Is it a brief summer buying lull, or finally a sign that tanker players will be no longer acquiring vessels at any price?
Over the past few weeks, brokers have been noticing a marked slowdown in the pace of the secondhand market amid soaring values for used tankers.
That slowdown has now turned into a halt.
According to official company statements and broker reports tracked by TradeWinds, no fresh tanker sales have been reported since 29 June, when United Maritime Corp announced the disposal of its last tanker — the 109,600-dwt Epanastasea (built 2008).
One transaction widely reported this week is actually an older one, which just happened to come to the surface now.
Greece’s Horizon Tankers has parted ways with one of its four 2011-built suezmaxes — the 158,700-dwt Melodia — at a bumper price of between $47.5m and $48m.
The fact that the vessel has already changed hands and is trading as of this month under its new name of Li Bai suggests that this is an older transaction, which is not necessarily representative of the current state of the market.
Information on the VesselsValue website confirms that this deal was originally concluded in May. According to the Signal Ocean data platform, the vessel completed its last known journey at the time, delivering a crude cargo from the Middle East to Singapore.
Brokers speculate that the Melodia’s new owners are Middle Eastern, Indian or Chinese — exactly the type of buyers that have fuelled a tanker-buying frenzy in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
However, after catapulting asset prices to previously unimaginable levels, the buying appetite has dried up.
“Given the current liquidity levels, it seems rather obvious that buying appetite has been excessively stagnant, especially at this asset value regime,” analysts at Allied QuantumSea said in their latest market report on 3 July.
On the same day, BRS Group predicted that tanker values will soften amid slackening demand for older ships to carry Russian oil.
“With 70% of Russian oil exports now carried by the mainstream fleet under the price caps, there is less need for grey tonnage,” the Paris-based brokering house said.
Market players speaking at conferences seem to be sharing the view that prices are unlikely to rise further.
“In my opinion, the secondhand market has reached a ceiling,” said Stavros Dimitros, head of commercial operations at Interorient Marine Services, at the eighth Global Shipbrokers Forum in Piraeus on 29 June.
Among the last companies to have benefited from soaring price levels around that time were Minerva Marine, which has offloaded the 105,300-dwt Minerva Zoe (built 2004), as well as SK Shipping, which found buyers for the 105,300-dwt Pro Triumph (built 2009).
TradeWinds has already reported on both of these deals.
Another June transaction that went below the radar was that of the 158,700-dwt Sonangol Kassanje (built 2005).
Angolan state energy firm Sonangol is believed to have cashed in the ageing suezmax for between $34m and $37m.
Several brokers identify United Arab Emirates-based Infinity Ships as the buyer.
