Algoma Central Corp's tanker subisidiary Algoma Tankers has announced a major development. The company has ordered two 37,000 dwt ice class product tankers from Hyundai Mipo for delivery in 2025. The ships will be methanol and shore power ready.
Most surprising however is that the ships will take up long term charters with Irving Oil. That company currently charters two ships (also built by Hyundai Mipo) from the Dutch company Vroon, which will be turning twenty years old in 2025. Acadian and East Coast, trading under Canadian flag, deliver Irving Oil products in eastern Canada ranging from St.Lawrence River and Gulf ports to Newfoundland, from Irving Oil's refinery in Saint John, NB. (Three other tankers of the same vintage, also on charter from Vroon to Irving Oil, fly the Marshall Islands flag, and operate between Canada and the United Staes. No announcement has yet been made about their replacements.)
Algoma Tankers was established to take over the fleet of Imperial Oil tankers, and has been largely dedicated to serving its refineries and depots on the Great Lakes and eastern Canada. The new ships will be dedicated to Irving Oil work, although some exhange of product does take place with other oil companies.
The current Irving charters are painted in traditional Irving tanker colours (Irving once owned a large fleet of tankers) and wear the Irving Oil symbol on their funnels. [Their scrubbers were retrofitted and are housed in plain white structures]. The Vroon "V crest appears on the bows. It will be interesting to see what the new ships will look like.
And what they will be called:
For what it is worth, my guesses are that they will be painted in the Irving colours, with Irving Oil funnel marks, and names similar to the current ships - that is to say no direct reference to Irving or Algoma.
Two interesting side notes to this news may or may not be relevant:
1. Irving Oil has recently made it known that it is reviewing options for the future that could include members of the Irving family selling the company. The family's various interests are now relatively separate. The J.D. Irving companies, such as Irving Shipbuilding Inc, Atlantic Towing Ltd and Harbour Development Ltd and their wood, paper, steel, construction and trucking operations have no connection with Irving Oil, and the announcement has little if any bearing on them.
2. Vroon has recently been re-organized with lenders taking equity for debt, and has opted to sell off their offshore supply and support vessel business. Whether this had any bearing on Irving Oil's decision is of course unknown to me, but Algoma has certainly established itself as a stable and growing company.
They have rccently disposed of older ships and acquired newer ones on the strength of existing business.
Algoma Central has also expanded well beyond their orginal Great Lakes bulk carrier business, and are now partners in Nova Algoma Cement Carriers (NACC) and coastal cargo ships and tankers in Europe as well as self-unloading bulk carriers in the CSL Americas pool.
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