The company reported net profit of $14 million for Q4, largely helped by a $43 million compensation from the Russian shipyard Sevmash.
The quarterly result pulled Odfjell out of the red for the full year 2009 to net profit of $11 million ($163 million in 2008).

Odfjell’s tank terminal segment posted a steady operating profit of $68 million for 2009, nearly as much as the $69 million in 2008. This despite the redundancy costs and write-offs of $12 million relative to the termination of the waste handling activity of Odfjell Terminal Maritiem B.V. (OTM).
“OTM has been badly affected by the worldwide economic crisis and the subsequent reduced shipping activities within Rotterdam,” Odfjell said. “In order to avoid future losses, it has been decided to discontinue the waste handling activity of OTM as per the end of 2009 and to decommission the related equipment.” One of the reasons why Odfjell acquired this former AVR site was to gain control over the new deep sea jetty as part of this facility. The jetty operations will not be affected by the decommissioning.

The time charter income of its parcel tanker operations fell 19% in 2009 from 2008. The operating loss was $6 million for 2009, compared to $129 million profit for 2008.

Going forward, Odfjell expects the “challenging market” to continue in 2010 although it believes that the “bottom” has been reached in Q4.

The company added that although it had hedged some of its exposure at “attractive levels”, a rise in bunker prices continues to be “a concern”, and may hamper the recovery of its time-charter results.

Odfjell added that it expects its tank terminal operations to “remain strong”, on the back of the company’s expansion program and “strong demand” for storage space as well as a “solid” contract base.