Pooling agreement

A pooling agreement is an arrangement under which owners of similar tonnage place their ships in a common commercial pool, combine the earnings, and share the net revenue by an agreed weighting of each vessel’s capacity, speed, and consumption. A pool manager fixes the ships and runs the chartering, which gives small fleets the market reach and cargo coverage of a larger operator and smooths individual voyage risk. Pools are common in the tanker and dry-bulk spot trades. They differ from a conference or alliance: a pool shares revenue among owners of comparable ships, it does not fix prices to shippers on a liner route.