The third business week of the year (running Sunday 18 to Saturday 23) started with tanker trades and stake acquisitions in Europe. After the large stake trades in the week before, this week saw a return to smaller trades.
According to GlobalData estimates, total deal value fell from the previous week. This was mainly propped up by a $1.1bn acquisition of licenses in Nigeria and New Fortress Energy purchasing two companies from Golar LNG.
Across the week, GlobalData logged 15 announced or completed deals, approximately the same as in the same period one year ago. So far this year, each week has seen an average of 11 deals logged by GlobalData. This falls notably below the 31.4 deals per week logged in 2020. On the whole, January has maintained its traditionally slow start to the year, with the year-to-date average sitting at about half the average deal volume.
The most valuable deal with a known value noted by GlobalData came from DHT Holdings, a Bermuda-registered company operating in Norway and Singapore. On Thursday 21, the independent tanker company bought two very large crude carriers (VLCCs) from an undisclosed company. The company financed the $136m transaction with available liquid assets and mortgage debt.
DHT will receive the 2016-built VLCCs in the first half of 2021. The company will add these to its existing fleet of 27 VLCCs, which have a deadweight tonnage of 8.4 million…
