US-listed Top Ships has agreed to sell a pair of modern MR2 tankers in a deal highlighting persistent interest in such vessels, despite the blues in the oil carrier market.

According to market sources and broker reports in Greece and the US, Top Ships is in the process of disposing of the 50,200-dwt MR sisterships Eco Los Angeles and Eco City of Angels (both built 2020) at a price of $36.5m each.

Brokers said the vessels’ buyers are Europeans, with some identifying them as Norden.

Managers at both Top Ships and Norden declined to comment.

A deal would continue a trend that saw Top Ships parting with several MR2s in a pivot to larger suezmaxes and VLCCs. In April, the company offloaded the 49,000-dwt Nord Valiant (built 2016), which was its oldest vessel, to Dee4 Capital for $26.8m.

In January, Top Ships sold three MR2 newbuildings in a complex deal that saw it acquire a stake in two VLCC newbuildings of its principal Evangelos Pistiolis in exchange. Two months before that transaction, Top Ships sold an MR2 trio en bloc to JP Morgan for $110m.

The $73m price tag for the Eco Los Angeles and the Eco City of Angels far exceeds the $60.2m at which Top Ships refinanced the vessels in a sale-and-leaseback deal with Avic International Leasing in September 2019.

The sale price to Norden or another European owner, however, also takes into consideration secured proceeds from the vessels' ongoing employment. The high-spec, scrubber-equipped Eco Los Angeles and Eco City of Angels are on three-year timecharters with Trafigura at $17,500 per day, which expire in the first quarter of 2023.

The charters can be extended for a further year at $18,750 per day, as well as for yet another one until early 2025, at $20,000 per day.

It was on the back of that secured employment that Top Ships purchased the vessels in December 2019 for $7.2m each from the private Pistiolis entity that ordered them at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard (HMD).

Shift in strategy?

A deal for the two ships provides further proof of the popularity of MRs in an otherwise unexciting secondhand tanker market.

Clarksons described the vessels' sale as "the headline sale of the week".

A purchase by Norden in particular may also mark a shift in the company's strategy, which had largely consisted over the past 18 months in selling tankers and buying bulkers.

Norden said in a statement on 12 October that after selling six tankers and buying 13 bulkers in that period, it was now "converting the added market value to profit".

As part of that strategy, Norden has already started disposing of bulkers, selling seven panamaxes and supramaxes in recent months.

The Eco City of Angels and Eco Los Angeles would be the first MR2 tankers bought by the company since late 2019, according to available records.

In August Norden chief executive Jan Rindbo expressed the belief that tankers were at the bottom of the market and could see a meaningful improvement in 2022.