TEN is selling, not buying

Two troublesome tankers which helped push Tsakos Energy Navigation to a fourth quarter loss have been placed on the sales block.

TEN boss, Nikolas Tsakos.

New York-listed TEN is open to offers for both the 68,160-dwt pair Hesnes and Victory III (built 1990).

TEN, which lost $16.53m in the final three months of 2009, has previously denied reports the Hesnes had been sold.

Brokers had claimed last month the ship fetched $8m.

TEN has $300m in cash but resisted dipping into the sale and purchase market in the fourth quarter as tanker values fell.

Despite the most challenging tanker market in recent memory, the shipowner says asset values did not dip as far as was reflected by the “precipitous drop in rates”.

It added: “During this period, and without firm signs of a sustainable recovery, TEN refrained from venturing into any expansion projects and focused on fleet renewal practices instead.”

In January TEN sold the 107,000-dwt sisterships Marathon and Parthenon (both built 2003) to Pakistan National Shipping Corp for $78m.

In November it offloaded the 164,000-dwt pair Decathlon and Pentathlon (both built 2002) for $51.5m each to Nordic American Tanker Shipping.

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