John Fredriksen-controlled Flex LNG has secured a new time charter for one of its LNG carriers as it turned in its best results to date.
Flex said it had agreed terms and conditions with “an LNG portfolio player” for a fixed rate time charter with a minimum firm period of either three to five years for its 173,400-cbm newbuilding Flex Freedom.
TradeWinds reported the ship as fixed to energy major Shell when Flex opted to take early delivery of it in January.
Reporting what it said were its “best-ever” quarterly figures, Flex said the charter is in direct continuation of the existing contract on the vessel.
The deal will kick off in the first or second quarter of 2022. The company said the charterer will finalise length of the firm period of the charter in the third quarter of 2021.
“The charterer has the option to extend the period by an additional two years bringing the total period to five or seven years,” Flex said.
Hot quarter
New York- and Oslo-listed Flex, which has been tying more of its vessels into period business as it cashes in on what has been an unseasonally hot market, turned in its best quarterly figures.
The Oslo-headquartered company saw its net income jump up at $47.2m for the first quarter of 2021, a turnaround on a net loss of $14.9m for the same period last year. The figure is almost double the $25.8m logged in the previous three months to the end of December 2020.
Revenue for the first three months of this year climbed to $81.3m, a huge leap from the $38.2m logged in first quarter 2020, and higher than the $67.4m notched up in the preceding quarter.
Flex recorded an average time-charter equivalent rate of $75,399 per day on its 12-vessel LNG carrier fleet for the first quarter of 2021.
The company said the stronger results reflects generally higher charter rates at the start of the year and the delivery of two newbuildings in January 2021.
A final newbuilding and Flex’s 13th ship —174,000-cbm Flex Vigilant — is due to be delivered in the second quarter.
Flex chief executive Oystein Kalleklev said that since it reported its fourth-quarter results, the company had secured a minimum backlog of 22 years hire for its vessels from several fixed hire term employment contracts.
“This provides us with strong earnings visibility with about 88% of the days from Q2 to the year-end already covered,” Kalleklev said.
Flex hiked its first quarter 2021 dividend to $0.40 from $0.30.
