Norden Buys Medium Range Tanker Pair

Danish shipowner Norden has purchased 2 South Korean-built MR product tankers from 2009. Both vessels have a deadweight capacity of 50,000 tonnes and the acquisition further expands the Norden product tanker fleet ahead of the expected market improvement towards 2020.

With the purchase, the Norden owned tanker fleet has been expanded with 4 MR vessels in 2018 bringing the total Norden tanker fleet up to 58 vessels including chartered vessels.

A press release from the Denmark company quoted CEO Jan Rindbo as saying: “While product tanker market conditions have suffered from oversupply and weak demand this year, we expect an improvement towards 2020. Recently, the crude tanker market has recovered strongly, oil price has declined to a 12-month low and oil inventories have been drawn significantly. This points to a recovery in demand for product tankers and improving market conditions."

"We therefore believe this purchase is a good opportunity to take advantage of the relatively low prices on tonnage now, to increase the capacity,” Jan added.

The 2 vessels are expected to join Norden’s owned fleet in December 2018 with the names NORD MAGIC and NORD MINUTE.

With the acquisition, Norden’s tanker fleet consists of 44 MRs with a cargo capacity of 45,000-50,000 tonnes and 12 Handysize vessels with a cargo capacity of 35,000-37,000 tonnes.

Norden has also 2 LR1 tankers on charter, bringing the total Norden tanker fleet up to 58 vessels. 24 tankers are owned by Norden while the rest are chartered vessels. The vessels are operated through Norient Product Pool (NPP).