Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp

OSE:OET

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Welcome to OET's Third Quarter and 9 Months 2022 Financial Results Presentation. We will begin shortly. Aristidis Alafouzos, COO; and Konstantinos Oikonomopoulos, CFO of Okeanis Eco Tankers, will take you through the presentation. They will be pleased to address any questions raised at the end of the call. [Operator Instructions] I would like to advise you that the session is being recorded.

Konstantinos will begin this presentation now.

[Konstantinos Oikonomopoulos, executive]

Thank you. Welcome to the presentation of Okeanis Eco Tankers results for the third quarter of 2022. We will discuss matters that are forward looking in nature, and actual results may differ from the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements.

We will start now with Slide 4 and our executive summary where we give the highlights of the quarter. Surge in crude tanker tonne mile demand is leading to firming trade recovery and profitability for the company. Our fleet-wide time charter equivalent came in at $38,400 per vessel per day, 28% up compared to the previous quarter and over 100% compared to a year ago. Leveraging our commercial performance, we report net revenue of $49 million, 36% up compared to the previous quarter; adjusted EBITDA of $37.4 million, 51% up; and adjusted profit of $19 million or $0.59 per share, more than double compared to the second quarter of the year. Our liquidity position stands at $76 million. Book leverage for the company came in at 64%, while market LTV based on third quarter broker valuations stands below 60%.

Consistent with the company's capital allocation policy, the Board has declared a consecutive distribution to shareholders of $10 million or $0.30 per share. We have communicated to the market that our policy is to distribute anything above the cash buffer that we deem sufficient. That cash cushion is not static but incorporates market and macro events. We will generate significant cash in the fourth quarter, and you can expect a materially larger dividend distribution as things stand today.

Moving now to Slide 5. You have seen this slide before where we summarize our corporate debt and chartering structure. The company is now running on a fully delivered fleet and owns 6 Suezmaxes and 8 VLCCs with an average age of 3 years. Our financing mix proves the group's financial flexibility and variety in sourcing its capital. Lastly, 3 of our vessels are currently on long-term contracts that end in the second and third quarter of next year, while the rest of the fleet is trading either spot or under the short-term time charter.

I will now hand over to Aristidis for our commercial and market update.

[Aristidis Alafouzos, executive]

Thank you, Konstantinos. Q3 was the beginning of a great second half of the year. Strategically, we took the decision to reposition the majority of our spot fleet into the West. I have explained our logic in the past and hope not to bore you by repeating myself. Europe is replacing its Russian crude by importing backhaul VLCC cargoes from West Africa and AG, among other cargoes. Given the eco and scrubber advantage of our fleet, we can fix these backhaul cargoes at rates that some of our competitors fixed for natural round voyages.

Due to the huge SPR release in 2022, we knew that the U.S. would have a consistent cargoes for export. These additional barrels coming out of the U.S., in our opinion, will be a key driver for our firm VLCC market. And by having ships in the West, we will be in the most natural position to capitalize on it.

We knew we would have a slightly lower earnings in Q3 due to this repositioning, but it would pay off handsomely in Q4. We executed our strategy, and so far, it has been very successful. The Suezmax market has been comparatively far firmer for the year than on the VLCCs. The backhaul and the triangulation potential of the Suezmax fleet is far greater than VLCCs. But with Europe replacing Russian crude from West Africa and AG, this improved even further.

During the quarter, we achieved a fleet wide TCE of $38,400 per operating day. Our VLCCs generated $27,700 per day in the spot market, a 21% outperformance relative to our tanker peers that have reported Q3 earnings.

Taking a more focused look on the activity in our fleet, we brought the Rhenia West on a backhaul voyage by loading in the AG and the Anafi West by loading in West Africa. The VLCC market continues to firm throughout Q3. In the West, we fixed our VLCCs on shore to West Africa or U.S. Gulf East voyages in order to reopen quickly into what we expect to be a firming market. Nissos Kea was also redelivered from her short DC and entered into our spot fleet.

Our Suezmaxes generated $68,500 per day, a 103% outperformance relative to our tanker peers who have reported Q3 earnings. A great quarter on the Suezmaxes. We were able to perform some excellent triangulation as well. On average, our scrubber benefit for the quarter was $275 per metric ton, and we had a quarterly saving across the spot fleet of $9 million.

On Slide 8, we provide an overview of our guidance for Q4. Repositioning on the VLCCs in Q3 is now paying off. Overall, the market is extremely firm. On our ships, any fixture in the East is around $100,000 per day, while in the West, it would be from $105,000 to $125,000 per day, depending on whether you discharge in Europe or in the East. So far in Q4, we have fixed 85% of our VLCC spot days at $75,600 per day, a 34% outperformance relative to our tanker peers who have reported Q3 earnings and 43% of our spot -- Suezmax spot days at $71,400 per day, a 69% outperformance relative to our tanker peers who have reported Q3 earnings.

We're extremely happy with our performance and our ability to capture most of the current strong momentum. Having a smaller fleet than our peers and the volatility of the VLCC market, fixing shorter voyages allowed us to recycle the fleet quicker and capture upturns more often. We kept repositioning VLCCs into the West, bringing over the Nissos Nikouria as well.

On our Western position, we fixed one VLCC on the long haul over to the East, while we kept the rest short. We will have about another 5 VLCC fixtures, both in the West and the East, to charter before the end of Q4. Nissos Nikouria was redelivered to us by time charters and entered our spot fleet. We now have no VLCCs on time charter other than the Nissos Despotiko, which is a charter from 2020 expiring in June of 2023.

We continue to effectively triangulate the Suezmax fleet as well. We took advantage of the firm market and fixed one vessel on a 6-month charter early in the quarter that was open in the East. In the spot Suezmax fleet, we have another 2 ships to fix this quarter. I am proud of the chartering team for the work they have done this quarter, which they have started preparing for in late Q1 and early Q2, especially with regards to repositioning the VLCCs in the West.

Moving on to Slide 9. We have discussed our absolute commercial performance and now moving to our relative commercial performance. The company is achieving best commercial results and outperforming peers since its inception and on average by 20% on the VLCCs and 42% on the Suezmaxes. It is also evident that in good markets, our competitive advantage grows further compared to softer markets.

Moving on to Slide 10. We focus on crude demand from Asia, in particular China, a major player for our trade. The combination of Chinese stock depletion, top of the chart; elevated crude buying, top right; which has backed further to the recent spike in product export quotas, on the bottom left, has resulted in significant tonne mile boost, benefiting largely our VLCCs, while it offers Suezmax opportunities in the West as well.

On Slide 11, we take a closer look at the Russian -- the EU embargo on the Russian crude and its effects on the market. Starting from the top left, the shift in trade patterns is now evident and has resulted in meaningful tonne mile demand, which is further amplified by the surge in crude exports from the Atlantic for these. The result of both is incrementally higher global oil on the water, translating to tighter utilization of the fleet and very strong freight rates.

Moving on to the next slide. We look at the constructive fundamentals for crude tanker supply side. We believe the supply side is a differentiating factor between this cycle than previous ones. We are looking at the best medium-term supply fundamentals for our sector in more than a decade. In particular, the order book is at historically low levels. There have been almost 0 orders so far in the past year. Yard capacity is extremely tight, and any new orders are expected to hit the water 2025 the earliest. Based on current data points and conservative assumptions on scrapping, it is expected that 40% of the VLCC fleet and Suezmax fleet to be above the age of 15 years by 2025. That's 40% of the VLCC and Suezmax fleet to be above the age of 15 years by 2025.

Regulatory pressures such as CII and EEXI are expected to amplify the positive supply outlook for our sector. My personal view is that meaningful orders cannot be delivered prior to 2026. There are a few yards which can still build a small number of ships for delivery in 2025, but the large yards that are capable of building a large series of ships are busy with the containers and LNG orders that they currently have. I also believe that we will continue to see orders continuing both on the LNG and container segments going forward.

Moving on to Slide 13. You've seen this slide many times from us, where we calculate our competitive advantage based on the average bunker spread of around $300, which gives us -- VLCCs a benefit of $23,000 per day and our Suezmaxes of about $15,500 per day. OET owns eco and scrubber fitted vessels and holds a significant competitive advantage, again, 73% of the VLCC fleet and 84% of the Suezmax fleet.

Now I'll hand you back to Konstantinos to give you a review of our financial information.

[Konstantinos Oikonomopoulos, executive]

Thank you, Aristidis. Our commercial performance and 28% uplift in time charter equivalent compared to the previous quarter, together with 8% reduction in daily operating costs, translated into more than 50% EBITDA improvement for the quarter of $37 million. Our bottom line improved as well, and we report adjusted profit of $19 million or $0.59 per share.

Moving now to Slide 16, where we offer a summary of our main balance sheet items. Cash at the balance sheet as of the end of the quarter at $76 million, debt of $751 million, higher compared to the end of last year following the delivery of our 2 VLCCs during the first half of the year. Our book leverage came in 64%, while market LTV based on third quarter broker valuations stands below 60%.

Moving on to Slide 17 and a summary of our cash flow movement. Our EBITDA generation translated to $47 million operating cash flow for the first 9 months of the year. Movements in financing activities for the quarter relate mainly to debt amortization and capital contribution to shareholders. Our liquidity position is enhanced further by $24 million positive working capital at the end of the quarter, while we have 0 CapEx scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year.

Moving now to Slide 18, where we provide a free cash flow and profit sensitivity with respect to charter rates over the next 3 years, both in absolute dollar terms and also on per share terms. We have a significant operating leverage, and based on current rates for our markets, the company can generate its market cap over the next 3 years.

Moving now to Slide 20, which is our emissions reporting. We published our AER and EEOI metrics for the first 9 months of the year, which are in line with guidance and regulations.

This concludes our presentation. I hand back now to you, operator. We will be happy to answer any questions, and thank you all for listening in.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We currently have no live questions. [Operator Instructions] We have no live questions, so I will hand the call to our speakers for the webcast questions. Apologies, we just received the question from Petter Haugen, with ABG.

[Petter Haugen, analyst]

This is Petter from ABG speaking. A quick question on the U.S. SPRs. How do you see that impacting the market if it comes to a complete stop?

[Aristidis Alafouzos, executive]

So look, I think that the SPRs, our expectation is that it will continue somewhere into the end of Q1. And obviously, these volumes have a very positive effect on the market. But we can't forget that the U.S. production is still very high and that a large part of the U.S. export -- U.S. production is exported. So we do think that there will be effect -- the lack of -- as the SPR tails off towards the end of Q1. But I think it's important to note that the U.S. is also a huge producer, and most of these barrels will go to East on longer haul voyages, so absorbing a tonne mile demand.

[Petter Haugen, analyst]

Well, thank you, and I definitely agree to the potential for continued production increases in the U.S. exporting here. Moving on to the supply side here. And I must apologize, I came a little bit late into the conference here. But I would very much try to understand to what extent we could potentially have meaningful fleet growth in the crude tanker segment into '24, '25. And perhaps one of those unconventional ways to get to any meaningful fleet growth in those years would be conversions of currently placed orders for other types of ships. And I suppose container ships is probably the most relevant to speak of. Have you seen any sort of indications that some try to convert into tankers out of less favorable types of tonnage?

[Aristidis Alafouzos, executive]

Okay. So I mean addressing your 2 questions. The first on conversions. I think that most of the container orders that have been placed, especially on the segment that compete with segment that we own, so Suez and VLCC, they're quite large containers, which are almost -- I would -- I'm not a specialist on the container market, but I think the vast majority are fixed out on long-term charters. And these are attractive charters at attractive rates for the owner. So unless there is an agreement with the charter and the owner to cancel the charter, the owner can cancel the vessel either with the shipyard. I mean -- and that's the first layer.

The second layer is that the shipyard, there's a lot of equipment that they need to order. And once they place the order, they begin to order various things, which the most important, let's say, is the main engine. The main engine on a container, even a similar dimension to a Suezmax or VLCC, is much, much larger on the container because of the speeds that the containers do.

So I think that the effects of cancellation are much more difficult. And when we speak with shipyards, one of the issues is -- on the delivery potential is the time line for the delivery of the main engine. So often, they say that we can deliver in x period, but we're a bit concerned about the delivery of the main engine. So I really don't think we will see very many, if any, conversions of container to tanker orders.

Now in terms of the order book, like you said, there -- like the Japanese market, for example, has become very small in their potential for production of -- in tankers. And the Chinese shipyard industry usually has a further out order book and a bit of a longer building time than the Korean. And Japanese and the Chinese, the big yards are quite full with container. The Chinese also have a big national incentive drive to build LNG, and all these things are absorbing their capacity.

And if we look at Korea, just in OET itself, I mean, we built 8 VLCCs that were -- 7 of which were delivered within the same year. And we weren't the only VLCC owner taking delivery of ships. And we can assume that Samsung and Daewoo had similar order books and deliveries of tankers in that period. Today, the potential for these 3 big yards to deliver these huge orders is impossible. I mean I'm sure they can fit smaller amounts of ships, maybe 1 or 2 VLCCs in certain quarters or certain halves, but nowhere near the potential of what they could do in '20 -- for deliveries placed in 2017, for delivery in 2019, like we saw in the past.

So -- and then just to recap. So given the LNG and container order book at the big 3 Korean yards and the big Chinese yards, I'm fairly confident that there's very limited orders that can be placed in large numbers to disrupt the order book supply before '26. I don't know if you agree with me again.

[Petter Haugen, analyst]

Well, we tend to agree, don't we? So yes, it seems to be the case, indeed. But -- well, things are obviously developing very positively here. And you previously stated a sort of agnostic owning strategy and would be willing to sell ships if the prices are right. So prices are well, I suppose, not anywhere near those levels now. But could you now sort of, not to sort of pinpoint as to one number, say something about what you would need to see in order to think about disposing assets?

[Aristidis Alafouzos, executive]

Yes. Well, look, I can't -- there's no concrete number I can tell you that it's like a checkmark that means we would sell. But to give you an idea of where values are today, there's a very strong rumor that I believe will be confirmed in the next few days that for 2020 built VLCC, it was sold at $112.5 million. So that's another big step-up in values. And we -- I mean we think that there is still potential in the market for values to go up further. And as the Board -- and we've always said since the beginning that we just want to capture as much value for the shareholders as we can. And whether it's through sales or time charters or spot fixing, we're flexible on that.

[Petter Haugen, analyst]

Well -- and that brings me, if I may, to another question on the rate side. So 2 questions on time charter rates. You did fix one Suezmax this quarter, Aristidis. Could you share the level at which that was done?

[Aristidis Alafouzos, executive]

Yes. We fixed one Suezmax for 6 months at $60,000 a day. The ship was in the East, and we must have fixed it, I don't know, almost a month ago.

[Petter Haugen, analyst]

That's my point. What would it be today, you think?

[Aristidis Alafouzos, executive]

For the same ship in the East, I'm not entirely sure, maybe $65,000. But that's often the problem with time charter, as you know. When you take a bit of a risk-off approach, maybe you tend to regret revenue.

[Petter Haugen, analyst]

Going sort of into longer-dated contracts. What would you deem to be interesting now if you were to fix for, say, 3 to 5 years, both VLCCs and Suezmaxes?

[Aristidis Alafouzos, executive]

So I can't guide you with specific numbers, but the VLCC 3-year market is -- I would assume it's somewhere around $47,000, $48,000 per day. And the Suezmax market is around $37,000, $38,000 per day. And these levels are currently not interesting for us. So we think that -- we believe that the value -- their value is higher and that they will go higher.

[Operator]

I'll return the call back to the speakers now for the webcast questions.

[Unknown Executive]

We have a [ writing call ] from [ Jorge Diaz ]. Do you plan to reposition once the SPR releases end? Do you expect a weakening market due to that?

[Aristidis Alafouzos, executive]

We touched on this with Petter. The VLCCs, we did bring them to the West in order to take advantage of the SPR and like the boost that it would bring to the Western market having all these cargoes. We are still very constructive that there will be a lot of U.S. Gulf exports going East and TA in the future. But since we brought them seasonally West to capture the strong Q4 market, I think you will see us probably take advantage of longer voyages when we think the market is in its winter strength to lock in decent periods and go East. It's not necessarily reflective of the SPR but more so, let's say, seasonal strength.

[Operator]

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.