Belgium’s Euronav has increased its owned tanker capacity in a stronger freight market.
The Brussels and New York-listed company said it had exercised an option to repurchase the 307,000-dwt VLCC Nectar (built 2008), which is owned by a Chinese leasing company.
The vessel was redelivered to Euronav on 27 September, its third-quarter results statement reveals.
The deal “crystallises a potential capital gain by taking back full ownership of the vessel and creating … additional capacity for the ongoing tanker cycle”.
Taiping & Sinopec Financial Leasing bought the former Maersk Tankers ship in 2019 for $42m.
VesselsValue assesses the Nectar as worth $49m now, little changed over the past year.
The VLCC is one of four controlled by the Euronav Luxembourg subsidiary. The other three are time-chartered in and remain owned by Chinese leasing firms.
They are the 307,300-dwt Noble, Nautica (both built 2008) and Newton (built 2009).
Euronav also revealed it has continued with the adoption and consumption of biofuel blends within the fleet to cut emissions.
Suezmax and VLCC supplied
Two B-30 blends were loaded onto ships out of Rotterdam, taking advantage of the “price discrepancy of standard petroleum fuel to bio-blended fuel afforded by the carbon credit scheme implemented by the government of the Netherlands”, it said.
A total of 500 tonnes were bunkered by the 150,000-dwt suezmax Saphirra (built 2008) and the 299,000-dwt VLCC Ardeche (built 2017), supplied by GoodFuels.
The fuel will be used primarily during emission control area transits, as well as in port operations.
The green bunkers will reduce CO2 emissions by 28%, Euronav said.
“Euronav will continue to seek opportunities to further supply bio-blended residual and gasoil fuels to our fleet to help reduce our CO2 and GHG emissions,” the company added.
