Strong Tanker Market Drives SCF’s Profit Surge

Russia’s biggest shipping company PAO Sovcomflot has posted a gross revenue increase of 11.8 per cent in the first half of 2015 worth USD 754.9 million against last year’s equivalent of USD 675. 2 million, exceeding its own expectations.

In addition, the company’s net profit marked a hike from USD 63.6 million in 2014 to USD 216.3 million in the first six months of this year.

“Sovcomflot achieved very strong results exceeding our own forecasts for the period and reflecting a sustained contribution from both the conventional tanker and industrial shipping segments. The tanker markets were favourable towards shipowners, and Sovcomflot was well positioned to benefit from the anticipated rise in the spot tanker freight markets given the quality and size of its fleet and efficient chartering policy based on in-house analytics,” Sergey Frank, President and CEO of PAO Sovcomflot, said.

Namely, the company’s time charter equivalent revenues increased by 26 per cent to USD 617.6 million from last year’s USD 490.7  million.

“We are cautiously optimistic about the second half of the year with good trading continuing based on strong supply-demand fundamentals in most tanker segments which we operate in,” he added.

As at 30 June 2015, the SCF Group fleet comprised 150 owned and chartered vessels (including vessels in joint ownership with third parties) totaling in over 12.8 million deadweight tonnes.

Assets under construction comprised eight vessels, with a total deadweight of 233,800 tonnes, including: one ice-breaking  LNG carrier; one multifunctional ice-breaking supply vessel; three MIB standby vessels and three Arctic shuttle tankers scheduled for delivery between June 2016 and April 2017 at a total contracted cost of USD 1,279 million.

All of the new build vessels are contracted to oil majors on long term fixed income charters, SCF said.