Greece’s Prime Marine Management has sold an 18-year-old LR1 product tanker for demolition and is in advanced talks to offload another one.

The deals, which mark Prime Marine's first demolition sales in nearly nine years, are characteristic for an accelerating trend of Greeks scrapping crude and product carriers built after 2000.

Rising demolition prices have encouraged such deals, especially when they concern vessels nearing their special survey, as in the case of the 70,300-dwt tanker Walleye (built 2003), which Prime Marine sold in India for green recycling at $617 per ldt, according to ship-management sources in Athens.

A similar deal is underway for sistership Muskie, which is set to go for $620 per ldt.

These prices correspond to a demolition value of about $8.6m for each of the two South Korean-built vessels, which is just slightly below what they would have fetched in the secondhand market, according to broker estimates.

This is probably due to the fact that LR1s are rarely sold for further trading as secondhand buyers focus on other types of ships, mainly MRs and aframaxes.

In another example, Greece's New Shipping is believed to have sold the 159,900-dwt suezmax Cape Balder (built 2000) in Pakistan for about $610 per ldt in September.

MR ships and aframaxes must be considerably older to appear as attractive demolition candidates.

Andreas Hadjiyiannis company Hellenic Tankers recently scrapped the 107,100-dwt Aframax River (built 1996) at an undisclosed price.

Coral Shipping reportedly offloaded the 38,700-dwt Aris (built 2001) "as is" in Dubai for $585 per ldt. Company managers were not immediately available to comment. Coral has been circulating the vessel as a sale candidate since January.

Smaller Greek tankers sold for scrap recently are at the 20-year-age mark as well. Aerio Shipmanagement’s 19,800-dwt Gema (built 2001) is said to have fetched $616 per ldt, or $4.6m. The company was known to be in close talks to sell the ship in August for about $5m, possibly for further trading.

TradeWinds already reported how Greece's European Navigation sold six MR tankers for demolition between April and July, all built in 2001. Mario Gialozoglou-led IMS SA scrapped three MRs so far this year, built in 1999 and 2000.

All in all, TradeWinds data show Greeks have sold 25 tankers for demolition since the start of 2021. Excluding two outliers built in 1982, their average age was exactly 20 years.

That compares with 11 Greek tankers sold throughout 2020 with a comparable average age of 22 years.