PetroVietnam Transportation (PV Trans) continues to expand, buying two small chemical tankers that have been trading in the fleet of MISC Berhad’s AET Tankers.
Vietnam’s largest tanker operator has acquired the 19,900-dwt Bunga Lotus and Bunga Lucerne (both built 2012), brokers reported this week.
The Fukuoka Shipbuilding-constructed pair are said to have been sold in an enbloc deal worth $32m.
An MISC spokeswoman was unable to shed light on the sales, saying it was merely the bareboat charterer of the ships.
“MISC and its group of companies do not have ownership of both these vessels, and are not privy to any decisions regarding the sale,” she said in response to queries from TradeWinds.
The IHS Ships Register lists the Bunga Lucerne as owned by Orange Octans Pte of Singapore and the Bunga Lotus as owned by Orange Lynx Pte. Both are single-ship entities that shipbroking sources in Singapore suggested are owned by Japanese interests.
The departure of the two ships from the AET fleet comes hot on the heels of its sale of seven South Korean-built handysize product tankers to AP Moller-Maersk in a $93.5m enbloc deal concluded at the end of last month.
The Malaysian company said at the time that it was scaling back its chemical tanker fleet as part of a strategic portfolio review.
It will continue to maintain its product business through its LR2 and MR fleet.
AET’s decision to scale back its small chemical tanker fleet comes at the same time that PV Trans is doing exactly the opposite.
Sources familiar with the company said it has been keen to build up its tanker fleet this year. PV Trans bought the 105,500-dwt Oklahoma (built 2006) from Dorian Hellas in May for $18.5m, before renaming it Apollo.
It also picked up the 13,100-dwt chemical and product tanker Sichem Montreal (built 2008) from Team Tankers International for $8.4m in August and renamed it PVT Neptune.
PV Trans owns and operates a fleet of 30 ships, including a large number of smaller chemical and product tankers and LPG carriers. It also has six aframax tankers, a supramax bulker and a floating production storage and offloading vessel.
The Ho Chi Minh City-based company is listed on the local stock exchange.
