Minerva Marine Sells Two 2006-Built Ice-Class Tankers to Chinese Buyers
The aframax Minerva Nounou is reported above $40m with its 20-year special survey already done
Minerva Marine has decided the moment has arrived to cash in on vintage ice-classed tonnage, selling several ships including one from a segment the Greek owner has long favoured.
The company is offloading the 20-year-old aframax Minerva Nounou, of 114,850 dwt, with Chinese buyers reported to be paying in excess of $40m in multiple broking reports.
The 2006-built tanker was constructed at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, carries ice class 1A and has a history of Russian trading. Its 20-year special survey has already been completed, which removes the largest single cost item a buyer of a vessel that age would otherwise face immediately.
Minerva has also reportedly sold the same-aged MR tanker Minerva Xanthe, of 50,922 dwt, again to Chinese buyers, for around $16m. That vessel is also ice class 1A, as well as IMO II and phenolic-epoxy coated, a specification that helps explain the relatively firm price achieved for a 20-year-old ship.
The pricing is the story rather than the transaction. An aframax of that vintage would normally be approaching the end of its trading life in mainstream employment, and the values being reported sit well above what the age alone implies. Ice class 1A and a completed special survey are what carry the premium, because they define which trades the ship can enter and how long it can stay there without further capital expenditure.
Both vessels are heading to the same buyer nationality, which has been the consistent destination for older ice-classed tonnage capable of working Baltic and Black Sea loadings.
Minerva Marine, controlled by the Martinos family, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. The sale and purchase round sits alongside a broader Greek move to release capital from mid-2000s tonnage, seen recently when Tsakos released more than $100m by selling two 2006-built suezmaxes.
