Aegean Shipping Management has returned to Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry, its favourite yard, to order yet another pair of aframax tankers.

The tally will rise to three aframaxes if Aegean exercises an option for an additional unit, the Greek company said in a statement on 1 October.

The signing ceremony to seal the deal took place digitally the day before, likely as an anti-coronavirus measure.

Aegean’s statement does not offer any additional details on the project, apart from saying that the company's new aframaxes will be certified with high-class eco notations, like the rest of its “Green Fleet” consisting of three MR2s and two aframax tankers.

TradeWinds is told that Aegean's new vessels, to be built at Cosco's Yangzhou yard, will not be equipped with scrubbers and that they are due for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Aegean already has a Cosco-built pair of 112,500-dwt aframaxes in its fleet, ordered at the Chinese yard back in April 2016 at an undisclosed price.

The newly inked firm aframaxes bring the number of vessels that George Melissanidis-led Aegeanordered at Cosco to 10 ships, over the span of just four years.

Six of them are bulkers commissioned on behalf of Aegean Shipping Dry Bulk, Melissanidis' bulker outfit. Cosco delivered the sextet in 2019 and 2020.

“As of today, the Aegean Shipping fleet consist of newbuilding vessels only,” the company said in its statement.

The new contract strengthens Aegean's “already well-established business relations with the Cosco Group," the company said. "In this regard, Aegean Shipping is looking forward to continuing this fruitful cooperation,” it added.

News of Aegean’s aframax deal comes in the wake of an already busy week of tanker ordering by Greek owners. Alafouzos family company Kyklades Maritime, Anna Angelicoussis-led Pantheon Tankers and Evangelos Pistiolis firm Central Group have ordered suezmaxes and VLCCs at yards in South Korea.

They have been encouraged by falling prices amid a slump for newbuilding orders due to regulatory uncertainty and market blues caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Clarksons, 440 ships have been ordered globally so far this year, down at an annual pace of 49%. Just 126 among these are tankers, down 32% year on year.

As yard ordering activity dwindles, inflation-adjusted VLCC prices have sunk to equal the 2017 slump, with only the all-time lows of more than 30 years ago preventing a new record being set.