Charters of Tsakos Tankers Extended
Tsakos Energy Navigation (TEN) announced charter extensions with a state oil company with profit sharing provisions for four panamax tankers, with an average duration of 22 months per vessel and minimum gross revenues of $65 million.
These fixtures are expected to commence between April and November of 2016 upon expiration of their existing employments and contribute, on an annualized basis, an extra $20m to the Company's bottom line.
"The extension of these contracts follow our policy to increase TEN's long-term employment profile as time charter rates have finally started to reflect the strength of the spot market," Mr. Nikolas Tsakos, President and CEO of TEN commented.
"With an average contract length of 2.7 years for the whole fleet and $1.5 billion in minimum revenues coupled with the ability to benefit from market peaks through our flexible contracts, TEN has further secured its ability to maintain its uninterrupted dividend record going forward which, since its NYSE listing in 2002, has distributed an average of $0.75 per share per annum at a yield of 5.25%. With steady cash flows, substantial organic growth and firm cost controls TEN is attractively priced and placed for both value and yield investors," Tsakos concluded.
To date, TEN's pro-forma fleet, including two VLCCs, an LNG carrier, nine Aframax crude oil tankers, a Suezmax DP2 shuttle tanker and two LR1 tankers all under construction, consists of 65 double-hull vessels, constituting a mix of crude tankers, product tankers and LNG carriers, totaling 7.2 million dwt.
Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited provides international seaborne crude oil and petroleum product transportation services worldwide. The company offers marine transportation services to national, major, and other independent oil companies and refiners under long, medium, and short-term charters.
