Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha, the Japanese shipping company known as NYK Line, increased fiscal first-half profits and revenues from shipping liquefied natural gas and other fuels worldwide as it also ordered five new LNG carriers to add to its fleet of 58 owned and co-owned LNG vessels.
NYK’s revenues soared by 30 percent for the six months from April to the end of September 2022 and amounted to 1.36 trillion Japanese yen ($9.31 billion) compared with 1.05 trillion yen ($7.16Bln) in the fiscal first-half of 2021.
Profits jumped by 71 percent and came to 706.06Bln ($4.81Bln) versus 411.32Bln yen ($2.80Bln) in the same six months of last year.
NYK said the profits grew even as bunkered fuel costs for its fleet of ships jumped by 76 percent year-on-year to average $839.95 per ton versus $477.42 per ton in the same six months of 2021.
The NYK LNG carriers are in the energy fleet of the company’s Bulk Shipping division.
The company’s fleet comprises 658 owned and co-owned vessels, including in the largest sector 382 bulk carriers, 113 energy tankers and associated vessels, 108 car carriers and 55 containerships.
Contracts
“In the LNG carriers unit, the results were steady based on support from the long-term contracts that generate stable earnings. Also, in the offshore business, FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading), drill ship and shuttle tankers were generally steady as expected,” said NYK.
Overall Bulk Shipping revenues came to 616.4 billion yen ($4.20Bln) in the six-month period.
In the Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) market, NYK said that there was a further rebounded off market lows from July. Then, after oil prices fell in mid-August following the release from the strategic petroleum reserve in the United States, shipments of oil from the Middle East and US in particular rose to destinations in Europe and Asia.
“Due in part to this, the use of VLCCs increased, causing supply-and- demand conditions to tighten and the market to rapidly recover. Thereafter, the higher shipment volumes continued into September,” explained NYK.
“In the petrochemical tanker market, due to the impact of the situation in Russia and Ukraine, the origin of shipments bound for Europe shifted from Russia to the United States, Middle East and India, resulting in longer sailing distances,” the company added.
NYK also said that a consortium it is part of had signed a long-term time-charter contract with QatarEnergy for five LNG carriers for delivery between 2025 and 2026 for Qatar's expansion of LNG production.
The partners of NYK in the newbuilds contract are Malaysian shipping company MISC Group and China LNG Shipping.
Shanghai yard
The joint-venture companies have executed shipbuilding contracts for the five vessels with 174,000 cubic metres capacity with Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding of Shanghai.
“Over the past 39 years since the delivery of the LNG carrier ‘Echigo Maru’ in 1983, NYK has continued to enhance its LNG safety and expertise and worldwide LNG transport network,” said the company.
“The skills that NYK has acquired in safe and optimized navigation, the construction of LNG carriers, and high-level ship-management quality have earned high regard from QatarEnergy, leading to the successful conclusion of this contract,” declared the Chiyoda City-based shipping line.
“NYK and QatarEnergy have had a long-term relationship with several existing projects and the relationship will be further extended through this contract,” it added.
NYK said these five vessels will be equipped with the latest propulsion in the X-DF 2.1 iCER engines designed by Winterthur Gas & Diesel (WinGD), headquartered in Switzerland.
The X-DF low-speed, dual-fuel engines use gas admitted at low pressure and will reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency.
The company added that the five LNG newbuilds will be around 299 metres in length with a moulded breadth of 46.40M and with speed capability of 19.5 knots.
