After committing considerable sums to a wide-ranging newbuilding programme, Greek owner Samos Steamship is said to be freeing up cash through the sale of its oldest suezmax.
Undisclosed interests, possibly from Turkey, are spending between $67.5m and $67.8m on the company’s 156,200-dwt Karvounis (built 2013), according to several brokers in Athens, London and the US.
Managers at Samos did not respond to a request for comment.
A sale, however, would be tempting, as the reported price level far exceeds the $63.7m that Signal Ocean estimates the tanker is worth. VesselsValue puts an even lower price tag of $59.3m on the Karvounis.
Several of the ship’s characteristics go a long way towards justifying the premium reportedly achieved by the vessel.
The Karvounis has been trading with Samos since it was delivered as a newbuilding by Sumitomo Heavy Industries.
Furthermore, it has several high-spec notations and is equipped with an open-loop scrubber installed on it last year.
According to the Clarksons database, the Karvounis also has partially coated cargo tanks and passed its special survey last August.
All these features would make the ship an attractive sale candidate in a sale-and-purchase market in which buyers have been reluctant of late, discouraged by sky-high secondhand values.
Busy fleet renewal
The cash inflow from the sale of the Karvounis would help fund Samos’ extensive newbuilding programme.
As TradeWinds reported late last month, the Inglessis family company boosted its orderbook to about $340m worth of newbuilding projects at four Japanese yards.
Samos disclosed on its website that it had ordered a 300,000-dwt VLCC at Japan Marine United and a 115,000-dwt aframax at Sumitomo, as well as one 82,000-dwt bulk carrier each at Sanoyas Shipbuilding and Oshima Shipbuilding.
Its most recent orders will be delivered in the first half of 2025.
The four newbuildings come hot on the heels of one VLCC, two aframaxes and two capesizes, which the Greek company took delivery of in early 2023, as well as a single 115,000-dwt aframax that is under construction at Sumitomo and which will join the fleet by the end of this year.
Samos is a loyal customer of Japanese shipyards, which have built its entire diverse fleet.
The company has currently 16 tankers and eight owned or operated bulkers on the water, with an average age of about seven years.
