Loss-making Concordia Maritime has boosted its liquidity with a new sale-and-leaseback deal for two MR tankers.
The refinanced Stena-controlled shipowner said the 50,000-dwt IMO II Max product carrier pair Stena Image and Stena Important (both built 2015) has gone to a Chinese leasing company.
To sell the ships, Concordia first had to declare a repurchase option contained in Japanese leaseback charters with Tokyo Century Corp concluded in 2016 and 2017.
Liquidity will be increased by SEK 45m ($5.22m) following the Chinese transaction.
VesselsValue assesses the pair as worth around $50m combined.
"The sale of the vessels is in line with the continuing ambition to strengthen the company's financial position and liquidity," said chief executive Kim Ullman.
Concordia's owned fleet will now consist of 10 P-Max product tankers of 62,500 dwt each. There is also a leased suezmax tanker with a purchase option, and three more suezmaxes chartered in.
In July, Stena had to step in to solve a liquidity crunch at Concordia during weak markets by agreeing to charter all the P-Maxes, as part of a deal with banks for a new loan of $114m.
More sales to come?
Stena is paying $15,500 per day for each tanker.
And Concordia has previously hinted at more ship sales to raise money.
The terms of the refinancing deal means it can offload any of the P-Maxes without paying a fee to Stena.
The second three months were another tough period for product tankers, with Concordia's net loss coming in at SEK 89.7m, compared to a profit of SEK 28.3m a year earlier.
