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Beached Alang Dec. 24
Mitsui OSK sells double-hulled VLCC to scrap
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., owner of the world’s largest shipping fleet, sold a double-hulled supertanker for demolition that would be the newest such ship ever scrapped after vessel earnings plunged this year, Bloomberg reports. The Atlantic Liberty, built in 1995, is the youngest very large crude carrier to face demolition, data from Clarkson Research Services, a unit of the world’s biggest shipbroker, show. The tanker will be the world’s second VLCC with a double hull to be scrapped, Nafees Zaman, a spokesman for Maryland, U.S.-based Global Marketing Systems Inc. said. GMS is the biggest cash buyer of vessels for demolition. An oversupply of the tankers and falling demand growth is driving earnings for VLCCs to the lowest in more than 14 years, pushing prices for tankers older than 15 years 38 percent lower over the year. “It’s positive for the market balance to see medium-old tonnage disappear like this,” Petter Narvestad, an analyst at Fondsfinans ASA, an Oslo-based investment bank, said by phone today. “Tankers normally have a lifetime of about 25 years.” The price paid for the Atlantic Liberty equated to $20.1 million, HSBC Shipping Services Ltd. said in an e-mailed report Dec. 2. A 15-year-old VLCC is worth $20.2 million, according to Seasure Shipping Ltd, a London-based shipbroker that assesses vessel values. That’s down from $32.4 million on Dec. 31. The scrapping of the Atlantic Liberty meant the owners took a “pragmatic, and arguably courageous decision to take a hit on the price, as opposed to the risk of facing her as competition for cargo in the future, under different ownership,” Clarkson said in a weekly report published Dec. 3. Tokyo-based Mitsui didn’t respond to three phone calls and two e-mails seeking comment.
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