Modern tanker tonnage continues to command premium pricing amid a dearth of sales candidates.
Greece’s Samos Steamship is being tied to the second lucrative sale of a crude tanker in less than a month.
US brokers said that Samos Steamship is set to secure $79m from Libya’s General National Maritime Transport Co (GNMTC) for the 111,900-dwt aframax Calypso (built 2021).
It comes just a month after reports that Samos obtained between $67.5m and $67.8m, possibly from Turkey, for the 156,200-dwt suezmax Karvounis (built 2013).
Managers at Samos Steamship and GNMTC did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The incentive to sell is certainly there, considering that the Athens-based company spent far less on acquiring the Calypso than it can currently fetch on the secondhand market.
Samos Steamship ordered the ship in October 2019 at Sumitomo Heavy Industries Yokosuka yard.
According to Clarksons data, aframax tanker newbuildings cost about $48.5m on average at the time.
However, that figure may understate the actual contract price, given its Japanese pedigree and high-quality specifications.
Another reason for Samos Steamship to sell would be to use the cash to finance its extensive newbuilding programme.
As TradeWinds reported recently, the Inglessis family company boosted its orderbook to about $340m on 10 tanker and bulker projects at four Japanese yards.
As for GNMTC, a firm listed with 17 tankers, it has already shown it is prepared to pay top dollar to secure high-quality, Greek-controlled aframaxes.
Between April 2022 and February 2023, the Libyan state-owned company spent nearly $280m to acquire a quartet of aframax newbuildings under construction at DH Shipbuilding from Atlas Maritime.
Last November, GNMTC was linked to another $108m acquisition for a pair of modern MRs from UK-based Helikon Shipping Enterprises — the 50,000-dwt Dee4 Ilex and Dee4 Mahogany (both built 2022).
No such deal may have materialised, however, as both vessels are still listed in the Helikon fleet, under the commercial management of Dee4 Capital Partners.
GNMTC managers may have been encouraged to buy the Calypso after directly seeing it in action.
The ship called twice at Libya’s Zueitina terminal this year, according to Clarksons and Signal Ocean data, on voyage charters for Chinese oil major Unipec.
This seems to be at odds with VesselsValue information that Canada’s Suncor Energy fixed the vessel in November for three years, at a lucrative $41,500 per day.
