Navig8 has extended its business with two of its Greek clients, renewing chartering arrangements for a Theodore Angelopoulos-owned pair of aframaxes and taking a second VLCC from Charalambos Mylonas-led company Transmed.
Navig8 has chartered the 115,600-dwt sisterships Crudesun and Crudemed (both built 2018) from Angelopoulos’ Metrostar Management Corp for six months at $22,500 per day, London-based brokers reported.
It also holds an option to extend the business by six months at a higher level of $25,000 per day.
Navig8 declined to comment on the reports, citing its policy not to discuss chartering arrangements.
Direct from delivery
Metrostar had put the pair into Navig8’s V8 aframax pool straight after taking delivery of them from Daehan Shipbuilding Corp last year.
Navig8 declined to comment on the reports, citing company policy not to discuss chartering arrangements.
Metrostar had put the pair in Navig8’s V8 aframax pool straight after taking delivery of them from Daehan Shipbuilding last year.
It ordered them at the South Korean yard in 2017 as part of a four-ship deal, reportedly at a little over $40m each.
Metrostar is believed to have put the other two ships built under that order, the 114,000-dwt LR2 tankers Prostar and Prosky (both built 2019), in Teekay’s Taurus Tankers pool.
The quartet are the only ships in the Metrostar fleet. They are the fruit of Angelopoulos’ fleet rebuilding efforts after an aggressive sales campaign between 2013 and 2017 that saw the Greek owner divest his considerable tanker holdings.
The quartet are the only ships in the Metrostar fleet. They are the fruit of Angelopoulos’ fleet rebuilding efforts after an aggressive sales campaign between 2013 and 2017
Tanker sales
The sell-off may have been driven by Angelopoulos’ exposure to Swiss banking giant UBS that was hit by the financial crisis, and the oil and gas sector, which was badly affected by a market downturn.
Angelopoulos was not the only Greek owner with which Navig8 deepened its relationship last week.
The company announced on its website that it had included yet another VLCC in its growing VL8 pool, the 300,000-dwt Maridaki (built 2005).
The ship was formerly known as Aquarius Wing and was reported sold last July for between $34.5m and $35m.
Greek-Cypriot owner Charalambos Mylonas' company Transmed was at the time understood to have been the buyer. Online reference sources, however, still list the ship’s new owners as “unknown Europeans”.
But its recent renaming as the Maridaki and its inclusion in Navig8's fleet have bolstered suspicions that Transmed is behind the deal.
Name game
Secretive Transmed, which returned to the tanker arena last year, seems to have a knack for naming its largest ships after tiny fish.
Its first purchase, the 319,900-dwt Atherina (built 2011), is named after the Greek word for smelt fish, which are similar to sardines. Maridaki is Greek for picarel, a type of whitebait fish.
The Atherina is already in Navig8’s VL pool. Both the Atherina and Maridaki are under the technical management of Singapore-based Goodwood Ship Management.
