The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) has renewed half of its bulker fleet with extremely rare moves on the secondhand market.
ADNOC Logistics & Services (ADNOC L&S), the state-company’s commercial shipping arm, has spent $53m on a pair of modern ultramax vessels purchased from Greece’s Peraticos family. It raised nearly 50% of that money from the parallel sale of a handysize trio built in 2010 and 2011.
The transactions leave the company forking out $27m in cash, but they add a net 17,000 dwt of much more modern tonnage to its dry bulk-carrying capacity.
Despite its name that would seem to restrict the company to tankers only, ADNOC has a sizeable dry bulk fleet consisting of four panamaxes, two ultramaxes and a specialised molten sulphur vessel. ADNOC uses these ships to deliver sulphur exports, mainly to North Africa.
This is the first time that ADNOC has engaged in bulker S&P deals, according to available records reaching back several years. All dry cargo vessels in its fleet so far had been trading with the company since their delivery as newbuildings.
However, the rare burst of S&P activity in early March changed the picture completely. Unidentified buyers, possibly Greeks, acquired all three of its handysizes in an en bloc deal — the 36,500-dwt sisterships Arrilah-I and Umm ad Dalkh (both built 2011), and Shah (built 2010).
At about the same time, ADNOC agreed to buy Peraticos' two ultramaxes — the Japanese-built, 63,600-dwt sisterships Kifissos and Ilissos (both built 2019) for $26.5m each.
Vessel trackers show that both the Kifissos and Ilissos have sailed to the United Arab Emirates. IHS Markit lists the Ilissos as already being part of ADNOC’s fleet under its new name, Al Dhafra.
The Peraticos family has been mainly known to be active in oil carriers through its Stamatis Vellis-led tanker arm, Pleiades Shipping Agents.
However, the family moved under the radar to expand into bulkers as well. Affiliated outfit Alma Maritime Co, which should not to be confused with a similarly named company run by Stamatis Molaris, ordered two ultramaxes in December 2017 at Japan’s Shin Kasado Dockyard.
It is not clear if the sale of those ships to ADNOC generated a profit for the Peraticos family. At the time that Alma Maritime ordered them, the vessels were broadly worth the same as they are now, according to VesselsValue.
ADNOC executives could not be reached for comment.
