Monjasa Acquires Tanker to Serve Burgeoning West African VLSFO Market

DWT tanker, acquired from Neste in Finland and now renamed as Monjasa Trader, left the Port of Rotterdam on 15 August and is now heading for Lomé in West Africa.

Announcing the acquisition of the tanker, Monjasa highlighted the increasing local availability of very low sulphur oil in West Africa. The ‘high quality’ product is being produced at local refineries across the region, including Angola, Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

Monjasa Group CEO Anders Ostergaard, commented on the addition to the company’s West African fleet: ‘We are operating in an extremely competitive commodities market and we need to constantly adapt our fleet logistics to the shifting market dynamics.

‘Before the IMO 2020 transition to low-sulphur marine fuels, we used to purchase and transport the fuel from Europe to West Africa using Suezmax tankers.

Today, we are sourcing much of our fuel oil products from local refineries across West Africa and for this purpose the flexi size and high specifications of Monjasa Trader makes her an ideal vessel for assessing various local loading points.’

Monjasa has been operating in the West African market since 2008. In 2020, the company supplied more than 1 million tonnes of bunker fuel in this market and it currently deploys 10 regional tankers, including the 120,000 SWT oil tanker SKS Dokka, which serves as a floating storage off Lomé, Togo.