Trafigura Carves Out 14-Ship VLCC Arm With $500m Placement and Oslo Listing
Volare Shipping is due to start trading on Euronext Growth Oslo on or about 5 October
Trafigura is opening its VLCC fleet to outside investors, launching a private placement of about $500m ahead of a planned Oslo listing for a newly created company, Volare Shipping. The trader set out the structure in its own announcement, which puts the shares on Euronext Growth Oslo on or about 5 October under the ticker VLCC, subject to completion of the placement and approval from Euronext Oslo Børs.
Singapore-incorporated Volare starts with six VLCCs on the water and a further eight newbuildings due through 2028, giving it a 14-ship fleet once the programme is complete. Trafigura will remain the majority shareholder and will continue to manage the vessels commercially. The equity raise is expected to fully fund the existing newbuilding commitments, leaving the company with a platform for further expansion. Andrea Olivi, who heads Trafigura's shipping business, will chair Volare, and Alexandre Duff has been appointed chief executive.
The listing puts a public-market wrapper around a fleet the trader has built quickly. Trafigura moved into owned supertankers in 2024 with two 319,000 dwt ships at Jiangsu New Hantong Ship Heavy Industry, returning to the same private Chinese yard for another three later that year. The yard delivered the first of those ships on 26 June this year, around 40 days ahead of schedule, as the VIVE UT VIVAS. New Hantong said this month that Trafigura has now contracted at least ten VLCCs there, with deliveries running as far out as 2030.
The trader has also paid up for immediate tonnage, taking the 306,000 dwt Hengli resale Las Palmas in May for a price in the low-$160m range. Volare says its completed fleet will have an average age of around three years by October 2028. The newbuildings are larger than a standard VLCC and carry additional cargo tank coating and heating systems, widening the cargo slate they can lift, and all are being built with ammonia-ready dual-fuel capability.
The fleet will sit alongside one of the largest chartering operations in shipping. Trafigura says it currently manages around 500 ships, including approximately 250 oil tankers, which gives Volare access to the trader's cargo book, chartering desk and market analytics.
The timing is not accidental. The Baltic Exchange's Middle East Gulf to China VLCC calculation broke through the equivalent of $1m a day for the first time earlier this month, although the increasingly theoretical nature of Gulf fixtures during the conflict means those numbers carry caveats. Asset values have moved with them, and ten-year-old VLCCs are now being assessed above newbuilding prices.
Oslo has absorbed a run of tanker vehicles this year. Capital Tankers, backed by Evangelos Marinakis, came to Euronext Growth with a 30-ship crude fleet and raised about $300m in new equity earlier in 2026, and Tor Olav Trøim has used the same market to build out his latest VLCC venture. Trafigura said in June that it had continued to invest in what it described as the industry's largest oil tanker fleet, arguing that the scale of the operation gives it more flexibility when commodity supply chains are disrupted.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 22 September 2026.
