Miserable numbers in the third quarter of Frontline

Last winter, there was a boom in the tanker market at rates of over $300,000 a day. The market remained usable throughout the spring and summer of 2020, but since then it’s mostly been a misery. However, Frontline did well in the first quarter when the company largely continued to surf the good 2020 market and generated a decent profit of $28.7 million. But in the second quarter, the carrier went on a rampage and lost $26.7 million. In the third quarter, the deficit increased further to end at $33.2 million. According to estimates obtained by Infront for TDN Direkt from eight analysts, a shortfall of $34 million was expected.

Front Line reports an average rate of $10,500 each. PR ship. Today for the fleet of giant oil tankers. The midsize suezmax jets in the fleet sailed at $7,900 per day while the LR2 sailed at $10,700.

seasonally weak

The third quarter is usually weak seasonally. This is due to a combination of some large oil producers consuming a lot of oil even during the summer, and refineries in Asia using time to shut down for maintenance before winter, says Frontline Management CEO Lars Barstad.

Acquisitions and mergers were the recipe for success for Frontline after ship owner John Fredriksen took over the original Swedish shipping company Frontline in the mid-1990s.
This was followed by a series of aggressive acquisitions of Norwegian and foreign carriers.
Combined with new contracts, these transactions created the basis for what became the all-time dividend machine in Norwegian shipping. «
We have paid a total of six billion dollars in dividends to our shareholders.
In addition, we split from the ship-owning company Ship Finance International, which has so far sent $2 billion to shareholders.
There were no other shipping companies close to this, Fredriksen said in an interview with Finansavisen at the end of August 2019.