The slow summer has pushed Hunter Group’s bottom line into the red.
The Morten Astrup and Arne Fredly-backed company said on Tuesday that its two chartered-in VLCCs were chartered out at an average of $32,015 per day in June.
The company is paying $51,750 per day for each of the ships, pushing the margin to -$19,735 per day and working out to a net result of -$1.2m.
It was Oslo-listed Hunter Group’s worst monthly performance since it started reporting in February.
The only other time the net result has fallen below zero was in April, when it was charting its vessels out for $45,180 per day, pushing the margin to -$6,750 per day and the result to -$349,170.
Despite a rosy supply picture — although there has been an uptick in ordering, the book stands at just 6.78% of the total fleet — a lack of activity during the typically slow summer months has pulled down VLCC rates.
Fearnleys has bemoaned the few fixtures and lacklustre rates in recent weeks, last month appealing to owners to wait until the autumn as volume counts were flat cyclically and second-half rates were ticking up on paper.
But spot rates remain low, with Howe Robinson reporting on Monday a non-eco VLCC on the Middle East Gulf to China route earning $18,847 per day.
That figure rises to $24,833 per day for an eco-designed ship.
The US Gulf to China route remains the richest at the moment. The broker estimates an eco-designed ship would earn $35,585 per day and a non-eco ship $29,550 per day.
