Hamilton, Bermuda, May 19, 2009

Dear Shareholder,

In today's volatile situation in the international financial markets many shareholders are contacting us to learn more about the situation of the company. Therefore, I am personally writing this letter to you. In particular, I wish to comment on value creation and growth.

In short, Nordic American is well positioned for further strong growth and increase of its dividend capacity.

Nordic American has:

* a strong balance sheet, a positive cash position, no net debt and a unused credit line of $500 million which offers us financial flexibility

* the financial capacity to acquire vessels without issuing more equity at this time

* a low cash break-even level, and

* a full pay out dividend model.

In January, we announced the agreement to acquire our 15th suezmax tanker and in early May 2009 we announced the acquisition of our 16th suezmax tanker. The cost of these two vessels, in total about $114 million, will be paid from out of our available capital resources prior to the recent equity offering.

On May 18, 2009, we closed the previously announced underwritten public offering from which we raised $130 million, before expenses. These funds will be used for further acquisitions beyond our 16th suezmax tanker.

With the offering, we have positioned the company for further expansion. Such an expected expansion has as its main objective to enhance the ability of the company to deliver higher dividends and earnings per share than had the expansion not taken place. In the autumn of 2004 our fleet stood at three ships. Now we have 16 ships.

In the period between the autumn of 2004 and now, our fleet has grown faster than our company's share count. The result is that under our dividend policy, each share receives a higher cash dividend than had the growth process not taken place.

Our recent equity offering and our credit facility place us in the current position of being able to acquire more vessels without having to issue additional equity at this time. We expect to increase our fleet further during 2009 - with no guarantee being given in this regard.

We have a non-bureaucratic and streamlined decision making process and our board can decide an acquisition very quickly when and if the opportunity arises.

We normally undertake equity offerings in order to fund future acquisitions, not to finance ships that we already own. We do not go for an equity offering if we believe it will be dilutive to dividends and earnings per share over time. This is because our main objective is to achieve the best total return for our shareholders - an expression which indicates the value creation taking place. The concept of total return is the sum of the stock price and the dividend, assuming that the dividend is reinvested in the stock.