Crude oil tanker company DHT Holdings Inc, has declared a second quarter profit of $57.1 million (Q2 2022: $10 million) on shipping revenues of $152 million Q2 2022: $99.2 million).

Quarterly highlights included the acquisition of a 2018-built VLCC for $94.5 million

Over the same period, the company achieved average combined time charter equivalent earnings of $56,300 per day, comprised of $36,200 per day for the company’s very large crude carriers on time-charter and $64,800 per day for the VLCCs operating in the spot market.

The result for the company’s VLCCs operating in the spot market, measured on a discharge-to-discharge basis, was $61,800 per day for the second quarter of 2023.

DHT completed the installation of three exhaust gas cleaning systems during the quarter and now all vessels in the fleet are fitted with such systems.

The company purchased 1,072,344 of its own shares in the open market for an aggregate consideration of $8.9 million, at an average price of $8.25. All shares were retired upon receipt, of which 251,879 shares, equivalent to $2.1 million in treasury shares, were retired in July 2023.

DHT is again in the upper quartile, ranked number six out of 64 shipping companies, in the 2023 ESG scorecard report issued by Webber Research. DHT was also ranked number one among all the crude tanker companies included in the report.

DHT also declared a cash dividend of $0.35 per share of outstanding common stock, payable on August 30, 2023, to shareholders of record as of August 23, 2023.

This marks the 54th consecutive quarterly cash dividend and is in line with the company’s capital allocation policy to pay out 100 per cent of net income. The shares will trade ex-dividend from August 22, 2023.

Subsequently, the company acquired 250,000 shares at $8.46 and took delivery at the end of July of an acquired vessel, DHT Appaloosa, financed with available liquidity and bring the fleet up to 24 VLCCs.