Following up on a string of Greek tanker sales at elevated prices, Athens-based Prime Marine Management concluded a profitable sale deal for a pair of Croatian-built product carriers.
According to market sources in the Greek capital, the Stathis Topouzoglou-led company agreed to divest the 75,000-dwt Arctic Char and George B (both built 2008) in an en bloc deal.
Unidentified interests are said to be spending $41m on the Brodosplit-built, ice-class 1A tanker pair.
The $20.5m that each of the vessels fetched on average is far above the $17.5m-to-$18m that changed hands in late June for another LR1 tanker of the same size, the South-Korean built, 75,000-dwt Energy Centurion (renamed Avra Patros, built 2008).
In a sign of how quickly tanker S&P markets move, the price is also above the $19.1m to $19.8m that Signal Ocean’s data platform calculates the George B and Arctic Char are currently worth.
A sale would also represent an asset play for the Prime Marine.
Until late last year, both the George B and Arctic Char were in the fleet of Sweden’s Marinvest, trading as Sunny Lynx and Sunny Leopard respectively.
According to Clarksons, Prime Marine bought the two ships at the end of November, presumably for about $13.2m each.
Their sale to Prime Marine came soon after Marinvest sold its entire fleet to Clean Sea Transport (CST) — a joint venture between the MSea Group, Scorpio Tankers and US private equity fund Arkview Capital.
CST had probably little use for the two conventionally fuelled LR1s after buying Marinvest, since the whole purpose of its buying the Swedish company was to focus on Marinvest's more modern, dual-fuel MR methanol carriers.
The elevated price levels observed for the George B and the Arctic Char are also reflected in another LR1 deal reported by brokers in the US and the Athens, in which Turkish buyers are said to be spending $21m on OceanGold Tankers' 74,400-dwt Alpine Penelope (built 2008).
