Avance Gas is looking for buyers for the last of its older VLGCs.
The Oslo-listed owner has been selling 2008 and 2009-built gas carriers, offloading three in 2022 and the 83,700-cbm Iris Glory (built 2008) for $60m in cash last month.
This brought in a gain of $22m.
Brokers pointed to unnamed Chinese interests as the buyer.
The three 2022 sales involved estimated net cash proceeds of $66.8m.
The last to go will be the 84,000-cbm Venus Glory (built 2008).
VesselsValue rates the LPG vessel as worth $57m.
The unit is chartered to IOC in India at $30,000 per day until the end of the year.
“Of course, we are marketing Venus Glory also for sale,” chief executive Oystein Kalleklev told a conference call.
The vessel has slightly better specs than the Iris Glory, the CEO said.
“She has two deck tanks, which means you can fill the full ship with butane cargo and keep the propane…in the cargo tanks,” he added.
Less leverage
“So if we assume we get the same price, $60m, this ship has about $10m less leverage,” Kalleklev explained.
Avance Gas has been reinvesting cash into newbuildings.
The growing VLGC orderbook has been the worry of most analysts for 2023, the CEO told the call. A total of 46 ships were scheduled for delivery this year.
But the boss does not believe that many ships will actually be delivered.
“We had four ships for delivery this year. We’re going to end up having two, meaning 50% slippage,” he added.
“We do see slippage because the yards are quite busy these days with LNG and container orders, which means the market stayed much better than everybody expected, and people started to worry about 2024 instead,” Kalleklev said.
The CEO explained the future rate curve for VLGCs is “pretty good” for next year, with non-scrubber ships at more than $50,000 per day.
“Of course, the future curves are not always right, but the fundamentals are in place for a very constructive market, given the arbitrage level and all the congestion in Panama,” he added.
