Navig8 is in talks for eight VLCC newbuildings split between South Korea and China, while DHT Maritime has lined up two units in Korea, market sources tell TradeWinds.

Both companies are expected to approach investors to back the orders shortly. The investor view toward the crude sector in general and VLCCs in particular is showing the first signs of warming, some believe.

But near-term opportunities to enter the VLCC space appear constrained by yard capacity.

Navig8 is said to have secured four berths at Hyundai Heavy Industries for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2016 into 2017, and four slots at China's Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipyard (SWS) for 2016. Meanwhile DHT has lined up two berths at Hyundai for late 2016 or early 2017.

Pricing information was not available, but was expected to be north of $90m for Korean builds and a little under $90m in China.

Navig8, which recently made moves into products and chemical carriers, declined comment when approached by TradeWinds.

DHT boss Svein Moxnes Harjfeld also declined to comment directly, but made reference to management’s remarks on the last quarterly earnings call.

“As (we said), we are looking closely at various projects, hence our name tag is being put on various rumours,” he said. “If we’re doing a deal like what you suggest we would certainly be advising the market.”

While Navig8 stayed mum, US-based commercial director Jason Klopfer was asked about prospects for a crude-market recovery during an appearance at last week’s Marine Money conference in New York.

He noted that Navig8 has extensive activity in crude including trading 20 VLCCs. Forecasts that note a decline in crude movements to the US fail to mention that longer-haul voyages have been maintained and could expand, including traffic from West Africa to China.

“We expect negative fleet growth of 4% over the next three years without availability of newbuilding berths,” Klopfer said.

“We think things will gradually improve within the next year, with significant improvement as we approach 2015.”

DHT owns four VLCCs with an average age of about 12 years, two suezmaxes and two aframaxes. It was recapitalised through an investment by private-equity partner Anchorage Capital in 2012.

Navig8 is one of the world’s largest pool operators and commercially manages some 210 vessels across varied operating sectors.

Earlier this year it tapped Oslo’s over the counter (OTC) market for more than $300m to back an investment in LR2 products tanker newbuildings.

It also formed a joint venture with private-equity power Oaktree Capital to back a newbuilding programme in chemical carriers.