The sale of a quartet of VLCC sister ships over the past five months neatly illustrates rising tanker values.
Elandra Tankers, a joint venture between Vitol and Standard Chartered, took delivery of a quartet of 300,000 dwt VLCCs from Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea in 2020, having paid $92m per ship order in 2018.
In July this year, the Singapore joint venture sold one of these two-year-old tankers, the Elandra Kilimanjaro, to Tsakos for $95m. Last month it sold the Elandra Everest to Middle East interests for $107.8m, and now the company has made headlines in many broking reports, selling the Elandra Denali and Elandra Elbrus to Saudi Arabia’s Bahri for $112m each, prices not seen for more than a decade.
Secondhand tanker prices have soared this year. The Baltic Exchange last Friday raised its price indications for five-year-old VLCCs to $96.6m. Secondhand VLCC prices have leapt by 26.6% so far this year, with freight rates also becoming extremely firm.
“VLCC supply continues to be tight, on high activity levels in the Middle East and US Gulf markets in recent months, pointing to continued high rates in the near-term,” a recent report from Jefferies noted.
