International Seaways confirmed the sale of two veteran product tankers as it rang in a second quarter loss today.
New York-listed Seaways said it had sold a pair of 2004-built MRs, which had been delivered to their new owners last month.
While Seaways did not identify the ship by name, TradeWinds has previously reported the company to be shedding the 46,200-dwt Seaways Ariadmar and Seaways Antigmar (both built 2004).
Brokers have suggested Sea Transport Group of Nigeria as the buyer of both of the vessels.
Seaways has been busy renewing its fleet in the past two years, having purchased seven new VLCCs and a pair of suezmax resales since being spun-off from Overseas Shipholding Group.
Data from VesselsValue shows a total of 14 tankers, including one of the world’s only surviving ULCCs and a veteran VLCC, have been divested during the same period.
Seaways also disclosed the charter of a 2010-built panamax for six months and the six-month extension of a 2006-built panamax.
It came as the shipowner booked a loss of $16.5m for the second quarter, against the $18.8m red figure seen at the same stage in 2018.
Adjusted for a loss on vessel sales, the quarterly loss of $15m was equal to $0.51 per share.
Ben Nolan, an analyst at Stifel, said the results were below both his and Wall Street forecasts.
"The miss was primarily due to lower revenues than our expectations," he said.
"With the miss and the likelihood of numbers coming down in 3Q, we expect the shares to trade flat to down."
Lois Zabrocky, chief executive of International Seaways, said: “Underlying tanker fundamentals remain supportive of a recovering market during a time when we continue to expect incremental demand from IMO 2020 to positively affect the product and crude tanker rate environment in the second half of 2019 and into 2020.”
She said both the crude and product fleets had performed in line with expectations during the second quarter.
“We are pleased to have further enhanced our balance sheet in the second quarter, as we increased total liquidity to $200.3m, up $32.7m year to date,” she added.
“With our highest cash and liquidity position since inception, we have also taken steps to reduce debt, consistent with our disciplined and balanced capital allocation strategy.”
