Okeanis Eco Tankers has revealed how it logged 33% higher spot rates in the first quarter than its rivals.
The Oslo-listed shipowner achieved an average of $87,000 per day for its VLCCs over the three months, and $72,000 per day for suezmaxes.
This was 33% above peers, according to investment bank Cleaves Securities.
Okeanis chief financial officer John Papaioannou said the company had 41% of the fleet covered by time charters in the quarter.
But it was the volatile spot market that pushed it to a big net profit of $41.1m.
Chief operating officer Aristidis Alafouzos said the company had predicted the market would weaken in January and February due to Covid-19 affecting Asian demand.
"We then decided to ballast at full speed in order to catch the market before it weakened," he told analysts.
"The market bottomed out at below $40,000 per day, which would have been our natural loading days, but we were successful in positioning our vessels into earlier loading windows on all three fixtures we had open."
By mid-March, following the oil price war, Okeanis had secured two "very strong" fixtures, he added.
"Unfortunately, one of the two vessels open during this period failed extremely strong subjects twice as the market began to weaken, and as a consequence we missed earnings of $250,000 per day, then $200,000, and we had to settle for $100,000 finally," Alafouzos said.
The company said running costs of $8,233 per day are more than $2,000 lower than the peer average, which would lead to savings of $11m in 2020.
It is cautious about the months ahead as the crude tanker storage play unwinds, but it believes strong fundamentals are in place due to the low newbuilding orderbook.
But Cleaves Securities said its "pessimism" for the second half of 2020 and beyond remains unchanged.
"Spot rates have fallen even sooner than we expected quarter to date," said the bank's head of research, Joakim Hannisdahl, after the results last week.
"We reiterate our hold rating but reduce our target price to NOK 68 [$6.59]." The stock has since risen to NOK 69.
Company guidance for 60% of spot days fixed at $72,000 per day across the fleet in the second quarter was "very strong", he added, "but we reduce our second-quarter realised rates by 21%, as spot rates have collapsed."
