Norden is reported to have sold an ice-strengthened bulker that would put the owner-operator just one vessel away from exiting kamsarmax ownership.
The company has offloaded its 81,800-dwt Nord Penguin (built 2005) for $30m to $30.6m, according to shipbrokers in the US, Greece and the UK.
Broking houses Xclusiv Shipbrokers and Hartland Shipping Services said the vessel has gone to Greek buyers.
Asked to confirm the deal, Norden spokeswoman Anne-Louise Dam-Rasmussen said the company does not comment on market rumours.
The reported price tag is slightly lower than the $31.8m estimate by valuation platform VesselsValue for a ship of the Nord Penguin’s characteristics, as well as the $32.4m predicted by Maritime Strategies International’s MSI Horizon platform.
Among factors that would affect the price, the ice-strengthened ship has a scrubber that allows it to burn high-sulphur fuel oil.
It was constructed at Oshima Shipbuilding and is due for a special survey in August next year.
The reported price shows that values for bulkers of this type have steadied since a jump in February and March.
VesselsValue estimates the bulker would have been worth just under $27m near the beginning of this year.
Norden, a Copenhagen-listed owner and operator of bulkers and tankers, has owned the ship since it was a newbuilding.
Shipping databases show that the company owns one other kamsarmax — an enlarged panamax having the maximum size permitted to enter the Guinean port of Kamsar — in Norden’s fleet.
The 82,400-dwt Nord Aurora (built 2016) is estimated to be worth between $32m and $32.6m, according to data from VesselsValue and MSI.
The Nord Penguin sale emerged just weeks after Norden chief executive Jan Rindbo pointed to vessel sales as a potential source of profits, after its operating business suffered losses in the second quarter.
The comment was mainly focused on purchase options for 84 chartered ships, including 50 that can be exercised this year.
“Other ships we may decide to sell and take the profit — that will be a sort of individual case-by-case decision that will be made,” Rindbo told TradeWinds.
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