If there is one ship class to have done well out of the coronavirus upheaval, it was tankers.

With freight rates rocketing, dozens of owners secured lucrative fixings or found an opportunity to offload ageing VLCCs at once-in-a-lifetime prices.

Greek owners played the game with gusto. Amid what many described as the market of a generation, golden VLCC fixtures were sealed that will wash up hundreds of millions of dollars on Greek shores in the weeks and months ahead.

Bumper deals

Savvy traditional investors such as Nicholas G Moundreas, Andreas Hadjiyiannis and Philip Embiricos were rewarded for keeping veteran VLCCs in their fleet: they reportedly concluded charters for vessels up to 17 years old in April, at Worldscale (WS) rates of around 200 — translating into charter rates of at least about $200,000 per day.

Others went for bumper storage deals, such as George Procopiou, who saw Shell fix two of his VLCCs for six months in April at $120,000 per day.

Major peer player John Angelicoussis had Vitol fixing one VLCC of his at $105,000 per day.

It must have been especially sweet for Evangelos Marinakis, if reports are true that he concluded a similar storage deal for the 300,000-dwt Apollonas (built 2016). Al-Iraqia Shipping Services & Oil Trading cancelled a previous bareboat charter deal for the vessel in February, when WS stood at merely 40.

The prize for the most successful sale-and-purchase move probably goes to Eastern Mediterranean Maritime boss Thanassis Martinos, who raised around $64m from the sale of two VLCCs built in 2000 and 2002.

At least one — the 298,700-dwt Lucky Trader (renamed Zin Trader, built 2000) — went to Iraq’s Qaiwan Group, which owns energy trading firm Onex and shipowning arm Pentacontinent DMCC.

However, the fragile state of the world’s economy makes such owners reluctant to openly celebrate their gains, fearing what might come in the second half of the year.

“The money we’re earning now is just borrowed from the future,” he said.

Sagging freight rates in May seemed to confirm this downbeat view.