Russia: Sovcomflot Posts Strong Q1 Profit

Russian maritime shipping company specializing in petroleum and LNG shipping, PAO Sovcomflot (SCF Group) has posted $70.1m in profit for the first quarter ended 31 March 2019.

Sergey Frank, President and CEO of PAO Sovcomflot said: “Sovcomflot started 2019 with a strong Q1 performance, boosted by a return to profitability in our conventional crude and product tanker markets following an upswing in the first months of 2019. Profits from our crude fleet in particular increased 53 per cent year-on-year compared to Q1 2018."

“Although spot market rates for conventional tankers have yet to reach their historic averages, they have come off the low levels witnessed in the  2017-Q3 2018 period and, whilst we remain cautious for Q2 2019, we believe that a sustainable market recovery in the conventional tanker markets appears likely towards the end of 2019 and through 2020," he added.

“Despite cautious optimism about conventional tankers, it is our industrial fleet working in the Offshore and Gas sectors where Sovcomflot specialises in delivering safety-focused operations, with high quality assets, under long-term contracts that remains central to Group strategy going forward. We have a number of such projects delivering in the next two years, and a pipeline of opportunities that we are looking to develop over the next five year window that will further increase Sovcomflot’s participation in these core strategic sectors,” Sergey concluded.

Evgeniy Ambrosov, Senior Executive Vice-President of PAO Sovcomflot said: “During the quarter, we witnessed several landmark events in the history of the development of remarkable Russian Oil & Gas projects, in which Sovcomflot participated directly, including the 10th anniversary of LNG shipments from the Sakhalin-2 project, using SCF’s two LNGC’s Grand Aniva and Grand Elena to export natural gas to Asian markets."

"We also saw the 10th million tonne of crude oil loaded on SCF’s ice-breaking shuttle tankers serving the Prirazlomnoye project, operated by Gazprom Neft. The willingness of key customers to employ SCF vessels for extended periods of time is the best proof of SCF’s highest level of reliability as a business partner and an ocean carrier of hydrocarbons,” Evgeniy added.