In what is believed to be a unique voyage, a clean cargo of gasoil has left Europe on a VLCC, while Euronav and Hunter Group perform VLCC sales
A newly launched VLCCs performing a first voyage from shipyards in Asia with a clean products cargo from a local refinery is rare but not unusual. But a VLCC loading clean cargo in Europe is unusual. Tanker cargo data intelligence specialist ClipperData spotted this taking place and believes it may be the first time a VLCC has been used for the voyage.
ClipperData reported 2020-built Evalend Shipping-controlled VLCC Silverstone loaded 740,000 bbls of gasoil via ship-to-ship (STS) from Vopak Terminal Europoort on 8 February, and another 1.26M bbls via STS in the Europoort Lightering zone on 19 February 2021. Silverstone left Rotterdam signalling for Lome, Togo.
ClipperData stated that diesel/gasoil flows from northwest Europe to West Africa are common, but this marks the first time it has recorded this movement happening aboard a VLCC.
In other VLCC news, Euronav announced it has entered into a sale and leaseback agreement for the VLCC Newton (built 2009, 307,284 dwt) with Taiping & Sinopec Financial Leasing Ltd Co. The vessel was sold for US$36M.
According to Euronav, the transaction produced a capital gain of about US$2.4M. After repayment of the existing debt, the transaction generated US$19M free cash.
Euronav has leased back the vessel under a 36-month bareboat contract at an average rate of US$22,500 per day. At the end of the bareboat contract, the vessel will be redelivered to its owners.
Also sold was Hunter Tankers’ VLCC Hunter Atla (built 2019) for US$84.5M to a Eurasian buyer. The vessel is expected to be delivered to its new owner during March 2021. This will be the third owner in the VLCC’s young life.
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