Prompt VLCC Tonnage Now Outprices the Newbuilding Market

Frontline has completed the sale of two 2017-built VLCCs and declared a special dividend of $0.80 per share on 11 September on the strength of it. The two ships went for $270m together, or $135m each, under an agreement announced on 4 August that generates about $179m in net cash after debt repayment and a gain of roughly $110m. The special dividend comes on top of the $2.61 per share already declared for the second quarter, with a record date of 18 September and payment on or about 28 September.

Set against that, the sale-and-purchase market has been discussing $200m for a single modern VLCC available for immediate delivery in the Middle East. Brokers have circulated talk of such a resale involving a 2026-built, scrubber-fitted ship from Dynacom Tankers Management, identified in the sales register as the 306,000 dwt Pinios, delivered this year by Hengli Heavy Industries. The transaction has not been confirmed by the parties, and analysts have described the talk as strong but unsubstantiated.

The gap that matters is not between old ships and new ones. A VLCC resale has been carrying a three-month trend value of about $182m against an average newbuilding contract value of roughly $131m, and a nine-year-old ship changed hands at $135m only weeks before participants began discussing $200m for a near-new one. What separates them is delivery timing.

The freight market explains why that is worth paying for. The benchmark Middle East Gulf to China route was assessed at WS677.22 on 4 September, a round-trip time-charter equivalent of just under $704,000 a day for the standard Baltic VLCC, while the Gulf of Oman to China assessment generated more than $261,800 a day. Frontline reported average second-quarter VLCC spot earnings of $152,700 a day and fixed two newly delivered ships on one-year charters at $120,000 a day each, which is a measure of how far the spot market moved afterwards.

The Strait of Hormuz adds the rest. An average of ten commodity-carrying ships a day transited the strait over the ten days to 6 September, the lowest level since May; two passed on 5 September, and no VLCC had exited since the preceding Wednesday. Regional producers and traders in that environment need ships they can direct themselves rather than chartered tonnage whose owners may decline the voyage. At several hundred thousand dollars a day, a ship that can load this month and one that delivers from a yard in 2028 are not the same asset.

This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 14 September 2026.