Greek Tsakos Energy Navigation has confirmed the signing last month of a newbuilding deal with a major South Korean yard for the construction of one option one suezmax DP2 shuttle tanker with expected delivery in 2026.

The vessel has a 10-year employment with a major energy concern with embedded charterer options to increase the duration of the charter to a maximum of 20 years.

The expected gross revenues over the maximum life of this contract are about $500m.

Meanwhile, under the recently announced agreement to acquire five-modern eco-friendly tankers employed on term contracts, the first vessel, the DF Montmartre, a 2023-built LNG-powered LR2 aframax tanker was delivered to the company on March 26, 2024.

The other four are expected to join the fleet between early April 2024 and June 2024.

Financial results for the year 2023

The Greek owner in 2023 generated $890m in revenues resulting to a net income of $327m before impairment charges, a significant increase from last year, as the company claims.

“TEN celebrated its 30th year as a public company, with another record year performance,” the shipowner said.

Adjusted Ebitda for the year reached $490m, $95m higher than in 2022, a 24% increase.

Average TCE per ship per day for 2023 amounted to $36,822, 21% higher from the 2022 level while vessel utilization climbed to 96.3% in 2023 from 94.7% the prior year.

Depreciation and amortization combined for 2023 remained relatively stable compared to 2022 at $144 million.

The company’s total debt obligations were reduced from the 2022 level and settled at $1.56bln at December 31, 2023.

Financial results for the fourth quarter of 2023

The fourth quarter of 2023 was a transitional period for TEN, as it operated six fewer vessels than the same period in 2022 due to vessel sales and before the add-on of the five new vessel acquisitions.

This resulted to an adjusted Ebitda of $124m from $159m in the 2022 fourth quarter and an operating income of $83m before impairment charges.

This reduction in the number of vessels led to equivalent decreases in voyage, charter hire and operating expenses when compared to the 2022 fourth quarter with the most notable decrease being in voyage expenses which were $9m lower than the 2022 level.

Depreciation and amortization remained largely unchanged at $38m in the 2023 fourth quarter.

Strategy & Outlook

Following its tried and tested strategy of vessel renewal, it has sold nine vessels of an average age of 18.5 years and replaced them with 16 vessels with an average of 1.3 years, whilst increasing its dwt by 1.5 million tonnes.

It has used the strong market fundamentals to extend and secure new employments with profit sharing arrangements for 32 of its vessels, resulting to $2 billion of minimum contracted revenues.

George Saroglou, president and COO of TEN, said: “Strong balance sheet, high utilization, operational excellence and our environmentally friendly fleet secures visibility of growing earnings and allows TEN to further reward its shareholders going forward.”

Source: Tsakos Energy Navigation