Odfjell SE

OSE:ODF

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q3

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of the third quarter results for Odfjell SE, which we are streaming live here from our office in Bergen. My name is Kristian Mørch. I'm the CEO of Odfjell SE, and I'm joined today by the CFO of Odfjell SE, Terje Iversen. Thank you all for taking the time to listen to our quarterly presentation today. We will go through the presentation. And then during the presentation, you should be able to post questions online. There should be a link to that on the top right-hand corner of your screen. And then after the presentation, Terje and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.The agenda for today is, I will take you through the highlights of the quarter, then Terje will, as usual, come on and take you through the financials. Then I will come back and give you an update on operational matters and, finally, talk about prospects and the market updates. And as I said, we will take a Q&A session towards the end of the presentation.The highlight of the third quarter is, it was another quarter with positive results for Odfjell SE despite a seasonally lower market and despite the fact that we had a high number of drydockings, some of our ship days were a little bit lower and an unclear market environment. I think anyone who listens will agree to the fact that it's hard to predict at the moment.But it was another quarter of profit. The EBITDA came in at $72 million, which is $10 million below last quarter. And the $10 million drop came from the EBITDA from Tankers that came in at $64 million, which was down from $74 million the previous quarter. Terminals were stable with $8 million of EBITDA, and the net results came out at $4 million compared to a positive $31 million in the last quarter. But if you adjust both of those numbers for nonrecurring items, then the result in the third quarter was $5 million profit compared to an adjusted profit for last quarter of $17 million. So we are down $12 million quarter-on-quarter.Our COA rates continued to go up. They were up 4.5% in the third quarter. Third quarter is not a busy month for us in terms of contract renewals, but fourth quarter is. So we are right in the middle of the contract renegotiation season right now, and it's comforting to see that the market accepts that there's an upgoing trend in our markets.In terms of COA coverage, you might remember from the last quarter, it was unusually low with 35%. That came -- the third quarter came back up to 50%, and we see that stabilize around that mark also heading into the fourth quarter, which is also where we would like it to be, but I'll speak later on in the operational update about the COA coverage.We are also, this quarter, announcing new and ambitious targets, ESG targets in Odfjell SE. We are announcing that we target to reduce our carbon intensity by 50% and by 2030 and also that we will have a climate neutral fleet by 2050. Both of those targets go beyond the target set by IMO, and we have a slide later on in the deck that will speak about that.In terms of subsequent events, we are also announcing that we have established a new pool for IMO2 coated tonnage, IMO2 chemical tankers, initially adding 6 ships to that pool, but we're actively working on expanding that pool, and we hope that we can soon announce a further expansion. So this is a new, let's say, focus area for us, and we hope to establish a strong presence in the commodity chemical market.So third quarter was another quarter of profit despite the seasonal impact and the high number of newbuildings. We are satisfied with our ability to continue to report profits despite the uncertain environment. And we are happy with the new pools, which will give us more, let's say, market presence in the commodity chemical tanker markets.We expect the fourth quarter to be in line with the third quarter, and we do -- of course, there is some uncertainty about the near-term because of the COVID and what will happen there. But in general, we feel that there's strong fundamentals in the chemical tanker market, and I'll speak about that also during the market update.At this point, I will hand it over to Terje to take you through the financials.

[Terje Iversen, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Kristian, and good morning to all of you. As Kristian said, I will take you through the financials in the third quarter. I will start with the revenue or the P&L for the chemical tanker business this quarter. And as you can see, we saw gross revenue that declined slightly compared to the second quarter. We ended at $229.7 million compared to $234.6 million in the second quarter. Looking at voyage expenses, that increased slightly, main reason being that we saw some higher port and canal costs this quarter compared to second quarter, but that is what we should consider as seasonal variations and not a long trend as we can see it today.After pool distribution, we then ended at the net time-charter earnings at $128.0 million compared to $137.2 million in the second quarter. The main reason that declined was that we saw that the time-charter -- the spot market declined somewhat, especially when you consider that in the second quarter we had a very strong spot market and we also had lower contract nominations that led us to being able to tap into a very strong spot market in the second quarter, while we saw more normal activity in the spot market, and also we saw increased contract nominations in the third quarter.Operating expenses increased slightly to $42 million compared to $40.4 million in the second quarter, main reason being delivery of new vessels, but we also saw some increase in crew costs related to changing of cruise and travel expenses related to that. And we may continue to expect that going forward because we still have challenges to have this crew replaced and people come and go back and forth to the vessels.G&A quite stable compared to the second quarter. Then we ended EBITDA at $63.6 million compared to $73.9 million in the second quarter. After depreciation, we then had an operating result of $25 million compared to $37.1 million.Under financial expenses, we had some positive mark-to-market in the second quarter that has turned into a more negative territory in the second -- in the third quarter. So we had negative $1.3 million in the third quarter related to other financial items. After taxes, we are then left with a net result of $2.6 million compared to $19.3 million in the second quarter.Looking at the Terminals, we saw a small increase in gross revenue mainly due to increasing activity following the shutdown in the second quarter. Stable operating expenses and G&A led to an EBITDA improvement to $7.8 million compared to $7.6 million in the second quarter. After capital gains and depreciation, we are then left with $2.2 million in operating results compared to $12.5 million in the second quarter. But then you should remember that in the second quarter, we had a capital gain related to sale of one of the terminals in China of $10.3 million. So the operating result in second quarter is a bit inflated by that capital gain, of course.After that financials and also after taxes, we're then left with a result of $1.5 million compared to $11.6 million, again, inflated in the second quarter due to the capital gain. If we kind of exclude depreciation of surplus values in the third quarter of USD 1.7 million, we're left with a net result for our Terminals business at USD 3.2 million.Looking at the total, we ended with an EBITDA of $71.7 million compared to $81.9 million. Net result of -- operating result of $27.1 million. And after taxes and finance, we're left with a net result of $3.9 million compared to $30.9 million in the second quarter. If we deduct nonrecurring items being the net financial items and the capital gain in the second quarter, we then have a normalized net result of USD 5 million this quarter compared to $17 million in the second quarter.Continuing with the balance sheet. We saw a small increase in book values of ships and newbuilding contracts due to delivery of the fifth newbuilding from Hudong in the third quarter. We see that investments in associates and joint ventures is USD 174 million. The main part is Odfjell Terminals, of course, with $164 million, which also includes cash in the joint ventures of USD 47 million, our share. The remainder of that investment in associates and joint ventures is done in our investment in Odfjell Gas.Equity increased to USD 560 million, that is, equity percentage of around 30% when excluding debt related to right-of-use assets.Looking at the cash flow, going a bit more into the details there. We saw that operating activities delivered a slight decrease in the cash flow to $30.1 million compared to $54.1 million in the second quarter. Main reason, of course, is that we have a lower result, but also we saw that the working capital increased by around USD 10 million this quarter, which then related to a slight decrease in the cash flow from operating activities.Investment activities. We had the fifth newbuilding delivered from Hudong, as mentioned. We also had other CapEx this quarter of USD 7 million, adding to $48.2 million. Looking at the financing part. We had a quite busy quarter also this quarter when it comes to financing and refinancing. New interest-bearing debt with $127.9 million includes also a newbuilding delivered from Hudong, but also refinancing of several loans in the quarter. That has also effected in repayment of interest-bearing debt being USD 101.7 million this quarter. That also includes repayment of financing for some of the vessels with around USD 32 million, which was refinanced after the end of this quarter, another USD 23 million in cash after that refinancing was finalized in the fourth quarter.We repaid USD 50 million on our revolving credit facility and then we ended with a net cash flow for a period of $55.9 million negative compared to $27.3 million positive in the second quarter. That leads to cash at the end of quarter of $92.4 million. But in addition, we, of course, have undrawn facilities under credit revolver facility. Adding that, we are around USD 138 million in available cash end of third quarter.Looking at the cash flow to equity. We had a strong cash flow to equity in the second quarter of USD 17 million. That turned slightly negative this quarter with USD 12 million. Of course, changes also reflected that we have a lower result, but also the working capital increasing with USD 10 million partly explains why we ended in a negative net cash flow to equity in the third quarter.Bunker expenses continue to be one of our main cost components. We saw a slight decrease in cost -- bunker expenses also this quarter. We also see that the bunker adjustment clauses are actually working, and we are hedging 50% also going forward through the contracts and contracts of affreightments and the bunker adjustment clauses. In addition, we also secured some additional hedging through derivatives, where we have secured 25% of the uncovered bunker exposure for next year at levels that are above -- or just slightly below what the current prices are indicating.You also saw that -- sorry, Average Platts increased slightly this quarter, both in Rotterdam and Singapore, but we also see that going forward and we have seen so far that both low-sulfur fuel oil and marine gas oil actually priced lower, and we saw heavy fuel oil was priced before 2020 came into effect.Cash flow and breakeven continues to be high on agenda. Last quarter, we had a positive kind of difference between time-charter earnings and cash flow. This quarter, that was slightly negative. We saw that the time-charter earnings came down at around $20,620 per day, while the cash breakeven was around $500 above that level this quarter. Going forward, we expect that the cash breakeven for 2021 will be very much in the same areas throughout the day, around $21,400 per day. But our long-term target is still to reach a level of $18,000 to $19,500 per day to ensure that we can generate post cash flow throughout the cycles.We think, based on the earnings we are seeing today and based on the market we see today, that we should be able to reach this goal in 2022. But of course, that is market-dependent and also dependent on who we are kind of succeeding optimizing our debt portfolio and ensure that also amortization profile match the economic lifetime of our vessels also going forward.Debt development. We have the bond maturing in January next year. Besides that, we don't have any actually maturities coming up before the second quarter 2022. We still have an ambition to refinance the bond maturing in January next year, but that will be market-dependent. We will only do that if we consider that right in the market and we get the price that we would like to see for that financing. We have taken care of kind of [ takeout ] financing already, so we don't need to refinance it before maturity, but we will continue to follow the market and consider when that should be done or if it should be done before or after repaying that maturity in January. Gross debt. This is a kind of illustration how that can develop going forward. It will increase slightly towards the end of this year because of the last newbuilding being delivered from Hudong. But going forward, based on the repayment profile and amortization profile that they have in their existing loans, we will slowly then decline gross debt for the company and we will, and based on this, be in the range of USD 750 million to USD 900 million, which is our long-term aim for the debt [ profile ]. Timing, of course, is dependent on the market development and if we are able to repay according to the existing schedules.Photo on the left side, this is an illustration how it may look like based on if you analyze the kind of the results this year, year-to-date, if you annualize that for the next few years based on what we have in debt today, repayment profiles and also the cash. We will then kind of decrease the net interest-bearing debt over EBITDA from today's level at 4.2 to be in the range of 2.4 to 2.9 in 2023. And we think that is really good achievement if we are able to do that and, of course, based on kind of the market at least being at today's level that we have seen so far in [ 2022 ].Then normally, I would have a slide on the CapEx -- future CapEx. I haven't included that this time because we have very limited CapEx, especially for Odfjell SE going forward when we took the delivery of the last newbuilding from Hudong in October. So we are left with the operational review for Kristian to take you through, both for chemical tankers and the terminals. Over to you, Kristian.

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. Thank you, Terje. Operational review. First of all, I want to speak a little bit about our operational platform because our activities, they may seem unaffected by the ongoing pandemic, but I can guarantee you that it has not felt normal throughout 2020 with most of us working from our homes for the majority of the year and a lot of us still doing it. So it has been done more or less by remote control. Of course, some of us can work from the comfort of our home and safety of our homes, but the crew on both the ships and the operators on the terminals cannot.So it has been a very challenging year, and it has been a test of the Odfjell platform. But what is it we mean when we talk about our platform? Well, first and foremost, we have a global platform, which means that we are close to our customers, we are close to the terminals, we are close to the ports where the ships are often docking. It also means that when problems do occur, then we have people on the ground who can help solve those problems. So having a global platform is an absolutely an advantage in a year like 2020.We have in-house ship management. And if there was ever a year for that to be a benefit, then this is the year. I'll talk a little bit about that in a second. We have a COA coverage that gives us comfort, something to operate around. We have visibility on where the ships are going to be and where the volumes are going to be. We have an adaptable TC fleet. And as you know, over the last couple of quarters, we have reduced the number of TC payments and the TC fleet, in general, which means we are reducing risk, and we are replacing them by -- a lot of them replacing them by pool ships that gives us the market presence and gives us an income stream and some of the upside.And finally, we have the flexibility of the ships. I think the second quarter has proved that when the CPP markets are very strong, then we have the ability to switch into -- swing into the neighboring markets where we can generate good earnings and choose not to when that's not the case.But in terms of ship management, our biggest headache is the fact that we have struggled to change crew. We have 126 people who have been on board our ships for more than 10 months, and we have 31 people who have been on board more than 1 year. And just spend a moment to imagine that you were unable to leave your office for a year, what that would do? And obviously, the people who are on board is only half the equation. There are also people sitting in their homes ready to go to work, but who cannot because of travel restrictions.So this is, I think, our #1 challenge, that is that we cannot move people freely around the world, get them onboard for drydockings, get them onboard for inspections and so on. And we are working as hard as we can to make sure that we pick that up.In the third quarter, we have seen an increase in number of crew changes we have done. But now with the second wave kind of being evident around the world, we are -- we fear that it's going to continue to be -- we're going to continue to struggle with moving crew freely around the world.But despite that, we have our best safety performance. We have not had any LTI since August 2019, more than 400 days. We are performing better than ever on our vetting performance and our predictability KPIs, which means that we make sure when we promise our customers, we show up at the load port or the discharge port. We have never performed better than that. So I'm very impressed and happy with the operational performance of Odfjell despite of these ongoing, let's say, challenges in the world.The next slide I want to talk about is our COA volumes. You can see in the top left-hand graph, I think, left hand, yes, that in the second quarter that COA coverage dropped 35%. That was partly by design because we freed up tonnage to go into the CPP markets, and it was partly because most of the chemical producers in the world, they were kind of stopped in their tracks in the beginning of second quarter, trying to figure out what was going on with the supply chains and so on. So we have a very low number of nominations on top of that. That has now stabilized into the third quarter and also into the fourth quarter. So we believe that the COA coverage will be stable around 50%, which is the sweet spot for us. It's high enough to give us comfort and something to operate around to give us the predictability, but it's also low enough for us to have flexibility to schedule the fleet where it makes most economic sense.Then this slide, as Terje said, we took delivery of our latest newbuilding in October. And with that, we are completing the biggest fleet expansion and renewal program in the history of the company. We have taken delivery of 19 of our own ships. We have taken delivery of 13 cruise ships. And we have, at the same time, redelivered 24 ships from the fleet. That has happened over 2.5-year period. So the number itself may not sound that much, but I can assure you that when you look at what it takes for us to really pull that off and get the ships into the [ trades ] where they belong, it is quite a significant challenge, and it has been done very well by the team here.It also means we have one of the most modern, if not the most modern, and most energy-efficient fleet in the industry. And when we talk about ESG targets a little bit later, this is certainly something that is helping us to achieve the targets that we are announcing today.If you look at the competitive landscape, it also means that that we are moving ahead of the competition. It is clear that MOL and Stolt-Nielsen and Odfjell are ahead of the pack. But if you look within that group, with the information we have available, there might be something going on with our competitors that we are not aware of. We like to think that we do know, but the reality is we probably don't. But at least with the information we have available, you can see that both in terms of average age of the fleet and the size of the fleet, we are moving ahead of the competition. And I think that gives us a very strong advantage in terms of both scale and efficiency of the fleet.Quickly talking about our terminals. In general, the terminals are performing in a stable way, $8 million of EBITDA this quarter. The terminals are, in general, full. We did see in the second quarter across the terminals that the throughput in the terminals dropped a little bit, but that's picking up in the third quarter, and we think that they're going to continue to operate in a stable way.We're also moving forward with our expansion projects, especially in the U.S. within the terminal in Houston. We have both greenfield and brownfield land, and we are ready to expand on, and we'll continue to make progress on those. Speaking a little bit about CapEx and that relation in terms of all the plans that we have now, the total expansion CapEx for the terminals is $48 million, but the various joint ventures we have in terminals will be self-funded and have capacity to shoulder that expansion. So we don't foresee any CapEx injection from Odfjell SE to achieve these expansion goals.Turning to ESG. I mentioned it a few times today. We are launching new and very ambitious targets. And they -- both of the targets that we launched today go further than the IMO targets on emissions. We say that Odfjell will cut our greenhouse gas emission by 50% by 2030. That's 9 years away. Ships have an economic lifetime of 30 years. So we are in a hurry. But as I spoke about on one of the previous slides, we are well underway, and we are -- we have a clear plan for how we're going to reach that target.We also have a target to -- we are dedicated to pursuing only zero-emission vessels technology from 2030 onwards, not order ships with the old technology, so to speak. That's a slightly more ambitious target because we don't have answers to all the questions how that's going to happen, but we do have a fairly clear picture of what it is we want to do, but this is not something that Odfjell can solve alone. We need to work with engine manufacturers and shipyards and classification societies and so on. And that also goes from point three, which is that we will have a -- we target to have a climate neutral fleet by 2050. And that's a stretch target, but something that we are dedicating our best resources on in Odfjell SE.Point number four on this slide says that we will actively support the initiatives and work across the industry. I just mentioned that this is not something a shipping company can do alone. 80% of the investments that the world needs to make in order for the energy transition to happen is going to be assured. So without the authorities and regulators and the energy sellers, providers like the bunker suppliers, we won't be able to solve that, and we have dedicated resources and are ready to invest in helping -- doing what we can to help that development.Finally, on ESG, I also want to mention that we have now a sustainability-linked finance framework in place. We think there's an appetite for ESG-linked bonds. We do have a bond that matures in January, as Terje just mentioned. We have the cash to pay that out, but we have also considered going to the market, and we should be able to do that under attractive terms. And if the attractive terms are there, the window is open, then we think there's an appetite for ESG-linked bonds, and we have that framework verified by third parties.All right. That was the operational update. If I turn to prospects and markets update very quickly, here, we are looking at the total tonne-mile demand picture. The last 3 years, we've had a strong growth in tonne-mile. And what you see in the first half of 2020 with the pandemic happened, that dropped quite dramatically. But it's important to note that it never contracted. We think it's a very robust demand picture. I'll speak to that on the next slide. And we also think that we have turned the bottom in the second quarter. If you listen to what the chemical producers and our customers are saying about the world, even those who are exposed to automotive and construction, which are the 2 industries that have been harvested, it seems like things have bottomed out in the second quarter and are starting to grow again. So it's a lower demand growth than we have seen in the last couple of years, but we think that that's going to be growth throughout the coming quarters and years.The reason for that growth is that, I would say, structural. If you look at what has happened for the chemical producers, the feedstock prices have obviously dropped, and they have dropped more in the states as well. And that means in the middle graph here, you see that the competitiveness of the long-haul, let's say, based producers in the -- especially in the U.S. and also a little bit in the Middle East is very much still in place. And that means that the Chinese, which is the biggest import market, continue to replace domestic production with imports, and that's a picture that we see continuing. Yes, at a lower pace than we had expected a year ago, but nobody saw the pandemic coming. But we also think that post pandemic and with the IMF projections for growth next year, that this will very much be the case in the coming years. So we think that's a fairly resistant -- we continue to think that as that fairly resistant demand story for deep sea chemical tankers.The supply side. I'd say, the strongest market -- strongest supply picture we have seen for, I would say, decades. The first 2 bars on this graph relates to swing tonnage and floating storage in the CPP markets. Obviously, when the CPP markets take off as they did in the second quarter, it means that the swing tonnage were tracked, and a lot of the CPP tonnage gets stocked in floating storage. That is being unwinded now, and there's a little bit of a reversal of the swing tonnage. So we do see some competition from that, but not to a great extent. And it's also important to remember that no matter which way you turn the supply side picture, if you look at the bottom graph, we have a historically low order book, and we don't see any major risk of a big number of orders happening in the next, say, 1 to 2, maybe even 3 years because of the uncertainty on the future technology. So we think that from a supply perspective, we have a very strong situation in the next coming years for chemical tankers. So the future market developments are highly dependent on the restart of the global economy. While we wait for that, it is still a very robust picture. We have not seen any contraction in demand. We didn't see a contraction in demand in 2009 during the financial crisis either. So it's a very robust picture, and the structural changes in the market are here to stay. We think we have lowered our growth forecast to now 3% compounded over the next couple of years with some pluses and minuses, but still 3% growth in tonne-mile demand. And at the same time, the supply is not going to grow by more than 1% in the same period, and that is, after a few years where supply has not grown as much as demand. So we think that there are strong fundamentals, but a near-term uncertainty because of the COVID-19.So I think that was the comments on the market development from my side. So in summary, third quarter was another quarter with positive results despite the seasonality and the many drydockings and the uncertainty in the market. We continue to operate well and safely and more efficiently despite the challenges of COVID-19 and home offices and what have you. We have continued to -- with our consolidation efforts, we have established a new IMO2 coated chemical tanker pool, initially with 6 ships. Hopefully, we can announce further expansion of that shortly. We have ESG targets where we put our own hand on the heating plate, so to speak, and we are prepared to make sure that we take responsibility as a company, be good corporate citizens, and we also take our share in moving the entire industry forward. And the outlook is that the fourth quarter would be in line with the third quarter, and then we hope that the turmoil in the markets will soon be sorted, and we can see the growth that IMF have been projecting for 2021.So that was the end of the presentation. I can see that we have had a number of questions posted. So I think we will take them in good order. I don't know if Bjørn Kristian, which ones, I haven't read them.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

Yes. We could start with the first one from Lars Bastian in Arctic. You mentioned that a part of the plan to reach the outlined climate targets is only ordering vessels with zero-emission technology from 2030. When do you expect to see viable zero-emission technologies based on what you know today?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

I think the irony -- well, it's a very good question. I think there's a lot of question marks -- a lot of questions -- details about that, that's difficult to answer. But I think the reality is that the technology actually exists. It might not have been scaled up or it might not be onboard ships, but if you look at the technology that the ship itself requires, I think in terms of fuel-flex engines and so on, I think the technology, to a large extent, exists. So it becomes a question about fuel type. And as I said earlier, 80% of the investments -- total investments in the industry will have to be done ashore. So it very much depends on what the oil majors and other energy providers decide to do, what does the authorities allow. Because we may choose one fuel, whether it's ammonia or whether it's hydrogen or whatever, but if it's not available and the infrastructure is not there, then it's going to be impossible. Personally, I think that the answer will be somewhere in the, let's say, ammonia type -- green ammonia more than hydrogen, whatever, but I think the reality is we don't have a clear answer for how it will look.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

And then from Anders Karlsen in Danske Bank. On the COA front, are you entering into or winning new contracts? Or are we mainly talking continuation of existing contracts?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

I think both. I think we have spent quite a lot of energy in the past 2 years to analyze not only the COAs themselves but how they interact. So when you have more than 100 COAs, every time you take a COA you also dedicate yourself to a certain trade and a certain wharf, and then the interlinkage between those contracts is very complex. So we have found out that there are some contracts that we are simply going to leave because they create very much of an operational complexity and there are other contracts where we are probably more aggressively pursuing them because they fit very nicely into our operations. So we win new contracts. We lose contracts. Most of those we lose, we lose by design. And -- but there's also a vast number of contracts that we, let's say, just roll over, but that we renew with the existing customers.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

Then one question from Bendik Engebretsen with Danske Bank. Congrats for another strong report. Could you elaborate on the development of, A, potential divestment of Tianjin as part of LG's exit from the remaining assets in China?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. I think we have said clearly that if there's -- if an exit opportunity will present itself, we will tag along with that. That process is ongoing. We have advisers. We have live discussions with potential buyers. So things are, of course, slightly challenging on that front because of COVID and inability to travel and so on. So it's difficult to say anything about the time line, but I think our focus going forward is going to be on Korea, on Antwerp and on the U.S. So -- yes, so I personally think that that's going to happen. But the terminal continues to operate. And if it doesn't happen tomorrow, then we are patient. But I think it's heading in that direction.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

And there's another question from Lars Bastian Østereng in Arctic Securities. The newbuilding program is now completed. Do you have any plans for further expansions? If so, would that be mainly through ordering newbuildings, chartering in vessels or expanding pools?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes, that can turn into a long answer. I think the standing where we are today with the fleet changes we have done in the most modern and energy-efficient fleet in the world without any growth CapEx gives us great visibility on our balance sheet. And I think we are not going to jump into big CapEx expansions with newbuildings right now. But of course, also in the longer term, we cannot say that we will have a climate neutral fleet by 2050 if we don't start investing in it. So there will be a time, but this is not for now. I think we are very happy with the visibility we have on the balance sheet from a cash perspective as well. And so we're not going to go out and order ships right now.We do think that it might make sense to continue with the consolidation. The last, say, couple of deals we have made have been pool-based, where we get a fee, we get some kind of upside in operating the ships, and we can do it without using our balance sheet. I think that's good for the customers. It's good for -- it's a good way to grow. But of course, we also keep our ears to the ground in terms of interesting opportunities. But I think for now, we are happy with the situation with the visibility, and I think that that's going to stay that way until we hit, let's say, smoother waters.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

And then another one from Lars Bastian in Arctic Securities. How concerning is the current weakness in CPP and crude tanker markets? Do you see that as a real threat to chemical tanker markets going into 2021?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, I mean, you have seen when VLCC dropped into, let's say, below $10,000 per day, close to their OpEx and [ periods ], the same for product tankers. Of course, product tankers will start to swing into our markets. So it does have an effect. I don't think it's a sustainable level at the moment. We -- but when you see the core of what we carry, we don't compete with product tankers. So do I see, let's say, a catastrophic impact from that? No, I don't. I see it as a continued factor to -- with the swing tonnage, but I don't see it as a fundamental threat to the positive picture we have in chemical tankers.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

Can you shed light on impact of time-charters on earnings of the LPG ships versus pool?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

No. We have a confidentiality clause. And so I cannot talk about the -- I cannot talk about the levels. But what I can say is that the pool that ships used to be in is, in our view, the best performing pool in that segment. And we think that the rates we are getting on the 2 gas ships were high enough for us to take the decision to take the ships out of the pool. But I prefer not to speak about the levels.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

And then one question with regards to our fuel-cell project. What costs are expected per vessel to fit fuel cells, if successful?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

I don't have that figure in my head. It's something we will come back to you on. I think the investments we have had to make in the, let's say, development of the technology itself, we have done. So that will not be kind of major CapEx in that, but there might be some costs relating to, let's say, the drydocking and the fitting and so on. But the actual number, I don't have that readily available. It's not a significant amount, but we can get back to you with that figure, if you make a note of it.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

You mentioned that you have an ESG-linked framework in place for bond financing. Could you elaborate on how such a bond would be priced? And what factors would drive the pricing? Furthermore, what is the right price for refinancing of the 2021 bond maturity?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

I think I'll let Terje answer that question.

[Terje Iversen, Chief Financial Officer]

We have a framework in place that could be used both for bond financing, but it could also be used for traditionally bank financing. So whether we will use it for the upcoming refinancing, when that is going to take place, we haven't decided yet. But we think that if we should do it, we should do it because there's an interest for it in the market. And we don't expect that the price will be very much lower than we could get on a plain vanilla bond, but maybe we could attract more interest from some investors that could potentially lead to more kind of investors pushing down the price for such an issue. That remains to be seen. But we have the framework in place. A lot of good work has been done with that framework, and we are prepared to use that if we find that attractive.When it comes to the right timing and right pricing to do a bond issue, we did a tap issue beginning of this year that was around 500 basis points above LIBOR. That is not achievable today we acknowledge. Today, we are priced for maybe 4 or 5 years above 600 basis points in margin. We think that is on the high side. So we would like to see it come down somewhat. Whether 600 or 550 is the right price, that we haven't really decided yet.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

And then a question from Eirik Haavaldsen in Pareto Securities. We understand you have decided to pay down substantial amounts of debt now that the CapEx wave is completed. How do your dividends fit into this?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

Of course, we have been also clear that we have a long-term ambition also to provide a sustainable and kind of reliable dividend and also come up with a dividend policy in the near future. And of course, if we continue to deliver profitable results, we should also be able to then start kind of delivering dividend in a more regular basis going forward. Whether that will be on the basis of this year's results or the next year, I think that will be dependent on the market how that develop and the actual earnings that we are generating in the market. Today, our main focus is to deleverage and reduce our cash breakeven. But we understand and certainly appreciate that we also have to be more firm on the dividend and dividend capacity when we are now starting to deliver profitable results.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

And then a question from Paul [indiscernible] Markets. Could you please reflect a bit more on the near- and medium-term earnings outlook/uncertainty regarding signs of a second wave of corona versus benefit of COAs and Q4 earnings and then also supply/demand targets from your CMD?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. I think the -- I don't remember what the supply/demand target from the CMD was, in particular. I think the supply picture hasn't changed, but as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, the demand picture has. I think the problem at the moment is not the supply/demand picture. The problem at the moment is the spot -- a nervous spot market because of the uncertainty in the world due to COVID-19. And don't forget also that we have inefficiencies built into the way we operate. We sometimes have to delay ships, reschedule ships, deviate ships to pick up crew, take another 2 days here and spend extra money. And so the COVID-19 just adds near-term uncertainty about that market.The COA market, though, continues to be up. And I think that would not happen if the balance between supply and demand were not favorable. And you can see quarter-by-quarter, it goes up between 3% and 5%, and we think that, that's going to be the way that it continues. So there's a strong underlying market, but the spot market continues to be a challenge.We are approaching 2021 with some optimism, I would say, careful optimism. Everything depends on how do we get out of the pandemic itself. It depends, of course, also, to a certain extent, the previous question about the crude and the product tanker markets. Historically, that has drawn with it the spot market. But in the meantime, I think if we can continue to generate earnings in the level that we have done even with that challenging spot market, then we just have to weather that out. But it hasn't changed our fundamental view that we are looking -- we are probably at the beginning of an upturn in this market. Whether it's going to be a high cycle or a medium cycle or when it's going to start, this is not the time to be very concrete about that point in time. But in general, the picture is positive. But we are, of course, concerned about the short-term.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

And then the final question, will the outcome of the U.S. election have any impact on chemical tanker markets, you think?

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

I think the world would like an answer one way or the other and some stability. I think -- and of course, we would, as anyone, welcome that. I don't think that it will impact the picture that we have just shown the fact that the long-haul chemical producers have a structural advantage that the number of ships being built and so on. It could probably -- it could -- it may impact, let's say, how quickly the economy returns, but I would doubt that it would be significant. So the short answer is I don't think that the outcome would have a direct impact on the fundamentals for our industry.

[Bjørn Kristian Røed, Manager Investor Relations & Research]

There appears be no further questions online.

[Kristian Verner Mørch, Chief Executive Officer]

All right. Then I want to thank everybody for taking your time to listen in today. I hope everybody stays safe wherever you are. And if you do have questions that you feel are not adequately answered or you have other questions, you know where to find us, which is here in our home offices for the moment, but we are reachable by e-mail or phone or whatever you need us. So -- but in the meantime, stay safe, and thank you for listening.