Greece’s Angelicoussis Shipping Group has breathed some new life into an otherwise sluggish secondhand tanker market with the sale of the oldest of its 54 large crude tankers.
According to US brokers, the 320,900-dwt Maran Aries (built 2006) has “commanded an impressive $45m from Chinese buyers”.
Managers at Maran Tankers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, in line with company policy to not discuss commercial transactions.
Even though the company still features the ship on the fleet list of its website, it seems to have delivered it to its new owners.
According to the S&P Global database, the Maran Aries was reflagged in November from Greece to Hong Kong and has since been trading under its new name of Sarah.
Hong Kong-based, single-ship firm Scorpio International Invest features as its new operator and Shanghai-based, single-ship entity Kaixuan Shipping as its new technical manager.
Possibly reflecting the opacity of the secondhand market for older VLCCs, online valuation platforms are at odds with their estimates of how much the Daewoo-built ship is worth.
VesselsValue estimates the Maran Aries is worth $39.6m, but the Signal Ocean platform values the ship at $48m, which is closer to the price reported by the US brokers.
One element that could justify a premium is that the Maran Aries is equipped with a scrubber.
Another is that it has been trading throughout its working life with Maran, which has a strong reputation for looking after its vessels.
According to Equasis data, the Maran Aries has been found with very few deficiencies in all port state control inspections it was subjected to since 2006 in the US and China — the two countries it seems to have been shuttling between.
Rare seller, busy fleet renewer
Contrary to several other Greek and western owners, Maran has not been a prolific tanker seller recently.
The company has sold only one other tanker over the past two years — the scrubber-fitted, 306,200-dwt Elizabeth IA (built 2004), which it parted with in January for $33m or $34m.
As TradeWinds reported after that deal, the vessel emerged under a new name of Statice in the management of Ningbo-based Fasafe Shipping and Marshall Islands-registered Wang Chao Marine.
However, since April it has been trading as the Neso under the technical management of China’s Huaxia Trading.
The sale of the Maran Aries leaves the 320,500-dwt Maran Canopus (built 2007) as Maran Tankers’ oldest ship.
The firm has 53 tankers in the water — 38 VLCCs, 14 suezmaxes and one aframax.
Maran Tankers has been renewing its fleet with four VLCC newbuildings delivered in 2023 and it currently has 11 suezmax newbuildings under construction.
The company’s fleet stands to grow a great deal further once a recently agreed deal is completed to buy all 18 shuttle tankers of Altera Shuttle Tankers in a transaction worth about $2bn.
