Tanker pool

A tanker pool is a commercial arrangement in which several owners place their tankers under a single pool manager that markets the combined fleet as one unit and shares the net earnings by a points system reflecting each ship’s size, age, speed, and consumption. The manager fixes the ships, optimizes positioning across the fleet, and distributes pooled revenue net of voyage costs, while owners keep technical management and ownership. Pooling raises utilization and TCE by cutting ballast and spreading market risk across many voyages, and gives small owners the scale and CoA access of a large operator. Established product and crude pools include those run by major commercial managers; pools must be structured to stay within competition-law block exemptions.