Nine new tankers for TEN
New York-listed shipping firm Tsakos Energy Navigation (TEN), owned by Nikos Tsakos, continues its bold investment policy. It recently announced an agreement with Western Petroleum for the acquisition of nine new ships for $530 million. They are six newly built ice-breaker tankers, of the 1A MR category, which can carry 53,000 deadweight tons and were delivered to Western Petroleum last year, and another three ice-breaker tankers, of the 1A category, with a capacity of 116,000 dwt. The latter will be delivered in May, August and October this year. This move consolidates TEN in the ice-breaker tanker category, which concerns ships traveling mainly in the Baltic Sea. Apart from these new vessels, the company’s fleet numbers 29 ships with an average age of 6.3 years against a universal average of 11.5 years. In addition to the existing fleet, TEN has another 13 ships under construction, with a total capacity of 1 million dwt, to be delivered by 2008. They are two suezmax tankers, four aframax, six handysize and one liquefied natural gas (LNG) vessel.
