Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. Announces Delivery of VLCC Newbuilding NISSOS KEA
Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. announces that it has taken delivery of the VLCC NISSOS KEA (the “Vessel”). The Vessel was delivered from Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea and is the first of two under construction, Gas Ready (MEc), ECO-design, open loop scrubber-fitted 300,000 DWT VLCC crude tanker vessels that the Company acquired (the “Transaction”) in the second half of 2021, pursuant to the press release disclosed on 29 June 2021. The cash consideration for the Transaction was financed through proceeds of a new sale and lease back agreement (the “Facility”) with CMB Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. (“CMBFL”), with a gross finance amount of approximately $145.5m. The Facility is repaid quarterly, amortizes over a 20-year profile, matures in 7 years from drawdown and is priced at extremely competitive terms. According to the agreement, the Company has a call option at each anniversary date. OET has already drawn $72.75m from the Facility as it relates to the delivery of the Vessel. The Company expects to take delivery of the second vessel NISSOS NIKOURIA at the end of May 2022 when it will also draw the second tranche of the Facility.
OET is an international tanker company in the crude oil shipping industry, with the ambition to own, charter out and operate fuel efficient tanker vessels. The Company was incorporated on April 30, 2018 under the laws of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and is listed on Oslo Børs under the symbol OET. The sailing fleet consists of six modern scrubber-fitted Suezmax tankers, seven modern scrubber-fitted VLCC tankers, while the newbuilding fleet consists of one VLCC tanker.
Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. Announces Sale of Three-Vessel Aframax/LR2 Fleet
Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. (the “Company”) announces that it has signed a memorandum of agreement for the sale of its Aframax/LR2 fleet comprising three vessels (Nissos Therassia, Nissos Schinoussa, Nissos Heraclea) all built in 2015 at H.H.I. South Korea to an unaffiliated third party for a total of $120.75 million. The sale is anticipated to be completed upon delivery of the final vessel to her new owners by latest October 2021.
Following a thorough evaluation of the Company’s net asset value based on current data points in the sale & purchase market and consistent with its Discount Control Mechanism, the Board of Directors (the “Board”) deemed that the magnitude of the Company’s discount to its intrinsic value on both an absolute and relative basis exceeded the acceptable threshold at this point in the tanker market cycle. Furthermore, the sale will remove debt maturities through 2025, reduce the already industry-low average age of the Company’s fleet and improve its emissions performance. The Company calculates that its Aframax/LR2 fleet will have generated a cumulative return on equity of 30% since the Company’s listing on the Euronext Growth exchange in July 2018.
The sale is expected to generate net proceeds of approximately $45 million after repayment of the Aframax/LR2 fleet’s vessel-specific and scrubber debt outstanding at delivery. Upon completion of the sale, the Board intends to propose a shareholder distribution(s) of the majority of the net proceeds. The distribution(s) will be achieved through a write-down of paid-in capital, which requires Board approval only and is not a taxable event.
Okeanis Eco Tankers: Πούλησε τρία δεξαμενόπλοια έναντι $120,8 εκατ.
Στην πώληση τριών tankers LR2 του στόλου της προχώρησε η Okeanis Eco Tankers, συμφερόντων της οικογένειας Αλαφούζου, προς τη δανέζικη Torm, η οποία δραστηριοποιείται κι αυτή στον κλάδο των δεξαμενόπλοιων.
Πρόκειται για τα aframaxes/LR2 tankers «Nissos Schinoussa», «Nissos Therassia» και «Nissos Heraclea» της εισηγμένης στο χρηματιστήριο του Όσλο, με τη συνολική αξία της συναλλαγής να ανέρχεται στα 120,8 εκατ. δολάρια. Τα πλοία αναμένεται να παραδοθούν το αργότερο μέχρι το τρίτο τρίμηνο του 2021, σύμφωνα με το splash247.com
Τα τρία LR2 tankers διαθέτουν πλήρως επικαλυμμένες (fully coated) δεξαμενές, προκειμένου να μεταφέρουν και προϊόντα πετρελαίου, εκτός από αργό πετρέλαιο. Επίσης, είναι εξοπλισμένα με scrubbers και σχεδιασμένα με eco προδιαγραφές, όπως και το σύνολο των πλοίων της Okeanis. Είναι χωρητικότητας 114.322 dwt και κατασκευής 2015 στη Νότια Κορέα.
Στην ανακοίνωσή της, η Torm τονίζει πως έχει λάβει δέσμευση για χρηματοδότηση ύψους 60 εκατ. δολαρίων από την Danish Ship Finance για τα δύο από τα τρία tankers.
Το τρίτο tanker πρόκειται να χρηματοδοτηθεί κατά 32,2 εκατ. δολάρια μέσω συμφωνίας πώλησης και εκμίσθωσης με κινεζικό χρηματοπιστωτικό ίδρυμα. Okeanis και Torm έχουν συμφωνήσει για τους βασικούς όρους της πώλησης, με τη δεύτερη να παρέχει καθαρή ρευστότητα 24 εκατ. δολαρίων.
Υπενθυμίζεται ότι τα καθαρά κέρδη της Okeanis Eco Tankers αυξήθηκαν το 2020 στα 101,3 εκατ. δολάρια έναντι 11,4 εκατ. δολαρίων το 2019.
Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. Reports Third Quarter Profit of $15.6 Million
Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. reported unaudited interim condensed results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020.
Q3 2020 Highlights
Time charter equivalent (“TCE”) revenue and Adjusted EBITDA of $47.5 million and $35.5 million, respectively. Profit for the period of $15.6 million or $0.48 per basic & diluted share. Profit includes a write-off of deferred financing fees associated with debt re-financing and an unrealized loss on derivatives of $1.1 million and $0.4 million, respectively. Profit excluding these items was $17.2 million, or $0.53 per basic & diluted share.
Fleetwide daily TCE rate of $35,600 per operating day; VLCC, Suezmax and Aframax/LR2 TCE rates of $44,000, $31,800 and $15,200 per operating day, respectively.
Daily vessel operating expenses (“opex”) of $8,115 per calendar day, including management fees.In Q4 2020 to date, 100% of the available VLCC spot days have been booked at an average TCE rate of $24,000 per day, 70% of the available Suezmax spot days have been booked at an average TCE rate of $17,000 per day and 39% of the available Aframax/LR2 spot days have been booked at an average TCE rate of $11,000 per day.
In July 2020, the Suezmax vessels Kimolos and Folegandros were re-financed for $42.2 million and $39.2 million, respectively.Between August and October 2020, the Company entered into seven floating-to-fixed interest rate swaps with a total notional amount of $344.9 million at an average fixed interest rate of 0.3231% for a term of three years.
In September 2020, the Company paid a cash dividend to its shareholders of $0.75 per share, amounting to $24.3 million.Also in September 2020, the Company took delivery of Suezmax vessels Nissos Sikinos and Nissos Sifnos. Both vessels entered into three-year time charter contracts upon delivery. In connection with their delivery, the Company entered into a $103.2 million loan facility with the Export-Import Bank of Korea, the BNK Busan Bank and the BNK Kyongnam Bank.Subsequent Events
The Board of Directors of OET declared a cash dividend of $0.10 per share, amounting to $3.2 million. The cash dividend will be paid on Wednesday December 2, 2020 to shareholders of record as of Thursday November 26, 2020. The shares will be traded ex-dividend as from and including Wednesday November 25, 2020.
Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. is a pure play eco and scrubber-fitted tanker company that owns and operates a fleet of 17 modern, high-specification crude oil and products tankers in the VLCC, Suezmax and Aframax/LR2 segments.
Ocean Yield Wins Arbitration Against Okeanis ECO Tankers for four VLCCs
In October 2019, Okeanis ECO Tankers (“Okeanis”) served a notice to exercise options to repurchase four VLCCs (“the Vessels”) that earlier had been bought by Ocean Yield ASA (“Ocean Yield”) and chartered back to Okeanis on long-term charters. The parties disagreed if the conditions for exercising the options had been fulfilled, and the matter was therefore referred to arbitration.
An arbitration tribunal has decided that Okeanis did not have the right to exercise such options to repurchase the Vessels under the lease agreements.