Greek product tanker player Coral Shipping has broken a year-long absence from the secondhand market to buy the youngest ship yet to join its fleet.
The John Kilakos-owned company is acquiring the 50,000-dwt Stavanger Pioneer (built 2019) from Norway’s DSD Shipping at a price below $48m, according to market sources in Athens.
The two companies, which were both contacted for comment, have done sale-and-purchase deals between them before.
In April 2021, DSD sold to Coral the 105,400-dwt aframax Stavanger Eagle (built 2009). The Greek company flipped the same ship at a profit in July 2022.
In May 2023, Coral reinvested some of the profits it had garnered from that deal into widening its footprint in small product tankers by buying four such vessels from the Bright Oil Group.
The acquisition of the Bright Oil quartet had been the company’s last known move in the secondhand market.
The deal for the Stavanger Pioneer is a testament to Coral’s confidence that future earnings of such modern tankers can support their acquisition, despite their rising prices.
Built at Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding, the Stavanger Pioneer comes equipped with a scrubber, which increases the ship’s earning potential in times of high fuel costs.
It becomes the 12th ship in the Coral fleet, which otherwise consists of vessels built between 1999 and 2013, from small clean tankers to LR1s.
Despite its young age, the Stavanger Pioneer is the oldest of the four ships that DSD fully owns. The Stavanger-based firm also co-owns two older, 2009-built product/chemical tankers in a joint venture with OH Meling.
If confirmed, the Stavanger Pioneer deal would mark DSD’s first ship sale in nearly two years after the divestment in August 2022 of the 105,400-dwt aframax Stavanger Falcon (renamed Horae, built 2009).
