Siem Offshore Inc

OSE:SIOFF

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q2

[Bernt Omdal, executive]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the review and presentation of our results for the second quarter. My name is Bernt Omdal, and I'm the CEO of the company. I'm joined by our CFO, Vidar Jerstad. And together, we will take you through this presentation.

Sea1 Offshore's report for the second quarter 2022 -- 2024, sorry, was released prior to the market opening today. In this presentation, we will cover the main highlights for the report, and we will refer to the presentation issued together with the financial report. At the end of the presentation, we will open up for questions.

Looking at the highlights for the quarter, we operated 30 vessels, 17 of these are fully owned by Sea1 Offshore. All of our fully owned vessels delivered a positive EBITDA margin. We had close to $108 million in revenue, and we delivered $52 million in EBITDA. This is an increase compared to the same time last year, and it reflects the uptick in the market.

If we look at the pro forma figures for Sea1 Offshore, meaning what the numbers would look like if there was a clean sale on the 1st of April and the refinancing took place 30th of June, then we would have delivered a revenue of $74 million and an EBITDA of USD 35 million. Operating profit would have been $141 million and cash would have been USD 148 million.

Looking at the operational highlights, we continue to deliver safe and efficient operations in all regions. This is a result of high focus on safety at all levels in the company. The utilization of the fleet in the second quarter was 87%. We signed a contract for the oil spill recovery vessel, Siem Marataizes, for operation in Brazil. We also signed a contract with options for the anchor handler, Siem Emerald. And furthermore, as reported before, the agreement to sell 9 of our vessels to Siem Sustainable Energy was also signed in the second quarter.

Moving on to subsequent events, the 9 vessels that we just talked about was handed over to Siem Sustainable Energy on the 5th of July in exchange for 35.7% of the company's shares and also USD 117.5 million in debt. The repurchased shares were canceled immediately.

Sea1 Offshore also completed refinancing parts of our debt, and debt of $69 million maturing in 2024 has now been repaid. Existing loan with longer maturities has been repaid, and restrictions imposed in 2021 has now been removed. Furthermore, 2 credit facilities in a total of $150 million have been entered into.

We have also signed a contract for the construction vessel, Siem Dorado. The current contract was extended by 2 years and 4 months, and the vessel is working for PXGeo. We recently also announced that Sea1 Offshore intends to sign management agreements for the Viking Supply Ships fleet of 6 anchor handlers. The commencement will probably be during the month of October. And on the back of solid results, a strong balance sheet and outlook, the Board have authorized a dividend payment of NOK 5 per share.

Vidar Jerstad will now give you some more details regarding the results for the second quarter of 2024.

[Vidar Jerstad, executive]

The company had $107.6 million in revenue in the quarter. That's up from $88.8 million same quarter last year. The EBITDA for the quarter was $52.2 million, up from $45.9 million. Despite some underlying variation from last year, the development in revenue and EBITDA confirms a continuation of the positive market trend that has lasted for more than 2 years.

Sea1 has completed the sale of 9 vessels on 5th of July. From now, let us focus on the pro forma results for Sea1 in the quarter, which excludes the vessels sold. The pro forma figures are assuming that the sale of vessels had occurred on 1st of April 2024. You find this in the right-hand column.

Operating revenue was $74.3 million. Operating expenses was $32.6 million. A G&A of $6.5 million left us with an EBITDA of $35.2 million. Depreciation of vessels was $11.8 million. Reversal of earlier impairments of $118 million is recognized. This is due to several new, long-dated contracts at improved rates and the lasting trend of improved market conditions. Operating profit ended, therefore, at $141.5 million.

Net financial items were negative by $16.2 million. This includes, however, a currency loss of $12.6 million, of which $12.4 million is unrealized. Be aware that this loss on currency in the income statement must be viewed in relation to the currency gain in the statement of other comprehensive income.

The net currency effect on the group was negative, not by $12.6 million, but by $4.8 million. This net amount is equivalent to the impact the depreciation of the Brazilian currency had on dollar valuation of the Brazilian fleet. Profit before taxes ended at $125.3 million. Net profit after taxes ended at $124.5 million. After adjusting for minority shareholders in our anchor handling subsidiary, we end up at $104.7 million.

On the next slide shows operating margin distributed on segment for Sea1, excluding vessels sold. The figures are before G&A expenses. On the left-hand side, we see operating margin in the quarter. There is a positive development in all segments, not least for the anchor handling vessels that improved margin by $4 million or 49%.

On the right-hand side, we see the development of Sea1 vessels in the first half of 2024 compared to same period last year. Note that there was a negative effect in first quarter this year for the Subsea segment as 2 vessels were at dry dock, and there were a positive one-off effect in the first quarter last year of $3.7 million for the Other segment. The bar graph, therefore, understates the improved market.

On this slide, we see the pro forma balance sheet for Sea1 Offshore as if the sale of the 9 vessels had a clean closing at 1st of April and that the refinancing occurred on the 30th of June 2024. In the refinancing, debt of $69 million maturing in 2024 related to 7 Sea1 Offshore vessels has been repaid. Existing loans with longer maturities have been paid down to original profile by $20 million and amended to remove restrictions and undertakings imposed on the company in the 2021 restructuring. Two new credit facilities in a total amount of $150 million was entered into.

In the statement of financial positions, total assets has been valued $960 million. The company had $472 million in book equity and a book equity ratio of 49%. Gross interest-bearing debt was $374 million. Net interest-bearing debt was $225 million. Sea1 Offshore's pro forma financial position at the end of the quarter was strong. On the back of strong results, balance sheet and outlook, a dividend payment of NOK 5 per share was recommendable.

Thank you, and over to you, Bernt.

[Bernt Omdal, executive]

Moving on, looking at our contract backlog, Sea1 Offshore had a firm contract backlog of USD 841 million. In addition, there is $600 million of options attached. The largest part of our backlog is related to our subsea fleet.

We have a good coverage for our fleet for the remaining of this year. For 2025 and 2026, we have a good coverage for the PSV fleet and also for the subsea fleet. We are in a position to secure more work for some of our subsea vessels, and we expect that the rate level will be even higher than what we see today. For the anchor handler segment, we believe that we will see more term opportunities, and we also believe that we will secure term contracts for part of our anchor handler fleet as well.

There has been some changes to the fleet composition. We now have 17 fully owned vessels. And in addition, we have 12 vessels under our management, and we have 1 vessel on bareboat. The fully owned fleet consists of 6 large anchor handlers; 2 offshore construction vessels; 2 well intervention vessels; 2 PSVs, 4 oil spill recovery vessels and fast crew vessels; and also the JOIDES Resolution, the core drilling vessel.

The company has a good global footprint, which is important for the utilization of the fleet. We will continue to move vessels around the world where we can perform safe operation based on sustainable conditions. For the anchor handler segment, there are mainly shorter contracts and campaigns. In Australia and Asia, we currently have the anchor handlers, Siem Sapphire, Siem Aquamarine and Siem Amethyst. Avalon Sea is operating in Canada together with Brage Viking, which we have on bareboat contracts. And both Siem Emerald and Siem Ruby, which also are anchor handlers, are on term contracts in Brazil and Argentina.

Moving on to the construction vessels, we have Siem Spearfish on a firm contract until end of February 2024 -- '25, and she is currently operating in the Gulf of Mexico. Siem Dorado is in a firm contract, currently operating in Brazil. And the well intervention vessels, Siem Helix 1 and Siem Helix 2, are both on long-term contracts working offshore Brazil.

We have 2 PSVs in our fleet, that is the Siem Atlas and Siem Giant, both are on term contracts in Brazil. For the smaller Brazilian fleet, we have the oil spill recovery vessel, Siem Maragogi and Siem Marataizes, both on term contracts with Petrobras. And then we have the fast crew vessels, Siem Pendotiba and Siem Piata, they are both on long-term bareboat agreements.

Our core drilling vessel, JOIDES Resolution, is about to enter a firm contract, and we consider putting her in lay-up. As shown on previous slides, we have a good contract coverage for this year. At the same time, it's important to have vessels available in an improving market to increase the potential earnings.

Some comments to the market. The second quarter showed generally strength for the offshore support vessel segment with several contracts and transactions testifying to the optimism in the market. The North Sea market was in line with last year, but slightly below expectations as there was less drilling activity than predicted, which penalized the spot market for anchor handlers and PSVs.

There were more campaigns for large anchor handlers, and Australia and South America contributed positively to this segment. The offshore construction vessels were sold out, and the competition between renewable projects and traditional oil and gas campaign is impacting both utilization and day rates within the Subsea segment.

Most segments are experiencing an increased number of multiyear contracts hitting the market, that is signaling that the charterers are positioning themselves for future projects. The expected increase in activity for all segments indicates good market prospects for our high-end fleet.

So just to summarize, we delivered a strong quarter with high activity. Vessel sale and refinancing was completed on the 5th of July. We deliver first-class operation with excellent HSEQ performance. We continued to improve our financial position. We have a strong contract backlog with quality clients. And there is a positive long-term market outlook in all segments.

That was our last slide. It is important to remember that Sea1 Offshore have kept their experienced employees offshore and onshore, and our global footprint remains the same. The only changes made are in a way a name change and some vessels sold.

And with that, we will now open up for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

[Bernt Omdal, executive]

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have.

[Operator]

There is no questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

[Bernt Omdal, executive]

All right. It seems like there is no questions during this session. So then we just thank you all for attending, and wish you all a good day. Thank you.