Restructured Concordia Maritime has offloaded another tanker as it seeks to boost its liquidity and cut costs.
The Stockholm-listed company was refinanced last year by its parent Stena and its lenders in weak markets, signalling that vessel sales were on the cards.
The 65,000-dwt P-Max product carrier Stena President (built 2007) has now been offloaded to an unnamed Greek buyer, Concordia said.
VesselsValue assesses the ship as worth $9.3m. The tanker cost $37m as a newbuilding.
The Stena President was linked by brokers to a January sale to unknown Nigerian interests at $11.2m, but Concordia chief executive Erik Lewenhaupt said the vessel had not been sold at that time.
The Greek deal will add $600,000 to liquidity as bank debt is paid off early.
The undisclosed price was affected by the vessel being sold in an undocked condition and by a continuing low spot market, Concordia admitted.
The ship is due a 15-year special survey in the third quarter.
“The weak tanker market during Q1 poses continued challenges for Concordia Maritime,” said the CEO on Wednesday.
“The sale of Stena President is made to avoid docking costs and strengthen the company’s financial position. Further sales cannot be ruled out unless we see a lasting recovery in the tanker transport market,” he added.
Impairment booked
In January, the owner took an impairment loss on the value of its tankers after the sale of a product carrier confirmed that prices had slumped.
The company took a hit of SEK 268m ($29.1m) across its fleet, which will be made up of eight product carriers in addition to a bareboat-chartered suezmax crude tanker following the latest sale.
The 65,200-dwt Stena Perros (built 2007) went for just under $11.3m, brokers said.
The buyer has not been revealed, but Concordia said it went to an oil company with operations in Africa.
Concordia also sold off two MR2s in 2021 and the company is considering converting one or more P-Max vessels to carry containers in booming liner markets.
Greek buyers make counter-cyclical moves
Meanwhile, several Greek companies have undertaken counter-cyclical tanker buying this year, from MRs to suezmaxes.
An unidentified Greek owner is believed to be spending $9.5m on a Norden MR, the 38,300-dwt Nord Snow Queen (built 2008).
Aerio Shipmanagement has emerged as the new owner of the 109,600-dwt Zantoro (renamed Sea Senor, built 2006), which Fleetscape reportedly sold last month for about $13m.
And Sea Hawk, previously a pure-play bulker company, acquired two MR ships from Hafnia.
TradeWinds already reported the 40,000-dwt Hafnia Hope (renamed Aida, built 2007) changing hands for between $9m and $9.5m.
Now sistership Hafnia Karava has changed hands between Hafnia and Sea Hawk as well, for about $9.2m, and is now trading with the Greek company as Anael.
In an all-Greek deal, Astra Ship Management expanded into LRs with the purchase of Prime Marine’s 73,900-dwt Polar Cod (renamed Megali, built 2007) for $11.7m.
Moving on to bigger sizes, World Carrier Corp swooped on a suezmax previously owned by Nordic American Tankers — the 164,200-dwt Nordic Mistral (renamed Cactus, built 2002) for a price close to $16m.