Tom Steckmest’s Viken Shipping is reshuffling its product tanker holdings with the reported sale of the last of three MR1 product tankers followed by the acquisition of two larger MR2 tankers of slightly older vintage.
The latest MR1 sale to an unknown owner immediately follows the recent sale of two MR1 sister ships that have both now emerged in the Russian trades.
Bergen shipowner Steckmest has been an outspoken critic of European tanker owners and charterers doing business with Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.
Multiple broking reports late last week reported the sale of the 37,874-dwt Norviken (built 2010) to unknown buyers. Price levels of between $22m and $24m have been reported.
Viken bought the Norviken in 2018 for a reported $17.1m.
Until recently, Viken traded it along with two other Hyundai Mipo Dockyard-built sister ships, all of which were acquired in an en-bloc sale from Germany’s Rigel Schiffahrts in 2018.
In early March, Viken sold two of them, the 37,900-dwt MR1 pair Inviken and Utviken (both built 2009), for $20m each. Viken had reportedly paid Rigel $15.8m and $15.6m, respectively, for them.
The buyers of the Inviken and Utviken were identified at the time in broking reports only as European. The IHS Maritime reference website now places the pair in the fleet of Greece’s Spring Marine Management, an active asset trader.
But after their handover to Spring Marine in late March, both the Inviken and Utviken proceeded directly to the Russian Black Sea port of Tuapse. The ships arrived there in ballast early this week under their new names of Flamenco and Regueton.
The Norviken, the third ship in the former Rigel trio, is currently discharging at Gibraltar.
Undisclosed buyers
Officials at Viken did not respond to requests for comment. Spring Marine has also been approached for a statement.
TradeWinds has recently reported that Russia’s need for export tonnage has coincided with a swelling demand for product tankers by undisclosed owners, who bought a reported 43 tankers in the first quarter of this year, against nine in the same period of 2022.
Separately, meanwhile, Bergen-based Viken was reported early this week to have bought two MR2 tankers from the fleet of Vitol-controlled Elandra Shipping.
Viken reportedly paid $24m per ship for the 50,696-dwt Elandra Blu and 50,607-dwt Elandra Corallo (both built 2008).
Elandra was reported last July to have bought both South Korean-built sister ships out of a charter from China’s ICBC Financial Leasing for $18m apiece.
Viken was also an active seller in 2022, when it concentrated on crude disposals, culling two aframaxes and three suezmaxes from its fleet.
The usually low-profile Steckmest made headlines in March 2022, when he spoke out against European owners and charterers profiting from Russian business, and sent a letter to the charterers of his ships asking them to avoid Russian cargoes.
That became known after TradeWinds reported on Viken’s substantial exposure to Russian business at the time Russia invaded Ukraine.
Viken chairman Hans Olav Lindal, who is a maritime lawyer as well as a shipowner, told TradeWinds at the time that the company was monitoring its charterers’ use of its vessels but had limits on what it could do “as long as the operations are within the limits defined in the charterparties, which are internationally recognised standard clauses applicable for worldwide trade”.
The Viken website currently lists a fleet of 14 ships, still including the Inviken, Utviken and Norviken but not yet including the two Elandra ships.
The privately owned Norwegian company identifies as a tonnage provider, and according to its website only makes investments based on “a certain tonnage requirement from the charterer”.
Viken’s long-term partners include oil majors Total and Petrobras in addition to traders Trafigura and Vitol and Japanese joint venture partner Mitsui OSK Lines.
The Norway outfit has overlapping shareholdings with family-founded Wallem Ship Management.
Steckmest’s right-hand man Lindal holds a minority share in the company, besides serving as a director of several shipping companies including the Bergen-based G2 Ocean open-hatch bulker partnership, and of the Norwegian Hull Club. He is a partner at Norway’s Thommessen law firm.
