Norway's Ocean Yield has no plans to sell two anchor-handling tug supply vessels leased to Solstad Offshore after charter payments were resumed.
The Oslo-listed sale-and-leaseback company received no payments from Solstad for two years as the offshore vessel owner struggled with dire markets.
But the Lars Peder Solstad-led firm sealed a $2bn debt restructuring last year that redrew the charters and allowed the cash to flow once more.
Ocean Yield chief executive Lars Solbakken told reporters the company was not "actively" looking at disposing of the 21,454-hp Far Senator and 21,457-hp Far Statesman (both built 2013).
New pool deal
"We made a new agreement with Solstad. So they’re operating in a pool," he added.
Solbakken said one vessel had won a "very attractive contract" with Petrobras in Brazil, while the other is serving a contract in Australia.
"After not having received any charter rates for basically two years, we are...starting now to receive charter rates for those vessels, and expect that, or at least hope that, we will have acceptable returns on those vessels going forward," he added.
Ocean Yield retained a stake of 3.8% in Solstad following a debt to equity swap. The company previously owned 5% of Solstad.
The rejigging of its holding was due to a restructuring of the bareboat charters for the two ships. Solstad is receiving a variable rate for four years.
Ocean Yield said in its fourth quarter earnings statement it is facing another headache over the costly unemployed unit.
Subsidiary Aker Contracting has received a notice from Indian authorities regarding a potential tax claim related to a previous contract.
"Aker Contracting disputes the claim [and] has obtained legal advice supporting their position and the matter will be referred to in Indian courts," Ocean Yield added.
The size of any potential claim has not been made public.
The FPSO has been idle since Reliance released it in India in 2018.
The level is set by the average Ebitda in a pool of seven similar vessels.
The AHTS duo made a net loss of $2m in the second quarter of 2020 due to a standstill agreement with Solstad.
Financing hurdle for FPSO
One vessel the company is actively looking to sell, or charter, is the 214,266-cbm floating production storage and offloading unit Dhirubhai-1 (built 1979), which continues in lay-up in Sri Lanka.
Solbakken said the operating expenses for the ship were $2.1m in the fourth quarter.
"Sales discussions with interested parties continue, but the sales process for such a unit is very time-consuming as [they] need to do extensive technical evaluations," he added.
"For some of the interested parties, financing is also challenging. A higher oil price is expected to be helpful with respect to our efforts to sell the unit."
