Norwegian firm Odfjell Drilling has experienced widening losses due to not “aggressively pursuing contracts”, its chief executive has claimed.

The drilling firm saw a loss of £10.8 million for the first quarter of 2019, a £2.1m further loss on the same period last year.

However, the Odfjell did see a slight increase in gross revenue from £161m in Q1 2018 to £166.8m in Q1 this year.

The firm’s CEO, Kristian Morch said: “The chemical tanker markets improved in the first quarter. We expect this trend to continue as a result of the strong fundamentals in our markets and a firming tanker market in general.

“We decided not to aggressively pursue or extend contracts at the historically low markets at the end of 2018.

“This reduces our COA portfolio, but also increases our exposure in the firming market. We expect to continue improving our performance in the coming quarter.”