Tanker broker Poten & Partners has unveiled its list of the top reported dirty spot charterers for 2022, with some noticeable omissions thanks to the war in Ukraine.
China’s Unipec remained the “king” of the VLCC market, according to Poten, with 746 reported fixtures, more than the rest of the top 10 combined. ExxonMobil moved up to the number two spot in the VLCC chartering charts, relegating Shell to third. SK Corp entered the top 10 and Equinor dropped out.
There was significant movement in the suezmax segment. Total jumped from ninth spot in 2021 to first place, and ExxonMobil went from seventh to second. Russian charterer Lukoil dropped out of the top 10, being replaced by India’s IOC.
The aframax segment showed a significant drop in reported fixtures in 2022. However, overall aframax movements in terms of tons and ton-miles were up in 2022, suggesting a lot more market activity went unreported, especially fixtures involving Russian crude.
