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Cramer discusses Nordic American Tanker and chats with the CEO. Saves me the time to write up comments, since the covered the major points. NAT has done a great job of increasing the fleet during the downturn and the stock has held up well. Just need some of those $1.00+ quarterly distributions.

Nordic American Tanker results video »

Teekay Tankers forecasts dividends

By Tim | Published: February 4, 2010

http://www.teekaytankers.com/index.aspx?page=tnk_news&article_id=727

Teekay Tankers is projecting a first quarter 24 to 27¢ dividend to be paid in March. The company uses a mixture of fixed contract and spot market hires to provide an ongoing dividend plus upside if the rates take off.

The company states that the total dividend for 2010 would be in the neighborhood of $1.30 if rates stay at the current level and about 90¢ if they fall back to the level of last quarter of 2009. Those are pretty good prospects for a stock trading at about $9.00 per share.

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A Pair of Teekay Distribution Notices

By Tim | Published: January 28, 2010

Distribution notices out today:

Hamilton, Bermuda – January 27, 2009 – Teekay Offshore GP LLC, the general partner of Teekay
Offshore Partners L.P. TOO, has declared a cash distribution of $0.45 per unit for the quarter
ended December 31, 2009.  The cash distribution is payable on February 12, 2010 to all unitholders of record.

February 5, 2010.Teekay GP LLC, the general partner of Teekay LNG Partners L.P. TGP, has declared a cash distribution of $0.57 per unit for the quarter ended December 31, 2009.  The cash distribution is payable on February 12, 2010 to all unitholders of record on February 5, 2010.

These distributions remain the same for both companies. The payouts have been level for 6 consecutive quarters.Both TOO and TGP have current yields over 8%.

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Navios Maritime Partners increases dividend

By Tim | Published: January 26, 2010

Navios Maritime Partners L.P. – Investors.

Navios Maritime Partners NMM has increased their dividend payout again. The distribution will be bumped half a cent to a quarterly 41¢ per share. NMM has been well managed throughout the shipping slowdown with long term, insured contracts for their dry bulk vessels. It also helps to be able to skim the cream of the crop of vessels and contracts from Navios Maritime NM -(in my opinion). Navios Maritime Partners seems poised to be able to maintain or increase the dividend for the foreseeable future. The stock still yields close to 9.5%.

Note: I own a personal position in NMM

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World Shipping Routes

By Tim | Published: January 26, 2010

I found this map of the world shipping routes at wired.com courtesy of Bernd Blasius. It is interesting to see where the world’s shipping goes and how much of it there is.

Global Shipping Map

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Seaspan declares Q4 dividend

By Tim | Published: January 24, 2010

Seaspan Declares Dividend of $0.10 Per Share for Fourth Quarter 2009

HONG KONG, CHINA, Jan 22, 2010 (Marketwire via COMTEX News Network) — Seaspan Corporation (NYSE:SSW) announced today that the Company’s Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.10 per share for the three months ended December 31, 2009. The dividend will be paid on February 12, 2010 to all shareholders of record as of February 1, 2010.

Source: from the Seaspan press release

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Are Tanker Rates Headed Higher?

By Tim | Published: January 19, 2010

Capital Link Shipping | Investing In International Shipping Maritime.

A couple of comments on the above linked tanker market summary. Nice to see VLCC rates back above $85k. They averaged $25k for all of 2009.

There are only 50 VLCC tankers available in the Arabian Gulf for the next month. Typically, 90 of the big tankers are needed each month so spot rates could move significantly higher.

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Shipping Sector Flatlines

By Tim | Published: January 6, 2010

Shipping: The World’s Cheapest Sector Is About to Break Out — Seeking Alpha.

The article from Seeking Alpha linked above postulated that the shipping sector is seriously undervalued and due for a breakout to the upside. I am not sure about this analysis, and believe the shipping sector is composed of those companies that have their financial houses or order and those that do not. A serious amount of debt and future newbuildings casts shadow on the sector.

What I found interesting about the article was this chart of the SEA ETF:

SEA Chart

The shipping stocks as a group have shown virtually no movement for half a year. As I noted in a earlier post, shipping stocks were very split in 2009 as to gainers and losers. I think investors interested in this sector are better off analyzing individual stocks and making their decisions from there.

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The shipping industry’s $350 billion debt

By Tim | Published: November 13, 2009

Felix Salmon » Blog Archive » The shipping industry’s $350 billion debt | Blogs |.

The blog post linked above from Reuters reporter Felix Salmon discusses the large amount of bank debt collateralized by ships. With the current glut of ship inventory, if a company goes under the amount the bank realizes from the sale of assets may not cover the debt.

For shippers, I think this means the less financially secure will have a tougher time obtaining attractive financing for purchases. It may also lead to a more rapid scrapping of older ships.

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Nordic American Tanker to pay record dividend

By Tim | Published: November 9, 2009

Record low that is! Nordic American Tanker NAT will pay a thin dime of a dividend for the 3rd quarter. NAT is a small tanker company with a fleet of suezmax tankers. The company employs their ships on the spot tanker market and pays a quarterly dividend based on what the revenues are for the quarter. Dividends have fluctuated greatly over the 12 years the company has been in business, but the yield has averaged over 10% and someone owning the shares since inception would have earned close to $40 just in distributions.

NAT does not have any debt and has the lowest overhead of any tanker company. Before this 10¢ payout the dividend has fluctuated between 40¢ and $1.88 over the last 5 years. During the current economic and shipping rate crisis Nordic American has been picking up used-late model suezmax tankers at about $50 mil. a pop and has increased the fleet size by about 50%.

I believe NAT is a great long-term investment for those who like to collect nice dividends. I am hoping this dividend slash will cause some share price erosion. I would love to pick up some more shares in the $20 range.

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Navios Maritime Partners boosts dividend

By Tim | Published: November 2, 2009

Navios Maritime Partners L.P. – Investors.

Navios Maritime Partners LP NMM has done something rare these days in the world of shipping stocks: They increased the distribution. The new rate is 40.5¢ per share compared to the previous 40¢ per quarter. In the 3rd quarter the company was able to raise capital and commit to the purchase of 2 additional vessels.

Navios Partners has benefited from being able to skim (in my opinion) some of the best contracts from the mothership Navios Maritime NM and the company came into existence in lat 2007 loaded with high revenue, insured contracts with high quality customers.

Operating cash flow has continued to increase and currently NMM has about 1.6 times coverage on all of their distribution obligations. The dividend seems secure for at least a couple of years. None of the current charters expire until the end of 2010. It will be interesting to see how the company works to renew contracts starting late next year. A scan through the charter rates reveals that none is at a rate that seems excessively high in the current rate environment.

I like NMM with their current distribution yield of 12.5% and high quality revenues. I do have a personal holding in this stock.

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