Niovis Shipping of Greece has denied reports it has disposed of a 10-year-old supramax bulker.
US brokers say the company has disposed of its 55,000-dwt Oxygen (built 2009), with the Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding-constructed ship understood to have gone for $13.5m.
That is below VesselsValue's $12.9m estimate for a vessel of Oxygen's characteristics, but within Maritime Strategies International's range of $12.2m to $14.2m.
An executive with Niovis, however, said the reports were inaccurate and that no memorandum of agreement to sell the vessel has been signed.
Oxygen is just one of three supramaxes Niovis has circulated for sale in recent months. The other two are the 52,500-dwt Tigris (built 2003) and the 56,000-dwt Maroudio (built 2003).
Both these ships remain unsold and are still in the company's fleet, despite reports in December that Niovis had sold the Tigris.
The Tsuneishi Shipbuilding-constructed Tigris was believed to have fetched $8m, but Niovis’ Basil Mavroleon insisted at that time that the vessel was not sold.
Niovis has been expanding with newbuilding tonnage instead. In October last year, the Greek owner bought a 61,000-dwt resale bulker from Idan Ofer’s Eastern Pacific Shipping.
It paid a reported $27.5m for the Cosco Dalian-built ship which was delivered this year named Captain Haddock. Mavroleon has told TradeWinds the price is wrong.
Niovis reportedly bought two sisterships from Ofer, but is only listed with one of them.
In December 2017 Niovis moved into the tanker market, buying a 113,000-dwt resale at Hyundai, paying $44.3m. The vessel, known as Philotimos, has already been delivered and is today likely worth some $2m more.
The Greek owner has also a 49,000-dwt tanker on order at Hyundai Mipo for delivery this year. In an unreported deal, it also has a 66,000-dwt bulker on order at Mitsui for delivery in 2020.
