Omega Navigation Releases 1Q Results

Omega Navigation Enterprises, Inc. said that for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, it reported total revenues of $18.7 million and Net Income of $6.3 million, or $0.41 per basic share, excluding a loss on its interest rate derivative instruments, a gain on warrants revaluation and incentive compensation grants expense. Including these items the Company reported Net Income of $5.7 million or $0.37 per basic share. EBITDA for the first quarter of 2009 was $13.2 million. Please see below for a reconciliation of EBITDA to Cash from Operating Activities.
Operating Income included revenue of $1.7 million attributable to profit sharing on charters of the Omega Lady Miriam and Omega Theodore generated primarily in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The company owned and operated an average of eight vessels, all product carriers, during the first quarter of 2009, the same number as in the first quarter of 2008. The Omega Lady Sarah completed its scheduled drydock on February 16, 2009 and after 13 days of scheduled out of service time went back on hire to ST Shipping at that time. Also, the Omega Theodore was involved in a collision (no injuries incurred and no pollution) and was off-hire for 9 days in this quarter. Much of the off-hire time and expense related to the damage is expected to be recovered in subsequent quarters through insurance and other recovery proceeds. Excluding profit sharing, the Panamax product carriers in our fleet earned an average time-charter equivalent rate of $24,486 per day per vessel during the first quarter of 2009, versus $25,076 per day per vessel during the first quarter of 2008. The Handymax product tankers in our fleet earned an average time charter equivalent rate of $20,746 per vessel per day during the first quarter of 2009, versus $20,759 per day per vessel during the first quarter of 2008.
Operating expenses for our MR product tankers averaged $5,248 per day per vessel in the first quarter of 2009, versus $4,593 per day per vessel in the first quarter of 2008. Our Panamax product tankers averaged operating expenses of $6,180 per day per vessel in the first quarter of 2009, versus $5,278 per day per vessel in the first quarter of 2008. The increase of the daily operating expenses of the vessels relates mainly due to the maintenance expenses for the Omega Lady Sarah related to her scheduled drydock in the first quarter of 2009 and insurance deductible incurred related to the collision on the Omega Theodore.
With the recent announcement of the delivery of the Omega Duke to a joint venture in which Omega Navigation has a 50% shareholding, Omega's current owned and operated fleet includes nine double hull product tankers with an aggregate carrying capacity of 559,358 dwt. The Omega Duke has been time chartered to ST Shipping (Glencore International AG) for a period of 5 years until mid 2014. With the additional announcements that the Omega Queen and Omega King have been time chartered out, eight out of nine product tankers are currently employed under time charters. The recent time charters are to established counterparties, ST Shipping and Torm A/S, respectively. Currently all of the vessels have profit sharing arrangements associated with them which enable the Company to share in the charter market's upside potential.
With these recent charters concluded, the Company has between the summer of 2009 and mid 2010 time charter coverage of 78%, inclusive of the joint venture. The Company is currently examining various chartering alternatives for the two vessels whose current time charters expire later this year.