Advantage Tankers is driving forward its strategy of replacing middle-aged aframaxes with younger tonnage.
Managers at the Nazli Williams-controlled company confirmed to TradeWinds that they engaged in four separate ship transactions in the secondhand market, which considerably lower the average age of the fleet.
Advantage unveiled it was the buying party in a deal for a modern LR2 pair announced by Scorpio Tankers late last month.
Scorpio said on 28 March, without identifying its counterparty, that it had sold the 109,900-dwt STI Savile Row and STI Carnaby (both built 2015) for a combined $86m.
Both ships are fitted with scrubbers, which gives them a considerable trading advantage in a time of high bunker prices.
As it was swooping on the two Scorpio vessels, however, Advantage also made moves to offload some of its older, less sophisticated aframaxes — the 116,100-dwt Advantage Anthem (built 2011) and the 115,800-dwt Advantage Avenue (built 2010).
The company declined to comment on details of the two ships’ sale. Brokers based in Europe and the US, however, said they fetched $57m combined.
This is not the first time Advantage has played both sides of the sale-and-purchase fence recently.
Late last year, it sold the 115,800-dwt Advantage Arrow (renamed Amax Arrow, built 2009) for about $26m. Just a few weeks later, Advantage replaced the outgoing tonnage with a much younger aframax — Enesel’s 113,600-dwt Antonis (renamed Advantage Angel, built 2017) — in a $45m deal that included a long-term charter to Trafigura.
The recent wheeling and dealing brings Advantage’s managed fleet to 13 ships on the water, consisting of a pair of LR2s, three aframaxes, six suezmaxes and two VLCCs.
The company also awaits by January 2023 delivery of four dual-fuel VLCC newbuildings from DSME, to be named Advantage Verdict, Advantage Victory, Advantage Vision and Advantage Vital.
Considerable uptick
Advantage may not be done expanding its fleet. According to chief executive Tugrul Tokgoz, the company is working on a few other possible purchases but has not finalised them yet.
Some brokers suspect that one of those deals could concern another Scorpio LR2, the 110,000-dwt STI Kingsway (built 2015).
Advantage’s moves confirm broker reports noticing “a notable uptick” in secondhand activity. Some good, old-fashioned Greek countercyclical buying is behind it, at least partly.
A Hellenic buyer is thought to have picked up the Advantage Anthem and Advantage Avenue (some brokers had identified Singapore-based Synergy Marine as buyers but a company spokesman denied this).
Other Greeks are believed to have spent $21.5m on the 159,200-dwt Bari (built 2005), a suezmax under the joint ownership of Euronav, Ridgebury Tankers and Tufton Oceanic.
In another suezmax deal earlier this year, Adam Polemis-controlled New Shipping emerged as buyer of the 152,000-dwt suezmax Erviken (renamed New Trust, built 2004) — a vessel reported sold by Norway’s Viken Shipping for about $15m.
At about the same time, Greece’s fledgling Westport Tankers swooped on Bergshav’s 105,800-dwt Bergitta (renamed Sifis, built 2007) for $16.5m.
Some Greeks are active on the selling side as well. US-listed Tsakos Energy Navigation is widely reported to have agreed to offload its 117,100-dwt aframax Proteas (built 2006) to Far Eastern buyers for about $20m.
Lucy Hine contributed to this article
