Two major Greek owners offloaded their oldest vessels this week — both panamaxes — in fleet renewal moves in an otherwise uninspiring market for secondhand bulkers.
On Tuesday, US-listed Diana Shipping publicly disclosed the sale of the 76,900-dwt Artemis (built 2006) for $12.99m, before commissions.
The Japanese-built vessel will be delivered to its undisclosed owners by 8 March, said Diana — a pure bulker player with 39 vessels in the water, from newcastlemaxes to ultramaxes, with a weighted average age of about 10.6 years.
It would not be a big surprise if Asian interests emerged as the new owners of the Artemis, as they did in another recent sale of an old panamax by a Greek company renewing its fleet.
Frangiskos Kanellakis-led Alpha Bulkers Shipmanagement is widely reported to have sold the 74,400-dwt Alpha Afovos (built 2001) for about $7m.
The price is not confirmed, but the deal in itself is: Alpha Bulkers no longer features the Daewoo Shipbuilding-built vessel on its diversified fleet list of 34 bulkers in the water.
The Alpha Afovos has already joined its new owner — China-based Qingdao Bohwa — and began trading as the Sea Maple earlier this month.
Alpha Bulkers has two ultramaxes under construction at Cosco Zhoushan, both due for delivery in 2025.
A third Greek company to report selling its oldest ship, also a panamax, was Titan Maritime.
The low-profile outfit headed by George Rokas has been widely reported by brokers to have sold the Japanese-built, 76,600-dwt Kerveros (built 2003) for about $9.3m.
A sale would shrink Titan’s fleet to two panamaxes and two kamsarmaxes.
‘No longer for sale’
Brokers attributed the lacklustre bulker S&P activity this week to uninspiring freight rates.
“We are seeing prices wane in some segments — and certainly in segments with an abundance of sales candidates, ie handysize vessels,” Athens-based Doric Shipbrokers said in its latest weekly report.
“More and more owners are providing updates of, ‘No longer for sale’ or ‘Ship withdrawn from sales market’ or ‘Owners less keen to sell unless they see enticing [excess] numbers’,” Doric added.
However, some sellers keep divesting — regardless of short-term market fluctuations. Adding to a spate of sales over the past few weeks, Chinese leasing players are widely reported to have offloaded another pair of vessels.
Clients of Minsheng Financial Leasing sold the 56,600-dwt sister ships Lan Hai Sheng Hui and Hai Yang Zhi Hua (both built 2011). Undisclosed European buyers are said to have swooped on both Chinese-built vessels for about $12.5m each.
