In the teeth of lousy freight rates that have visibly slowed down the secondhand market for tankers, some Greek companies have pursued fleet renewal efforts by disposing of their oldest ships.
Minerva Marine, one of the most consistent tanker sellers in the ongoing slump in the tanker cycle, has offloaded one more vessel.
Earlier this month, the Andreas Martinos-led company deleted the 105,300-dwt Minerva Nike (built 2004) from its website.
According to market sources in Athens, this was done after the Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries-built ship was sold to a third party for further trading.
Price details for the transaction remain unknown since this seems to have been a private and confidential deal that escaped brokers' attention.
The Minerva Nike thus becomes the ninth tanker that Minerva has sold since mid-2020, the others consist of six aframaxes, one LR2 and one VLCC.
None of the company’s fleet of about 60 tankers has been built before 2004. The sale of the Minerva Nike leaves the outfit with nine ships built that year — seven aframaxes and two MRs.
Minerva has not shied from selling younger ships as well. In another move this summer, which went unnoticed by brokers as well, the company offloaded the 105,500-dwt Minerva Indiana (renamed Beks Indiana, built 2007) to Turkey’s Beks Ship Management.
Beks managers have confirmed the purchase of the Minerva Indiana. However, they said they have nothing to do with the Minerva Nike deal.
Latsis second time lucky
Another shipowner that has managed to offload a tanker is Latsco.
Ship management sources in Athens said Latsco has sold the 51,200-dwt MR2 Hellas Explorer (built 2008), one of its two oldest ships, for $12.8m. Company executives did not respond to a request for comment.
The Latsis family outfit circulated the vessel for sale in December 2020, alongside the sistership Hellas Enterprise. TradeWinds even reported in May that the ship likely found a buyer for between $13m and $13.5m.
However, no such deal materialised and the vessel stayed in the Latsco fleet. The fact that the Hellas Explorer is now sold at a lower price shows that secondhand tanker values have finally begun to be affected by the slump in freight rates.
Given the depth and the length of the tanker malaise, secondhand prices were surprisingly robust over much of the year. For a long time, they found support in countercyclical moves by players who bought tankers to position themselves for a recovery.
The sale of the Hellas Explorer, which TradeWinds understands has been committed to Greek peer Astra Shipmanagement, confirms that such positioning still continues. But it is happening at lower price levels and focused on MRs, where freight rates fare comparably better than in other tanker segments.
“Enquiry [for MRs] still remains vivid, but ... [as] the expected recovery has yet to manifest, they [buyers] now see an opportunity to position themselves as low as possible,” Athens-based Seaborne Shipbrokers wrote in a recent market report.
In another MR deal, several brokers have reported the sale of the 45,800-dwt Amelia Pacific (built 2006) for a little more than $8m. However, TradeWinds understands that no deal has been concluded for the vessel yet.
