The Greek owner had hoped to spin-off the long-anticipated MLP in the first half of this year and regulatory groundwork has taken place.

Pressed on the matter by analysts on the company’s fourth quarter conference call chief executive Nikolas Tsakos said the MLP time horizon was “still on” and that the plan was “on track”.

Tsakos says work with the SEC has been done but right now the returns on offer from such a move are not happening.