Euroseas Ltd. (NASDAQ: ESEA, the “Company” or “Euroseas”), an owner and operator of container vessels and provider of seaborne transportation for containerized cargoes, announced today a new charter of its container vessel M/V “EM Astoria”, says a press release published in GlobeNewswire.
New time charter
M/V “EM Astoria”, a 2,788 TEU vessel built-in 2004, entered into a new time charter contract for a period of between a minimum of thirty-six and a maximum of thirty-eight months at the option of the charterer, at a daily rate of $65,000 for the first twelve months, followed by a daily rate of $50,000 for the subsequent twelve months and followed by a daily rate of $20,000 for the remaining twelve to a fourteen-month period of the charter resulting in an average daily rate of about $45,000 for the duration of the charter. The new charter will commence in February 2022 after the completion of the present charter of the vessel.
Aristides Pittas, Chairman and CEO of Euroseas commented: “Following the recent announcement of three-year-long charters for three of our vessels, we are very pleased to announce a three-year charter for another vessel in our fleet, this time for M/V “EM Astoria”.
The rates
The rate of this new charter is on average about 2.5 times higher than the present charter rate of the vessel while the charter payments are heavily front-loaded. The new charter secures us with a minimum of $47m of contracted revenues and is expected to make a total EBITDA contribution in excess of $36m over the three years of the contract; more than $19m of the EBITDA contribution is expected during the first twelve months. This charter also increases our charter coverage to about 92% for 2022, more than 60% for 2023, and about 45% for 2024.
“Continuing healthy containership markets and our high contract coverage are to generate significant cash flow for us over the next two to three years. We plan to use this cash flow for selective investments to grow and modernize the Company or reward shareholders either through dividends or share buybacks as our Board of Directors should determine.”
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Source: GlobeNewswire
And why did you show a picture of the Passenger Ship Astoria??