The Belgian company Exmar confirmed that it has sold its first Suezmax tanker as part of its plan to build four new ships. This sale will result in a profit of approximately $22 million for the company.
Details of the Tanker Sale
Exmar announced that it has signed an agreement for the sale of its first tanker under construction. This ship will be transferred to the buyer upon delivery from the yard in the third quarter of 2027. Exmar did not provide information about the buyer or the sale price, but Greek financial and shipping sources previously identified an investment group led by Evangelos Marinakis as the buyer of the ship. The sale price of this tanker, which has a capacity of 157,000 tons, is estimated to be over $106 million.
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Market Analysis and Future Plans
The $22 million profit announced by Exmar aligns with market figures. The company ordered four Suezmax tankers with refining equipment from the DH Shipbuilding yard in South Korea in September 2025. These ships are designed to each carry approximately one million barrels of crude oil. Market reports at that time estimated the total value of the contract for the four ships to be around $339 million, averaging $85 million per ship.
Exmar has invested an additional $43 million in these ships in the first half of this year, and by the end of June 2023, the remaining investment commitments for this program reached $265.8 million. Deliveries of the ships will begin in the third quarter of 2027 and continue until October 2028.
The sale of this tanker comes at a time when Suezmax prices and revenues have surged, and ready-to-work ships, especially compared to newbuilds, hold high value. The Marinakis group is actively engaged in the tanker market and has a multi-billion dollar plan for modernizing and expanding its fleet in the crude oil and product tanker sector, as well as container ships and LNG carriers.
After this sale, Exmar has three other Suezmax tankers in its main program at the DH Shipbuilding yard and has also secured options for four additional ships at the time of ordering these vessels. The first ship will remain under Exmar's construction contract until the planned delivery in the third quarter of next year, at which point ownership will be directly transferred to the buyer.
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