Teekay Tankers’ hope that older ships would become money-making machines did not stop it from selling another vessel in the first quarter.
The New York-listed shipowner said on Thursday that it sold an unnamed 2005-built aframax for roughly $15m, completing the sale in April.
“Having refinanced 13 vessels on low-cost sale-leaseback financings and sold three older vessels in 2022, we have strong pro forma liquidity of $231m and a net debt-to-capitalisation ratio of 42%,” chief executive Kevin Mackay said in a statement alongside first-quarter earnings.
TradeWinds reported on 4 May that Teekay Tankers’ 115,500-dwt Helga Spirit (built 2005) was sold earlier in the year for $17.5m and is now trading as Panther I under the technical management of Columbia Shipmanagement.
The Helga Spirit joined three 2004-built ships sold recently, two of which were divulged on Teekay Tankers’ fourth-quarter earnings call in February — the 112,000-dwt Australian Spirit and 115,400-dwt Axel Spirit.
Data from Clarksons said the Australian Spirit was sold for $13.5m to undisclosed interests in December 2021 and the Axel Spirit for $13.2m to a Chinese buyer in March.
The third ship moved in 2022, the 159,100-dwt suezmax Kaveri Spirit, was sold to Greece’s Transmed Shipping for $15.8m, according to broking sources.
After those sales, Mackay said he hoped that veteran tankers — Teekay Tankers owns 26 crude and product tankers built in 2010 and earlier — would become “massive cash-generation machines”.
“I think the asset price market is firm. We don’t see that changing in the near term. So again, that means that we might have a bit of time here to consider those ships,” he said.
Teekay Tankers posted a first-quarter loss of $13.9m, or a loss of $0.41 per share, better than the $0.68-per-share loss analysts had expected.
It was also an improvement from the $21.4m loss for the first quarter of 2021.
The company attributed the improvement to better spot market rates, suezmaxes earning an average of $13,786 per day versus $10,670 per day a year earlier and its aframaxes fetching $16,857 per day versus $10,108 per day.
Its LR2s improved as well, jumping to $15,491 per day from $11,434 per day year over year.
Further improvements have been made so far in the second quarter, with its suezmaxes earning an average of $27,400 per day with 52% of revenue days booked, aframaxes $30,900 per day with 45% booked and LR2s $30,400 per day with 43% booked.
Mackay said the improvement was down to changing oil trading patterns following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, but pointed out that Covid-19 outbreaks in China and Opec+ supply decisions are persistent risks.
“These changes have been particularly positive for midsize tankers that our company
operates, given the flexibility of the tonnage and our ability to call at a much wider range of ports relative to VLCCs,” he said.
Harry Papachristou contributed to this article
