Tradewinds, Friday 11 August 2006
By Bob Rust, Stamford
Genco Shipping & Trading is diversifying its fleet management. The New York-based bulker owner has had its fleet in the hands of technical manager Wallem since its inception. However, president and chief executive officer Robert Gerald Buchanan told investors and analysts on its recent earnings conference call that new managers are coming on board.
He tells TradeWinds Anglo-Eastern and Barber have already been given two ships each formerly in Wallem's hand. They will also take on management of three newly acquired vessels.
Buchanan underscores that Genco is not dissatisfied with Wallem and has meant all along to use several managers in order to benchmark prices and performance. Earlier financial filings bear this out.
Another motive is the diversification of Genco's manning pools to Wallem's Chinese, Barber's Romanian and Anglo-Eastern's Phillipine seafarers.
Going to the Barber-Torvald Klaveness joint venture BarKlav are the 69,000-dwt Genco Trader (built 1990) and 74,000-dwt Genco Leader (built 1999), which, not incidentally, operate in Klaveness's Baumarine pool.
The 47,000-dwt Genco Carrier (built 1998) and 49,000-dwt Genco Muse (built 2001) are going to Anglo-Eastern. Buchanan says an engine breakdown that idled the Genco Muse for over 11 days in April is unrelated to the change. It had to do with a fuel problem for which Wallem was not to blame. The problem took so long to correct, not for mechanical reasons, but because it occurred in a remote area in rough weather.
Teething problems with the newly adopted Marpol Annex VI are one suspect in the Genco Muse incident. So far, Marpol only requires low-sulphur fuels in the Baltic. But bunkerers in some ports are increasingly selling low-sulphur fuels, sometimes to the exclusion of higher-sulphur fuel, even in areas where the former is not required. This is not an operational problem in itself. However, the low-alkaline cylinder oil that engine manufacturers recommend for use with low-sulphur fuels is not as widely available yet and most vessels are unequipped to store two grades of lubricant in equally ample supply.