StealthGas, an owner of 35 small LPG carriers in the water, said on Tuesday it saw its profit climb to record levels last year.
Net income reached $34.3 in 2022, reversing a $35m loss the company had incurred the previous year.
“I am very pleased to report best-ever annual profit for StealthGas,” said its chief executive officer Harry Vafias.
This was achieved “in a difficult environment with rising interest rates and a smaller fleet,” he added.
Its smaller fleet size is due to the US-listed company’s stated fleet renewal policy, in which it sells down its old vessels and replaces them with newbuilding tonnage.
In its press release on Tuesday, StealthGas confirmed the latest of these disposals in deals that saw it offload its three oldest ships.
These were the 4,900-cbm Gas Prodigy (renamed Gas Madrid, built 2003), the 4,000-cbm Gas Spirit (renamed Poseidon Gas, built 2001), as well as the 3,300-cbm Gas Galaxy (built 1997), which will be delivered to its new owners next month.
StealthGas will more than make up for the shortfall with a trio of considerably larger, 40,000-cbm newbuildings it has under construction.
Shipyard delays, however, are causing these units to arrive a little later than planned.
Two of the newbuidings originally scheduled to be delivered in the second half of 2023 will now be ready in the fourth quarter of 2023 and in the first quarter of 2024 respectively.
TradeWinds understands that these two newbuildings are under construction at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard.
The delivery of the third newbuilding, which has been commissioned by a joint venture in which StealthGas is a partner, is pushed back by a few months as well — to the fourth quarter of 2023.
According to previous company presentations, StealthGas’s joint venture newbuilding had no charter in place and would be funded from the venture’s own cash and finance proceeds.
On the chartering front, StealthGas continued enjoying robust demand for its vessels and reported the conclusion of eight medium- and long-term fixtures over the past three months.
In the most notable of these, an unidentified client extended an expiring charter for the 5,000-cbm Eco Universe (built 2015) for three years, until March 2026.
These charter deals boost the contracted revenue backlog of StealthGas to about $105m — excluding the company's four joint-venture vessels.
“These results give us the energy we... need to continue pushing for more noteworthy results and to strengthen the company and our balance sheet even further,” Vafias said.
