Herbjorn Hansson’s Nordic American Tankers has an eye on fleet expansion after reporting an improved third-quarter performance.
New York-listed NAT locked in contracts worth $125m in the quarter and is looking to add more vessels.
“We plan to increase our fleet with a couple of ships, which should positively impact dividend payments,” its third-quarter report said.
It comes at a time NAT said it added time-charter contracts with oil companies as there is a “scarcity of suezmax” tankers in the world.
NAT booked a profit of $8.7m in the third quarter, beating the $7.5m at the same stage last year.
Analysts said a dividend of $0.04 per share represented a 100% payout on earnings for the quarter.
The results came in a quarter that saw NAT’s suezmaxes generate $30,656 per day, well clear of the $9,000 per day daily operating cost.
NAT is traditionally a spot-focused player. Today 15 of its 20 suezmaxes are trading in the spot market.
