UK shipping fund Tufton Oceanic Assets is continuing to expand its tanker fleet with another product tanker acquisition.
The London-listed company did not provide details of the ship, but the price of $31.5m suggests the vessel is a 50,000-dwt MR unit built in or around 2015, according to broker estimates.
The ship is being acquired at 90% of depreciated replacement cost, and the company is now fully invested.
Tufton will place the tanker in a leading product tanker pool where the current net unlevered yield is more than 25%.
“We anticipate that the yield will remain above 20% over the next one to two years, during which time we will decide if a longer-term fixed-rate charter is more appropriate,” Tufton said.
Completion of the acquisition is expected by early July. The company now has 10 tankers, as well as bulkers, an LPG carrier and one remaining container vessel.
Tufton said that similar to the 51,000-dwt MR Emma Grace (built 2015) bought for $30.9m at the end of 2021, the new addition is in the top quartile of fuel efficiency in its market segment.
But the ship “will nonetheless be evaluated for further improvement”, including the retrofit of energy-saving devices, the company added.
The tanker is being acquired at only a slightly higher price than the Emma Grace, despite rising MR values.
Tufton is divesting container ship assets and last month sold the 8,204-teu container ship MSC Paris (built 2006) for $31m.
Bulker bought
This vessel was bought from Hammonia Reederei in 2019 for an undisclosed price.
The vessel is chartered to Mediterranean Shipping Co. Brokers said the buyer is an unknown Swiss company.
Bulkers continue to be of interest to Tufton as well.
In May, Bermuda-based owner Interlink Maritime sold its 39,000-dwt open-hatch handysize Interlink Dignity (built 2015) to the company for $26.3m.
