Dorian LPG may have fallen short of Wall Street expectations, but the company claims to be ahead of the game when it comes to environmental compliance.
The New York-listed LPG carrier owner said on Tuesday that it delivered an average efficiency ratio (AER) of 7.93 grams of CO2 per tonne-mile.
That is better than the expectation of 8.6 grams per tonne-mile called for by the Poseidon Principles for the VLGCs owned by the Connecticut-based shipowner.
"With these results, Dorian would qualify for a sustainability margin adjustment under the 2015 amended and restated facility as reported," Dorian LPG USA chief executive John Lycouris said on a conference call.
"The company is a signatory to the 2018 Global Maritime Forum's call for action in support of decarbonisation and plans to pursue actively those objectives."
The Poseidon Principles are a set of environmental criteria major shipping lenders said they would use to evaluate their deals with shipowners in an effort to incentivise emissions cuts amid a broader push to slash greenhouse gas emissions across shipping.
The environmental factors in Dorian's amended credit facility allow for a Libor adjustment of up to 10 basis points based on the AER — which weighs carbon emissions against a vessel's size and distance travelled — for Dorian's owned fleet and the ships it manages on bareboat charters.
The inclusion of the AER was part of a larger refinancing that saw the addition of a $25m revolving credit facility, extension of the maturity by three years until March 2025 and Libor lowered to 250 basis points before any environmental adjustment.
Lycouris also said Dorian's fleet had obtained a fleet average under the Energy Efficiency Design Index of 5.96 grams of CO2 per tonne mile, versus the International Maritime Organization's requirements of 7.72 grams of CO2 per tonne mile.
For the quarter, Dorian nearly doubled its profit to $12.2m from $6.08m for the same period last year.
The performance represented a $0.25 adjusted profit on a per share basis, roughly half of the $0.49 per share consensus from its analysts.
Still, Dorian's shares closed up $0.07 to $9.02.
Its shares dipped in after-hours trading, however, sliding $0.17 to $8.85.
