Belgium’s Euronav has announced rising profits and says it has finished shaking out older vessels with the sale of a 12-year-old VLCC.
The Saverys family’s US and Brussels-listed shipowning giant logged net earnings for the second quarter of $184.4m, up from $161.8m in the same period of last year.
Results were helped by a huge $79m gain from the sale of three old VLCCs to Sinokor, as TradeWinds has reported. Total asset sales came in at $95m.
Revenue fell to $252m from $348.2m a year ago.
Fearnley Securities called the result “solid” and in excess of consensus estimates, as rates for crude tankers and bulkers came in ahead of expectations.
The company comprises the Euronav tanker operation and the bulkers, container ships and offshore vessels of the Saverys family’s CMB.Tech.
The combined operation will officially be known as CMB.Tech from 1 October.
Chief executive Alexander Saverys said: “The transformation of Euronav to CMB.Tech is in full swing.
“We have completed the sale of older tankers, we have added accretive time charters to our portfolio, we have taken delivery of seven futureproof newbuildings.”
Saverys also said newbuilding contracts had been signed for three offshore wind vessels and four tugs to strengthen the portfolio of hydrogen-powered ships.
“During these very busy times, we have realised another strong result in Q2, bringing our year-to-date net profit to $679.6m,” he added.
The company announced the sale of the 320,300-dwt VLCC Alsace (built 2012) to TotalEnergies for an floating production, storage and offloading unit conversion and will book a capital gain of $27.5m when it is delivered in the first quarter of next year.
VesselsValue assesses the tanker as worth $72m, up from $59m two years ago.
It has been owned by Euronav since delivery.
Euronav also said it sold the 6,000-teu boxship CMA CGM Baikal (built 2024) on its delivery as a newbuilding and booked a capital gain of $15.6m in the second quarter.
VesselsValue rates the panamax as worth $88m and lists it in the fleet of CMA CGM.
The offshore ship orders had all been previously announced, except for a deal for two hydrogen-ready crew transfer vessels at Gdansk shipyard ALU International, signed by FRS Windcat Polska.
These will be dedicated to the Polish offshore wind industry from 2025.
The contract includes the option to order an unspecified number of additional vessels at a later stage.
