The Tsakos Group of Greece has sold its oldest tanker amid a string of sales of elderly suezmaxes.
The Nikolas Tsakos-led company's private interests have sold the 164,000-dwt Silia T (built 2002), brokers said.
The Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries-built tanker has gone to an undisclosed buyer, they said.
The tanker, which underwent its last special survey in June 2017, fetched $15.5m in the sale, the brokers said.
The Tsakos Group did not reply to requests for comment.
The Silia T is the oldest in the Tsakos fleet and was earlier in the stable of Tsakos Energy Navigation, the group's New York-listed arm.
Tsakos Group put the ship on the sale-and-purchase market in March 2019.
The price tag for the ship is stronger than expected. VesselsValue, a UK-based valuation platform, estimates the tanker is worth just $14.5m.
But German shipowner Ernst Jacob has sold a similar South Korean-built tanker, the 159,000-dwt Nell Jacob (built 2003), for $15.7m, European brokers said. The ship was built at Samsung Heavy Industries.
Earnst Jacob bought the tanker from Italy’s Premuda for $54m in July 2003, when it was named Four Sun.
That deal included a five-year time charter that increased from $22,000 per day at the start to $26,000 per day. Ernst Jacob did not respond to requests for comment.
TradeWinds reported on 23 February that Norway’s Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Skipsrederi sold the 158,000-dwt coated tanker SKS Segura (built 2007) for $20m.
Sources have since said the ship went for a higher price of $23.75m.
