Trafigura Group bought four oil product tankers known as LR2s, built in 2014 and 2015, and three suezmax tankers built in 2019, from New York-listed SFL Corp., SFL said in a statement Wednesday, with delivery over the next six months. SFL reported an aggregate book gain of $175 million on the deal without disclosing the sale price. Trafigura declined to comment.
The purchase is the latest in a rush by trading houses and state energy companies to acquire vessels outright. Disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz have drawn scores of tankers into shuttling flows out to the global market, while Red Sea risks force longer voyages, and prompt tanker availability has pushed resale values sharply higher: a 10-year-old Aframax, the same size as an LR2, was assessed at $72.5 million last week and a suezmax of the same age at $110 million, per Clarkson data. Trafigura also recently listed a supertanker vehicle, Volare Shipping, on the Oslo Stock Exchange.