Klaveness Combination Carriers ASA

OSE:KCC

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Engebret Dahm, Chief Executive Officer]

Welcome to the presentation of the fourth quarter results of Klaveness Combination Carriers. Today in this webcast, Liv Dyrnes, CFO of KCC; and myself, Engebret Dahm, CEO, will present. We in KCC are owners and operators of combination carriers, which are ships that can transport both dry bulk and tanker cargoes. We have 2 unique concepts: so CABUs that are servicing the alumina industry; and our new and more versatile CLEANBUs that are, in addition, servicing petroleum, petrochemical and the biofuel industries. Both shipping types are transporting tanker cargoes into regions that are big exporters of dry-bulk commodities, combining efficiently dry bulk and tanker cargoes. In our company, our main priority is the safety and wellbeing of our crew. And that means we are working hard to ensure that the spread of coronavirus is not coming to our ships and that we succeed to make the necessary crew changes to get our crew back after ended service period onboard.I can tell you, it's not easy at the moment, and it does not become easier the latest weeks either. But I'm pleased to see, as we see in these graphs, that we have succeeded to increase the number of crew changes and also have succeeded to increase the number of crew, both on-signers and off-signers, that has been accommodated in the last 2 quarters. And we are now back to 9 out of 10 planned crew changes are carried through. 2020 has been a remarkable year in terms of market, extreme volatility in all the 3 markets that are impacting our business. The fourth quarter was a bit more boring with both the product tankers and dry-bulk market weak in October and November and improving in December. So far, in this year, it's been quite more action-filled with the product tankers dropping down to historical low levels, while the dry-bulk market has had the strongest start of the year for, I guess, 10 years. The fuel market has improved through the year. In these market circumstances, we are pleased that the fourth quarter was a strong and a profitable and successful 2020. The time charter earnings of our fleet substantially outperformed the standard markets with the CABUs earning closer to $19,000 per day and the CLEANBUs, $20,800 per day, which is 1.9 to 3x the earnings of standard tankers and 1.7 to 1.8x the standard dry-bulk vessels.We are also pleased to report an EBITDA of $11 million, which is about $1 million higher than the third quarter. And the contributor to the improvements is mainly the CABUs that has performed well in the fourth quarter. We have to remind you that our results are negatively impacted by COVID-19 costs, both with respect to crew change, off-hire and also generally higher operating costs caused by COVID-19. Also, the delivery of 2 newbuilds during the second half has a negative impact through start-up costs. We are continuing to live up to our dividend policy by -- and are paying unchanged dividends, $0.03 per share, in the fourth quarter. We believe that we, in 2020, has demonstrated the solidness and future-proofness of our business model, where we provide the lowest carbon shipping solution to our customers. We have far lower earnings volatility than the standard tanker markets. And we provide the highest -- higher earnings at marginally higher operating costs, giving higher profitability over time than the standard markets. Starting off with the emissions, and we see the focus on decarbonization of shipping is continuing to increase. And in this -- and with the shipping business getting into the EU's emission trading scheme in 2022, it's interesting to see how the EUA pricing has developed over the recent months, which has increased by 60% since early October. And if you ask analysts, they expect this to at least double over the next 5 to 10 years. That is -- reminds us that the shipping business need to start paying for emitting CO2. And either through paying common taxes or buying quotas through emission trading schemes or through initiating new type of propulsion or using new type of fuel.But what will the future cost of emission be? We have made some calculations that you see out to the right. The current EUA price corresponds to $46 cost per CO2 emitted. If this should increase to $100 -- EUR 100 per ton, we are up at $120 per ton CO2 emission. The most competitive standard solution today for reducing emissions is LNG propulsion, burning LNG fuel. It cost $10 million more to -- in investment, and it translates to around $150 extra cost per CO2 emission, taking into account the benefit of the fuel. Biofuel is currently available in European ports. And this translates to a cost of $425 per CO2.We in KCC are delivering a service which are 30% to 40% lower carbon emission per ton transported than the standard solutions. Today, we are actually offering our service at a discount to the standard markets, hence, are not getting paid for the benefit of lower carbon emission to our customers. But I can tell you that the importance of emissions is increasing discussions with current customers and is a door-opener for -- when introducing the cleanness into the market. But it's quite interesting to see what are the value creation that we make through the low emission we are producing. And here, this example shows what is the total value creation to our customers with a different cost of CO2. Starting up with the current EUA price, it translates to a $9 million value creation for the 17 ships that we will have on water in this spring. If the EUA price improves to $100, we are up at the value creation of $23 million. The cost of LNG translated into CO2 emission cost would imply a value creation of $36 million. And likewise, the biofuel, more than $80 million. This shows the soundness of our concept. And we believe, over time, also KCC will -- can get part of the value creation into our results. We are -- in our strategy, we focus on maintaining lead as the world's lowest carbon emission shipping provider. We have a number of initiatives that are started up both on the technical installations on the ships and in the operation of our vessels.So far, as the KPIs we show here on the carbon intensity and the CO2 emission per ship is above the trajectory we have established in our environmental strategy. We expect to show results of the initiatives that we have started in this year. And we would like to tell you more about this, but we -- and we invite to a separate webcast, the 23rd of March, in connection with our presentation of our sustainability report, where we also would tell you more about what we are doing and what our plans are in this respect. Looking at this graph showing the market development since June last year, shows the value of the diversification that our business model has, being dependent on 3 different markets. The gray curve shows the MR tanker market development coming down from the boom last spring, falling down to low levels with some up and downturns through the year and in early 2021, coming down to historical low levels in January and February. The opposite development we see clearly in the blue line, which is the dry-bulk market, Panamax market, recovering during the spring last year, and now last month has piked -- re-spiked. And we see the strongest start of 2021 compared to the last 10 years. Looking at the tanker market is we expect to remain weak for the -- at least the last half year, and we see here the oil consumption is still below historical levels. And we expect this to take some time before the effects of the COVID-19 vaccinations come into the economy. Likewise, we see there are still floating storage of crude and product tankers that will be released and will have a negative impact on the market over the coming months. But the fundamental balance in the market is still strong, as we look here on the fleet growth for crude and product tankers for the last years, coming down to historically low levels for product tankers for the coming year, below 2%. You see the forward market for LR1 tankers illustrates the small optimism for the market for the first half, improving from the low point at the moment, but still at fairly low levels through the year. We have, in our company, a very strong tanker market coverage for the first half, and this will -- we expect this to improve over the coming months as we are in the process of tendering in for additional contracts for the year. Likewise, for second half, there will be contract renewed that will likely to bring up the contract coverage for second half of the year close to 50% when coming into the spring. The situation in the dry market is completely different. And the Panamax market, where our combination carriers are competing, the transportation of grains are the most important part with -- followed by coal. And looking at the development in the dry market and the demand, as shown in the second graph, we see how the positive development in demand in -- through 2020 in the green graph. And we see the strong start of the year in the blue dot for January. The grain market has been extremely strong with increased exports of grains out of U.S. Gulf to China, in parallel, with strong exports of grains from South America. Also, coal shipments has been strong in the early part of this year due to the -- especially the harsh winter. Also for the dry-bulk market, the balance is -- the market balance is strong with a low order book, below 6%, meaning low supply growth in the market. The forward market illustrates the -- despite in the market now in February and March and backwardation for the last quarters of the year, but still at high levels. We have built up our contract coverage somewhat for 2021 for the last 3 quarters of 2021. We have about 50% fixed rate coverage, and we expect to keep it at that level for the coming months, being -- having a significant exposure to an expected positive dry-bulk market. Look, we have, as mentioned, produced strong earnings for the -- for both vessel types, starting up for the CABUs, look -- where the main driver is the very post development of the CABUs in the Pacific market where we service the Australian alumina industry, where we have 6 to 7 or 9 CABUs employed.We see to the left here the development in the number of caustic soda cargoes booked, which explains the, partly, the positive results of the CABUs for 2020. And there's also been a strong start of the year for booking of caustic soda cargoes to Australia. And in the balance of the caustic soda market, we believe that to increase considerably over the next months, which will support the earnings also for 2021.With strong contract coverage, we have been able to increase the operational efficiency in the Pacific market, where we have a 95% hit with respect to time in combination trade. And we have been able to reduce the ballast down to 9%. These are all important factors for explaining the results of the CABUs for 2020 and the fourth quarter, showing how the results for the CABUs for the fourth quarter of closer to $19,000 per day, which is 3x the earnings of -- as illustrated in Clarksons and our tanker index. This is also 1.8x the Panamax market earnings in the fourth quarter. Looking at 2020 as a whole, we have earnings of $19,900 per day for the CABUs, which is 1.3x the standard MR tanker market and 2.3x the Panamax dry-bulk market. It's especially pleased to see the strong development compared to the tanker market and a market which is historically high for the year seen as a whole. We are continuing to progress with the phasing of the CLEANBUs. We are starting up new trades, and we're entering into business with new customers. I would especially like to focus on the positive development in the Australian market, which is one of our main target markets. And we have, after the first shipment made in September, October, we have made additional 2 shipments, and we expect to increase this further over this year. And we are pleased also to see that the structural development in the Australian and New Zealand market has developed to our benefit, where 3 of the remaining refineries in Australia and New Zealand are closing down now over the first half of this year, meaning increased CPP imports to Australia and opening up on new import ports that will be a good fit with the export of dry-bulk commodities. Looking at the earnings of the CLEANBUs, ending at $20,840 for the fourth quarter, which is 1.9x the LR1 tankers and 1.7x the Kamsarmax dry-bulk ships. And as mentioned, this is especially pleasing in an extremely strong tanker market seen as a whole for the year with $23,850 per day for the CLEANBUs in 2020, 1.1x the standard LR1 tankers and 2.4x the standard Kamsarmax bulk carriers.

[Liv Hege Dyrnes, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. And then over to EBITDA and some more financials for both Q4 and 2020 in total. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 11% from third quarter to fourth quarter and ended at $11 million. CABU EBITDA increased by $1.3 million, mainly due to higher utilization of the fleet, both as scheduled and unscheduled off-hire came down compared to third quarter. As Engebret showed, we had stable TCE earnings between third and fourth quarter despite the weaker tanker markets due to very efficient combination trading in the Pacific. OpEx came down slightly as well. CABU -- no, sorry, CLEANBU EBITDA for the comparable fleet, down $1.3 million, mainly due to lower TCE earnings, $3,300 per day lower, but still 1.9x the tanker market. OpEx as well increased as well at $1,200 per day. And we see some volatility in the operating expenses from quarter-to-quarter. CLEANBU EBITDA for additional vessels on-hire, approximately 0.35 vessel years, contributed with $1.1 million in the quarter. All in all, CABU EBITDA, up 20%; and CLEANBU EBITDA, down 8% Q-on-Q. As mentioned, we continue to take delivery of vessels. The 2 vessels delivered in Q3 and Q4 started trading in the fourth quarter. We have as well taken delivery of 1 vessel in January. And the next 2 or the last 2 vessels are expected to be delivered in March and May this year, which means that we will have a full fleet in operation towards the end of second quarter. However, it is challenging to take delivery of the vessels these days. And as you can see from the illustration to the right, the days from delivery until we start trading the vessels have increased of -- from an average of 12 days in 2019 until approximately 40 days for the 2 last vessels, and it was as high as 57 days for the vessel delivered in Q3. We expect the situation to be somewhat similar for the next vessels, but of course, we try to do this as efficiently as possible. Off-hire is down 49 days from Q3 to Q4, and unscheduled off-hire is down 10 days. We had 27 COVID-related off-hire days in Q4, slightly down from Q3. Operating expenses, as you can see to the right, increased by 8% from '19 to '20 for the CABU vessels and improved by 15% for the CLEANBU vessels. The CLEANBU OpEx is impacted by the phasing of the vessels, hence, we expected this to come further down or improve so that OpEx is down in 2021, but the uncertainties related to COVID-19 is still quite high. The total COVID effect -- negative COVID effect in Q4 was $2.7 million. That's quite in line with Q3. This is approximately 50% lower earnings, mainly due to more off-hire, and 50% related to higher costs. In total, we estimate the impact for the total of 2020 to be negative $5.8 million from COVID. So EBITDA increased, as mentioned, by 11% from Q3 to Q4. Profit after tax, slightly down from Q3 and ended at $1.2 million. Then let's have a look at full year 2020. EBITDA increased by 80% from '19 to '20 and ended at close to $50 million for the full year 2020. CABU EBITDA increased by more than $7 million on the back of increased TCE earnings. The TCE earnings were the strongest we have had since 2015. This was partly offset by 69 less on-hire days, whereof 55 COVID-related, as well as some higher operating expenses. CLEANBU EBITDA for the comparable fleet increased $3.6 million on the back of higher TCE earnings and lower operating expenses. While the CLEANBU EBITDA from additional vessels, approximately 2 additional vessel years, contributed with more than $11 million in 2020. If we, in addition, adjust for a full fleet on water, that would imply approximately 5 -- sorry, 4.5 additional vessel years, the EBITDA for 2020 would have been around $75 million. So KCC really demonstrated the value of flexibility and diversification in 2020. We saw very efficient combination trading for the CABU vessels on the back of strong caustic soda volumes. We saw -- or the stronger tanker market was reflected in through the index contracts for this segment. And we saw the effect of diversified market exposure towards the end of the year. Then for the CLEANBUs, we took advantage of the peak in the tanker market while the vessels traded in combination trades for the remaining part of the year. So we saw, on the back of this, a strong EBITDA increase of 80%. We, of course, also saw some higher interest costs due to higher mortgage debt related to newbuilds as well as increased bond debt. Profit after tax ended at a strong $15.2 million, up from $0.6 million in 2019, while dividends per share doubled from $0.06 in '19 to $0.12 in 2020.The cash position developed as expected through the quarter. The main cash flows relates to delivery of 1 newbuild. We had the drawdowns related to 2 newbuilds in Q4, both the vessels delivered in Q3 and Q4. We as well repaid the last part of the KCC03 bond. Hence, cash per year-end ended at $65.7 million, while the remaining net newbuild CapEx is estimated to be $18 million. Equity ratio ended at 39% for the year, in line with expectations following delivery of newbuilds. Yes, that was the short summary of solidity and liquidity. And then over to you, Engebret.

[Engebret Dahm, Chief Executive Officer]

So to wrap up, after a very strong 2020, especially in the light of the large COVID-19 cost effects, where we have reached a number of important milestones both on the CABUs and the CLEANBUs, the start of 2021 will be weaker mainly due to the very weak start of the tanker market in 2021. Despite in the dry-bulk market now in February will have positive effects, that will mainly translate into the second quarter of the year. So we are guiding for the CABUs of earnings between $16,750 and $17,750, which is above the level in 2019. The CLEANBUs, we guide between $17,000 and $18,000 per day, which is also at the level of what we achieved in 2019. Seen for -- and especially in relation to the underlying tanker market, these are still strong earnings. Looking at 2021 as a whole, we, as mentioned, we expect the tanker market to be weak in the first half of the year, while we improve it to -- we expect it to improve somewhat over in the coming months. There should be some upside in second half as the world economy recovers. We are very optimistic for the dry-bulk market, and we see the spike now in February and post development for the remaining part of the year. We also, as mentioned, expect to book more caustic soda volumes to be more or less fully booked for the CABUs in that trade in the Pacific and in the Americas. We also expect good, positive benefits of having the full fleet on water by second quarter and, for the second half, having in total 17 ships trading. There will be more off-hire on the CLEANBUs in 2021 compared to this year, which partly will be covered by off-hire insurance. We expect and we are positive to the -- our ability to expand the CLEANBU combi-trading. We have shown good progress so far, and we expect to report more progress over the coming quarters. So to summarize, again, we believe KCC has a future-proof and profitable business model that should be attractive to both investors that are focusing on shipping and investors that are -- try to avoid shipping investments, having the lowest carbon emission shipping solution, producing earnings with a far lower earnings volatility than the standard tank and dry-bulk market and delivering higher earnings, both in terms of dollar per day and in terms of profitability. Thank you. So now we are ready to receive your questions.

[Engebret Dahm, Chief Executive Officer]

Let's see what we have. Let's see. Let me start up here with a question from Dennis in ABG SC. He asked, dry-bulk market has been unseasonably strong in the first quarter 2021. To what extent do you believe that this is elevated port congestion has been driving this tightness? Furthermore, has the Australia-China standoff affected your trades in the Pacific basin? I think based on the statistics that we are seeing, the congestion level is high for the season, while it has, in fact, decreased slightly over the last week. So it has been a positive factor. But I do believe also the large increase in grain shipments and also the, what we call, resumption of coal shipments into China has probably as well a positive effect. When it comes to the standoff between Australia and China, we have so far had no effect on our ships. And as we -- this relates mainly to coal where -- and we transport very little coal. And then we have another question from Dennis asking a question regarding your capital allocation. You report USD 66 million in cash and $27.6 million in net newbuilding and dry-docking CapEx, leaving you with around $38 million remaining. Is this level of cash you expect to maintain on the balance sheet?

[Liv Hege Dyrnes, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, I would say at least through 2021. We will not -- or probably not do any like large changes to that. But after the full phase-in of the CLEANBU fleet, then of course, we will try to optimize cash on the balance sheet.

[Engebret Dahm, Chief Executive Officer]

Let's see. The next question comes from Herman Hildan. He asked, with the same framework as seen with sulfur and NOx regulations approaching CO2, it clearly may be a bit premature to ask, do you intend to target profit sharing with your clients on the environmental benefit your transportation solution provide? Or do you see that a pass-through benefit to your clients to build larger scale for KCC? I think I was partly answering that in the presentation. I think we have up-to-date provided our customers with a lower cost or even cost with the standard tank and dry-bulk solutions, meaning that our customers has got the full benefit of our lower emission service. How this will develop? It's, of course, early to say. But we do expect, as mentioned, as the cost for emission CO2 will increase over the coming years, we expect also our company to get a big share of this benefit. But today, as mentioned, it provides us a unique access to new customers and to opening up the market for a new type of ships. How will -- a question from [ Fredrik Nas ]. How will EEXI regulation impact KCC? Do you need to make any technical changes to your vessels, instance, lower engine power? And do you expect EEXI to impact supply side for tankers and bulkers? On the EEXI side, we are -- the new CLEANBUs are fully complying with the regulations from 2023. The last-generation CABUs, that's 2% below the EEXI requirement, which we expect to solve by small or minimal installations, fuel saving, device installations on our ships. So all our modern ships, that means 11 of the 17 ships, do comply or will comply with limited extra initiatives. The 6 oldest CABUs, where 4 are built between 2021 and '22, there is a bigger gap. And we are currently starting up to study how we will do this. For the 2 younger ships that are built between 2004 and -- 2005 and 2007, we expect to make investments in the ships to improve the fuel efficiency. And for all the 6 ships, we may evaluate also to reduce speed and engine power. What is the average fixed coverage in dollars per day for Panamax in first half '21 and second half '21? In terms of TC5 Kamsarmax earnings, we are looking at the round voyage calculation as -- which is the way the standard ships are trading. The coverage is around $13,000 per day. Another question from Frode Mørkedal. How is the CLEANBU combination trade developing last quarter? 67 of days were in combination trades. What is the expectation in terms of the coming quarters? We had, in the first quarter, allocated more capacity into the dry market given the extreme weak tanker market. So we expect the combination trade to be approximately at the same level in the first quarter. But we expect over the remaining 3 quarters to increase the combination trading percentage for the CLEANBUs, up to a target of 80% for this year. Another question from Frode. Can you repeat the expected benefit to you from a rise in bunker prices of $100? We -- as we calculate it then, it is around between $600 and $800 per day for -- in benefit from a $100 increase in fuel cost. And then I have a question from Erik Aspen Fosså. Your contract coverage for 2021 for both the tanker and dry bulk has increased meaningfully since the Q3 report. Could you give some color on rate level fixed? Were you able to take advantage of the strong dry-bulk market so far this year? On the tanker side, it's a bit more difficult to give you an estimation in terms of average, given that we are talking both of the MR and LR1 market. But I can -- it safely produces earnings well above the tanker market earnings. On the dry side, as mentioned, if you convert to TC5 Kamsarmax level, it is about $13,000 per day for this year, and we have increased this coverage of the latest tweak. And we have a question from Bendik Engebretsen. Congratulations with another solid quarter despite market volatility and pandemic friction. Could you please elaborate on the new customer relationships you have established with the CLEANBU fleet? How many new counterparties are we talking about? Could you please elaborate on why the number of days from delivery to trade for new deliveries have increased? We have, over the last quarter, increased at least 2 important CLEANBU customers, which are important customers in the trades and which are among the leading players in the industry. So we are very pleased with this development, and we are in discussions which are positive and promising for expanding these relationships. When it comes to number of days from delivery to trade, it is an impact of the fact that we don't get the crew into China, meaning that we have employed Chinese crew to take the ship from the shipyard to Korea where our crew is in quarantine and is ready to take over the ship. This is far from ideal start-up for a ship, meaning that we need to have weeks after the new crew comes onboard to do the work that normally would have been done before delivery at the shipyard. And so that delays the time before the ship can start trading.

[Liv Hege Dyrnes, Chief Financial Officer]

I think that was the last question.

[Engebret Dahm, Chief Executive Officer]

That was the last question. You still have some seconds to send off more questions. If not, we thank you all for joining this webcast and hope to see you soon or that you will join our next webcast, the 23rd of March. Thank you.