Shipping and chartering

Trafigura’s Shipping and Chartering Division operates as a service provider securing competitive and reliable freight for our in-house oil, metals and minerals traders. The Wet and Dry Freight desks also operate respectively as profit centres in their own right.

Shipping and chartering operations are managed out of Trafigura’s key regional hubs in Athens, Geneva, Houston, Lima, Montevideo and Singapore. As a result, we have 24/7 coverage of freight and physical commodity markets.

All post-fixture operations, which include issuing voyage orders, completing stowage plans, negotiating with port agents and handling demurrage claims are managed centrally from our Athens office.

Trafigura's work to decarbonise shipping

The decarbonisation of shipping is an urgent and achievable goal. Without significant action, emissions from the sector are set to materially increase by 2050. Trafigura is committed to the transition to zero emissions shipping and our new decarbonisation target – a 25 percent reduction in carbon intensity by 2030 against the 2019 IMO normalised industry baseline across our entire chartering operation – is a statement of our intent. 

We are advocating for industry-wide action on shipping emissions and investing in new technologies and vessels to help achieve a more sustainable shipping industry. Trafigura is a member of the Getting to Zero Coalition, through which over 200 shipping industry participants have issued a Call to Action for rapid action from governments to decarbonise the sector. We are also founding members of the Sea Cargo Charter, a coalition to establish a shared methodology to collect, assess and report shipping emissions in order to help build the platform needed to create industry transparency and drive change. In September 2020, we published a whitepaper that called for a global carbon levy on maritime fuels to incentivise low-carbon innovation and we remain encouraged by the growing support for this proposal.  Trafigura is also a founding member of the COP26-launched First Movers Coalition, which is focused on reducing emissions in key hard-to-abate industries. As part of its pledge to the First Movers Coalition, Trafigura has also committed to convert six vessels – 18 percent of its current owned fleet – to use zero-emissions fuels by 2030. 

Other initiatives in which Trafigura is involved include co-sponsoring MAN Energy Solutions green ammonia two-stroke engine and co-funding studies focused on using green ammonia as a zero-emissions shipping fuel. 

We are also investing in Hy2gen, a developer of hydrogen and e-fuels production technologies, and in Daphne Technologies, which is developing innovative technology to remove emissions such as nitrogen oxides, methane and carbon dioxide from the combustion gas of any fuel.