Team Tankers is taking another step to phase out ships from the former Laurin Maritime fleet.

The company has put up for sale the two newest vessels purchased through its takeover of the Swedish tanker owner, European brokers said.

The sources said the 46,000-dwt Team Allegro and Team Amorina (both built 2012) — reportedly ordered by Laurin for $39.5m each in January 2009 at Shipyard Trogir in Croatia — are believed to be worth about $24m each today.

Morten Arntzen, the company's executive chairman, declined to comment on whether the two ships are actually up for sale.

“Regarding the ex-Laurin ships, we are prepared to sell them, but not in a rush to do so,” he said. “They perform well technically and have earned their value commercially, especially the younger ones.”

He said lots of brokers now are circulating the tankers on sales lists without the company’s authority.

He said that is “partly because we have been so active disposing of ships and because brokers know that we are prepared to sell vessels when sensible prices can be obtained”.

Connecticut-headquartered Team Tankers took over Laurin in a $206m deal in 2018 that lifted its fleet from 37 to 52 tankers.

Since then, Team Tankers has sold at least six MR tankers that had been in the Laurin fleet. The offloaded ships have mostly been elderly vessels, and it had been expected that Team Tankers would keep the most modern of the ships.

Arntzen claimed that the move to buy Laurin was “one of the smarter moves and that it was done in a timely fashion”.

Team Tankers delisted from the Oslo Stock Exchange in September.

Arntzen said most micro-cap shipowners are worth more in the sale-and-purchase market than they are in the public markets, “but management teams don’t want to acknowledge this ugly reality”.

“We decided to take matters into our own hands and do what's best for our shareholders," Arntzen said. "By the end of this year, we will be debt free ... and have moved to the leanest overhead structure in our industry.”

As it went private at the start of October, Team Tankers directors Jesper Bo Hansen, Kevin Kennedy and Mads Melgaard resigned. They had been three of the longest-serving members of the board.

Former Laurin Maritime chief executive Mikael Laurin remains on the board.