By Edward Robinson and Michelle Wiese Bockmann - Sep 10, 2012 3:40 AM MT
Bloomberg Markets Magazine
The flow of much of the world’s oil is controlled from a small suite of offices perched over a Tiffany & Co. store in the Chelsea section of London. That’s where John Fredriksen, a Norwegian shipping magnate worth $13.2 billion, manages the world’s largest fleet of supertankers, the most valuable deep-water drilling company and an armada of about 128 other vessels that carry minerals, grains and liquefied gases.
Every morning, he plows through a stack of reports on the operations of his maritime empire. Whenever he makes a bet-the- company move, which he does every few years, Fredriksen sets the data aside. “I still work on a gut feeling,” he says in a conference room adorned with a painting of a supertanker named after Kathrine, one of his two daughters.
John Fredriksen, the world's biggest tanker owner, is betting $11 billion to extend his dominance over the transportation of energy. Photographer: Henry Bourne/ Bloomberg Markets via Bloomberg
As he navigates the worst shipping market since the 1970s, Fredriksen’s instincts are telling him to buy, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its October special issue on the 50 Most Influential people in global finance. He’s investing $7 billion in 18 rigs to pump oil from beneath the ocean floor and $4 billion in about four dozen new vessels to transport liquefied natural gas, gasoline, propane and other fuels. While Fredriksen loves tankers -- images of crude carriers are etched on the water glasses in his office -- he’s now trying to increase his dominance over the global circulation of liquid energy in most of its forms.
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