Hafnia has taken advantage of a market run on smaller tankers to offload some of its oldest units.
Following a string of sales since December, the Oslo-listed, BW Group-owned tanker owner sold a trio of handysize MRs for $35.5m in total, according to brokers and ship management sources in Athens and London.
The ships are the 39,800-dwt Hafnia Rainier, Hafnia Robson and 40,000-dwt Hafnia Adamello (all built 2004), built at Saiki Heavy Industries in Japan.
The Hafnia Rainier had been chartered out to PSTV Energy DMCC until June, earning $13,250 per day.
The average price of about $11.8m provides further evidence of robust demand for such ships amid rising freight rates and lucrative trading opportunities spurred by the war in Ukraine.
Sources said the deal for the three vessels was struck three weeks ago.
Managers at Hafnia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A transaction, however, appears logical, given steadily climbing ship values.
Hafnia’s latest annual report valued the trio at $7m each at the end of December. This is in line with the $9m and $9.5m that it raised from a sale around the turn of the year of the younger 40,000-dwt sisterships Hafnia Hope and Hafnia Karava (both built 2007) to Greece’s Sea Hawk Maritime.
Valuations have not stopped climbing since.
As TradeWinds reported, Hafnia shook out the 40,000-dwt Hafnia Victoria and Hafnia Green (both built 2007). The 15-year-old ships were sold in mid-June at prices comparable to the ones fetched in early July by the 18-year-old Hafnia Rainier, Hafnia Robson and Hafnia Adamello.
Several sources said the ships were acquired by Turkish interests.
Some identified the buyers with Istanbul-based Beks Ship Management & Trading — a serial buyer of secondhand tankers, which has not concealed its appetite to expand further.
Hafnia and its parent BW Group are not restricting their tanker sales to MRs.
Earlier in July, the 73,500-dwt LR1 BW Lara (built 2004) emerged in the fleet of Greece’s Chemnav Shipmanagement under its new name, Lara.
Some shipbroking sources suggested that the deal was concluded in May for about $15m.
Hafnia is disposing of older vessels while expanding its fleet with more modern ones.
In January, it completed an acquisition of 44 chemical tankers and LR1s from the fleets of Chemical Tankers Inc (CTI) and Scorpio Tankers.
At the end of March, Hafnia agreed to flip six former CTI vessels for $252.4m.
Chief executive Mikael Skov expressed optimism in May that product tanker markets will achieve “new heights” in the upcoming quarters.
Hafnia may be seeking ammunition for further moves. On 18 July, it sought shareholder authorisation for a potential capital increase worth $653m to provide it “with a greater degree of flexibility”.
At the end of the first quarter of 2022, the company owned 126 vessels and chartered in 13, from chemical tankers to LR2s.
