Danish shipping group A.P. Moller – Maersk A/S and Norwegian marine transportation group I.M. Skaugen ASA on September 29 announced an establishment of a new gas carrier pool to commercially manage 5-12,000 cbm semi-refrigerated gas carriers.
The new pool, Maersk Norgas Gas Carriers (MNGC), has already commenced its operations since October 1, 2003, servicing customers globally through offices in Singapore, Houston, Dubai, Riyadh, Copenhagen and Oslo coordinated from a base in Singapore.
MNGC commercially manages a fleet of initially 37 vessels comprising vessels currently trading in the A.P. Moller – Maersk A/S-managed SkandiGas pool and the I.M. Skaugen-owned and managed Norgas pool.
The fleet will be marketed jointly with the fleet of larger semi-refrigerated vessels commercially managed by A.P. Moller – Maersk A/S in the SkandiGas pool to provide customers with the full range of semi-refrigerated gas carriers (from 5,000 to 22,000 cbm).
“The MNGC pool is established to provide customers with improved levels of service and to explore cost synergies,” says the two Scandinavian shipping groups in their press releases.
“Through its large fleet of high-quality vessels, MNGC will offer unprecedented levels of flexibility and carrying capacity to customers in the gas market. MNGC will have the ability to offer large-scale freight contracts and will seek to become a more integrated part of our customers’ supply chain.”
“This new development has been long sought after to further improve the performance of the Norgas fleet of gas carriers. We have focused on both improving our service to our customers and achieving cost leadership in this segment – and the new alliance with Maersk will enable us to achieve significant progress within both areas,” says Morits Skaugen, CEO of I.M. Skaugen.
The products carried by MNGC will be mostly Ethylene, Propylene, VCM and LPG and for customers in the petrochemical and oil industry.
