Turkey’s Beks Ship Management & Trading has upped its fledgling tanker fleet to five units after the purchase of yet another ship from the former Xihe Group fleet.
The 50,300-dwt Ocean Globe (built 2007), a vessel sold about two months ago in a tender organized by the joint liquidators of Xihe's Ocean Tankers unit, has emerged with Beks this month.
The South Korean-built ship joined Beks on 10 January under its new name of Beks Fenix, Equasis data show.
This is the third vessel that Istanbul-based Beks has bought from the same source since September. Former Ocean Tankers vessels now account for three of the five ships that Beks has assembled since it started building a tanker fleet from scratch last summer.
The Bekmezci family that controls Beks is estimated to have invested between $60m and $70m in its countercyclical tanker bet so far.
The clan made its fortune in textiles and undergarments before making a shipping debut more than a decade ago. Its newly acquired tankers apart Beks has a fleet of 11 bulkers, five of which it purchased last year.
Its latest tanker acquisition, the Ocean Globe, is believed to have cost the company about $10m. Both the Ocean Globe and its slightly younger sistership Ocean Cosmos, which went to Greece’s Brave Maritime, were built for Xihe at SLS Shipbuilding.
Ocean Tankers had frequently touted the pair as having been designed from a trader's perspective with high capacity pumps and superior tank coatings.
