FLEX LNG Ltd

OSE:FLNG

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q3

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Flex LNG Q3 2020 Earnings Presentation Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. And I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Mr. Øystein Kalleklev. Thank you. Please go ahead.

[Øystein M. Kalleklev, Principal Executive Officer]

Okay. Thank you, and Welcome to Flex LNG's 2020 Third Quarter Presentation. My name is Øystein Kalleklev, and I'm the CEO of Flex LNG Management. I will be joined today by our CFO, Harald Gurvin, who will go through the numbers as well as providing our financial update. A replay of the webcast will also be available at flexlng.com.So Slide #2 is a disclaimer with regards to, among others, forward-looking statements, non-GAAP measures and completeness of details. The full disclaimer is available in the presentation, and we recommend that the presentation is read together with the earnings report as well as our 20-F annual report. So Slide #3, the highlights. Not surprisingly, the spot market stayed weak during the spring and summer due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. This adversely affected demand for natural gas, resulting in record low prices and thereby, incentivizing a flurry of cancellation of flexible U.S. cargoes. Nevertheless, the market start to improve by August as restrictions were eased and economic activity picked up. The improvement in the freight market was, however, somewhat derailed and delayed by the most active hurricane season on record in the U.S., resulting in temporary shutdowns of LNG export plants in the Gulf of Mexico.The tropical storm, Iota, recently became the third named Tropical storm, breaking the record of 27 names -- topical storms from 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. However, the supply disruptions in the U.S. as well as other places like Australia and Norway, together with the seasonal increased gas demand, spurred a big rally in global gas prices during the autumn with TTF and JKM going from summer lows of $1 -- about $2 per million BTU to about $5 and $7, respectively, today.The gas rally has thus improved economics markedly for the industry. The strong prompt prices for LNG has resulted in floating storing being more or less liquidated at the time when floating storage typically tend to build up. Hence, our expectation that we would see a lot of floating storage this year due to the strong contango in gas prices during the summer vanished due to this incredibly strong gas price rally.The strong gas prices have resulted in cargo cancellations tapering off and this, together with significantly more pool from Asia, which has pushed freight rates above $100,000, again by October. I'm pleased to say that despite the many challenges caused by the pandemic, we have continued to operate our ships with 100% of time and excellent safety record. Cargoes have been delivered without disruption or delays to our customers. We have also taken delivery of 4 new LNG carriers from yards in South Korea on budget as planned during July to October, and I will provide a bit more color on the operations shortly.In Q2, we delivered average time charter equivalent earnings, or TCE, of $47,000 per day. At our Q2 presentation in August, we guided that revenues would be higher in Q3 compared to Q2 as our fleet have been growing with additional newbuilds. Revenues does go from about $26 million to $33 million. We also guided that TCE for Q3 was expected to be similar to Q2, despite the costs associated with mobilizing the 3 new buildings, we took delivery in third quarter. This estimate was indeed very accurate as of TCE in Q3 was exactly the same as in previous quarter at $47,000 per day.This means that we have been able to navigate through very tough market conditions caused by the pandemic in Q2 and Q3 without depleting any cash. In Q3, our adjusted profit was $1.2 million, net income was higher at $3.8 million due to favorable changes in the valuation of our portfolio of interest rate derivatives, which is utilized to hedge our interest expenses. These financial instruments fluctuate with interest rate level in the U.S., and interest rates have recently picked up a bit. The overall adjusted profit for Q2 and Q3 was just about $500,000. Given the fact that we have been through the worst downturn since the great depression, this illustrates how robust our business is as we have certainly not received any financial support or handouts from governments to cope with the economic consequences of the pandemic. In Q1, prior to the virus going viral on a global scale, we delivered fairly good trading results with TCE of $68,000. With the guidance of $70,000 to $75,000 for Q4, we are thus generating pretty good results in the 2 winter quarters this year. Overall, for the year, we should end up at around $60,000 per day, which is well above our cash breakeven level of about $47,000 per day, despite the headwinds we have faced this year. This also illustrates how well we can do in a market where we are enjoying tailwinds. As we have taken delivery of 3 ships in the quarter, our remaining CapEx have now been reduced to $512 million or reduced to about $380 million following the Amber delivery in October, subsequent to quarter end. We actually have $533 million in available debt for this CapEx as we paid approximately $18 million in prepayments for Flex Amber as part of an agreement to move the delivery from end of August to mid-October.This in order to fitter into the schedule under the variable time charter, which we have secured for. Given the fact we financed Flex Amber on $156.4 million Chinese lease, our cash balance of $76 million at quarter end improved by about $26 million in connection with this delivery. Hence, we have a very healthy cash position, which we will continue to build up during Q4 as we expect to generate substantial cash flow, given the guidance provided today.We are also pleased that we have been able to utilize a strong freight market to book significant portion of the first quarter next year. In first quarter, we expect to add 2 ships to our fleet, Flex Freedom in January, which was on the front page of our presentation; and Flex Volunteer in February. Hence, we have thus more ships available, but nevertheless, we have already booked about 2/3 of our available days, which includes these 2 new buildings. As we have several ships on variable hire, it's too early to guide on TCE numbers for Q1 next year, but we will be able to provide more color on this during our Q4 presentation in February next year.Hence, with strong cash position, our fully financed fleet consisting entirely of the next-generation ships, coupled with good earnings visibility and the industry's lowest cash breakeven levels as well as light in the tunnel when it comes to COVID-19, given recent projects when it comes to vaccines. The Board has therefore decided to reinstate the dividend. We had suspended the dividend for the last 2 quarters, given the risk and uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now we have demonstrated that we can manage this risk very well, and we are thus pleased to again reinstate the dividend, which the Board for Q3 has set at $0.10 per share.So slide -- moving on to Slide 4, which provides an overview of our fleet composition. As of today, we have 3 ships on fixed TCs. This is Flex Ranger, which commenced a new TC with Spanish facility, Endesa at the end of May. In July and September, we took delivery of Flex Aurora and Flex Resolute, and both these 2 ships were fixed on shorter-term TCs of 8 and 11 months, respectively. The Flex Aurora time charter has recently been extended to 11 months in total, similar to Flex Resolute.Today, we also have, in total, 3 ships currently operating under variable hire TCs. These variable hire TCs provide us with what could be described as utilization insurance in soft markets while we maintain exposure to the overall freight market. As we've been bullish on considerably higher rates in Q4, we are just benefiting from increased earnings on these ships now. The ship serving such contracts are Flex Enterprise, Flex Artemis, which was delivered under our long-term variable TC to Gunvor in August as well as Flex Amber, which we took delivery, of in October, subsequent to quarter end. With improved spot market, we are also pleased to have 4 ships operating in the spot market. The ships currently trading spot are Flex Endeavour, Flex Rainbow, Flex Constellation and Flex Courageous. For all spot ships, we do try to find a balance between maximizing rates and periods as we do have fee additional ships for delivery next year and thus, like to also add, earnings visibility. We are thus pleased that we have already booked 2/3 of available days in first quarter next year, as mentioned. We have agreed with the yard to slip Flex Freedom into next year and thus, making her our '21 vintage. She was originally scheduled for delivery end of November this year. By postponing her to January '21, we are setting out our drydocks with 4 ships being '18 vintage; 2 ships, '19 vintage; 4 ships, '20 vintage; and the remaining 3 ships being '21 vintage. We expect to take delivery of Flex Freedom early January, and we are now actively marketing her for potential clients. Flex Volunteer had already carried out a sea and gas trials, and she can also be available early next year, but the scheduled delivery slot is end February. Our last newbuilding will be Flex Vigilant, which is scheduled for delivery end of May. With Flex Vigilant on the water, our newbuilding program is complete with 13 large ultra modern LNG carriers on the water by second quarter next year.Our earnings capacity will thus increase by 30% early next year compared to fourth quarter this year. And finally, all our invested equity will start generating income in contrast to 2018, '19 and '20, when a very large portion of our equity have been tied up in new buildings, which generates 0 income and thus, dragging down our return on equity numbers for those who pay a lot of attention to those.So Slide 5 before handing over to Harald for our financial review, I want to touch upon a very important matter, which is always on the top of our agenda, but even more so this year, due to the COVID-19 situation, with all its implications. With the outlook of the COVID-19, countries have locked down and put up a lot of travel restrictions and impediments for crew changes and repatriation of seafarers. This has resulted in what can only be described as our humanitarian crisis with significant concern for the safety of seafarers. According to our IMO report from September, there were 400,000 seafarers overdue on their contract and another 400,000 seafarers at home unable to join the ships. 400,000 is 1/3 of the 1.2 million seafarers, a staggering and depressing number. While domestic employees in the transportation sector as well as in international aviation have been shielded from the restrictions as they have been deemed essential workers in order to ensure that food medicines and other goods is flowing, this has not been the case for seafarers.Close to 90% of goods are being transported at sea on about 60,000 cargo ships. While we are not transporting the last mile to consumers, the last mile transportation can't take place unless the goods on ships are being offloaded at ports. And by the way, port workers have also been deemed essential workers. So there is a large discrepancy here, and it's tempting to use another D-word in this context to categorize these double standards. That said, it's positive to see that more countries are realizing that seafarers are essential to shipping and that shipping is -- makes the world go on.So how have we and Flex coped with the situation given these limitations. Let's just say we have been very busy. We have implemented strict standard operating procedures for joining and off-signing crew in order to safeguard crew, our operations and the society we serve. The standard operating procedure includes control quarantine and our PCR testing regime with a minimum of 3 negative tests, as test can sometimes be unreliable in reference to Elon Musk's recent COVID tests.We have also developed an outbreak management plan, which we have shared with key clients, and response has been very positive. The outbreak management plan has also been stress tested through third parties involved in our emergency drills. These procedures have been critical in avoiding any outbreak on our ships. As COVID-19 have impeded our ability to regularly visit ships, we have carried out regular video conference meeting with senior officers on board to make sure they receive the attention needed to coordinate true changes and ensure moral on board. We have been ultra focused on seeking every possible opportunity to carry out through changes to minimize overdue contracts. I think our results in this regard are impressive. In the 6 months period, during May to October, we carried out 32 successful crew change operations. I would very much like to take the opportunity to thank our crew and onshore personnel for their dedication, patience and hard work in organizing these [ crews ] changes, which I can ensure you, have not been straightforward.I'm happy to say that 93% of our crew is on time i.e. they are not overdue on their contracts. That leaves us with 7% of our crew overdue on their contacts. This is unfortunate and something which could be avoided, if rules were different. However, as mentioned, we are very focused on minimizing overdue states, and I'm pleased to say that 20% of this 7% is overdue by less than 30 days, while the remaining is less than 60 days. So we have no crew staying more than 60 days overdue. With some countries now easing restriction on seafarers, we do hope to bring these numbers down to 0 as fast as possible.Another issue catered by the travel restriction is conducting regular Ship Inspection Report Programme or what we call SIRE. We are required to carry out these inspections regularly, at least every 6 months, usually in connection with discharge. With travel limitations, it's been extremely difficult to carry out these inspections. But this has not stopped us from finding new smart ways to work as society have made more progress on remote working the last year than the last decade, even in a conservative business like shipping. So far, we have carried out 2 remote SIREs in order to keep the certificates up to date.We have also carried out 2 remote change of management of our ships during this period as well as 2 remote annual [ class ] service. So it's passive to see that the technical personnel are able to get worked on, despite all the obstacles thrown at them. Our newbuilding team have also faced logistical challenges in relation to delivery and manning of our newbuildings. Despite obstacles, our ships have been crewed, mobilized and delivered according to budget and plans. So I would like to also extend my gratitude to our newbuilding team before handing over to Harald for our financial review.

[Harald Gurvin, Principal Financial Officer]

Thank you, Øystein. Looking at the income statement, on Slide 6, revenues for the quarter came in at $33.1 million, up from $25.8 billion in the previous quarter. The time charter equivalent rate for both quarters was $47,000 per day, and the increase is due to the delivery of 3 vessels during the quarter, increasing the number of vessel days. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $21.9 million, up from $17.4 million in the previous quarter.The result for the quarter includes a gain on derivatives of $2.1 million relating to our interest rate swaps, which includes an unrealized noncash gain of $3.5 million. This compares to a loss of $6.6 million in the previous quarter, of which $6.2 million was unrealized. At quarter end, we had entered into interest rate swaps totaling $710 million at an average interest rate of approximately 1.2%. The gain on interest rate swaps was a result of the increase in longer-term interest rates during the quarter, following a significant drop during the first half of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Net income for the quarter was $3.8 million, up from a net loss of $6.7 million in the previous quarter. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $1.2 million or $0.02 per share compared to an adjusted net loss of $700,000 or $0.01 per share in the previous quarter.Then moving on to our balance sheet as per September 30, on Slide 7. Following delivery of the 3 newbuildings, our assets at quarter end consisted of 9 vessels on the water with an aggregate book value of $1.7 billion. In addition, we have booked vessel purchase prepayments of $218 million relating to the 4 newbuildings still to be delivered at quarter end. This represents the advanced payment on these, including the $17.8 million, we prepaid on Flex Amber in July to postpone delivery to October.In connection with the vessel deliveries, the first 3 tranches totaling $387 million, withdrawn under $629 million ECA facility we entered into in February, increasing the total debt by quarter end to $1.1 billion, of which approximately $54 million is due over the next 12 months and thus, classified as current liabilities. Total equity as per quarter end was $816 million, giving a strong equity ratio of 41%.Looking at our cash flow on Slide 8. Cash flow from operations was close to $20 million in the third quarter. This includes positive working capital adjustments of $9.6 million, mainly due to an increase in prepaid hire following the stronger market in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. Scheduled loan installments were $9.3 million, and in addition, we had financing costs of $6 million, mainly relating to upfront and commitment fees on the $629 million ECA facility and also the new $125 million facility for Flex Volunteer.Total newbuilding CapEx for the 3 newbuildings delivered during the quarter was $415 million. This was part financed by a drawdown of $397 million under the $629 million ECA facility, with the remaining $27 million funded from our liquidity. In addition, as mentioned, we prepaid $17.8 million under the purchase agreement for Flex Amber in July. This brings total net payments towards newbuildings and financing fees during the quarter to $51 million, which is the main reason for the $40 million decrease in cash to $76 million at quarter end.As mentioned, Flex Amber was delivered early October, whereby the $156.4 million sale and leaseback was executed. The $17.8 million prepaid in July was deducted from the final amount payable on delivery, giving a positive net cash effect from the financing of $25.7 million, thus boosting the liquidity to just over $100 million post quarter end.Moving on to Slide 9. We have now secured attractive financing for all our vessels, including the 4 newbuildings still to be delivered at quarter end. Following the delivery of 3 vessels in the third quarter and the prepayment on Flex Amber, the remaining CapEx at quarter end was $512 million compared to secured financing of $533 million, giving a positive net cash contribution of approximately $20 million for the remaining 4 newbuildings at quarter end.We have a very comfortable debt maturity profile with the first maturity due in July 2024. Our diversified sources of funding split between bank loans, ECA financing and lease financing, also gives a stagger debt maturity profile, mitigating refinancing risk. We have not only diversified our financing sources, but also our pool of lenders, which now includes 15 different financial institutions, demonstrating our ability to raise attractive funding in a challenging capital market.And with that, I hand over back to Øystein, who will give an update on the market.

[Øystein M. Kalleklev, Principal Executive Officer]

Thank you, Harald. So let's start by a quick recap of the spot market for LNG shipping on Slide 10. So despite COVID-19, 2020 have, for the most part, followed the usual seasonal pattern, but with much softer rates during the spring and summer compared to previous years due to lost demand caused by the lockdowns. Given the scale of cargo cancellation, there have been plenty of ships in the market, and this has the best headline spot rate as well as ballast bonus conditions.However, as we stated in our second quarter presentation in August, we were starting to enjoy better sentiment in the spot market and particularly, when it comes to ballast bonus condition. In our Q2 presentation, we put an arrow on the graph to the right, indicating that we were expecting a rebound in ballast bonus condition, and this has come to fruition with spot voyage now being done on [ full round of ] economics or even better.This means that achieved earnings in the spot market are now typically on par or even better than headline rates. While we, during the summer, saw a lot of voyages being done with hire only for the laid and leg, shaving the achieved TCE rate to about half of the headline rates. In addition, while we saw a lot of vessel availability during the summer, resulting in idle days, we now have a very strong market with very limited risk of idling as Clarkson was porting only 3 available ships worldwide in the market on Firday.Given the limited vessel availability, spot rates are now in excess of $100,000 per day for modern tonnage and similar to the levels seen last year. So some of you might wonder why our TCE guidance in Q4 is not higher than $70,000 to $75,000 in Q4 when rates are now in excess of $100,000. The reason is that the unusual active hurricane season in U.S. caused supply disruption, which delayed the typical seasonal uptick in freight rates. Spot rates didn't really start to rally before end of October, which is a bit later than usual. Keep in mind that ships are often booked more than a month in advance as it takes a ship about this time to sail from Asia to the U.S.So the rates being quoted now in November are typically for Pacific loads in December or U.S. loadings in late December or early January next year. This is, thus, a positive signal for the start of 2021. However, with about 50 newbuildings set for delivery next year, the key drivers influencing the trajectory of spot rates will be the winter weather together with the shape of economic recovery as we also mentioned in our presentation in August.In 2017 and '18, we experienced a relative cold winter, and consequently, the spot market held up well in Q1. The last 2 winters, we have, however, experienced extremely mild winters. And this, together with the COVID lockdowns in China implemented in February this year, have resulted in spot rate plummeting after New Year. This year, most weather prognosis rule out a very warm winter due to La Niña, as we also highlighted in our presentation in August. And the signal from the future's market is that LNG product market will hold up in Q1, something I will explore in more detail on next slide.So Slide 11, gas prices. This year have been a story of doom and gloom. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, we already experienced very low seasonal gas prices due to the 2 consecutive warm winters, impacting storage level as well as generally weaker Asian demand due to the general economic slowdown in China, following the trade war with the U.S. The lockdowns and reduced economic activity, following the outbreak, further amplified these pre-existing conditions and resulted in a crash in global gas prices.We have seen record low gas prices during the summer with European gas for sometime actually fading below $1 per million BTU, which is unprecedented. $1 per MBtu equates to oil at around $6 per barrel. Asian spot prices have, for short periods, been trading below $2 and Henry Hub hit their 21-year low in June at $1.40. As we presented in our Q2 presentation in August, gas prices started to recover, and this rally have continued with Asian gas prices now well above peak COVID-19 levels and at higher levels than during last winter season.JKM and TTF are currently at about $7 and $5, respectively. This is still cheap on a absolute and seasonal historical level, at a price point, which is much more conductive for the freight market than the rock bottom prices during the summer. Following the coronavirus outbreak, we also saw an oil price cash affecting the price of contractual LNG linked to oil. Oil-linked LNG still represents about 70% of the market. While there have been production cuts in LNG with cargo cancellation, these are mini-scaled compared to the oil industry with a big 9.7 million barrel cut by OPEC in Russia as well as lower output from the shale base in the U.S.The LNG linked to oil price -- typically priced with about 6 months delay. So LNG spot prices are at similar levels to oil price linked LNG today. As mentioned earlier, the future markets predict that gas prices will hold up in 2021 with some spreads between TTF and Henry Hub of about $2. If gas prices stay at this level, there shouldn't really be any economic incentives for repeat of the massive cargo cancellation in the U.S. next year. Since the TTF derivative market is highly liquid, players can already hedge their position to avoid having to pay a tolling fee of about $2.5 for cargoes not being listed next year. That future prices have a mixed record of predicting actual future prices. The key determinant of cargo cancellation are, as mentioned, winter and [indiscernible], which will affect the storage levels and thus, available injection capacity during the summer as well as the shape of the economic recoveries impacting gas demand.Slide 12. Slide 12 is a review of the 2 main import markets for LNG, Asia and Europe, which together makes up about 95% of the market. So Asia is definitely the LNG continent. In the early phase of the corona crisis, Europe, through its ample important storage capacity, came to rescue, acting as a buyer of last resort, absorbing the left-of available LNG. In this regard, similar to what happened in 2019 after the very warm 2018/'19 winter caused by the El Niño. As European lockdowns took effect and inventories were piling up, European buyers became exhausted by the summer, and this drove gas prices to new loss, resulting in a wave of U.S. cargo cancellation, which I also will provide some more details on later.However, as we are approaching autumn, Asian demand took off, driven particularly by the V-shaped recovery in China, which quickly managed to contain the virus. China is also pushing forward with reforms in the gas industry, liberalizing third-party access and stimulating competition with the new national pipeline company. Furthermore, China continues to roll out city gas heating, where penetration have yet far to go, notwithstanding another 7 million households being connected to gas heating this season. The Asian demand pull, together with Europe, avoiding tank tubs, have thus balance the market, and it now looks more -- much sounder than what was the case during the summer and albeit when a lot of LNG carriers were tied up in noneconomic floating storage in order to smooth out the logistics.So while European buyers grabbed about 28% of volumes in the first half of 2020, this fell to only 19% in Q3 as Asia increased its shares from about 76% in the first half of the year to 74% in Q3. Global exports have just been trending upwards, with September and October export volumes being marginally below last year, mostly due to supply disruption in this period and not really due to lack of demand. Increased Asian demand is also positive for the freight market as this pulls cargoes from the Atlantic Basin into Asia, which results in a big increase in sailing distances and thus, generating more shipping demand.Slide #13. So let's review the supply model another time. The model we -- this model we introduced in our July webinar, and we have updated it with the recent export numbers. The model illustrates the monthly and cumulative export growth with associated cargo cancellation in the U.S. Please note that it's important to differentiate between imports and export numbers. Export numbers is a better proxy for shipping demand. About 3% to 4% of exports are consumed by ships as boil-off gas during transit and cargo operations depending on voyage length and whether it involves floating storage, which also drives demand.At the beginning of the year, we were expecting about 25 million tonnes increased export in 2020, and the trajectory in first quarter was ahead of the curve. During second quarter, Asian demand faltered and Europe initially soaked up these volumes by injecting cheap gas for storage, as mentioned earlier. However, during June, July and August, low gas prices incentivized cargo cancellation and export volumes thus declined. July and August ended up as the peak cancellation months. As gas prices have recovered, cargo cancellations have tailed off. In total, Platts reckons 179 U.S. cargoes were canceled in 2020, and we expect around 280 cargoes to be lost in total compared to the estimates during 2020.Despite the doom and gloom, LNG market will go this year, and we now expect export growth of 5 million tonnes for 2020. This is only half of the growth we expected back in July when we expected 10 million tonnes of growth. And the main reason for the 5 million shortfall compared to July have been -- have not been the cargo cancellation in the U.S. as we did expect them to continue in the autumn. The shortfall has rather been related to supply disruptions in Australia and Malaysia related to Gorgon and Bintulu. The fire shutdown of [ service ] in Norway, and the fact that the resumption of exports from Prelude FLNG has been further postponed, are the main reasons for the shortfall.On top of this, the hurricane season in the U.S. has caused cargo cancellation, which will not -- which were unforeseen, and I will provide some more details on that shortly. However, in sharp contrast to other hydrocarbons and even gas transported by pipelines, LNG has managed to grow, despite the pandemic and given the curtailment of cargoes this year. And given the containment of cargo this year, the export potential for next year is considerably higher, which I will also explain a bit further.So Slide 14, take a closer look at U.S. exports. As we highlighted in our July webinar, U.S. producers are inherently more at risk for cargo cancellations due to the cost base and the flexible offtake contracts where customers can typically notify our cargo cancellations 60 days prior to loading by paying the fixed tolling fee, which tend to be around $2.50 per million BTU. This flexibility enable offtakers to cancel a lot of cargoes during the spring and summer months for economic reasons.During this period, European and Asian gas prices were at similar levels as U.S. gas prices and it didn't make financial sense to take delivery of these cargoes, but rather just paying the tolling fee and avoid lifting them. That said, not all volumes were canceled as some buyers can have different incentives as they could either be hedged or are selling cargoes into regulated markets where global gas prices are not the key determinant. So during August, we did, as earlier mentioned, see that global gas prices were bouncing back and this removed the economic incentive for canceling U.S. cargoes.But at that time, when exports were recovering, we were hit by the most active hurricane season on record. And this record goes way back, all the way back to 1851. Particularly, 3 of these 30 tropical or subtropical storm disrupted U.S. exports, and we have pointed them out in the graph on the left-hand side. These being Laura, Beta and Delta, which had pretty big impact on feed gas delivered to U.S. export plants. U.S. feed gas levels are now at a record high of around 10.5 billion cubic feet day, adjusting for about 15% of feed gas utilized for liquefaction. This equates to annualized U.S. export volumes of about 70 million tonnes today, which is about the nameplate capacity.So on Slide 15, we provide an overview of the 10 largest exporters and their expected output in 2020. For those not being too fond of vexillology or the study of flag, it might be worth mentioning that the largest exporter sorted after size is as follows: Qatar, then Australia, U.S., Russia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Indonesia, Trinidad and Tobago, Algeria and then Oman. The multi-colored flag represent the rest of the world with output of about 42 million tonnes expected for 2020.U.S. is the main growth market in terms of exports, despite the 179 cargo cancellations earlier mentioned. At full capacity, we would expect U.S. to be able to produce in excess of 60 million tonnes in 2020. Despite flat export in Australia continues to punch below its weight as its export capacity is around 86 million tonnes. The main reason for the shortfall in Australia is due to the operation of prelude FLNG being suspended since February due to COVID-19 concerns. Prelude has an annual export capacity of 3.7 million tonnes of LNG.Furthermore, Train 2 at Gorgon has been suspended since may due to issues with the heat exchangers. This train has an export capacity of about 5.2 million tonnes, and we expect it to commence operation again shortly. But needless to say, significant volumes have been lost compared to what was a planned regular maintenance. Other notable disruptions are the recent reported outages of Train 1, 3 and 7 as they've been too [ low ] LNG plant in Malaysia due to disruptions in the feed gas supply. These trains account for 9.6 million tonnes or roughly 1/3 of the facility's nameplate capacity. Hence, the volumes from Malaysia are also on the soft side this year.We also see a somewhat lower volume this year from Trinidad and Tobago, Algeria and Oman, while the rest of the world is fairly flat at 42 million tonnes, where the main deviation is the shutdown of Melkøya in Norway, following the fire, which has resulted in about 1.5 million tonnes lost in 2020. These volumes are close to the European market so they don't matter nearly as much as U.S. cargo cancellation in terms of freight demand. Despite this shutdown, Norway can maintain its port as the world's largest gas exporter behind Russia, Qatar and the U.S. as most of its exports are linked by pipeline to the European continent.Slide 16. We are turning to U.S. As mentioned, about 13 million tonnes have been curtailed through cargo cancellation this year. During 2020, we have seen several trains commencing operation, and next year, we have Train 3 at Corpus Christi, expecting to start-up in first quarter. With this Train, U.S. nameplate capacity is around 75 million tonnes, of which about 71 million will be available next year.Energy Information Administration in the U.S. provides a monthly update on the oil and gas forecast in our report called Short-Term Energy Outlook. In November report, the expected exports to grow 31% in 2021 from 6.4 Bcf in 2020 to 8.4 Bcf next year. This equates to 65 million tonnes of LNG or a growth of about 16 million to 17 million tonnes. While this is a big improvement, it still leaves about 6 million tonnes to be canceled next year, representing around 85 cargoes, which is about half the level we've seen in 2020. For shipping, less U.S. cargo cancellation is crucial, particularly if they are pulled away from the Atlantic Basin and into Asia as these voyages are shipping intensive. So we would expect this -- these U.S. volumes to add about 2 ships for each tonne of about 32 ships, which is about 2/3 of the order book for next year.Hence, U.S. volume next year will be critical, and this will depend on the tightness of the LNG product market. A tighter LNG product market will usually also create a contango curve, which could provide more incentives for floating storage next autumn than what has been the case this year following the gas price rally. By 2022, we do expect U.S. to take over the tonne as the country with the highest nameplate capacity, pacing ahead of both Australia and Qatar. That is at least until Qatar expand the capacity to 110 million tonnes by 2025 and 126 million tonnes by 2027. However, at that time, U.S. will also have the 15 million tonnes Golden Pass project up and running and are thus able to also produce more than 100 million tonnes each year.So then we are on Slide 17, which is a summary of the '21 projections prior to summarizing today's presentation. 2021 will be an exciting year for LNG shipping. We have, as mentioned, quite a few ships for delivery next year, but we also have a pretty big potential for LNG exports if we avoid too many cargo cancellations. If we use the IEA numbers, U.S. will add 16 million tonnes next year. It's fair to assume that Prelude will resume operations soon, given the vast amount of capital employed to this project and the fact that the project is also producing condensate in addition to LNG. The assumption of Prelude production will add about 3.5 million tonnes next year.Then we have Egypt. Egypt exported close to 3.5 million tonnes in 2019, which is about half of the nameplate capacity of Idku. Given the low gas prices in 2020, the exports have been curtailed, but have now started up again. 50% production at Idku will add about 3 million tonnes. Gorgon in Australia, I've also mentioned. The function of normal Gorgan operation would at least add 2 million tonnes. Bear in mind that these volumes are sold on long-term offtake agreements.Then we also have Bintulu in Malaysia, as mentioned, where we would expect the feed gas issues to be corrected and production to increase by about 2 million tonnes next year. Yamal Train 4 is also scheduled to start operation and is expected to add close to 1 million tonnes. We also have the Portovaya project, which will add another 1.5 million tonnes. Then we have Melkøya in Norway, which we assume will be closed down until October and thus, dragging down volumes by about 3 million tonnes.Adding these together, bottom-up leaves us at around 26 million tonnes growth in 2021. This compares to energy aspects estimate of around 24 million tonnes in the recent LNG outlook. However, it's fair to say that some estimates are considerably lower than this. That said, there is, however, upside to these numbers. If the U.S. is running full steam, we could add another 6 million tonnes. We could also add 3.5 million more tonnes if it Idku in Egypt produce actual capacity. In Egypt, there is also an other terminal called Damietta, which have a capacity of 5 million tonnes of export, which has been suspended for a long period due to disagreement in the consortium.Earlier this year, it seemed that the parties Union Gas Fenosa, a JV between Eni and Naturgy and the Egyptian National Energy Company, EGAS and EGPC, had recent agreement, and this was repeated in October. So far, our solution has not materialized and the outcome remains uncertain, but our solutions seem to be in the horizon. That said, Egyptian cargoes are closer to end-users than U.S. and Russian cargoes. So Egyptian cargoes are much less important for the freight demand and less these are pulled to Asia.So Slide 18 and the summary. I'm happy to say, we have managed to navigate well through the difficult conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been a real stress test for everyone involved, and we have passed with flying colors, both operationally and financially. Despite all the obstacles, we have been able to operate with 100% at time and taken delivery of 4 newbuildings.The gas price rally, we started to see in August, have continued and increased prices and increased demand coupled with pull from Asia has fired up the freight market with spot rates for modern tonnage in excess of $100,000 per day, resulting in us booking Q4 with expected TCE of $70,000 to $75,000 per day, which would put us in position to generate substantial cash flow. While we have been through some tough days during the summer when we have fixed chips on voyages with pretty bad economics, our patients have been rewarded, and we are now benefiting from this improved market sentiment as we have 70% of our fleet exposed to the spot market. It's therefore also time to reward our shareholders, and we are now reinstating the dividend and declaring $0.10 per share in dividend for third quarter.With 3 more ships joining the fleet next year, we are finally fully invested, and we have a fleet of 13 state-of-the-art LNG carriers on the water with premium in earnings capacity compared to the older steam and diesel electric ships. It's not like that we think 2021 will be a walk in the park given the high inventory levels and the rather large order book of ships for delivery next year. However, we are confident that we are well positioned with the ultra-modern fleet, managed in-house and operated at industry low cash breakeven levels.We have demonstrated that we can operate in challenging market conditions, and we are now seeing the light at the end of tunnel with demand picking up and more clients favoring the newer, more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly ships. I have lectured you on the fuel saving and environmental credentials of our ships and LNG as a fuel for the last couple of years so I think I will conclude the today's presentation with that.And thank you for listening in. I'm happy to take your questions. So let's open up for some questions from the operator.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]There are no question at this time. Please continue.

[Øystein M. Kalleklev, Principal Executive Officer]

Yes. I think I got some just chat questions here. So I can maybe take those. I've been talking for such a long time now. So I'm going to try to keep it a bit short. So the questions we receive here is as follows. Should we consider the dividend of 10% (sic) [ $0.10 ] as fixed?So that's certainly not the case. Our income is variable. It goes up and down. If you look at it yesterday, so our adjusted income or adjusted earnings per share is $0.18. We started paying dividend last year, Q3. So we paid $0.10. In Q4, we delivered fantastic results last year, $94,000 on a TCE basis, but we did not increase the dividend. And the reason was, we were in February 2020, and the lockdowns had started in China and there was a lot of uncertainty. So we decided just to stay with a dividend of $0.10 for Q4.And then as the virus spread and we had our Q1 report in May, we decided to suspend the dividend, given the uncertain nature of the market development. So we have suspended it for Q1 and Q2, and now we are delivering Q3 and adjusted EPS for these 3 quarters are $0.18. We think it's appropriate to start with $0.10 again for this quarter. When we are delivering our numbers in Q4 next year, February, of course, we will most likely have earnings report with significantly more earnings, given the guidance provided today.So then we will really just assess the outlook, the bookings for Q2 and Q1 to define the appropriate level of the dividend. But in general, we are positive to dividends and like the other companies in the case of John Fredriksen group like Frontline, Golden Ocean and SFL. We do favor dividends, and so it's not like the management, it's going to keep all the cash, we rather want to distribute that to shareholders. So the dividend is certainly not fixed in anyway.And then we have one more question, I think, we can take. And it's been a question about the TCE expectation for Q1.As I mentioned, we haven't provided our TCE number for Q1 next year, it's too early. We have booked, as I mentioned, around 2/3 of the available days. But keep in mind that we have several of our ships on variable time charter. So we don't know what the rate will be on those ships. We know they will be employed, but not the rate. So it's a bit premature for us to provide a TCE guidance. But in general, when you have booked 2/3 of your fleet for Q1 next year, we are fairly positive on the outlook for that quarter.So that's it. So unless there's any more questions on the phone, I think we are done for the day.

[Operator]

There are no question that came through, please continue.

[Øystein M. Kalleklev, Principal Executive Officer]

Okay. Thank you, everybody, for joining the webcast today. The dividend, maybe we have some based on that, I think it's payable 17th of December. So it won't be in your bank account in -- ahead of Black Friday, but at least it will be in your bank account ahead of Christmas season. So I hope you can spend it well either on buying Flex stocks or something nice for you loved ones. So thanks a lot again for joining, and we'll be back in February.

[Operator]

Thank you. This does conclude your conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers please standby.