Hafnia Tankers, BW Tankers Looking into Merger

Denmark-based shipping company Hafnia Tankers is exploring the possibility of consolidation with BW Tankers, part of BW Group, Hafnia’s CEO Mikael Skov said announcing the company’s results for the second quarter of 2018.

The merger is being explored on the back of BW Group’s acquisition of 36.3 pct stake in Hafnia Tankers back in July 2018, bringing the company’s total ownership stake in Hafnia to 43.5 pct.

Carsten Mortensen, CEO of BW Group, said at the time that a further integration of BW Tankers and Hafnia tankers would be looked into.

The merger, if closed, would create the second largest product tanker shipping company in the worl, with over a 100 product tankers in the combined fleet.

Namely, BW Tankers owns and operates a fleet of 55 product tankers in the LR2, LR1 and MR segments, while Hafnia Tankers has a fleet of 47 product tankers in the LR1, MR and SR segments including newbuildings.

Hafnia Tankers reported an operating profit for the six months ended June 30, 2018 of USD 2.6 million and a net loss of USD 12 million.

“Overall, the positive trend of increasing demand for refined products, reduced supply of newbuild tonnage continues and regulatory changes on bunker fuel are believed to be a positive story for product tankers,” Skov said.

“However, short-term demand has so far in 2018 not been able to fully keep pace with the last few years fleet expansion, but as oil product stocks worldwide have come down to 5 years average and even below, we foresee a stronger year end 2018 coming in to 2019 as trading will increase, also on the back of high refinery utilization.”