The rising tide of tanker values does not just open a window for spectacular asset plays. It also rewards shipowners who have been patient enough to hold onto their ships and trade them through thick and thin over the years.
In a demonstration of this, Greek shipowner Thenamaris is said to be selling two tankers for nearly the same amount of money it spent to purchase them almost a decade ago.
This means that the Nikolas Martinos-led company essentially covered the ships’ entire acquisition cost while pocketing the trading income they generated through the years as unalloyed net profit.
The first of these vessels is the 39,600-dwt MR tanker Seamercury (built 2003). London-based brokers have reported that the product carrier has gone to undisclosed buyers for about $11m.
That is almost as much as the $12.2m that Thenamaris spent to acquire the ship almost 10 years ago, in February 2013.
US-based brokers have reported Thenamaris repeated the same trick with a second, somewhat younger and bigger vessel. The 46,200-dwt Seabright (built 2006) is said to have found buyers for $18m.
Thenamaris purchased the vessel in October 2014 for about $18.6m from France’s Socatra.
Fortune favours the patient
To highlight how far tanker values have increased in recent months, it is worth pointing out that Thenamaris circulated the Seabright for sale before in February 2021.
Had Thenamaris agreed to a deal at that time, it could expect to receive about $12m — one-third less than the price it is said to have concluded now.
Thenamaris has sold other older tankers as well recently, benefiting from surging values in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
Earlier in the year, the company sold the 40,000-dwt Seaexplorer (built 2003) to Turkey’s Beks Ship Management & Trading for about $9m and sistership Seacrown I to Transgas of Peru for about $8.5m.
If confirmed, the additional sale of the Seamercury now would leave Thenamaris with a single tanker of about that age — the 39,400-dwt Seamerit (built 2002).
As it has shaken off the oldest tankers in its mixed fleet of about 100 ships, Thenamaris has been taking delivery of newbuildings and expands in new directions.
Between June and August, the shipping giant took delivery from Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding of a pair of 50,000-dwt MR tankers, went on to order a pair of 115,000-dwt LR2s at the same yard, took delivery of two kamsarmax bulker newbuildings from Nantong Cosco KHI Ship Engineering and acquired its first LNG carriers on the secondhand market.
