Alafouzos family-controlled Okeanis Eco Tankers (OET) has exercised an option granted by chairman and CEO Ioannis Alafouzos to acquire two suezmax newbuildings.
The two eco-design, scrubber-fitted 158,000 dwt tankers are currently under construction at Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries, with delivery scheduled in August 2020. The price of each vessel is $64.5m.
In connection with the exercised option, OET has extended the maturity of the $15m revolving credit facility from Glafki Marine Corp, an entity controlled by Ioannis Alafouzos, by six months, to December 2020. OET and Alafouzos have also agreed that repayment of ten percent of the option vessels’ total contract price may be deferred, to any date before the end of September 2021 with no interest and cost.
“OET possesses among the youngest, highest quality, scrubber-fitted tanker fleets assembled specifically to benefit from the strength in freight rates and asset prices expected to result from the firming tanker market fundamentals and IMO 2020 regulations. In line with its strategy and consistent with its discount control mechanism, the company intends to capitalize on such strength by returning resulting cash from operations and well-timed asset sales to shareholders in the most tax-efficient manner possible,” OET said in a release.
Okeanis Eco Tankers currently owns 15 scrubber-fitted tankers within the VLCC, suezmax and aframax segments.
