Hafnia Q2 2026 Earnings Report

Hafnia EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.55
• Consensus EPS: $0.54
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Hafnia Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $834.53 million
• Expected Revenue: $394.57 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$439.97 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Hafnia Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 8/29/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Friday, August 28, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 2:15AM ET

Hafnia (NYSE:HAFN) is a global shipping company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker HAFN. The firm specializes in the marine transportation of refined petroleum products, providing safe and reliable shipping solutions across key global trade lanes. Its core operations focus on the carriage of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other clean petroleum products, catering to the needs of oil majors, trading houses and independent refiners.

The company operates a modern fleet of double-hulled product tankers, managed to comply with stringent safety and environmental standards. Hafnia’s offerings include voyage charters, time charters and contracts of affreightment, as well as in-house technical management services. The fleet is continually optimized through newbuild deliveries and retrofits, including exhaust gas cleaning systems to meet evolving regulatory requirements.

Headquartered in Bermuda with key commercial and operational offices in Singapore and Copenhagen, Hafnia serves markets across Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. Its global footprint allows the company to provide flexible scheduling, optimized routing and value-added logistics solutions, supporting customers throughout the supply chain from origin to destination.

Founded in 2019, Hafnia has grown through strategic fleet expansions and collaborative partnerships. The company’s name—drawn from the Latin word for Copenhagen—reflects its maritime heritage. Hafnia remains committed to advancing safe, efficient and environmentally responsible shipping practices, with ongoing initiatives aimed at reducing emissions and enhancing operational resilience.

Hafnia Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Hafnia reported a $278 million net profit in Q2, its second-strongest quarter historically, and declared a $250 million dividend representing a 90% payout ratio.
• Positive Sentiment: Management said product tanker fundamentals remain supported by geopolitical disruptions, longer shipping distances, depleted global inventories, potential Chinese product exports, and strong U.S. refinery utilization.
• Neutral Sentiment: Hafnia expects inventory rebuilding to support transportation demand, but warned that easing Middle East and canal disruptions could normalize freight markets; additional fleet deliveries and potential crude-to-clean tanker migration are further risks.
• Positive Sentiment: The company is modernizing its fleet by selling older vessels and ordering 10 newbuilds, while maintaining only 20%–30% time-charter coverage to retain exposure to strong spot rates.
• Neutral Sentiment: CEO Mikael Skelin is scheduled to leave day-to-day management and potentially join the board after September’s extraordinary general meeting, with Søren taking over as CEO to provide strategic continuity.

Presentation

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of the Q2 of Hafnia's results. It's a pleasure to have with me today the CEO, Mikael. Welcome, Mikael. Nice to see you.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Thank you.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

This will be your final time. We'll talk about that a little bit later. What we've prepared this time is just a brief introduction, then of course, the Q2 highlights, and then into the industry section again. Please ask all the questions you may have in the chat, and I'll make sure that they are put forward to Mikael. Mikael, welcome.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Thank you.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

And let's take the brief introduction to Hafnia as always, so that potentially new investors can get the grip.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Thank you for that too. Yes, as you can see from this slide here, basically Hafnia is all about transportation of refined oil products. Refined oil products is really defined by gasoline, diesel oil, gas oil, et cetera, all the products that come out of a refinery. So that is our specialty. We own and financially control 103 ships. Then we have a number of vessels on time charter as well. So, including owned time-chartered ships and third-party vessels, which is 60 ships that we operate from third-party owners, we get close to almost 200 product tankers that we have commercial responsibility for in the daily life. The average age of the owned fleet is 9.7 years, which should be seen in context of the average world global fleet of product tankers, where the average age is closer to 14 years.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

It is a modern fleet, and it is one of the strategic key pillars for Hafnia to make sure that we at all times renew the fleet to make sure that it stays modern and efficient. Which is also a way of, by the way, to reduce fossil fuels consumption, and therefore, stay on a decarbonization trajectory that is within the international regulation. At the end of the quarter, we had a market value of $4.4 billion. So, it has been quite a substantial period for Hafnia and I think you have seen that the net asset value of the business have gone up. Sorry, the net asset value of $4.4 billion, which basically highlights that it has been a strong period, not just of earnings, but also of increase in vessels values.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

And with that, Mikael, let's take a few highlights of Q2, please.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yeah. As some may be aware already, Q2 was an extremely strong quarter for the tanker business overall. Not just product tankers, but also transportation of crude and dirty petroleum products. A very, very strong quarter. The second strongest quarter in the history of Hafnia, except for third quarter of 2022. All of this really was driven by a lot of these geopolitical uncertainties that we've seen and longer tonne-mile of transportation. A very strong quarter with a net result for us of around $278 million in net profit. On the back of that, we are paying out $250 million in dividend, which is a 90% payout. All in all, I think a great quarter for Hafnia and for its shareholders.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Again, happy to say that we're still able to return a lot of capital to the shareholders, which we have now done 18 quarters in a row.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Yeah. Speaking of that, Mikael, let's go into a little bit more about that because you're actually getting up to the highest level of dividend payback this time, 90%. Maybe you can put more words on that.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yeah. What we have decided in Hafnia is to base the dividend and our dividend policy on our Net Loan-to-Value. What we have done is created a very threshold, so at certain levels, as we reduce our Net Loan-to-Value, the dividend goes up. This is now a dividend policy we've had for a number of years. As you say, once we come below 20% in Net Loan-to-Value, the payout ratio goes up to 90%. By the end of this quarter, we were at just above 13% in Net Loan-to-Value, and therefore, the payout is 90%. I think it's been an integral part of Hafnia strategy to make sure that we focus on investing when markets are low, which is where we built the company, bought in a lot of assets.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

But when you have the high cycles, as we see now, it's also an important part to make sure we return capital to shareholders until, again, at some point, we're going to see that there are attractive investment opportunities. I think it's one of the key things of a shipping company, particularly in this very cyclical industry, that making sure and try to time your investments when things are cheap, and making sure you sell and capitalize and return capital to shareholders when markets are strong and you're making a lot of money.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

And just to put into a relative context, this actually is representing 21% of an annual basis of payback, which is, I don't know, very, very high, I would argue.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yes.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

And also, I know for a fact that people will ask about the TORM shares, where they have also announced some dividends, and that is included in this. Is that correct?

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yes, that is correct. So, both sailor vessels in general and also the dividend from TORM, which this time around will be substantial, so we are very happy with that, are all included in our dividend payout policy as well. Yes.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Good. If you have any questions to the dividends, please ask them. Otherwise, I think we'll jump into the market drivers and risk. I actually think this slide gives you a very good flight into what's going on in your industry right now. So Mikael, perhaps you can take us through here, and then we have many questions.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yes. As I was saying just before when we had a private conversation, I cannot recall a period of time in my time in shipping, at least, and in this industry, where we've had so many uncertain factors around in the market, all being from geopolitical events, but in different parts of the world. A lot of political decisions and lack of same that are influencing the transportation market overall. But if we look at this slide, and maybe we start on the upper side, which is really on some of the anchors and what kind of holds the market together, is from the left side, the inventory rebuild. What has happened, not just in this quarter, but basically throughout this year, is that the lack of supply of oil that we have been missing from the Arabian Gulf had to come elsewhere from.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Demand has been going down a little bit, but not a lot. We basically had to find different sources of supply, and a lot of that has come from reducing inventories around the world. We've never seen this amount of inventory drawdown as we've seen now during the last quarter. Basically what is happening is that the lack of supply of oil is now being drawn down of inventories. And what that means is that inventories have been drawn down to levels that are not sustainable. In a so-called normalized situation, the world will have to rebuild that, and that means there will be a need for extra demand and extra transportation of oil to refill these inventories. So that's one part of it. Chinese exports is another important factor.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

China has become also, in the product tanker market, an important factor in terms of they are refining more oil than they use domestically, and they export the surplus to the rest of the market. When we look at the export licenses, i.e., the allowed quantum that the refineries are allowed to export, they haven't utilized all of that at all for this year. There is a pent-up export demand of clean products coming out of China that we expect also will influence the market positively. The third bullet point on the top, from the left, is really around the U.S. In addition to the inventory drawdown that we've seen, the other part of supplying the lack of oil that we are missing from the Arabian Gulf has been the U.S.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

The U.S. Gulf has been a massive exporter of refined products to the rest of the world to cover the shortfall. The U.S. refineries have been running massively on the highest percentage and have had a very profitable period out of this geopolitical uncertainty. They have been able to really capture value out of exporting a lot of that oil that the world needs now that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed for a while. Finally, I think one thing which may have been a bit overlooked in general is that we have actually had a year of quite a lot of product tankers being delivered in general.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Some of you, and maybe including you two, remember that when we talked about the order book for the last two years, we were very vocal about that what it appeared to be an order book of product tankers would, in theory, not be coming into trading in our market, but would go straight into the crude market because they were technically ordered by people who are basically employed in the transportation of crude. This specifically applies to the LR2 ship, which is the largest product tanker vessel you can build. What we have seen this year is exactly that trend. All these ships that were delivered that would technically be described as a product carrier have left the product tanker market and been transporting crude.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

We actually end up the year with less ships employed in the product tanker trade than we started the year with, despite the fact that we had more than 250 ships delivered that technically should have come into our market. It is just to say again that the order book, one should be careful about reading the vessels and count numbers rather than understand who is ordering them and where would these ships traditionally end up when they are being delivered. That is on the positive side. That being said, bottom left, you can still see the order book, that there are still ships coming from the order book. We do not think this will be a near-term event, but I think going forward, we have to appreciate that ships are coming in, and we need to see scrapping accelerate.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

When we look at it from a theoretical point of view, over the next three or four years, there is no doubt that the vessels coming in should be offset by vessels being scrapped. What we do need to see is actually also that happening. We have a large fleet that is above 20 years old and is getting older, and as long as the scrapping becomes normal, then we are going to have no problem in absorbing the ships. It is a fact that ships are coming in. What is not a fact is how many will go out over that period and when will it happen. Ultimately, we feel that the order book and the scrapping profile of the fleet is in balance when you see it over a three-to-four-year period of time. Another risk that we need to watch out is the crude market.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

That is what we call cannibalization, which is the second bullet from left on the bottom part of the slide, which really is that a lot of these ships that are now trading in crude, as the crude market becomes if not oversupplied, at least will have also a lot of inflow of new ships coming. There is a risk that some of these ships that have the ability of trading back into the clean market will move back from the crude side. So that is all freight driven. If the crude market comes under pressure, you could see that some ships will go into the product tanker market if earnings are stronger and better there.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

On the oil demand side, it has been clear that we have been below 100 million barrels per day, but the forecast now is actually that we are going to come up to around 104, and I think that is important for the world in general. The problem is, if the demand goes back to 104 million barrels per day and we do not have oil released from the Arabian Gulf, ultimately what that would mean is that prices will have to go up. So the biggest risk we see is that demand continues to be strong. We do not see a solution to the Strait of Hormuz conflict, which means that we are going to be short of 40 million barrels per day of oil supply coming out of the AG that will not hit the world. If that happens, in our view, eventually prices of oil will have to go up.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

As prices of oil go up, demand will have to come down to match the oil that is available in the world to supply the demand. So there is a risk, if we do not get this solved soon, that prices will go up rapidly and therefore destroy demand, who ultimately will not be great for transportation. The final bit is a follow on, which is bottom right, is a following on that is, of course, that when, hopefully soon, the Hormuz Strait gets reopened, things will normalize to a certain extent. So what is difficult to predict here now is if oil can freely flow out of the Strait of Hormuz, that is going to be great for oil prices, great for the demand situation, and demand will stay high. It will normalize the transportation market to begin with.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

In our view, the saving part, if you like, for the market in a normalized situation is the extra demand that will come from inventory rebuild, because that will most likely create still more inefficiency, a longer tonne-mile, and could then keep the market a bit more in balance and secure that there is still enough oil to be transported to satisfy the size of the fleet that we will be operating.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Michael, perhaps a few things that I think perhaps also is worthwhile mentioning is that the Panama Canal, for example, seems to be in drought. I do not know the English word for it, but it is drying out at least. I seem to remember that when that happens, that has also tremendous impact on Hafnia's business. It is not a news flow that is out there a lot, but that seems to be going on right now. Maybe you can take us through what you think about that situation.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yes. There is no doubt, when canals are being disrupted, whether it is the Panama or the Suez Canal or that entrance, it has a severe consequence for the transportation market because you are going to have to sail longer. Obviously that will require more ships to transport the same volume. For the Panama Canal, as you say, definitely, yes. We are already seeing the effect now that the amount of transits being allowed on a daily basis are coming down. Basically, if you want to transit the Panama Canal today, you quite often have to participate in an auction where basically you are bidding against other ships. How much are you willing to pay for you to come in front of the queue? So it has become a very commercialized thing, and obviously, markets will decide who can afford to pay the most to get your ship through, i.e.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

is it a gas carrier, is it a container ship, is it a different sector? So for sure, Panama Canal restrictions will also have an effect on the product tanker market. But to a lesser degree, I would say, than maybe what we are seeing in some other sectors. But in combination with the Red Sea, Suez Canal, and the other areas, this is one of the key elements why markets have continued to be strong despite the fact that more ships are coming in. They are all being employed because we are sailing longer distances with the same amount of oil.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Okay, then also perhaps a comment on the gas market in Europe, because I do not think Europeans realize how low we are on gas inventories coming into the winter. Does that have an impact on Hafnia and how do you see that play out?

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Well, it has an impact in general because it is about energy security, particularly coming into a winter market, where things like heating will become an important factor. We do think that in the current situation that I have just described and with the fact that we are approaching a winter market with very low inventories, including gas in Europe, it is putting the whole energy security side a bit at risk. This is more from our side. In our view, the current oil price and the energy price in general is artificially low because it is kind of been driven by headlines that tomorrow is going to be normalized, but it has not happened. The reality is when you look at demand and look at supply of energy today, the prices are way too low.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

If people lose faith that there is going to be an immediate solution to the crisis in the Middle East, that means the prices will rebound, and that means we will be entering a winter season, particularly in Europe, where there is a risk of very high prices suddenly and lack of supply, which is again going to hit the consumers at a very critical time.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Okay. Wonderful. If there is any questions to the industry section, there is many slides here, and I can only encourage you to take a look at it later on because there is many interesting slides in the deck, and you can find it on Hafnia's investor relations page. Otherwise, I will go to something else I think was very interesting, and that is then the next. Sorry for this. This is then the fleet coverage and earnings scenarios going forward. Maybe you can just remind us about how you are thinking about fleet coverage going forward.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yeah. We have basically been, in Hafnia, focusing a little bit of making sure that we have some coverage at all times. So we have been kind of entering this year and this quarter with around 20%-25% coverage out on time charter. This have reflected really the, as I mentioned in the beginning of this call, the fact that there are so many uncertain factors that we also feel it is prudent to take a bit of coverage, i.e., that things can change overnight, and you want to make sure that you capture some of the value that you are seeing in the daily spot market also on a longer term.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Our policy has been a little bit to have in between 20%-30% coverage at least 12-24 months out to make sure that we keep on capturing some of the spikes of the market. That obviously works a bit against you when the spot market is high. But we feel that considering all these elements that I just described, there is still so much uncertainty that is proven to have some kind of flaw under your earnings in general going forward. That will continue to kind of be our focus. As I said earlier, I think the short term of the market coming into the winter looks extremely interesting, and we are already seeing markets in general continue to show strength, albeit not at the same level as we saw in the second quarter of this year.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

No. I actually think this is very interesting for investors to look at the expectations in the market. You take the analyst consensus of $750 on net income, and you had $460 for the first half. So expectations are that second half is going to be lower than first half, which you can, yeah, make your own assessment of.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

But I think we can all understand why you make these assessments, right? Because as I said earlier, you can have a view on the political situation and nobody can really argue against it because it can go both ways. I think, at least from our perspective, the key element I think to be aware of is that we have drawn down inventories a lot, and we are entering a high season of consuming, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. As long as oil is shut out from the Middle East, that will put pressure on everywhere else to supply oil for these areas, and that would indicate a continuation of a longer tonne-mile as we have seen it so far this year.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Good. Let us take some questions, Mikael. As always, they are in all directions, so that is the way it is. Just a question on the earnings cycle. You earned $44,000 a day in Q2, but Q3 is already covered of around $30,000. Is Q2 the peak for this cycle or are there more to come?

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Well, I think as we saw, the third quarter correctly has started a bit weaker, but actually has been picking up a bit later in the spot market. It is difficult to say. As I said earlier, I think it all depends on really the situation, whether we get a solution or not in the Red Sea and the AG. I think fundamentally, when we were in 2022, we also didn't believe that we were going to see the same levels again. Here we are in 2026, having had a lot of ships delivered and a lot of talk about order books and stuff. The reality is that the markets have held up quite significantly. I wouldn't sit here and rule out anything because I think there are so many parameters in play that one cannot rule out that markets continue to be strong.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

On the other hand, it would be as prudent as a business leader to also focus on the risk and make sure you safeguard yourself on it. I wouldn't rule one out of the other for sure.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Okay. Then relating to your capital again, you are paying off 90% of profit, the maximum under your policy, while also selling ships and ordering 10 new ones. What does that tell us about where you see the best value? Is it in your fleet or is it returning cash?

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yeah, I think that's a great question by the way, and super relevant. It is true. The 10 new builds that we have ordered was also a reflection of the fact that the new building market and the shipyards are basically now so full, not because they're building tankers, but because they're building container ships and gas carriers and all kind of other vessels. It has meant that if you today want to have a new ship, the earliest delivery is probably 2029, and now getting into 2030. Our view was probably for a long time that prices would come down, in which case we would order new builds.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

But as we saw that that is not happening, we wanted to make sure that we don't get caught up in this 4-year slack where whenever you want to order, you only get it 4 years later, and that will be too late to modernize your fleet. So the way to look at it is that we've been selling quite a lot of ships at high premium prices, and we are replacing with new builds, which is actually not priced higher than the ships that we're selling, but more or less, at the same depreciated new building price, which means that we are kind of replacing older tonnage with more efficient tonnage, but not paying more than we are selling for. So it's kind of an equal playing level field, and it's just really a way of modernizing the fleet.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

But it's also important for me to say that we are not in the market for buying another 10, 20, or 30 new buildings. This was an order to make sure that we didn't lose out on deliveries and modernizing the fleet, but it's not a strategic point to buy ships at this price level in general.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Okay. Then there's no way around this, Mike, that today is your, I don't know if it's the last day today, but something like it.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yeah.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

And you have announced a transition into Søren as the incoming CEO. Maybe you can just put a few words on this.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yes. That is true. Basically, Monday, I think, is my last day officially.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Okay.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

But, yeah, so we are doing a succession on the CEO position, which I am super happy about. I think Søren has been working with me and with Hafnia since day one, and we worked together for 20 years. He has been very close to what we do. He has been managing all of our asset management, all the larger projects, and is a great candidate to take over this position and take the company further. So Søren having been part of all the strategic things that we have done over the last 16 years that Hafnia existed, is more of the same, so to speak, for us. And obviously every new CEO, particularly as they are a bit younger, will have their own footprint in the development, which is how you should run companies.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

I think what is great is it ensures a continuation of a strong strategic path for Hafnia, but it obviously gives a chance of a new generation to make their individual footprint on other items and areas as the world evolves and Hafnia needs to evolve with it.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Yeah, I am sure about that. From our side, Mike, I just want to say that we wish you all the best from HC Andersen Capital, and I think everybody does. This is just a tribute to the job creation you have done, 4,000 global jobs is amazing. Also, I think $4 billion of the USD market cap is out of this world. So, yeah, well done and, yeah, all the best. I think you will now transition into the board, is that correct?

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Yes. There is an extraordinary general meeting on the 23rd of September, and all going well, so to speak, I should join the board, if being approved, afterwards. So, what I am leaving is the day-to-day management wheel, so to speak, the hamster wheel of daily operations, but staying in the industry, which I am very happy about and which again, also, I think will ensure hopefully some good continuation of what we have so far achieved in Hafnia.

[Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital]

Anyway, I want to thank you and wish you all the best, and thank you for this time, and we hope to see you around. Thank you very much.

[Mikael Skov, CEO at Hafnia]

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Mikael Skov, CEO

Analysts

• Tue Østergaard, Founder and CEO at HC Andersen Capital