New York-listed Tsakos Energy Navigation (TEN) has confirmed the sale of a suezmax tanker as part of the company’s fleet renewal programme.
The Greek shipowner has said it expects this sale of the 2009-built unit to generate $30m in free cash.
Specifically, the company revealed in its quarterly earnings report that on March 26 a 2009-built unit had been offloaded to third party interests.
TEN said the deal would, after payment of outstanding debt, generate free cash of about $30m and capital gains nearing $2.5m, to be recorded in the first quarter of 2025. The owner didn’t disclose the name of the ship or the name of the buyer.
The company, which recently confirmed the order of nine DP2 suezmax shuttle tankers in South Korea with 15-year employment contracts for Brazil’s oil and gas transportation company Petrobras Transporte S.A. (Transpetro), said it is exploring divesting some of its first-generation tankers to make space for new, more eco-friendly ones both in the conventional and the specialized tanker front.
TEN highlights in its report that this timely “sales and purchase” activity over the years has enabled the company to build modern vessels.
“This period has been a milestone year for TEN with the largest growth program in its history representing 21 vessels of 2.6 million dwt under construction resulting in a proforma fleet of 82 vessels with a minimum revenue backlog of $4.0 billion. These secured revenue contracts are expected to provide cash flow visibility to continue supporting the company’s dividend distributions to our shareholders, a value which we hope will be reflected again in our stock,” commented George Saroglou, president & COO of TEN.
TEN’s diversified energy fleet currently consists of 82 vessels, including twelve DP2 shuttle tankers, two scrubber-fitted suezmax vessels, two scrubber-fitted MR product tankers and five scrubber-fitted LR1 tankers under construction, consisting of a mix of crude tankers, product tankers and LNG carriers, totaling 10.1 million dwt.
