Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp

OSE:OET

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q4

[Operator]

Welcome to the OETs Fourth Quarter 2021 Financial Results Presentation. We will begin shortly. Ioannis Alafouzos, CEO and Chairman; 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. I would like to advise you that this session is being recorded. Konstantinos will begin the presentation now.

[Konstantinos Oikonomopoulos, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you. Welcome to the presentation of OET's results for the fourth quarter of 2021. We will discuss matters that are forward-looking in nature. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations about future events, including the company's commercial performance, dividend policy project and capital expenditure and anticipated debt capital commitments. Actual results may differ materially from the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements. We will now move to Slide 5 and the executive summary. Starting on Slide 5, we review the highlights of the quarter and the year. OET generated net revenue of $23.6 million and adjusted EBITDA of $11.9 million and reported an adjusted loss of $3.2 million or $0.10 per share. Our fleet-wide TCE for the quarter came in well above market at $20,700 per vessel per day. At the end of 4Q 2021, OET reports total liquidity of $45.5 million, and that is 44% higher year-on-year and also 60% book leverage. Following the reporting period, we have signed a termsheet for a new debt facility to finance the acquisition of our VLCCs under construction at very attractive terms and a gross finance amount of approximately $145.5 million. And lastly, and since our announcement in November 2021, we have bought back $1.5 million in value of our shares at an average price of NOK 71.67. We move now to Slide 6. On this slide, we recap how we have delivered continuous value to our shareholders and the evolution on important metrics for the company and our investors between September 2019 and December 2021. Two periods where the market was on the cusp of significant tightening as well as having the same fleet on water and [indiscernible] days are comparable. Over the past few years, the company managed only to distribute $84 million back to shareholders, but also enhanced intrinsic value and improve the credit profile by efficiently optimizing the portfolio. And in particular, we have lowered our debt outstanding by $100 million. Our NAV stands $46 million higher, total cash position improved by $29 million and covenant defined leverage ratio stands below 6%. We will move now to our commercial and market update, and I will hand it over to Aristidis.

[Aristidis Alafouzos, Chief Operating officer]

Thank you, Konstantinos. During Q4, we achieved a fleet-wide TCE rate of $22,700, as you mentioned per operating day net of 11% technical off-hire days. Our VLCCs generated $13,500 per day, a 16% underperformance relative to our tanker peers that have reported Q4 earnings. Our Q4 results were negatively impacted by IFRS adjustments. OET had a weaker VLCC result in Q4 due to positioning our fleet to open in December in order to capture seasonal strength in the market. This required fixing some optimal voyages earlier in the quarter, but also the voyages fixed in December due to the IFRS accounted principles were recorded as revenue in Q1 '22. Our strategy of positioning our VLCCs to open in December, though was successful, and we will highlight that in our Q1 earnings. Another reason for the weaker performance was due to the sales of Nissos Santorini and Nissos Antiparos, which requires specific delivery areas due to COVID restrictions as well as incurring waiting days to deliver to their new buyers. Without these waiting days, our utilization was 100%. Our Suezmaxes generated $16,300 per spot day, a 29% outperformance relative to our tanker peers that have reported Q4 earnings. We are very happy with our Q4 performance. We kept earnings high in comparison with peers, but we didn't sacrifice any attractive positions that we had made on our vessels by fixing them back to the East. On an annual basis, we outperformed our tanker peers by 16% and 40% on the VLCCs and Suezmaxes, respectively. The market was underwhelming for a winter market and tightness in October failed to build through the balance of the quarter, but instead it weakened significantly. It was disappointing that OPEC+ consistently underproduced to its quota. On Slide 9, we provide an overview of our guidance for Q1. So far in Q1, we have fixed 96% of our VLCC spot days at $22,400 per day and 94% of our Suezmax spot days at $21,900 per day. We outperformed our tanker peers by 30% and 55% on the VLCCs and Suezmaxes, respectively, who have also reported a much smaller percentage of days fixed. [indiscernible] we fixed our spot ships on longer routes to maximize our scrubber eco advantage out of West Africa and out of the U.S. Gulf. Our fixing window was early to mid-December, which would have been perfect if the winter market had actually materialized. For what it's worth, though, the market began to weaken after our fixtures and continue to do so until this past Tuesday.We also fixed the short TC on Nissos Rhenia for $22,000 a day, which was above the spot market earnings at that time. Given the current market, we are as happy on the Suezmaxes as we are on the VLCCs. We fixed the Poliegos back East after dry dock at a very lucrative rate, while keeping the Milos in the West where the market is firm. We also repositioned the Kimolos back into the West with a backhaul voyage into the U.S. Gulf. We took the opportunity to take the Poliegos out in a short TC at $19,000, which were above the prevailing spot earnings at the time. The evidence of having the most efficient and well approved fleet has never been more clear. We benefited against our non-eco and non-scrubber peers due to the extremely high bunker prices, HFO being around $550 and low sulfur fuel oil around $770, giving a growing margin which has now reached almost $220 per metric ton. Our quality and well-approved fleet enables us to compete for every cargo, which is critical in the depressed market as well as all-time charter opportunities. The optimism around the Iran deal as well as the Ukraine, Russia uncertainty has strengthened sentiment for owners at an optimal time when the market was actually busier.Fixtures on VLCCs this past week have increased by about 8 Worldscale points for both West Africa, Brazil and AG. While Suezmaxes increased by about 15 points for an AG-East run. Aframaxes though, have increased the most, with Aframaxes loading out of Russia, going from about $15,000 a day to $150,000 a day. Again, our fleet is well positioned to capture the firming market with 4 VLCCs opening in mid-March and 3 Suezmaxes opening in March, of which 2 are in the West. On Slide 10, we give you a breakdown of the OET fleet. We are a pure-play scrubber echo fleet, going into a firming market with very high bunker prices. Given the current weakness in spot market, which is changing today; but still for non-eco non-scrubber, the overage tonnage will face increased pressure to scrap. With the expected return of Iran, the vessels employed in this trade will have no other employment options than scrapping and will be forced to scrap.On Slide 11, we take another look at our scrubber and echo economics. You all have seen this in our presentations many times, so I'll not spend too much time on it. But with the current spread, the premium is $19,600 and $13,200 for VLCC and Suezmax, respectively. Flipping to Slide 12. It's obvious that tanker trade conditions are improving. The oil market is currently in the steepest backwardation ever and consensus building that we'll approach stock levels not seen since the early 2000s. This is occurring as we see oil demand rapidly expanding as we exit the pandemic and a normalization of jet fuel demand in the West with slow removal of restrictions in the East. On the other hand, production is steadily increasing and OpEx is clearly pressured to increase in larger increments with the current oil prices. Onwards to Slide 13, with the current geopolitical tensions in Ukraine, the lifting of oil sanctions on Iran seems increasingly likely. We believe the effect of the uranium barrels returning to the market will be very bullish on tanker rates. Iran has a large amount of floating storage that can immediately be delivered to buyers as well as production capabilities that can be ramped up relatively quickly within 2022. In addition, the Iranian owned overage tonnage as well as the entire dark fleet will immediately have no employment options and likely scrap. In this scenario, we could see flat fleet growth in '22 and negative in 2023. Another important note is a significant amount of uranium crude that is sold into Europe, which is net long ton miles and will greatly benefit the Suezmax trade. On Slide 14, we look a little bit at Russia. The Russian invasion of Ukraine completely changed the sentiment in the tanker market. There's uncertainty on lifting Russian crude, on fixing Russian vessels, such as [indiscernible] which owns over 80 ships and finding replacement barrels into refineries in the time of a very tight oil market. This trade dislocation is bullish for tankers and can increase ton miles. With the latest sanctions announcement, there is no specific energy sanctions on Russian oil or crude -- Russian gas or crude oil, but European refiners are proceeding cautiously with their purchases. This is evident by the huge discount in the euro to Brent spread. The Russian export program is mainly based -- the Russian export program is mostly Western-based and predominantly on Suezmax and Aframaxes. As European buyers will try to avoid Russian crude, this will have to be sold into the East, which is very positive again for Suezmaxes. Europe will have to replace Russian crude with U.S. crudes, North Sea crude, West African crude and potentially AG crude as well. Again, this has increased tanker ton miles. Passing back to Konstantinos.

[Konstantinos Oikonomopoulos, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Aristidis. On Slide 15, we discuss the volatility in the tanker market. The tanker market is a main reverting market. And we see on the left-hand side of the slide, that full year 2021 TCE rates are the worst -- the sector earnings are the worst year ever recorded. On the middle part of the slide, we calculate an annual volatility over the last 10 years for the VLCC and Suezmax fleet of $24,300 and $13,200, respectively. For illustrative purposes, we calculate the effect 1 standard deviation would have on company's EBITDA and the latter would improve by 100%. Moving on with our financial update on Slide 17, with an income -- with our income statement summary. We report, as we discussed the $424 million TCE revenues for the quarter that translate to $22,700 per operating day for the fleet. That breaks down between VLCCs and Suezmaxes, $24,000 and $21,200. We report also an adjusted loss of $3.1 million or $0.10 per share. Moving to Slide 19 with the of our financial position. Total cash, including restricted cash, adds up to $45.5 million at the end of 4Q. We have total assets of around $1 billion, interest bearing debt reduced from a year ago to $580 million, our book leverage of 60% and a book value of equity $11.1 per share.Moving on with our Slide 19 and our cash flow summary. We are floating our cash flow bridge for the year and our operating cash flow and successful monetization of assets at a very firm prices helped the company to build the cash cushion and also distribute $38 million back to shareholders in the form of dividends, capital distributions and share buybacks. Additionally, as we discussed also in the highlights section, we have signed a term sheet for a new debt facility to finance the acquisition of our 2 VLCCs under construction. The gross finance amount stands at -- is approximately $145.5 million, while our newbuilding CapEx in the year are $141.5 million. It's important also to note that the company has 0 dry dockings for 2022. Moving on to Slide 21, on our emissions reporting. The group adheres to the ABS Monitoring Reporting and Verification Regulation framework. We have calculated our fleet EEOI for the period for full year 2021. And these values has done well below the sea cargo charter guidance for 2021 in terms of CO2 grams/cargo tonne mile. And moving on to slide on the investment thesis. Just to give you a recap about OET. We believe OET is the best vehicle to capture this upcoming tanker cycle. We have the most efficient fleet in a high bunker price environment. We have a track record of outperforming our competitors. We have shown our commitment to returning value to shareholders and selling ships at profitable prices. Our fleet is in a position with its spot exposure to capture as much of the upside as possible in the short and medium term. While the tanker market faces zero current order and a historically low order book, extremely firm scrap prices with the potential for a very large amount of the [indiscernible] trading vessels to lose their employment plans with the sanctions that [indiscernible] lifted. While crude inventories are extremely low and supply-demand is poised to increase significantly. Thanks.So that concludes our presentation. Thank you all for listening into our webcast. And we would be happy to address any questions you may have.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Okay. So we have no questions on the phones. We'll wait a moment longer just to see if there are any questions on the webcast. Okay. It looks like there are no questions coming through, so I'll hand you back over to your host.

[Konstantinos Oikonomopoulos, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you very much. See you next quarter. Thank you.

[Aristidis Alafouzos, Chief Operating officer]

Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you very much for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.