Greece's Okeanis Eco Tankers (OET) is considering its options after failing in a bid to buy back four VLCCs it sold to Ocean Yield.
Oslo-listed OET said an arbitration tribunal had decided it did not have the right to reacquire the ships that it sold to the Norwegian owner on a charterback deal.
OET had served notice last October that it would buy the vessels for 103% of the cumulative outstanding lease amount, plus certain breakage fees. But Ocean Yield disputed this.
"The arbitration awards are subject to very limited grounds of appeal under English law and OET is considering its options in this regard with its legal advisors," OET said.
The Greek company added that the panel dealt only with issues of liability, particularly questions relevant to determining its right to require the sales.
It did not decide issues relating to legal costs, which will be addressed later.
The ships remain on charter from Ocean Yield.
Financial impact limited
"The financial impact of the arbitration will be limited to the legal costs incurred by OET, the majority of which were settled in Q4 2019, and to any legal costs that it must pay to Ocean Yield arising from the adverse arbitration decisions," OET said.
Ocean Yield has not yet indicated what their legal costs will be, but they are expected to be negligible, it added.
OET has never commented on its reasons for serving the notice in the first place.
Ocean Yield confirmed the tribunal's decision, but added no further information.
Its chief executive Lars Solbakken told a conference call earlier this month: "We did not agree that they had the right to exercise those purchase options.
"So that was taken to arbitration in London in December."
If the panel had ruled in favour of OET, Ocean Yield had expected to book a small net profit and a net positive cash effect of about $60m.
The four VLCCs are the 319,000-dwt Nissos Antiparos, Nissos Despotiko, Nissos Santorini and Nissos Rhenia (all built 2019), chartered back to Okeanis on 15-year bareboat deals, with a five-year sub-charter to Koch Shipping.
Ocean Yield first announced the deal for the four ships in February 2018 when it agreed to pay a gross purchase price of $83.75m per vessel.
At the time it said Okeanis would have certain options to acquire the vessels during the charter period, with the first purchase option exercisable after seven years.
