A small paradox is emerging in the tanker market, with ship values rising despite the steady downward pressure of the freight market. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Intermodal commented that “tanker asset values have surprised with their upside, despite the downward pressure on the freight market. Tanker rates have been hovering close to their historical lows throughput the year, however asset values have disconnected from the market trend responding to higher steel prices and a countercyclical investment behavior, stemming from oil demand recovery expectations. As a matter of fact, across all tanker segments, values of wet tonnage enjoyed a significant uptrend since the beginning of the year with notable SnP interest in older units for the most part of the year”.

According to Mr. Nassos Soulakis, SnP Broker with Intremodal, “in the larger sizes, a representative sale of this trend could be the FOS (307KDWT 2002 Hyundai) which achieved a price of $28m, significantly higher than when compared to the August sale of M/T KOS (306kdwt 2001 Daewoo) which fetched a price in the region of $26 million or even the sale of Maran Cygnus (306kdwt 2001 Daewoo) which fetched $23,7 million in Q1-2021. Moreover, the Olympic Legend (309kdwt 2003 Samsung) was sold for region $31 million in July, while in January the Pantariste (309kdwt 2002 Samsung) was sold for xs $23 million”.

Soulakis added that “another sale following this trend in the larger sizes would be Jag Lata (105kdwt 2003 Hyundai) which was sold in the region of $ 13,5 million during this quarter, compared to the same aged Aegean Freedom (106kdwt 2003 Hyundai) sold in February 2021 at a price in the high 10s. At the same time, as far as modern sale candidates are concerned, the trend continues in the sales of LR2 vessels, Cabo Misaki (74kdwt 2017 Sungdong) which achieved around $32 million within August, while the Nord Lavender (74kdwt 2017 Sungdong) got sold for xs $31 million in May”.

Intermodal’s broker also said that “looking at the smaller sizes, latest sales in the last couple of weeks show the BWTS fitted Justice Express (46kdwt 2011 Shin Kurushima) managing to fetch $ 17 million, around 6% more than the last same-aged Mearsk Miyajima (48kdwt 2011 Iwagi) also fitted with BWTS which got sold in May for around $16m. In addition to that, New Breeze (48kdwt 2010 Iwagi) changed hands in July for $15,5 million, while sister vessel Bright Fortune achieved high $ 13 million back in February, both vessels fitted with BWTS and with similar dates for SS/DD. This is without a doubt a positive sign and one could be reservedly optimistic that asset prices are going to continue to rise. The way the SnP tanker trend develops, and factoring in the rise in bunker prices, it seems that we could be in for a further upward repricing point with the focus potentially shifting on younger units”, Soulakis concluded.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide