Stelmar Shipping Reports 3Q Results

For the third quarter of 2002, the company reported net income of $12,300,000, or $0.73 per diluted share, compared with $11,947,000, or $1.00 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2001. The weighted average number of diluted shares used in the computations was 16,870,434 and 11,944,273 for the third quarters of 2002 and 2001 respectively, as the Company completed a secondary offering in April of this year. Operating income increased to $17,343,000 from $16,621,000 in the third quarter of 2001. EBITDA for the quarter was $27,691,000 compared with $23,859,000 for last year's third quarter. On a time charter basis, revenues for the quarter were $41,771,000 an increase of 29.9 percent over the $32,157,000 recorded in the third quarter of last year, mainly due to the expansion of the fleet. Time charter earned revenues for the third quarter of 2002 were $40,110,000 approximately 96.0 percent of revenues, on a time charter basis, as opposed to $22,628,000 or 70.4 percent of revenues, on a time charter basis, for the same quarter last year. Peter Goodfellow, Chief Executive Officer of Stelmar Shipping, commented, "We are pleased at the continuing success of our time charter approach, which has enabled us to post thirty-one consecutive quarters of profitability, seven of these since going public last year. Our focus on signing long-term time charter contracts has proven its worth as a way to generate considerable profitability in a challenging tanker market. In the third quarter, we continued to sign profitable contracts that will provide our shareholders with significant earnings visibility through 2004."