Carnival Corp's brand P&O Cruises UK is selling one of the oldest vessels in its fleet of six ships, according to sources with knowledge of the deal.
The vessel rumoured to be on the sales block is the 2,272-berth Oceana (built 2000).
TradeWinds understands the vessel has been sold for further trading to Greek buyers and is taking on bunkers in Southampton, England, before its delivery to Greece.
Neither Carnival nor P&O Cruises UK immediately returned calls.
The Oceana has a market value of $164m and a scrap value of $9.14m, according to data from online platform VesselsValue.
P&O Cruises UK's remaining fleet consists of the 1,950-berth Aurora (built 2000); the 2,094-berth Arcadia (built 2005); the 3,597-berth Ventura (built 2008); the 3,597-berth Azura (built 2010); and the 4,324-berth Britannia (built 2015), VesselsValue data shows.
Other sales
Francesco Ferrari, mayor of Piombino, Italy, announced a week ago that Costa Cruises had sold the 75,200-gt Costa Victoria (built 1996) to San Giorgio del Porto Shipyard for scrapping at its Piombino Industrie Marittime (PIM) facility.
This announcement came two weeks after Carnival chief executive Arnold Donald said his company plans to retire six ships within the next three months.
“There will be an acceleration in the retirement of ships," he said during a webinar, as TradeWinds has reported.
"There is no question about that," he added.
He also said that it is "highly probable" that some ships will get scrapped as opposed to sold to secondary or tertiary markets.
Donald also conceded that the coronavirus pandemic has caused delays with three ships that were scheduled for delivery to Carnival this year.
P&O Cruises UK is waiting for the 184,700-gt Iona from Meyer Werft in Germany, while Princess Cruises has a 145,300-gt vessel scheduled for delivery by Fincantieri, Italy.
The third ship impacted is flagship brand Carnival Cruise Line's 183,200-gt Mardi Gras from Meyer Turku, Finland.
Carnival Corp also owns P&O Cruises Australia, which has three ships in its fleet: the 1,546-berth Pacific Dawn, the 1,260-berth Pacific Aria (built 2015) and the 2,638-berth Pacific Explorer (built 1997).
P&O Cruises Australia plans to take on two more 2,600-berth ships from Carnival's Princess Cruises, which will comprise the Golden Princess (built 2001) and Star Princess (built 2002).
Carnival's shares slipped 3% to $15.39 by mid-day on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.
