Four product tankers circulated for sale in September by Pillarstone are proving a hit with Greek buyers.
After deals late last year to offload the 50,900-dwt PS Houston (built 2008) and 50,200-dwt Grazia (built 2010) to Dexter Navigation and Spring Marine Management respectively, the Italian private equity player is homing in on a deal to sell another vessel in that group to Greek interests.
Advanced talks are underway to sell the 50,900-dwt PS London (built 2008) to Greek owner Panos Laskaridis, according to market sources in Athens.
US shipbrokers are already reporting the PS London as sold for $11.8m, which is exactly the price its STX Offshore-built sistership PS Houston (built 2008) is believed to have fetched in late November.
Managers at Pillarstone did not respond to a request for comment. Counterparts at Laskaridis firm Lavinia also declined to comment.
Completion of the deal would constitute a milestone for Lavinia, which primarily operates a fleet of bulkers and reefers. It owns a handful of small tankers as well, but it is known to be using about half of them to cater to the fuel needs of its reefer fleet in the South Atlantic — a prime hunting ground for fishing trawlers and reefers.
Market sources are telling TradeWinds that Lavinia might be seeking to buy the PS London with similar employment in mind.
However, there is an alternative reading.
MRs were the favourite object of Greek tanker buyers last year. Forty-nine of the 112 tankers that Greeks are known or believed to have picked up in the secondhand market in 2021 were MR1 and MR2 units, according to TradeWinds data.
These MR deals were worth in excess of $800m and the ships Greeks bought had an average age of about 11 years — not much younger than the vessel that Lavinia is said to be setting its sights on now.
Analysts talking to TradeWinds identify two reasons why such vessels proved so popular among Greeks last year.
"MRs are easier to operate than larger types of crude carriers — especially for companies that first invest in that asset class or aren't very familiar with it," said John Cotzias, head of projects and finance at Xclusiv Shipbrokers in Athens.
The versatility of such vessels means they can be employed flexibly and easily placed with third-party ship managers.
In one such example reported by TradeWinds recently, Aims Shipping, a Greek bulker player that bought its first tanker last year, entrusted its management to Product Shipping & Trading — a private outfit of Petros Pappas.
Aims, which was set up a decade ago to take advantage of distressed opportunities in bulkers and boxships, said tanker markets are lagging behind other sectors in the recovery and therefore seem like an interesting investing opportunity.
Cotzias concurred. "MR tankers about 10 years old are fairly priced," he said. "They offer a good opportunity to capture demand growth for distilled products amid a global economic recovery."
