A quartet of five-year-old LNG carriers from Greek shipowner TMS Cardiff Gas’ fleet is being offered around the market for sale.
Industry players and brokers named the tri-fuel diesel electric (TFDE) vessels as the 160,000-cbm sisterships Corcovado LNG, Kita LNG, Palu LNG and Yari LNG (all built 2014).
They are owned by joint venture Oceanus LNG, in which TMS Cardiff Gas chief executive Christos Economou’s family has equity interest.
Those following the sale said the majority shareholder in Oceanus, US private-equity firm MatlinPatterson, is the driving force behind the sales as it moves to shed its stake in a strong market for LNG carriers.
Economou did not respond to questions about the potential sale and Oceanus’ interests before TradeWinds went to press.
The four vessels were TMS Cardiff Gas’ first newbuildings. They are younger than the GasLog ship on which offers are being invited this week and so may command a slight premium.
TMS Cardiff Gas broke into the sector with a secondhand buy in 2011, before going on to order the TFDE quartet.
Earlier this year, Economou said the four vessels were employed on periods of one year or less.
TMS Cardiff Gas’ oldest vessel, the 147,895-cbm Fuji LNG (built 2004), is due to come off hire in 2020.
The quartet has been mentioned as potential sales candidates before by brokers, at a time when other secondhand LNG carriers were floated for sale.
They were also cited as the ships TMS Cardiff Gas might put into a new spin-off pool with Golar LNG and Awilco LNG.
But while Golar openly talks about a new future for its vessels of a similar size, Economou appears to have moved away from this idea.
Aside from the four ships and the Fuji LNG, TMS Cardiff Gas has 11 speculatively ordered LNG newbuildings, all of which have since been fixed on mid- to long-term business.
Economou has talked about extending the company’s newbuilding position.
When TradeWinds spoke to him at the beginning of 2019, he said: “We might look to modernise at the right time, so possibly exchange some of our exposure for XDF carriers where we want to focus going forward.”
