Norway’s Viken Shipping has generated $91m in sales since June and has signalled that it is looking to sell more ships.
Brokers reported that the blue-chip tanker owner has sold the 158,500-dwt suezmax Dolviken (built 2012) to Advantage Tankers for $42.5m, a price that reflects a fresh special survey.
Tugrul Tokgoz, chief executive of the Swiss-based buyer, confirmed the purchase to TradeWinds.
The vessel is fixed with “a well-known trader for three-and-a-half years”.
“[We] believe we will have a strong tanker market for a good period of time,” he added. “We will be getting deliveries of our for dual-fuel VLCCs from Daewoo within the fourth quarter of 2022 and will continue to expand.”
Tokgoz said Advantage will remain active in “both clean and crude with almost all sizes”.
Some in the market believe the time for bargains in tanker sale-and-purchase has passed, including officials of Germanys Hanse Bereederung in recent comments to TradeWinds.
Tokgoz largely disagrees.
“Asset prices are getting higher and higher, but earnings are same, so the question is how long the market will continue with today’s earnings,” he said
“You can today charter out for long-term periods with very healthy levels, so the earnings are justifying the asset prices -- but not in all segments. VLCC numbers do not work right now, whereas aframax and suezmax work well,” Tokgoz told TradeWinds.
The sale by Tom Steckmest-controlled Viken is its first after the private, long-term charter-oriented Norwegian tanker owner signalled a possible series of vessel sales to cash in on rising values.
Viken chairman Hans Olav Lindal did not respond to requests for comment from TradeWinds. But in a recent interview with Oslo business newspaper Finansavisen, he pointed to the opportunities that the low orderbook presents.
“We will consider a calibration of tonnage based on this over the next six to 12 months, and we have some sales candidates in the fleet,” he told the Norwegian newspaper.
Lindal did not expand further on the company’s sales strategy, but Viken has been selling from the older end of its fleet. In June, it raised $48.5m on the sale of an aframax and a suezmax to undisclosed Greek buyers.
Not counting ships for delivery to new owners, Viken has seven more vessels in its fleet that are older than the Dolviken, according to VesselsValue, ranging from MR1 product tanker to suezmax. VesselsValue gives those ships a value of $132m.
Viken also controls a sistership to Dolviken through a joint venture with Bergen neighbour Ludwig Mowinckels Rederi, valued at $40m.
The rest of Viken’s ships — two small product tankers, three aframaxes and a suezmax — are significantly younger, and VesselsValue pegs them at just under $280m.
Advantage has been active as a seller and buyer over the past 12 months, spending a reported total of $173m on buying an aframax in November, two Scorpio LR2 product tankers en bloc in March and the Viken suezmax.
The Turkish-linked company will now have a fleet of eight tankers from MR to suezmax and four VLCCs on order, as well as seven aframax and suezmax tankers on bareboat charter from lease financier Fleetscape Capital.
Three more former Fleetscape-financed tankers from the Advantage fleet are now owned by third parties but remain under Advantage’s commercial control, with the prefix Amax.
