Stolt-Nielsen Ltd

OSE:SNI

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

Good afternoon, good morning. Thank you for joining us here in Oslo for our first quarter 2022 results presentation. It is the first time we are having a live meeting face-to-face. It's nice to see you all first time since January of 2020. So it's very nice to see that some of you are in the office and willing to take the time to meet with us. Here together with me, as always, Jens Gruner-Hegge is our CFO.

Our agenda, I'll take you through an overview of Stolt-Nielsen highlights, then I'll go through each of the businesses. Jens will take you the financials, and then we'll open up questions and answers. You can call in through the web. You can also post questions, I think, on the website so that we will be answering both here and through the social -- media.

If we go to Page 4, the highlights for the quarter. The net profit from continuing operations came in at $52.3 million, and that's up from $35 million in the fourth quarter of '21. The EBITDA was slightly down, $158.5 million, and that's down from $163 million. And that was driven by the one-off -- the positive one-off that we have in tankers of $12.5 million in the fourth quarter from the DNK distribution.

Stolt Sea Farm had a positive fair value adjustment in the fourth quarter. A small negative in the first quarter, and that's why you saw a slightly decrease in the EBITDA from Sea Farm.

Stolthaven Terminals, the improved utilization, driving higher storage and throughput revenue. And Stolt Tank Containers continued with high transportation margin and demurrage but slightly lower shipments. I will go through more in detail when I go through each of the businesses.

We saw a strong improvement in our free cash flow, and that is due to a higher operating cash flow and a reduction in working capital.

And I'm proud to say that our net debt to EBITDA of 3.82x is the lowest ratio that we had since 2016, and that's driven by the strengthening of the EBITDA. At the end of the quarter, we also had $440 million of available liquidity at the end of the quarter.

The Board recommended a final dividend of $0.50 for 2021, making it a total of $1 per share for the year. We also announced the acquisition of 5% of Odfjell as an investment. It's the cheapest chemical tankers, ships that we saw out there. So we decided to take a position in the company.

And I also announced my plans to step down as CEO as soon as we found the replacement, and then I will take on the role as Chairman. A CEO search is underway.

If we then go to Slide 5, the net profit analysis between the fourth quarter of '21 compared to the first quarter. If you take away the one-offs that we had in the fourth quarter of '21, the normalized net profit for that quarter would have been $41 million. So a stronger, higher operating profit from Stolt Tankers of $9.7 million, higher operating profit from terminals of $3.6 million, higher operating profit from STC for Stolt Tank Containers $3.7 billion. Lower operating profit, again, that's due to the fair value adjustment -- positive fair value adjustment we had in the fourth quarter of last year.

Higher profit or contribution from our investment in SN Gas. The negative $4.7 million or slightly higher corporate cost is much to do with the profit reserves for profit share bonus. A slightly improvement in lower losses on FX and other expenses of $2 million, bringing the quarterly result to $52.3 million for the.

If we move on then to Stolt Tankers. The freight rates were up 6.4%, driven by a 14.3% increase in the spot rates that we fixed for the quarter. The volumes were down by 3.3% and utilization is slightly down by 2.7%. The volumes were down primarily due to less operating days. We sent a couple of ships to recycling and also utilization down also because of seasonality and weather delays that we usually see in the winter half of the year.

The contracts of affreightment that we renewed in the quarter increased by 1.8% on average. We had a higher net bunker cost as a result of the higher bunker price. We will go into further detail later. Higher owning expenses as a result of higher insurance costs, manning and other owning expenses. Again due to -- very much also due to the pandemic and the cost of -- with the crewing and changing crew order ship. Lower depreciation due to disposal of ships and the residual value adjustment due to the effect of the higher steel prices that you get when you recycle ships today. And we saw an improved results from all of the JVs.

So just quickly going through the variance analysis. So if you take away the one-offs in the fourth quarter, we had a normalized operating profit of $15.3 million in the fourth quarter of last year, higher trading results of $9.1 million, higher net bunker costs after the bunker surcharge that we get from our customers of 6.2%, slightly higher owning expenses, lower depreciation, as we just explained, higher equity income from each of our joint ventures and slightly lower A&G, bringing the operating profit for the quarter up from $19.2 million to $25 million for the quarter.

So these results do not really yet reflect the strengthening in the market that we're seeing today, and I'll touch up on that in the next couple of slides.

If you look at the bunker prices, I remind you that 97% of all of our contracts have a bunker clause, 97.4%, and we have around 65% of our business is COAs. So we are hedged through these bunker clauses. We do not have any paper hedges as it currently stands. So if you look at the price of bunkers that we consumed in the first quarter came in at $580 and the bunkers that we bought for the quarter on average was $610.

If you look at the sales in the STJS, Stolt Tanker Joint Service sailed-in revenue index, it ticked slightly up. And if you look at the bottom right-hand graph, you can see the orange line, which is the sailed-in revenue for the quarter is -- came in at $18,786. Just before I arrived here, I spoke to the -- our commercial -- Chief Commercial officer in Stolt Tankers, and he said, today, it's probably around at $20,000 a day. So we have seen a nice lift in the market in the last couple of weeks.

So what are we seeing? The swing tonnage moving out of the chemical tanker segment. I think that is the prime driver right here, is that the MRs, what we -- the product tanker, what we call the swing tonnage, they are now -- their market has been strengthening. I assume that the world is now seeking other sourcing points for refined products, so that they get a higher return from their intended trade and are leaving, and we're seeing more and more of these ships leaving the chemical space. And as a result, we are seeing more and more inquiries for spot business, which is strengthening our spot rates, and that will eventually then move our COAs.

But I do remind you that we have, again, 65% COAs. We have consciously kept a relative high contract coverage in Stolt tankers. We've been between 60% and 70%. We were at above 70%. We brought it down to 65% because we expected the market to eventually strengthen. Our business is contract. Most of our customers want to do business through COAs. But instead of them agreeing to do multiyear contracts, so 2-, 3-year contracts, we have basically only agreed to a 1-year contract.

So we are seeing a strong spot market or any strong improvement in spot market today. That will take time for us to push those rates into our contracts. Each quarter, we renew COA. So we will, of course, each contract that comes up for each quarter, we will push through higher, but it takes time for that to be reflected in the bottom line from ST -- for Stolt Tankers -- in the chemical tanker segment. That's the way it works.

But I think that this is sustainable. It's -- I think that the sourcing of -- for the MR -- the trade lanes, the tonne miles is going to change, and I don't think that's temporary. So I'm quite optimistic that we might be in for a good couple of years.

And if you also then look at the -- if you go to the -- each of the regional fleets are doing very well. But if you look at the new building, I don't know if you have that -- I don't think we showed the new building. But the order book in our segment is around 5%. So -- and even if you wanted to order ships today, I don't think you can get anything until '25, '26 because of the yards being busy building other types of ships.

So we might be in for a good ride. But there's, of course, a lot of uncertainty. It's very, very difficult to predict the -- in the current environment. With the situation in Ukraine, the impact of inflation on the consumer confidence and if there is then going to be demand destruction because of the higher prices, we are already starting to see that in STC. When I talk about it later that when the prices come to a certain level, there are some products that can't justify that kind of freight increase. We don't see -- so let's hope that we don't go into a global recession and that we get control of the inflation that we are seeing today.

Moving to Stolthaven Terminals. If you take away the impairment that we had in the fourth quarter of $10 million, the normalized operating profit came in at $18.4 million in the fourth quarter. We had higher revenue of $4 million, $1 million higher operating expense, slightly lower depreciation, equity income, lower A&G and other, bringing in an operating profit of $22 million in the first quarter.

And I think this quarter reflects the underlying normalized earnings that we should see coming out of terminals. So higher revenue as a result of higher utilization rate increases and higher ancillary revenue. Higher activity in U.S. terminal resulted in higher operating costs. Passing inflationary cost increases on to customer via rate increases but with delayed effect. So most of the contracts that we do have, we do have an inflation adjustment if it's a multiyear contract.

The joint venture income decreased as a result of lower profit at JSTT. That's the terminal in Korea due to higher utility and manning costs. But it's a pretty steady business. I think that what we see during times of uncertainty, like we have today, is that the customers want to have a little extra buffer. They secure extra storage.

So we're seeing increased inquiries basically in all regions. So I think we will continue to see the high utilization that we saw in this quarter and will continue. And hopefully, we will also be able to use that higher utilization and higher demand to increase the storage rates. So pretty steady, and I think it will continue to perform as we have seen in the first quarter.

Stolt Tank Containers, which is the clear star in 2021, also came out with a fantastic first quarter results. If you look at the operating profit for the fourth quarter came in at $36.4 million, lower transportation revenue of $2 million, but higher demurrage and other revenue of $5.8 million, lower move expenses of $0.4 million, higher repositioning expenses of $0.3 million, higher operating -- other operating expenses and A&G of $1 million and higher gain in loss on sale of assets of $0.7 million, bringing the operating profit for the quarter at $40 million. Fantastic.

Transportation revenue was down of 1.4% as shipments were down 6%. Demurrage revenue increased by 6% following the significant rise in the third and fourth quarter, driven by logistical bottlenecks and customers holding more tanks longer. So the customers, again, this is the buffer they build up in times of uncertainty, they hang on to the -- they order more than they actually need and they'd rather pay little demurrage, so that they make certain that they have secured the product that they need.

Shipments were down to 30,694, and that's down from 32,648 in the fourth quarter. Ocean freight costs increased by 4.3% following continued tight liner and trucking capacity during the first quarter. And we had lower repositioning expenses as a result of fewer repositioning shipments.

Decline -- demand outlook decline in bookings indicate lower demand expected in the second quarter. So as I said in the earnings that we sent out this morning is that we don't expect that the number of shipments will continue as they have. There might be some demand destruction due to these increased prices. We have just got new container line rates with significant increases from the container shipping lines, which we then need to push on through to our customers.

But some of those customers are not able to pay for that. It's just the value of the product is can't justify those kind of logistical costs. So -- but on the positive side, that, for example, use cooking oil, which is being shipped all over the world. Most likely, some of these products might move back to chemical tankers.

And we are seeing more and more inquiries from our container customers want to go back looking for both storage and shipping on our ships.

Transportation cost outlook. Containership capacity limitations are expected to continue resulting in continued higher freight cost. Port congestion will put pressure on freight rates. That's what we're seeing. We don't see any easing in that congestion. And tight liner capacity, the containership order book has increased from 8.3% in November to 24 -- November 2020 to 24.8% in March of '22, but delivery will start in '23. So I do not expect a big change in the container line market in 2022.

So even though shipments and margin might be coming under pressure because we're not able to pass on the extra cost, it's always with the lag. I expect the second quarter for STC to be slightly lower, but still a good healthy year overall in 2022 for STC.

Switching to a total different business, Stolt Sea Farm, also did very well in the first quarter. First quarter is usually a slow quarter, especially January and February. Operating profit of $11.3 million in the fourth quarter. Lower turbot sales of $1.3 million volume. Higher sole sales, but lower operating expenses of $2.2 million. Slightly higher A&G and depreciation and the fair value adjustment that we had in the fourth quarter of last year, we didn't have it in this quarter, bringing in the operating profit for the quarter of $5.9 million.

Stolt-Nielsen Gas. So today, we are shareholders in Golar, but also we are the majority shareholder, we have some 47% in Avenir. And Avenir today has 5 ships and 1 LNG terminal. The 5 ships, we have 3 ships on time charter, 2 of that is currently running, but the third ship when it is delivered, will go straight into -- on the time charter -- on 3-year time charter. And then we have 2 ships that we are using. One that we're building up bunkering activity in the Baltic and the second one for bunkering activity and also to supply the LNG terminal in Sardinia in the Mediterranean.

Now trying to sell LNG to new customers right now is a challenge. We're seeing a strong shipping market, but we still believe that the long-term trend of converting from oil to gas will happen. But of course, capturing new customers in Sardinia now with the current gas prices is a challenge.

But again, the shipping revenue -- the earnings from the time charters kind of is financing. And I think there's quite a bit of upside potential with the 2 remaining ships and also when the LNG prices normalizes that we will also be able to get better utilization at our terminal in Sardinia.

That completes my part of the presentation. I'll give the word to Jens to take you through the financials.

[Jens Grüner-Hegge, executive]

Okay. Thank you very much, Niels. Good morning to those in the United States calling in, and good afternoon to all of you here in Oslo and Europe. Just as a reminder, our first quarter runs from December 1 through February 28. So a little bit skewed, as you know. Also, we have today posted on the company's website, www.stolt-nielsen.com, both this presentation as well as the earnings release from this morning and the interim financials. So you'll find it there. And if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Moving on to the financials. The net profit. Niels has covered a lot of it. I will cover some of it in a bit more detail. Starting with the operating revenue. On the top right graph, you will see there's really not much change quarter-on-quarter, some improvement that we're happy to see. But if you compare it to the first quarter of 2021, you will see quite a substantial increase.

As a reminder, if you go through and look at our sort of quarterly history, the first quarter always tends to be the seasonally weakest quarter that we have, marked by a slowdown in demand after the holidays or the holidays impeding demand as well as winter weather impacting operations. But as you'll see this quarter, we really didn't see much of that.

The last -- the improvement from last year to now is a reflection to a great extent of the rising container line of freights that we have seen, which we have passed on to our customers with some added margin on top and also the significant increase that we have seen in the bunker prices that you saw in the bunker slide, Niels presented. And those have accounted for a big part of the revenue increase.

Now the operating expenses have not increased as much. So we've been able to control our expenses, which, if you also then look at the other expenses that we have kept very much in line with prior quarter and prior years means that we have seen a significant improvement in our operating profit with the last quarter showing $91.8 million versus $77 million in the prior quarter and $36 million in the first quarter of '21.

Just a few points to highlight. Niels mentioned the depreciation and amortization is down. We do an adjustment every fourth quarter. We go in, we look at the steel values. We then take the steel values and we adjust the residual values of the ships. And this year, we saw a significant increase in the steel values. So we raised the residual value, which means the depreciation goes down.

So you will see that this will continue quarter-on-quarter throughout the year. The impact is about -- roughly about $2 million. Some of it was also reflecting the exit of the Groenland because we settled with the insurance company and the ships that we sold. But of that increase, you can assume that's somewhere between $2 million to $3 million will be recurring in subsequent quarters.

We also had a significant one-off of $10 million that Niels mentioned the impairment of the Australia terminal. You see an increase in the share of profit from joint ventures and associates. And that's relating to the sale of the ship in Avenir, where our share was about $4.7 million. And I have also on the middle part of the right-hand side, detail a little bit the one-offs so that you can take that into your analysis. And hopefully, you can get a better feeling for the underlying operating performance.

If we go below the operating profit, you will see the interest expense is slightly up from the previous quarter. The reason for that is because we renewed financings this -- last quarter, we closed on a new revolving credit line done by Julian. He's been rather busy over the last few quarters, at $45 million facility. And with that, of course, we closed out the old facility and had to expense debt issuance costs related to the old facility. And we also had some hedges on some other facilities that we closed out with subsequent renewals, which took -- increased our interest expense by $2.1 million.

So if you look at the steady run rate, we are down about $1.6 million quarter-on-quarter. That reflects the continued debt reduction that we have been working on. So that brings us to the $52.3 million net profit that you see at the bottom, up from $35 million in prior quarter and $2.5 million in the first quarter of '21 and an EBITDA of $158.5 million.

Moving over to capital expenditures. You see it was actually not that much that we did spend in this last quarter, $21 million. We have an ambitious program of $200 million, which is in line with what we did last year. If you look at -- for tankers, this reflects a barge that we're building for our European barging business which is quite a fascinating new design, very low draft, that allows us to carry much more volume at low water levels. We also are installing nitrogen generators for more operational efficiencies and ballast water treatment systems.

For Stolthaven Terminals, this is, to a great extent, related to capacity maintenance ongoing that we've put on the capital expenditures list as well as a new jetty at our Dagenham terminal and a few new tanks at our Mount Maunganui, New Zealand terminal.

Stolt Tank Containers, they are building new tanks. And a big part of the $38 million reflects that as well as the refurbishing depots on various locations, and that's what brings us to the $38 million for this year. And Stolt Sea Farm is more regular maintenance, while corporate and other, that's mostly related to computer systems. So we'll see if we get to the $200 million, it is an ambitious program. And if you look at we did last year, it is in line, but we are going to keep our next spend down and work at it.

Then moving over to the cash flow and the liquidity position. You'll see a significant improvement on the top line, $199 million in increased operating cash flow. As Niels mentioned, that reflects a reduction in the working capital. We reported in the fourth quarter a receivable for the Groenland settlement that we had with our underwriters and D&K equity distribution that they did. So in total, that was about $55 million. And if you -- so if you take that out, we're still quite significantly up from the previous quarter.

Interest was down about $10 million. That's because the big interest payments typically happen in the second and the fourth quarter, while the first and third quarter are slightly lower. So net cash generated from operating activities was $164.7 million.

Not much in terms of investments. As I mentioned, we had $24.5 million in CapEx and intangible assets. And then it was the $10 million that we invested in Cool Company. So that brought us to $33.1 million, up from $10.3 million in the previous quarter. And then also not much in terms of debt activity. We did repay about $138 million, is it that what is -- the $139 million in the quarter. The $61.6 million, half of that, relates to debt that we paid off on the Groenland when we received the insurance settlement and paid it off. But it was a nice debt reduction during the quarter.

So net cash flow is, therefore, slightly negative. We ended the quarter with $114 million in cash. And if you look to the bottom right, you will see that we also had, at the end of the first quarter, $330 million in available credit facilities. So a total liquidity position of over $440 million. And you'll see that when I come to the debt maturity, that's, of course, because we're preparing ourselves for the bond maturity in September.

Going through the financial KPIs. Starting with the bottom right quadrant, you see the EBITDA development. And I'll start with that because it is a driver of some of the developments in our financial KPIs. The first quarter '22 was a significant quarter with $159 million, brought it up to $587 million on a last 12-month basis. So over the last 4 quarters. And that's a good improvement very much also because the first quarter '21 that dropped off in that 12-month rolling period was only $109 million. So a good quarter replacing a weaker quarter drives up the overall EBITDA.

And that is important if you look at the net debt to EBITDA on the bottom left, which now reduced to 3.82x. And EBITDA to interest expense on the top rate, which improved to 4.68x. I also want to point out 2 other things on the top left graph, you see that the debt at the first quarter is now down to $2.35 billion. That's down from $2.44 billion, reflecting the debt reductions that we did during the quarter. And also, the tangible net worth has improved by, say, about $53 million or so, reflecting the performance during the quarter, less, of course, the dividend that we paid out in December.

And also, of course, the other dividend is not reflected here that was recommended by the Board to be approved by the AGM and payable in May of this year.

And this brings me to the debt maturity. Now I mentioned that we have had -- at the end of the fourth quarter, we had $440 million in available liquidity and if you add up those 3 columns, you get to about $450 million. So you asked what with the remaining $10 million? We have a steady operating cash flow being generated.

Julian has just also renewed a JOLCO, which we will draw on in May. So that's a $66 million -- $77 million maturity, which we have renewed with $128 million facility. And we are doing a similar thing with the maturity that falls due in November, where we're also getting an uplift because of the quality of the containers and because of the quality of the cash flow. And we have a few other things that are ongoing.

So when we look at our position at the end of November, we expect to sit with about $250 million in available liquidity, having paid off the bond with cash and available resources, having paid off the balloon payments, have been paid off all our regular debt maturities. So -- and still with about $680 million in unencumbered assets on the balance sheet. So we feel we are in a strong position with a lot of those -- with all those maturities already taken care of. And this does not really account for a significant improvement in tanker markets that also adds to the upside.

So just one more thing mentioning that our average cost of the debt during the quarter was 4.36% and that is pretty much flat. We are currently about 80% hedged which has softened the blow so far. But when the bond matures and we're going to go out and refinance, then we will be subjected to the new higher level of interest rates. I do, therefore, expect that, that will come up and as we go forward. But hopefully, that will be offset by some lower credit spreads.

And with that, Niels, I would like to pass it back to you.

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

Thank you, Jens. So just the key messages, the highest quarterly net profit since 2008. Improved profitability as we have shown you from Sea Farm, from Stolt Tank Containers and from Stolthaven. The chemical tanker market remains soft, but we are seeing some nice improvements in that market as we speak.

High inflation, rising energy costs and higher interest rate could hurt demand growth, basically for our businesses. So there is uncertainty out there. Balance sheet is strengthening. As Jens just showed you, we continue to focus on cash flow generation and debt reduction and shareholder distribution and investments. Shareholder distribution, we do focus on dividends.

Company overall is well positioned to capitalize on the up cycle in tankers and to ride out volatility in the other markets should uncertainty persist.

That completes our presentation, and we will open up for questions. Maybe we should start with anybody calling in, if there is anyone.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

We can give them some time. Anybody here have any questions? Yes.

[Anders-Redigh Karlsen, analyst]

Anders Karlsen, Kepler Cheuvreux. I was wondering your tankers. If you look at the regional tankers, they seem to be pretty flat quarter-to-quarter.

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

Pretty flat?

[Anders-Redigh Karlsen, analyst]

Yes. And you see the improvement on the ocean going fleet. Is that what you expect going forward as well? Or is there going to be an improvement also on the regional fleet?

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

I think we will see a strength in the region. We are seeing it also in Asia and our joint venture in Asia. We're seeing -- we had a record booking in our regional fleet in the Caribbean, just 2 days ago. So I think we will see an overall across the board, tightening of supply, so a strengthening of demand -- strengthening of rates.

[Anders-Redigh Karlsen, analyst]

And on contract rates, what percentage of contracts did you renew this quarter? And how do you expect that to go forward? Is that pretty even?

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

Yes. So we told you that in the first quarter, we renewed on average of 1.5%, some 1.6% increase. So we weren't able to get any of these significant improvements yet. Again, we have continued to renew the core business that we are involved in with the core customers, but we have been holding back on doing multi-year. Or if we do multiyear, we have made certain that the years 2 and 3 has big windows, so 20%, 30% increase for the years 2 and 3.

So as I said -- start saying, as the spot rates go up, I think that we will be able to push through that into the COAs, but it will take time because each quarter we're evenly spread throughout the year on contract renewals. So we are renewing it all the time. So hopefully we'll be able to report a significant increase, but then it takes time for that to show on the bottom line. That's why the business is -- it's steady. It's been steady at a too low level, but it's pretty steady because of these contracts.

[Anders-Redigh Karlsen, analyst]

Okay.

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

Just one other thing. One significant -- we have been able to get a bunker clause on our spot fixtures. And that's the first time, and it's gaining traction. So spot fixtures where there's only upside for us. So if the bunker prices go down, we don't give anything back. But if the bunker price from the date we fix it to the day we service -- do the shipment, if the bunker prices go up, we have been able to get a clause in our spot fixtures to be compensated for an increased bunker costs. Yes.

[Petter Haugen, analyst]

Petter Haugen, ABG. Could you -- well, it's been a few years now when I wish you've talked about the possibility to spin off the tank fleet. Could you shed some light on what sort of events you would like to see happen in order for that to materialize? And if so, how do you -- well, how should we think about how that's spin-off or what sort of spin-off? Is it an IPO? Or is it something else?

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

So we have said since 2017 that we would like to separate out Stolt Tankers as a standalone clean cut entity to do an IPO at the right time. I think that -- an IPO at the right time is you need to have several quarters behind you, showing the actual earning potential from a strong market. Instead of sell trying to do an IPO based on the market is something, I want to have a couple of quarters behind us with good earnings from that.

I've also stated that I think that the reason we do an IPO Stolt Tankers is that we haven't lost faith in the chemical tanker. This is what we do. This is where we come from. This is what we will continue to do. But the reason I wanted to do -- we want to do it is I think it's -- we need to further consolidate the industry. It's too fragmented. And they have a stand-alone chemical -- pure-play chemical tanker company that is publicly traded, I think it will be easier to do further consolidation. We can do a share deal, you can do a combination of share in cash. So this gives us better flexibility to pursue that goal of further consolidation.

And that leads us -- we bought a stake in Odfjell because I think the share price is cheap, like Stolt thinks its share price is cheap. It's the cheapest chemical tankers that can buy out there. But there's also a message. I think that it -- this business, the chemical tanker business, hasn't been sustainable for the last I would say, 20 years. If you look at what we have achieved in the last 20 years, it's been 5% return on capital employed, less than our cost of capital. So we need to -- and I'm convinced that we will have 2, 3 years of very good market now, but that doesn't change the structure of the industry.

So the goal here is not for Stolt-Nielsen to reduce its exposure towards the chemical tanker industry. It is to -- it's an aggressive move. It's to separate out to seek opportunities or try to further consolidate the industry.

Timing wise, if we have second, third quarter, I mean, if we see good earnings coming in, yes, we're ready. We've been preparing this since 2017. So we're ready to go. And either it's a consolidation story or it's -- we're big enough to do it ourselves. But yes, I'll keep you posted.

There is one question from -- on e-mail here when -- I don't know where it comes in, but it says will shares in Golar LNG be sold when they get in the money? Has been a long struggle, will help in funding Avenir ships?

We have no intentions of selling. We are long term. We believe strongly in the company and we are a long -- and it's a long-term position. To the contrary, I think it's a very exciting phase Golar is getting into. And Avenir, I think we do have the resources. If Avenir comes up with a good investment opportunities, I think Avenir will be able to easily be able to get the funding for that.

Are there any other further questions here? Yes, please.

[Unknown Analyst]

[indiscernible] you from a critical part of supply chains from many different industries. And given what we see going on today with war in Ukraine. And we see companies and organizations moving from maybe just-in-time supply chain frameworks to more just in case? What do you think will be the long-term consequences of this? Will it be more globalization, but more fragmented or will it be deglobalization?

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

It will be what?

[Unknown Analyst]

Deglobalization, less strain.

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

That's a difficult. I can only say what we are seeing. And we see that the customer -- they are willing to pay a little extra or to have a little extra inventory, to have a little extra volume, to ship a little more. So they're willing to pay a little extra both for the storage part and for the amount that they ship in tank containers to make sure it's much, much more expensive for them to run out of product.

So we're seeing that they are building up a buffer so that they -- if shipments are -- if there are port congestions or if there's lack of capacity, it's much more expensive to run out of product than paying up a little more. So that's what we've been seeing in STC. I think we will also be seeing it on the terminal side that customers want to have little extra storage. And I believe also in the chemical tanker business, as the market strengthened, I think that the contract customers will be more dependent upon securing space and then hopefully, we'll be able to get the rates up.

If we're seeing -- if we're going to see deglobalization, you guys are economists, you can speculate that yourself. Of course, that would hurt a business like us. We trade nationally. That's -- we are dependent on people buying products where it's cheapest. So it's difficult to say.

Are there anybody on the phone?

[Unknown Analyst]

Can I try one...

[Operator]

There are currently no questions coming from the phone.

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

Let me take it here.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. You are -- as you just said, we're very global around. The COVID situation is, to some extent, it's not forgotten, at least not focused upon as it was. But going back now due to the zero-COVID strategy in China. So what will happen with your supply chains if -- well, what could happen if China is finally coming into a sort of critical pandemic phase, would you...

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

They're already starting to lockdown.

[Unknown Analyst]

Right, precisely. So where does that go from here? And are you making -- or you have people there? So what do they tell you about how things will develop if these lockdowns drags out in time?

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

Well, I think we saw it from the first lockdown is that business continues. So it all comes down to -- at the end of the consumer. We're seeing less import into China. We're seeing more export out of China. We're seeing what used to be the outbound, the main leg for us used to be U.S. Gulf to the Far East. And we called HBR, the home bond, the return leg was from Asia back to the United States and back to Europe. Now that's the stronger. The strongest market we are currently experiencing is from Asia to the United States and Asia to Europe.

We are -- so -- but I think that is much more driven by the strong demand that we've seen in the United States. And we continue to see in the United States that products are coming in, both to Europe and to the United States. So we're not seeing from this latest lockdown, we're not seeing -- people are still working. They're working from home or some are even working from the office, but staying in the office. So we have not seen any change in trade flows yet as a result of the resurgence of the pandemic in China.

All right, unless there are any further questions? Operator, do you have any questions?

[Operator]

No, there are no further questions coming through in the queue.

[Niels Stolt-Nielsen, executive]

All right. Thank you very much for participating. Good to see you all face-to-face, and hopefully, even a bigger crowd in the second quarter earnings release, which is scheduled to be in the beginning end of June, early July, before you go on summer holiday. [Foreign Language]. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets.