MPC Container Ships Buys More Scrubbers, Inks Charters for Six Ships

Norwegian shipowner MPC Container Ships (MPCC) has exercised options to equip additional five vessels with exhaust gas cleaning systems and agreed charters for six scrubber-retrofitted boxships.

As informed, the charterparties will be initiated after scrubber retrofitting and with a duration into 2022.

“We are excited to have concluded charters for six scrubber-retrofitted vessels in our fleet. The transaction adds charter coverage at attractive rates and provides significant upside potential post January 1, 2020. Equally important, the transaction demonstrates an increasing interest from liner companies for scrubber-linked charters,” Constantin Baack, CEO of the company, commented.

The company seeks to take advantage of the optionality of its scrubber program by analyzing further retrofits on a vessel by vessel basis. In this context, MPC Container Ships said it is already in dialogue with various liner companies on further scrubber-linked employment concepts.

Earlier this month, MPC Container Ships entered into agreements for the purchase of exhaust gas cleaning systems for five of its ships, with options to retrofit up to an additional 50 vessels.

Although the frequent vessel acquisitions impacted its financial performance, the shipowner managed to remain profitable in the third quarter of 2018. The company closed Q3 2018 with a net profit of USD 1.2 million, compared to USD 1.8 million seen in Q2 2018 and USD 100,000 in Q3 2017.

In addition, total operating revenues were USD 55.8 million in Q3 2018, against USD 46.9 million posted a quarter earlier and USD 7 million in Q3 last year.

For the nine-month period ended Q3 2018, net profit was USD 3.5 million, compared to a net loss of USD 336,000 reported in the corresponding period a year earlier.

What is more, operating revenues were USD 131 million in the nine-month period of 2018, against USD 8.2 million recorded in the first three quarters of 2017.

As explained, the operating result of the group is impacted by ship takeovers as well as one-off costs for the start-up phase associated with the establishment and development of the group. MPC Container Ships has taken over 40 vessels during the first nine months of 2018.

As of September 30, 2018, the group has acquired and taken over 69 container vessels, whereof 61 are fully consolidated and eight are operated in a joint venture formed in April 2017.

MPC Container Ships’ main activity is to own and operate a portfolio of container ships with a focus on the feeder segment between 1,000 and 3,000 TEU.