Flex LNG is fully booked and expects a profitable year

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Norwegian-traded energy company Flex LNG said Tuesday it turned in healthy profits for the fourth quarter and was upbeat about its future as its entire fleet is booked for the year.

Flex LNG reported operating revenues from its 13 vessels designed to carry the super-cooled, liquid form of natural gas was $97.9 million for the fourth quarter, compared to $91.3 million during the three-month period ending in September.

Time Charter Equivalent, the difference between voyage expenses and revenues, minus the duration of a round-trip voyage, averaged $81,699 per day during the fourth quarter, a $5,758 improvement over the previous term.

Oystein Kalleklev, the company's CEO, expects TCE to be around $80,000 on average for the year.

"Going forward we do expect our financial performance to further improve as we are fully booked for 2023," he said.

LNG is increasing in importance due in part to Western pressures that restrict Russian supplies of crude oil and natural gas to keep revenue out of its war chest. Flex LNG said global LNG deliveries in 2022 were up 5% compared with the previous year.

That came even with the Freeport LNG facility in the United States offline for the latter half of the year due to a fire in June. Flex LNG estimated the closure of Freeport meant 112 fewer cargoes of liquid gas were delivered last year.

Given the geopolitical impact of LNG because of the war in Ukraine, Flex LNG said it expects most of the growth in LNG demand will come from the economies in Europe.

This year already has seen Germany take in its debut delivery of LNG using floating production facilities. U.S-based Sempra Infrastructure, meanwhile, signed a long-term agreement last month to deliver LNG to Poland from an export facility planned for Texas.

Poland before the war was almost entirely dependent on Russia for its supply of natural gas.