's held 14 different positions in his 25 years at the company. He's been in Singapore for 12 years. Maersk Tankers opened its first office there in the early 1990s, and today more than half of its global fleet is operated out of the city-state. Being in the APAC for Maersk Tankers he says is for the growth. "If we look at today's population, half of it is in the region that is in the stage of development and needs more and more energy." Decarbonisation is one of the main topics in shipping these days, and Maersk as a group has emerged as one of those leading the change and raising the bar for others as well. Before a ship enters one of Maersk Tankers' pools, the company carries out a survey and makes recommendations to shipowners on how to improve its efficiency, save money, and reduce carbon emissions. Maersk Tankers has invested in voyage optimisation which is basically taking millions of data points and feeding them into an algorithm that constantly gathers information to calculate the most efficient route. On a commercial side, Jasper notes that the company is also looking to reduce the distance that the ship is traveling without having cargo onboard. "It's like the Uber, - you want to pick up the next passenger as close to where you drop off the previous passenger. For us, we want to pick up the next cargo as close to where we discharged the previous one." On how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is impacting chartering activities, he observes the oil flows changing. Oil that used to go from Russia into Europe is now finding new destinations further away such as India and China and at the same time, the same oil that used to be consumed in Europe is going to other places. Another implication of the war has also been that the companies need to be more diligent in their daily work. "That means we need to be very careful with whom we are working with and where the oil is coming from, to whom we're delivering it and where," says Jasper. Own the market outlook, Jasper is bullish, citing post-covid demand and lower ship supply. He believes the market has already corrected in terms of day rates, and the industry has dropped from recent highs. “Based on utilisation and supply and demand, we still see the markets remaining very strong in the coming years,” says the Maersk veteran.

Uber at sea

The thoughts of Maersk Tankers’ Singapore head

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