Tsakosacknowledges eco newbuildings make sense for large container vessels andpossibly VLCCs - but for other ships he is far from convinced.

“Forthe mainstream shipping, I think anyvessel which is 10 years or younger can, by spending a minute percentage of whatyou need to spend on a ship as a newbuilding you can achieve very similarresults,” he said during a conference call.

“Andas owners, and I am the vice chairman of INTERTANKO, which actually representsall of the independent tanker owners, we put caution because there's a lot ofeasy money floating around and … the flavor of the month happens to be thesupper eco ships.”

Tsakos,speaking after the owner booked a second successive annual loss in a weak crudemarket, believes rivals ordering eco vessels could be caught out in the same wayas those who bought the first double hulled tankers.

“Whenwe started building double, double, most of those ships were built without the center line bulkheads andthey ended up being untradeable after two or three years,” he said.

“So,like everything, this first generation of vessels, we are not going to enter and actually add insult to injury by  building ships, because our ships right noware more than enough and are  economic,as they support the first-generation super eco ships that people are buildingleft and right, and, unfortunately, will hurt the market.”

Tsakoswas also keen to defend the value of the owner’s stock, suggesting it represents“almost unbelievable value” at 50% below where it was in a worse market a yearago.

“Ithink the head of our peer group, has unfortunately filed last summer for Chapter11,” he explained.

“Weused to say that OSG is equivalent of Apple in shipping. So if you had Applefiling, I'm sure other companies would suffer.

 “So, our share price for no reason that has todo with us, it's almost an amazing buy.”

TENlast year suggested it was ready to borrow a trick from John Fredriksen’s bookand launch an MLP spin-off of its shuttle tankers and LNG carriers.

Tsakossays the MLP is still being considered and is likely to be completed withinthis year.