Today's Most Expensive Taker is...

by VesselsValue.com
Tuesday August 26, 2014

The most expensive tanker vessels is not a VLCC but a Jones Act aframax, the 115,000-deadweight-ton Liberty Bay.

All Jones Act vessels carry a premium in our algorithm for the following reasons:

To be Jones Act must be US built, owned, crewed, classed and flagged.

  • The cost to build vessels in US (i.e. Aker Philadelphia) is 3-4 times as much than from top quality Korean or Japanese yard (due to higher labour costs etc)
  • Additionally, Jones Act vessels operate in a protected market so generally experience much more stable and higher freight rates.
  • Both these factors result in 2nd hand (and obviously newbuild) values of Jones act vessels being substantially higher than for non Jones act vessels of the same type, size, age. There are no US built VLCC'S and the newest US built Suezmax is 2006, hence the most valuable tanker is the Liberty bay 2014 Aker built Aframax

Placing 2nd and 3rd in our higest valued tankers are also Jones Act vessels - the Polar Enterprise owned by ConocoPhillips and the Overseas Chinook by OSG.

It is surprising but this is a value premium that is carried through all our tankers.

About VesselsValue.com

VesselsValue.com is the online intelligence and information service used by the world's leading commercial and investment banks, private equity, investment and hedge funds, shipowners and operators, lawyers, accountants and brokers.

With our core of belief in speed, usability and convenience, we provide instant and unbiased values at the click of a button, helping existing and potential shipping investors better quantify risk, improve reporting and identify opportunity, saving time and money.

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