With winter at hand and willing buyers looking harder for ice-class tonnage, German tanker player Chemikalien Seetransport (CST) has found an opportunity to shed a trio of ageing vessels.
Clarksons links the Hamburg-based company to a $54m en-bloc deal for the 37,700-dwt Chemtrans Leo, 37,600-dwt Chemtrans Mercury and 36,700-dwt Chemtrans Uranus (all built 2006).
The ships’ putative buyers are based in the United Arab Emirates.
“As we approach the winter months, there is no coincidence that this week’s report has been dominated by ice-class vessels,” Clarksons said in its latest weekly report.
CST managers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Christian Kramer-led company, however, is known to have carried out several tanker sales since 2022.
In the most recent one, Greece’s NGM group of companies emerged as the new owner of the 75,500-dwt product tanker Chemtrans Aegean (renamed Paloma, built 2007). TradeWinds reported the ship sold in October to undisclosed buyers for about $21.6m.
Product tankers without ice-class notation, however, are shifting busily as well.
According to other London-based brokers, a much younger ship — Singapore-based Pioneer Tankers’ 34,700-dwt MR1 Dictador (built 2019) — is fetching $29.2m.
A bigger MR2, the Scorpio pool-managed 49,900-dwt STI Amber (built 2012), is said to have found unknown buyers at $33.9m.
In a third deal, Greece’s Leon Shipping & Trading is reported to have netted $21.5m for its 40,400-dwt Leon Zeus (built 2008).
The MR1 tanker has already joined its new owners and is trading under the new Latin name of Ars Et Labor. European buyers are believed to be behind the deal.
Cornered Empire
Meanwhile, an all-Greek deal has been widely reported around the 50,000-dwt MR Euphrates (built 2008), which is said to be changing hands for between $20.2m and $20.8m.
Despite being a product tanker, the Chinese-built vessel last carried crude oil when it helped remove cargo from the 159,000-dwt Suez Rajan (built 2011) — a suezmax seized by US authorities for carrying US-sanctioned Iranian oil.
Greece’s Empire Navigation managed both the MR Euphrates and Suez Rajan.
Athens-based brokers believe the MR Euphrates remains in Greek hands, with Marios Gialozoglou-led IMS SA taking over its management.
Unlike most other Greek companies, which have been predominantly selling secondhand tankers in recent months, Piraeus-based IMS SA has been actively acquiring them.
TradeWinds reported in August how the company emerged in 2022 as the new manager of about a dozen product tankers that brokers had previously reported sold to unidentified interests.
IMS SA’s buying appetite has probably not stopped since. The MR Euphrates apart, Greek brokers reported the company last month as the buyer of MSea Capital’s 38,400-dwt MR1 tanker Sunny Sky (built 2008) for $18.5m.
