Athens-based owner and operator of tankers and LNG carriers Tsakos Energy Navigation (TEN) has wrapped up its best second quarter in seven years with a flurry of activity, purchasing four new vessels and chartering out five, as well as selling one suezmax and one handymax tanker.
TEN bought two suezmaxes for a total price of USD 122 million and two VLCC re-sales for USD 193.9 million en bloc including extras. The company will use own cash and traditional bank debt to finance the purchase of the two modern suezmaxes reportedly from Turkey’s Yasa Tanker, while for the VLCCs, TEN issued 2,626,357 common shares to York Capital Management on July 30, paid about USD 14 million in cash and expects to raise the remainder in bank debt.
The VLCCs are currently under construction at Hyundai Samho in South Korea and are expected to be delivered in the early and latter part of 2016, respectively. Concurrently with these acquisitions, TEN sold a first generation suezmax and a handysize product tanker for a net USD 43 million en bloc.
The company also announced a 30-month charter for one of its suezmaxes to a US oil company, and new charters for four of its MR product tankers for an average period of 24-months with 12-month options and profit sharing provisions to European and North American oil concerns. The total minimum gross revenues from these five fixtures are expected at around USD 71 million and could reach USD 95 million if charterers exercise their extension options on the four product contracts.
Together with these new charters, the company’s total contracted revenues, over a pro forma fleet of 65 vessels, amount to a minimum of USD 1.4 billion. TEN’s fleet continued to operate at almost full utilization at 97.7%. TEN operated a fleet of 50 vessels on average in the second quarter 2015, compared to 48.2 vessels in the second quarter 2014.
The company generated net income of USD 41.3 million in the second quarter of 2015 compared to USD 0.2 million in the second quarter of 2014.
“We are particularly pleased that together with very solid results, the Company is in the fortunate position to report premium charters, accretive acquisitions and profitable sales. All these reinforce TEN’s position as a company of choice for highly rated end users and financial investors looking for a well balanced tanker entity with good visibility and upside potential,” said Nikolas P. Tsakos, President and CEO of TEN
“With the strongest tanker market since 2008 and with a larger and more advanced fleet compared to then, we expect the Company’s financial performance to excel and be reflected on our bottom line and our share price going forward. “