John Fredriksen's Flex LNG has revealed new financing of $250m as profit increased in the fourth quarter.
The company said it had secured the debt from a syndicate of banks for two newbuildings delivering in 2019, Flex Constellation and Flex Courageous.
The cash will partly cover the remaining $144m payable on the ships. The remaining balance is expected to be funded from available liquidity.
Flex LNG now controls a fleet of 13 high-end LNG carriers, including four vessels on the water and nine newbuildings.
'Potential demonstration'
The loan came to light as Flex reported a fourth quarter profit of $15.2m, compared to $1.3m for the same period of 2017. Revenue rose to $36.1m, from $7.9m, as the fleet expanded.
For the full year, earnings were $11.8m, against a net loss of $10.4m in 2017.
CEO Oystein Kalleklev said: "During the fourth quarter we capitalised on a strong market and clearly demonstrated the earnings potential of our new fifth-generation LNG carriers.
"While the market is currently soft due to weaker shipping demand, we remain upbeat about the outlook for LNG shipping as a glut of new liquefaction capacity is coming on line both near and long term."
Analysts described the quarterly results as in line with expectations but some were disappointed by the first quarter rate guidance.
Flex said its numbers for the first three months of 2019 would be in line with the third quarter of 2018.
This suggests a core operating profit of $13m, some way below the $25m consensus, said analysts at DNB Markets.
Looking ahead, Flex expects the coming growth of LNG production and the expected growth in demand for natural gas to continue tightening the shipping market.
"We believe that our state-of-the-art LNG carriers will command a premium in the market and be the preferred vessels for longer-term charters," it said.
"We continue to execute our chartering strategy to secure balanced fleet employment through actively marketing our LNG carriers in both the term and spot markets.
But it added: "As the market has softened in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter we do expect the financial figures for the first quarter to be more in line with the third quarter of 2018 due to lower headline rates and lower utilisation level."
John Fredriksen's Geveran holds a 44.6% ownership in the company.
