Stena Bulk and Grindrod Shipping have reportedly sold MR vessels amid healthy appetite for tanker assets from bargain hunters.
Brokers reported that Stena recently disposed of the 47,300-dwt Stena Concert (built 2004) to unknown Chinese or Middle Eastern interests for $10.1m.
When contacted, Stena confirmed that the ship — built by Croatian shipyard Uljanik — was sold but declined to provide more details.
Grindrod was reported to be selling the 50,000-dwt Leopard Sun and Leopard Moon (both built 2013) for $21.4m each.
The pair, constructed by South Korea’s SPP Shipbuilding, had previously been under the commercial management of Vitol affiliate Mansel.
Italy's Navigazione Montanari is rumoured to be the buyer, but this could not be immediately confirmed.
TradeWinds has approached Grindrod and Navigazione Montanari for comment.
Grindrod has been scaling down its tanker business in recent quarters by selling and redelivering MRs.
Weak asset prices
If the sales go through, the Nasdaq-listed company will have only the 16,900-dwt Breede (built 2009) and 50,100-dwt Matuku (built 2016) left in its tanker fleet.
Sentiment in the secondhand tanker market has been weak in recent months, as freight earnings fall to multi-year lows amid severe tonnage oversupply.
“Tanker prices are much softer than six months ago ... There are plenty of bargain hunters around,” a London broker said.
“But it’s hard to find them cheap tonnage. The lower the prices are, the less keen sellers are.”
Uneven recovery
With oil demand forecast to rise amid mass Covid-19 vaccination across the globe, many analysts expect tanker rates to recover gradually throughout the year.
“The outlook for the market is positive, but improvements will come from a very low base and 2021 is likely to be a weak year,” Maritime Strategies International said in its monthly tanker report.
VesselsValue data shows secondhand prices of LR1s, LR2s, aframaxes and VLCCs in most age groups are already showing increases this year. Prices of MRs and suezmaxes continue to fall.
But Banchero Costa research head Ralph Leszczynski cautioned that secondhand markets may not reflect supply-demand fundamentals, saying tanker values were pushed up by those involved in sanctioned trades.
“The market was distorted by a quite substantial number of sales for shadow Venezuelan and Iranian trade projects, where buyers were ready to pay prices significantly above market as long as everything was done on a ‘no questions asked’ basis,” he said.
“Potential sellers who actually wanted full transparency on the buyers were facing very little interest on the market and were being offered much lower prices.”
