Greece’s Angelicoussis Group has sold its penultimate aframax tanker as compatriot Performance Shipping beefs up its fleet.
Nasdaq-listed Performance said on Tuesday it is paying a firm $27.6m for the 105,000-dwt Maran Sagitta (built 2009).
VesselsValue assesses the ship as worth $25m.
Angelicoussis’ Maran Tankers division is a VLCC and suezmax specialist, but now only has one remaining aframax, the sister ship Maran Atlas.
The offloaded tanker will be renamed P. Sophia and will be delivered in July.
The aframax is fitted with a ballast water treatment system and its next scheduled special survey and drydock is not due until 2024.
Performance expects to finance the acquisition with cash from its recent equity offering and a new senior debt facility.
Chief executive Andreas Michalopoulos said the addition of a high-spec unit in very good condition will further enhance its operating leverage as a pure tanker company.
“The prompt delivery of the vessel into a strong tanker charter market will immediately contribute positively to our cash flow from operations,” he added.
“We believe that the fundamentals of our sector are the strongest they have been in a very long time, which bodes well for continuing high charter rates in the foreseeable future,” the CEO said.
The Maran Sagitta was rumoured to have been sold by Angelicoussis back in 2018, but TradeWinds reported the vessel was not on the market.
Brokers suggested Greek interests had acquired the ship at that time.
But the vessel remained on a charter to ExxonMobil until the middle of 2021.
A sale then was seen as being an unusual move for the owner, known to favour ordering vessels as newbuildings and scrapping them at the end of their life.
Performance logged its fifth straight quarterly loss of $2.1m for last year’s fourth quarter versus a $2.5m loss a year earlier.
The lower deficit was due to rising markets and a bigger fleet that boosted quarterly revenue to $9.6m for the last three months of 2021 from $7.2m for the same period in 2020.
The company owns five other aframaxes built in 2007 and 2011.
