Two major Greek shipowners have added suezmax tankers to their newbuilding orderbooks.
George Economou’s Cardiff Marine and Spiros Polemis-controlled Polembros Shipping have added the versatile vessels to their catalogue.
Multiple shipbuilding sources said Cardiff Marine has ordered two vessels, while Polembros has signed up for one ship, all at Chinese shipyards.
Sources said Cardiff Marine has doubled the number of suezmaxes it has placed at Jiangsu New Hantong Ship Heavy Industry to four with this latest deal.
“These two newbuildings are option vessels that Cardiff [Marine] held at Jiangsu Hantong when it inked its first two tankers last year,” said one shipbuilding source.
Cardiff Marine is believed to be paying between $83m and $86m each for the scrubber-fitted 157,000-dwt crude carriers. It is scheduled to take delivery of the quartet in 2026.
The Polembros suezmax will be constructed by New Times Shipbuilding, where the owner already has two similar vessels on order.
The first two ships in the series were ordered last year and are scheduled to be delivered in April and May 2025, as TradeWinds has previously reported.
Its latest tanker newbuilding will be delivered in October of the same year.
Sources said New Times has “squeezed out” two 2025 slots for suezmax tankers and Polembros has acquired one of the berths.
The other berth was sold to Singapore’s Eastern Pacific Shipping in a newbuilding deal TradeWinds reported in January.
There has been a constant stream of suezmax orders during the past two years.
Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network shows the orderbook for suezmaxes at 67, of which 58 were contracted last year.
Banchero Costa global head of research Ralph Leszczynski said suezmaxes are an attractive size vessel now, given the growth in long-haul Russian oil exports.
“Russian ports have draught issues, so about 45% of Russian crude oil exports go on suezmaxes and about 55% on aframax tankers,” Leszczynski said.
He added that Russian oil export volumes have grown over the past three years despite sanctions.
“The only effect of the sanctions is that flows changed, with most of the Russian exports going to India, Turkey and China. So, trades which used to be Baltic-UKC or Black Sea-Mediterranean have turned into Baltic-India trade, but using the same vessel types.
“Europe has been replacing Russian oil with volumes from the USA, North Africa and West Africa, which also benefits suezmax and aframax tankers.
“Whilst suezmaxes are a sector which is best placed at the moment to capitalise on both Russian exports to Asia, but also on USA exports to western Europe.”
