Avin International has become the latest traditional Greek company to offload some of its oldest crude carriers, selling a pair of suezmaxes at firm-looking prices.
Shipping sources in Athens said Avin's 160,000-dwt Kriti Sfakia and Kriti Spirit (both built 2000) went to unidentified Russian buyers in an en-bloc deal for nearly $28.8m in total.
This is not that far below the nearly $35m the Vardinoyiannis family spent to buy the duo on the secondhand market about six years ago.
Considering that Avin has been continuously trading the ships since, the Athens-based company must have made a sizeable profit from the tankers.
Selling the Kriti Sfakia and Kriti Spirit likely represents a fleet renewal move rather than any attempt to scale down Avin's exposure to suezmaxes or the wider crude carrier sector.
The company is set to take delivery early next year of a 158,000-dwt suezmax newbuilding pair from Hyundai Heavy Industries. It booked them in 2019 in what was Avin's first shipbuilding contract in seven years.
The scrubber-fitted vessels —Hull Nos 2929 and 2930 — are estimated to have cost the Greek company about $128m in total.
Avin was founded by the Vardinoyiannis family in the 1970s. The clan also set up a Greek-wide network of local gas stations under the same brand name at the time, and it also established the Motor Oil refinery to the west of Athens to feed them.
Avin was primarily active in product tankers. Over the years, however, it built up a considerable presence in crude carriers as well. The company is listed with more than 30 tankers, ranging from small chemical and product tankers to suezmaxes.
The Vardinoyiannis family hails from Crete. It uses Kriti, the Greek name of the island, as a prefix in the names of most of its ships.
The Kriti Sfakia, built at Hyundai Heavy Industries, and the Kriti Spirit, built at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, were among the two oldest tankers in the Avin fleet. The company manages another five, slightly younger, suezmaxes built between 2000 and 2005.
Other Greek companies have been consistent sellers of oil carriers recently. Andreas Martinos-led Minerva Marine has sold four aframaxes since June, all built between 2000 and 2002.
Eastern Mediterranean (Eastmed), a company run by another Martinos family scion, Thanassis, tops that record. Since late April, Eastmed shed three VLCCs, two aframaxes and one MR tanker, raising about $120m in the process. All these ships were built between 1999 and 2002.
