Peter Livanos-controlled GasLog is shedding its last fully owned steam turbine LNG carrier in what is turning into a busy first quarter for sales of secondhand vessels in this sector.
Brokers reported that the 145,000-cbm steam turbine vessel GasLog Athens (ex-Methane Lydon Volney, built 2006) has been sold for $55m.
LNG market sources are naming TMS Cardiff Gas — which is rumoured to have agreed the sale of its oldest ship to Golar LNG — as the likely buyer of the 17-year-old ship.
GasLog said in a results statement that it has signed a memorandum of agreement with an unrelated third party on the sale of the vessel.
The transaction is due to be completed on delivery of the ship from its current charter, which is understood to be in June.
GasLog Athens is the last steamship in the company’s fleet in which the company had full ownership.
The company retains a 25% shareholding in the 145,000-cbm Methane Nile Eagle (built 2007).
GasLog Athens is currently working as a floating storage unit in Greece.
In November, the ship took in a first cargo at the Pachi anchorage of Greece’s only land-based receiving terminal Revithoussa LNG.
TradeWinds had earlier reported that the vessel had been fixed for 12 months to Greece’s Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator to increase storage capacity at the terminal to 360,000 cbm.
GasLog and US-listed GasLog Partners, which its parent is trying to take private, have been slowly weeding out the LNG steamships in their fleets.
In 2022, GasLog Partners sold the 145,000-cbm steamship Methane Shirley Elisabeth (built 2007) for approximately $54m to Indonesia’s Silo Maritime.
The company said it also completed the sale and leaseback of the 145,000-cbm steamship Methane Heather Sally (built 2007) for $50m.
It emerged that the vessel had been sold to China’s Huaxia Financial Leasing and is on charter to Pacific Gas-controlled Shandong Marine Energy in Singapore.
During its fourth-quarter results call in January, GasLog Partners chief executive Paolo Enoizi said the company will convert one of its 145,000-cbm steam turbine LNG carriers into a floating storage and regasification unit for the Venice Energy project in Adelaide, Australia.
GasLog is not alone in shedding steam turbine LNG carriers.
Companies are keen to sift out the older and least-efficient vessels in their fleets as the International Maritime Organization’s Carbon Intensity Indicator rating system kicks in this year.
But brokers said the lack of prompt LNG newbuilding berths, available term tonnage and growing demands for vessels to act as storage units is helping push up the value of secondhand vessels — traditionally an illiquid market in this sector.
In February, TradeWinds reported that Elcano’s 138,000-cbm steamship Castillo de Villalba (built 2003) has been offered for sale by its financier, Santander, in advance of the ending of the Spanish tax lease on the ship.
The same month this publication also detailed that the 154,982-cbm LNG steamship Trinity Arrow (built 2008) had been sold by Imabari Shipbuilding’s shipowning arm, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, to Chinese trading company Jovo Group.
They priced the vessel in the low-$60m region, attributing the firmer price to its larger capacity.
