A single order for an LR2 newbuilding has surfaced, placed by a Greek company with a predilection for Japanese-built tonnage.
Alberta Shipmanagement, an outfit founded three years ago by Nicholas Inglessis, revealed on its website that it placed such an order with Sumitomo Heavy Industries of Japan.
The fleet list on Alberta’s website features a lone 115,000-dwt aframax/LR2 unit under construction at the Far Eastern builder.
The entry contains no other information than the ship’s delivery, scheduled to take place in September 2024.
The order is not new. Market sources familiar with the matter say that Alberta placed it earlier this year, at some point before the summer.
Clarksons’ data platform shows Sumitomo’s Yokosuka yard as having received an order for one such vessel by unidentified owners, with which a contract was signed on 1 June.
Alberta’s order is said to be including no options for further ships. The LR2 has not been commissioned on the back of a secured charter.
Sumitomo will equip the vessel with a scrubber. Based on current plans, it will be conventionally fuelled but preparations are being made so it can potentially run on LNG.
Tanker newbuilding orders have become rare as owners hesitate to invest in such ships as long as uncertainty persists amid the future modes of environmentally sustainable propulsion.
According to Clarksons, 42 aframax product tankers are currently under construction, down from 49 in August. The orderbook-to-existing fleet ratio for product tankers in general stands at 5% this month, its lowest level since the Clarksons time series began in January 1996.
A revival of tanker prospects in the wake of the Ukraine war, however, prompted some orders to start trickling in again. Amid companies said to be due to sign aframaxes and suezmaxes recently are Euronav and Atlas Maritime.
As for Alberta, it is due to take delivery next month of a VLCC built at Japan Marine United. That delivery will bring the size of its managed fleet on the water to 11 tankers. Eight of them will have been built in Japan.
The oldest vessel among them is another LR2 built at Sumitomo — the same yard commissioned with Alberta’s latest newbuilding.
Alberta also manages five bulkers — three handysizes, one post-panamax and a capesize.
