AsianOil: Mystery fleet transports at least 83mn barrels of Russian crude to India

Two years ago, Gatik Ship Management (GSM) was an unknown shipping firm in India with just two small chemical tankers valued at $100,000 on its company manifest.

Today, to all intents and purposes the firm remains unknown, but it is now in possession of a sizeable fleet of 58 vessels. And according to a Financial Times of London report quoting shipping specialists VesselsValue, the total value of the fleet is now in the region of $1.6bn.

“To put this into perspective, out of almost 14,000 live tankers, the majority of these companies, 1,361 in all, own fewer than 10 live tankers; only 20 companies, including Gatik, own 50 or more” said VesselsValue’s Rebecca Galanopolous.

In the process of its surprising growth, the firm has become one of the world’s leading shipping companies in terms of vessels owned.

That the sudden rise from shipping obscurity of GSM to industry prominence has occurred in a time-frame almost identical to that of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not being seen as coincidental.

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