Secondhand deals are still being sealed for older VLCCs, but owners have had to adjust to a new lower pricing reality, broker reports suggest.
Two 2004-built tankers have changed hands for considerably less than what would have been achievable a year ago, as increasing sanctions and price cap pressure limit demand for veteran vessels among buyers.
The 299,900-dwt, scrubber-fitted Achelous is said to have gone for $30m to unknown interests.
UK shipbroker Clarksons has listed the owner as Delta Lines in Hong Kong since 1 January. The company could not be contacted for comment.
Before that, the tanker was controlled by Hong Kong’s Ship Management Services.
The Japanese-built VLCC is the former Amorgos, which Aeolos Management of Greece sold in August 2022 for $35.5m, with a dry-docking due.
Aeolos had acquired it from Kyoei Tanker of Japan for $23.5m four years earlier.
The Panamanian-flag Achelous is valued at $40.6m by VesselsValue, down from $51m a year ago.
Brokers also reported South Korean owner SK Shipping’s 314,000-dwt C Vision offloaded for $31.5m or $32m.
Again, the buyer is not reported in what is an opaque market.
VesselsValue has the ship at $40.4m, down from $50m a year ago.
Second time lucky?
The C Vision was last reported sold in November 2023 for $34.5m, but this deal looks to have fallen through.
SK Shipping was said to be selling as many as four VLCCs at that time as activity remained high in the tanker sale-and-purchase arena.
The owner has been contacted for comment.
Last month, shipbroker BRS Group said buyer interest was increasingly focused on more modern secondhand tankers, leaving older sisters out in the cold.
The company said market conditions meant a shift towards younger units, driven by the peak in Russian oil trade recalibration towards longer distances and the build-up of a shadow fleet, along with the European Union Emissions Trading System and the International Maritime Organization’s Carbon Intensity Indicator regulations.
Eva Tzima, head of research at Greece’s Seaborne Shipbrokers, called the tanker S&P market “anaemic” compared with January.
Despite this, some fresh enquiries have emerged in the past few days, “indicating that we could soon start seeing an improved number of transactions, especially if sector returns keep having a good run into the second quarter of the year”, she added.
This could help close the gap between sellers’ and buyers’ price ideas, to the benefit of the former, Tzima argued.
