Saudi Arabian tanker giant Bahri has reportedly sold off another of its oldest VLCCs in a lucrative secondhand market.
Brokers said the 316,000-dwt Lulu (built 2003) has gone for $42.5m to a Chinese buyer.
The Hyundai Heavy Industries-built ship is valued by VesselsValue at $44.6m, up from $30m a year ago.
The VLCC has been owned by the group since delivery.
The tanker is among its older ships, but two more of its vessels were built in 2002 and another in 2001.
Bahri sold four VLCCS of a similar vintage in 2022.
In April this year, unknown interests based in the United Arab Emirates swooped on Bahri’s 49,000-dwt MR Bahri Iris (built 2005), with brokers putting a $17m price tag on the deal.
And the Saudi state company also reportedly offloaded the sister ship Bahri Jasmine (built 2005) as well, this time at a higher price of $18.3m.
Bahri does not comment on sale-and-purchase transactions.
Rates fell back for VLCCs at the end of last week, after briefly topping $100,000 per day for the most modern vessels.
Bullish mood in the market
But the negative movement has hardly affected sentiment, with the consensus view remaining bullish, said Eva Tzima, head of research & valuations at Seaborne Shipbrokers.
“It is not by chance that enquiries for VLCCs built between 2005 and 2010 have been picking up lately and despite the negative performance of the size in the past week,” she added.
“Sellers of such tonnage have been also increasing their price ideas, confident that the most recent rate surge is a sign of a fundamentally strong market rather than a one-off occurrence,” the analyst said.
She identified aframax/LR vessels as the most popular secondhand units.
The few modern candidates of this size that become available are fetching impressive premiums over last-done similar transactions, Tzima said.
