Buoyant nine months for Concordia
STENA group tanker operating company Concordia Maritime made a net profit of SKr48.0m for the first nine months of this year, up from SKr35.5m in the same period last year the company made a profit of SKr35.5m on ship sales. Concordia’s pre-tax profit forecast for 2006 is SKr75m (US$10.3m) or SKr1.56 per share. Concordia Maritime has time-chartered the two V-MAX VLCCs Stena Vision and Stena Victory, originally built for Concordia, from Arlington Tankers since November, 2004. The charters expire at the end of 2009 after which the company has options on three 1-year extensions. These two vessels have been on charter to the US oil company Sunoco since 2001. Earlier this earlier this year time charter contracts were agreed with Russian oil company Lukoil. The vessels will enter the new charters when their current charters with the US oil company Sunoco expire at the end of 2007. This means that Concordia Maritime has secured employment for the two V-MAX tankers until the end of 2009 when the time charter with Arlington Tankers expires. In September Concordia ordered a further two tankers in the P-MAX series for delivery in 2010. A total of ten P-MAX tankers have now been ordered, including four this year of which four have not yet been chartered. The company also has an interest in two ice strengthened panamax tankers, which have been ordered in a joint venture with Neste Shipping. These vessels will be chartered to Neste Oil for ten years.
