Maersk Tankers sells all its 15 ships VLCC to the Euronav



Maersk Tankers, the branch of shipowning society Danish A.P. Møller-Mærsk that work the fleet of oil tankers and product tanker of the group, will sell all own tankers Raw Very Large Carriers (VLCC) to the Euronav, specialized Belgian company in the transport of crude oil and producing oil that currently has a fleet of 36 hull tankers double, of which 11 VLCC, a ULCC, to 23 Suezmax and two unit FSO.

Maersk Tankers, through the controlled Maersk Tankers Singapore Pte Ltd, will yield its 15 VLCC, of the medium age four-year-old, to the Euronav for total 980 million dollars, with collect on delivery of the ships, that it will happen between the end of this month and the next june with the exception of a ship mail currently rental that will be taken in delivery towards the end of 2014.

"This acquisition - the managing director of Euronav has commented, Paddy Rodgers - represents a first step towards a wider consolidation of the world-wide fleet of oil tankers, with the consequent benefits in terms of synergies and of logistic valorization to advantage of all the parts interested. Euronav - Rodgers has remembered - has opened the road in 1999 with the institution of the first pool VLCC, Tankers International LLC, and is our conviction that an effective access to the capital markets will demand that the companies that possess ships tanker they become larger so as to supply sufficient scale and liquidity in order to satisfy the requirements of the great institutional investors. This satisfies also the demand for the field of companies stable, that they are shipping, in the long term operating and managers with a remarkable operating reputation and a good knowledge of the markets well. Euronav - it has concluded Rodgers - has become effectively the only platform of comparable dimensions dedicated to the field of the oil crude oil and has the ambition to grow ulteriorly".

From part its Maersk Tankers has specified that the cession takes part of own strategy consisting in focusing the activity in the segment of the product tanker, strategy that - we remember - already has carried to the escape of the company from the segment of the Very Large Gas Carrier (inforMARE on May 23, 2013). "Last year - the managing director of Maersk Tankers has declared, Morten Engelstoft - we have returned note our intention to reduce our exposure in confronts of market VLCC and therefore to focus to us on the segment product. Euronav has offered an agreement to us that it follows this strategy".

Euronav will employ the 15 acquired ships from Maersk Tankers in the pool Tankers International, of which the Belgian company it is one of the founders and of which take part the Maritime companies Athenian Sea Carriers, DHT Holdings, Oak, Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG) and Reederei Nord. Currently Maersk Tankers work the 15 VLCC in the within of the Nova Tankers pool of which the companies Mitsui O.S.K take part also. Lines (MOL), Phoenix Tankers, Samco Shipholding and Ocean Tankers.

In order to finance the acquisition partially, Euronav has announced that it will carry out an increase of capital for total 350 million dollars classified to a series of institutional investors.