Why Did ADNOC Pay $747 Million For Secondhand VLCCs?
Fearnleys prices a new VLCC at $129 million. ADNOC averaged $124.5 million a hull in August for 2012 to 2017 tonnage.
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Six VLCCs, $747 million, and not one of them is new. ADNOC averaged $124.5 million a hull for tonnage built between 2012 and 2017. Fearnleys prices a newbuilding at $129 million and Xclusiv Shipbrokers at $131.5 million. So the UAE’s national oil company paid between ninety five and ninety seven cents on the newbuild dollar for hulls that have already worked half their lives. That is not a mistake. It is the going rate.
The purchase itself has been well covered. ADNOC Logistics & Services announced eleven vessels for approximately $1.3 billion on August 7, and Bloomberg, Argus, Splash247 and Seatrade Maritime all carried it the same day. Four days later the company published its half-year earnings presentation, and slide 13 broke the figure into $747 million for six VLCCs and $566 million for five VLGCs.
What has not been set against those numbers is the price ladder underneath them. Xclusiv Shipbrokers assesses a ten-year-old VLCC at $133 million as of August 10. Twelve months ago the same broker had it at $86 million. That is a rise of 55 percent. A fifteen-year-old VLCC is up 74 percent, from $57.5 million to $100 million. In the same report Xclusiv marks a new VLCC at $131.5 million against $125.7 million a year ago. Five percent. Fearnleys, assessing independently, has the newbuilding at $129 million against $121 million. Six point six percent.
The market has stopped pricing crude tankers on what they cost to build. It has started pricing them on when you can have one.
Read ADNOC’s purchase against that and the interesting question changes. It is not whether an oil company overpaid, because on the evidence it did not. Xclusiv’s August ladder puts $124.5 million at an eleven-year-old vessel, and eleven years is close to what ADNOC bought. The question is what it means that a state buyer can spend three quarters of a billion dollars on midlife tonnage, at almost the price of new, and have every broker in the market call it fair value.
📋 In This Issue:
⚖️ The Story:
What $124.5 million bought a year ago, what it buys now, and the fortnight two brokers moved the same curve.
📊 By The Numbers:
The value ladder, the vessels, the sellers and the premium, figure by figure.
🔍 Why It Matters:
Why the seller, the analyst and the newbuilding yard read the same ladder three different ways.
👀 What To Watch:
The charter cover ADNOC has not taken, and the number that would prove this brief wrong.
🚨 Gosships Signal:
What it means when the oldest steel in the market is the fastest appreciating asset in it.
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📌 Gosships Data Card
August 2025: Xclusiv Shipbrokers assesses a ten-year-old VLCC at $86 million and a fifteen-year-old at $57.5 million. Fearnleys puts a new 300,000 dwt VLCC at $121 million (Xclusiv Shipbrokers, August 10, 2026 report; Fearnleys Weekly Report, week 33, 2025).
February 28, 2026: The United States and Israel open military action against Iran. Attacks on merchant vessels follow through March in the Arabian Gulf, in Hormuz itself and in the Gulf of Oman, the strait becomes effectively closed without ever formally shutting, and crude tanker spot rates reach the highest level in a series running back to 2005 (International Seaways Q2 2026 Form 10-Q; Teekay Tankers Q2 2026 results; US Energy Information Administration, March 26, 2026; Seatrade Maritime, May 8, 2026).
May 1, 2026: The United Arab Emirates leaves OPEC, 59 years after Abu Dhabi joined. June exports run at a twelve-month high, put at 3.7 to 3.8 million barrels a day of crude by Reuters and at 3.94 million of crude and condensate by The National. By July total oil exports are 3.46 million barrels a day, with Fujairah carrying 2.28 million against 950,000 through Hormuz (Reuters, July 3, 2026; The National, July 2 and August 3, 2026).
August 3, 2026: Xclusiv Shipbrokers reports five VLCCs sold to ADNOC, named vessel by vessel with individual prices from $116 million to $125 million, listed separately in a week it records seven VLCC sales. VesselsValue the next day calls the five an enbloc from Thenamaris and Delta Tankers at $597 million, against an assessed $522.3 million (Xclusiv Shipbrokers, August 3, 2026; VesselsValue Weekly Vessel Valuations Report, August 4, 2026).
August 7, 2026: ADNOC Logistics & Services announces eleven vessels for approximately $1.3 billion, naming no vessels, no sellers, no ages and no yards. Its earnings presentation four days later breaks the figure into $747 million for six VLCCs and $566 million for five VLGCs (ADNOC L&S announcement, August 7, 2026; H1 2026 earnings presentation, slide 13).
August 10 to 12, 2026: Xclusiv marks its fifteen-year-old VLCC up to $100 million from $82 million, in a week it reports no tanker sales at all. Two days later Fearnleys marks its five-year-old up from $140 million to $152 million and its ten-year-old from $110 million to $122 million, after two weeks unchanged. Neither house moves its newbuilding price (Xclusiv Shipbrokers, August 3 and August 10, 2026; Fearnleys Weekly Report, weeks 31, 32 and 33, 2026).
Sources: ADNOC Logistics & Services announcement dated August 7, 2026; ADNOC Logistics & Services H1 2026 earnings presentation, slides 4, 6, 7, 13, 14, 25, 26 and 28; ADNOC Logistics & Services Q2 2026 results release dated August 11, 2026; ADNOC Logistics & Services Q2 2026 earnings call, per third-party transcript; Xclusiv Shipbrokers weekly S&P reports dated June 29 to August 10, 2026; Fearnleys Weekly Report, weeks 31, 32 and 33 of 2026 and week 33 of 2025; VesselsValue Weekly Vessel Valuations Reports dated August 4 and August 11, 2026; Frontline plc press release dated August 4, 2026; CMB.TECH fleet update dated August 3, 2026; Signal Ocean via Seatrade Maritime, May 8, 2026; Clarksons Research via Splash247, March 2, 2026; Robin Mills, Qamar Energy, via AGBI, July 21, 2026; Reuters, July 3 and July 31, 2026; The National, July 2 and August 3, 2026.
⚖️ The Story
What A Number Buys
Start with $124.5 million, the average ADNOC paid for each of six VLCCs. Slide 13 of its own half-year earnings presentation breaks the announced $1.3 billion into $747 million for the six crude tankers and $566 million for five gas carriers, both stated without qualification.
In August 2025, on Xclusiv’s assessment, that money sat between the five-year mark at $117 million and a resale hull at $146.5 million. Read the resale as prompt delivery ex yard, which is how Xclusiv defines it, and $124.5 million bought a VLCC not quite four years old.
In August 2026 it buys a vessel of about eleven. Interpolate Xclusiv’s ladder between $133 million at ten years and $100 million at fifteen and $124.5 million lands at 11.3.
The vessels were built between 2012 and 2017. Whichever six of the seven ADNOC-linked hulls brokers named this month make up the package, the average sits at about eleven years.
So the price is not the anomaly. It is exactly right. What changed is not what ADNOC was willing to pay. It is what the money reaches.
