Denmark’s Torm has revealed a number of ship sales alongside its fleet acquisitions as profit dropped in the third quarter.
The Copenhagen-listed owner said one MR and two LR1s were sold in the period, and then an LR2 and two more MRs were disposed of after 30 September.
Details of the vessels were not given.
But a total of 22 tankers have been acquired in 2022, the company told TradeWinds.
This includes Thursday’s big announcement of a $399m swoop for eight LR2s built between 2010 and 2012 from the fleet of Kristian Gerhard Jebsen.
Torm also confirmed the purchase of four MR eco product vessels built in 2015 and 2016 for $75m and 2.68m of its shares.
These are the 50,000-dwt Essie C, Jane S, Nancy P (all built 2015) and Marie S (built 2016), acquired from US owner Alterna Capital. The deal was first reported in TradeWinds last month.
All this activity brings the total fleet up to 93 tankers.
Torm also said two of its LR2s have been chartered out over two years for $43,000 per day.
Net profit in the third quarter was slashed to $124.3m from $217.1m the year before.
Time charter equivalent earnings dropped to $244.4m, against $316.8m in 2022.
But Torm still managed its best-ever nine-month profit of $463.4m, up from $334.1m 12 months earlier, despite a temporary drop in freight rates over the summer.
Strong ending to 2023 expected
“The strong and sustained market for product tankers has resulted in historically high TCE earnings for the first nine months of 2023, that are 26% higher than last year,” chief executive Jacob Meldgaard said.
“We expect a strong ending to the year, driven by seasonal factors and continued favourable market conditions.
“This quarter, we will return $123.2m to our shareholders as dividend.”
Between July and September, TCE were $33,010 per day, compared to an “exceptionally high” $44,376 per day in the same period last year.
Available earning days increased 9% to 7,658 as there was a net addition of eight ships to the fleet year on year.
“The healthy financial performance in the first nine months of 2023 is primarily related to the strong product tanker market and the trade recalibration in connection with sanctions and self-sanctioning of Russian product exports as well as global refinery dislocation,” the company said.
As of 6 November, Torm had covered 91% of the 2023 earning days at $36,452 per day.
For the fourth quarter, the figure is 64% at $38,822 per day.
For the whole of 2023, Ebitda is expected to be between $825m and $875m.
