A firming market for secondhand tankers in the clean product trade has helped spur Connecticut’s Ridgebury Tankers and Peter Georgiopoulos-led United Overseas Group (UOG) to discard 14-year-old tankers.

For Bob Burke-led Ridgebury, it is a matter of starting 2023 the same way it went through 2022 — by selling tankers.

Ridgebury’s first sale of the 50,200-dwt Katherine Z (built 2009), the first offloaded by the company this year, follows the disposals of 17 tankers within 2022 in what Burke has said amounted to unwinding investments by multiple clients.

TradeWinds has been able to confirm broker reports that the MR2, which has been trading in the Norden Tanker Pool, has been sold to unidentified buyers for $25m.

VesselsValue has the tanker valued at $24.7m, well up from a $21m valuation last August and the tanker’s highest estimated price since 2016.

Ridgebury has owned the tanker since August 2013, having paid $29m for the vessel then called Yasa Marmaris from Yasa Tankers of Turkey, according to VesselsValue.

Burke told TradeWinds last October that a broadened mandate and a diversified investor base were behind a spate of sales that had seen the company offload 15 tankers to that point — or more than half of the fleet.

The Westport, Connecticut, company is down to eight tankers at present.

About two years ago, the outfit evolved from being fully backed by private equity’s Riverstone Holdings into a platform managing separate investment vehicles for multiple investors including Riverstone, Burke said.

As such, the company does not own a single fleet and its decisions reflect the best moves for individual investments rather than a single “house” view, he said.

The other MR2 sale confirmed by TradeWinds involves UOG, the Greece-based company controlled by partners Georgiopoulos and long-time lieutenant Leo Vrondissis.

Bob Burke is chief executive of Ridgebury Tankers. Photo: Marine Money

UOG has sold the 50,000-dwt product and chemical carrier UOG Andros (built 2009) for between $23m and $24m, TradeWinds has confirmed. Gardsea Shipping — an entity linked to India’s Gatik Shipping — was reported by brokers to be the buyer.

The tanker has been assigned a price of $23.7m by VesselsValue. That is up from a valuation of $18.2m last June, and is also the tanker’s highest estimate since 2016.

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The tanker was formerly owned by United Arab Chemical Carriers, which was acquired by Georgiopoulos and Vrondissis in a deal disclosed in January 2021.

The unit originally was ordered by Top Ships of Greece in 2006 and went to UACC as a resale for an undisclosed price, according to VesselsValue.

“We may sell a few of the older ships — there’s no set plan right now. But there’s never been a set plan. It’s always take what the market gives us,” Georgiopoulos told TradeWinds at Marine Money’s conference in New York last June.

Harry Papachristou
contributed to this article