Middle Eastern shipowner Asyad Shipping Co has invited offers on three of the oldest VLCCs in its mixed fleet of vessels.
Brokers name the scrubber-fitted vessels as the 316,373-dwt Fida and Sifa (both built 2011) and 299,991-dwt Saham (built 2010). They said they were put on the market in the middle of this week.
They detailed that the owners — the former Oman Shipping Co — are open to the vessels being sold individually or en bloc.
There is also the prospect of securing charter back deals on the ships.
Bids are invited by 6 July.
The group is listed as controlling 15 VLCCs built between 2010 and 2020.
Those who follow the company indicate that the sales are likely part of a natural fleet-renewal process by the state-owned entity as it weeds out some of its older vessels. But they said the recent strong market may have prompted the move to offload the vessels.
Brokers said last-done deals on VLCCs of this age vary from between $64.5m to just over $67m.
Tanker owners describe the three ships that are up for sale as “mid-tier” VLCCs and said they still have “a decent trading life ahead of them”.
One owner said sales recently have tended to focus on the ships of a 2002 to 2005 vintage or very modern ships so these could, “to a degree”, set the market for VLCCs of this age.
In another reported VLCC deal, which is believed to have been finalised earlier, Greek shipowner Thenamaris has emerged as new owner of the 299,000-dwt Athenian Glory (renamed Athina, built 2011).
No price details have emerged but brokers believe the vessel’s previous owner — Athenian Tankers — agreed to offload it in April. This is part of Athenian Tankers’ pivot away from large tankers — of which the company now has just two left — towards smaller chemical carriers, where it has four newbuildings under construction.
However, the Athenian Glory transaction may go back even further than April. According to Equasis figures, Thenamaris has been the vessel’s commercial manager since early last year.
Seeing Thenamaris add a secondhand tanker to its fleet is rare these days, as the major Greek owner has been mostly in the business of selling them lately.
According to estimates by TradeWinds, the company has greatly benefited from the tanker boom, receiving about half a billion dollars in gross proceeds over the past 15 months from the sale of 18 ageing oil carriers.
