Stolt-Nielsen Ltd

OSE:SNI

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q3

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

Good afternoon, good morning. Thank you very much for joining our third quarter's earnings results. Together with me as always, is Jens Gruner-Hegge, but we also have Lucas Vos, the President of Stolt Tankers, who's joining us from Holland. I will be on my presentation. And as always, we will open up for questions, which you can submit through the chat box in the function, and we will go through as many as possible. The agenda. I will go a summary of Stolt-Nielsen, then we will go through each of the businesses. Jens will take you through the financials, and then we'll open up and read the questions. I think hopefully I can call in. Moving to the highlights for the third quarter. As we announced our role in our earnings release, it's primarily driven by very good results from tank containers and Stolt Sea Farm. The operating revenue came in at almost $581 million that is up from $526 million, operating profit up from $41 million up to $79 million. EBITDA $147.8 million, and that's up from $116 million and net profit came in at $33.5 million, up from $7.8 million. And the free cash flow that we generated in the quarter was $105, $106 million, and our net debt to EBITDA, even though it's not a covenant ended the quarter at 4.7x our EBITDA. The EBITDA was -- the higher EBITDA was mainly driven by the higher transportation rates that we saw in Tank Containers and also the increase in demurrage revenue revenue, while we were able to keep our cost -- the cost that we pay for the movement of our containers were stable for the quarter. At Stolt Sea Farm, we saw a strong seasonal demand like we did during the summer, but that was also combined with less wild catch. And as a result, we got higher prices and higher sales volumes. High utilization and throughput at most of our terminals in Stolthaven Terminals. And in Stolt tankers, we didn't see a recovery in the spot rates, but we saw a recovery in the COA nominations, which Lucas will go into in more detail later. Improved free cash flow as businesses operating cash flow improved, and we ended the quarter with $450 million available liquidity at the end of the quarter. Moving then to the Slide 5, net profit, which is positive trends in all businesses. So we reported a net profit in the second quarter of '21 of $7.8 million. We had higher operating profit of $11.5 million in tankers, slightly higher of $1.5 million in Terminal division, $12.2 million in Stolt Tank Containers and $13.4 million operating profit -- higher operating profit in Stolt Sea Farm. Okay, that also includes the fair value adjustment and slightly higher in SN Gas. Higher corporate costs that's primarily money we put aside for profit sharing and bonuses. Net lower financing expenses, Jens is managing that well as a primary result of lower debt. And then we had higher losses on FX, the dollar weakening against the other currency in which we operate in. And higher income tax, that's normal. We have higher profits. We also have higher taxes, ending the quarter at $33.5 million net profit. Moving to Page 6. ESG, our sustainability is becoming part of our everyday life. And it is really for us to succeed. We need to do it sustainably and more sustainably than what we're doing today. So we have set clear targets, as we have announced earlier, and we will be measuring them. Once we get enough data, we will be reporting the progress that we make towards those targets. Stolt Tankers, which is really the biggest emitter of carbon and Lucas will show you, but we put a reduction of at least 50% carbon intensity by 2050 -- by 2030 starting at 2008 levels. We will strive for being to be carbon neutral by 2050. In Stolthaven Terminals, primary activities to be CO2-neutral by 2040. In tank containers, 50% of the energy and utilities consumed in our depots will come from renewable energy sources, and then we will reduce our carbon footprint or we'll try to reduce our carbon footprint with our logistic partners because we buy our services from the container lines and our trucking companies by 40% by being actively targeted working with like-minded suppliers. And in Sea Farm by 2030, 0% waste-to-landfill taking recycling and energy recovery as the options for the long term. And also very importantly, reduce a reduction of fish oil and fish meal in the feed that we use, a 65% reduction for sole and a 50% reduction for turbot is the target. Then I will hand it over to Lucas. And then Lucas, when you finish, hand it over back to London.

[Lucas Vos, President Stolt Tankers]

We'll do. Thank you very much, Niels, for that. And I would like to take you through the quarter 3 performance of Stolt Tankers. And of course, I'll start with some of the figures, but I would like to take some special time to talk about what we see on the bunker side. Then I'll take the market highlights, a little bit forward-looking. And as Niels just concluded with sustainability, I will do that as well before handing back. So if I look at the quarter 3 for Stolt Tankers, Overall, we saw quite an improvement compared to quarter 2 in '21. As you can see, our operating profit went from $12.6 million to $24.1 million. However, if I compare it to the same quarter in 2020, it's still a little bit lower, and that is a reflection of actually the sort of uncertain and volatile markets that we see primarily in relationship to what's happening in the energy markets. If I look, however, at the increase in operating profit from quarter-on-quarter, it's very much driven by higher trading results so 4.8% higher freight rates. It's a reflection of the good contract negotiations that were done in the beginning of the year. And it also is a reflection of the fact that spot prices have gone up, but not enough to cover the additional bunker costs. So that's why we say it's still a depressed spot market. You also see that our operating days are going up quite significantly, and that is very much driven by the Tufton and J19 ships, of which 6 have been included in this quarter already. And even with that capacity coming in, you can see that our utilization has also gone up with 1.8%. So overall, I think on our normal performance, we're doing well. If I look a little bit at the cost side, we have this multiyear program of springboard ongoing. And you can see here some of the cost advantages coming in when it comes to lower owning expenses, for instance, but also some already on the lower A&G side. The big thing that we are -- or I have to say one more thing -- one special item is that we sold the Stolt Selje for a book profit because steel prices are relatively high right now. You generally see increased scrapping in our industry, which is a good sign when we come to supply and demand in 2022. And also we benefited from that with the sale of the Stolt Selje. The big thing that is sort of hampering our performance right now, as you can see, is the higher bunker costs. So if I can take the next slide for that one. Here, you can see that from quarter 3 2020 to quarter 3 2021. The bunker costs continue to increase. That is, of course, a reflection of what's happening in the global market. And you can see underneath that the consumer prices that we have on board will continue to increase. A lot of it is covered by our bunker clauses, about 2/3 of our exposure. So that is great. But due to the timing, it kicks in a bit later. And that is when you see rebate, it means that it's actually something that we've been giving back to our customers, because of the timing differential. But when the prices will go down and hopefully, they will go down again in the future, then actually that advantage go back to us. I would like to draw your attention, though, to the fact that you see the number of operating days as well in this slide, which is the yellow line. And you can actually see that the cost development is very much in line with the rise in our operating days. What that also means is that the cost increase -- the price increases that actually that we are absorbing with the biggest part of our cost reduction program, which is called springboard. We have taken many measures on our fuel consumption, primarily by centralizing our operations and by taking tight control in the center of which routes ships are supposed to take, how the trim of the ship should be, what the average speeds should be, et cetera, et cetera. Overall, that gives us sort of a consumption reduction of 6% to 10%. That is great, that is structural. It now disappears a bit because of the increasing bunker prices. But when that comes down, again, you will see that coming back into our results. So overall, I'm very happy with what we are doing on the bunker consumption. On the right hand, you can see our SIR per operating day. So that is our revenue minus the operating expenses. And now you can see it's also going up slightly, which is good. And you see that the dead weight of our fleet is coming down. And again, that is the reflection of the Tufton ships coming in. The fact that the SIR is going up is also taking in mind that we had quarter 1, but also still in quarter 2 the Houston freeze that has overall cost us around $5 million, and that impact you see going away. If I then turn to the market, which is on the next slide. I think overall, we see that the U.S. exports are not as strong as they used to be or as I would like them to be, and it's very much driven by the fact that the U.S. economy is doing actually quite well. So a lot of the chemicals produced instead of being exported to other places is now being used for internal consumption. So we see that having an impact on our trade out to Europe and out to Asia, and you see that coming back into the spot rates as well. We do have excess capacity out there in the Houston Gulf and that's basically because the trade on the other side is actually going quite well. So from Asia inbound into the U.S. or Europe into the U.S. is stronger than anticipated as well as Arabian Gulf to Europe. In Asia, we are living quite some difficult circumstances with -- on our network. It's not that stable because of COVID and there's a lot of ports shutting down primarily on some of the Chinese rivers because of COVID cases, and of course, we've also just had the typhoon season. However, we see that the fundamentals are strong and are in place and particularly on the adjacent markets. It's where we now -- we need to see the improvements coming. But if I look at the fundamentals of our own trade, it seems to be good. The chemicals are moving and that's sort of underpinning the GDP, which is coming back to normal. Take a little bit of time to talk about our intra-regionals and the SNI, our intra-European trade. As you know, we've combined our fleet with Essberger at the beginning of the year. And we see that we're very happy with that corporation. It is really paying off. The results are above expectations, and it's primarily driven by the synergies. We found out that we actually have quite a few ships that we're passing each other empty. And so we could take those moves out, and that, of course, is hitting our bottom line immediately. So we're very happy with that cooperation. Also very happy with our [indiscernible] given solid profits and the outlook for quarter 4 is a similar and the same is valid for Asia Pacific. There, we are able to push up the rates a bit because of the congestion that I earlier mentioned, particularly on the Chinese side. So also on the regionals, I'm very confident that quarter 3 is good, but also that quarter 4 will be okay. Then I would start looking a little bit forward. I think that the fundamentals are in place for a good 2022. In quarter 4, on deep season will still be hit by some of that -- the issues that I mentioned before. But in 2022, we think we are well positioned. The supply and demand is still in our favor. Actually, we see increased scrapping going on because the steel prices are very high. So that takes a little bit more capacity out. We are confident, let's say, the consensus of the analysts and the banks around the recovery of the global GDP is in our favor. As I said, chemical production is good and is flowing. And we hopefully see now some movement on the OpEx side, meaning that there will be more production and that particularly the MR segment will move away from the chemicals again and go into what they're supposed to do, basically, also driven by the fact that the oil storage right now is at a historical low. So I feel confident on 2022, particularly when I look at the spot market, I also had a question already and if you allow me to take that 1 now, as Niels wish is that the question is how much of the tanker fleet is covered by COA. And do you have the intention to do a similar thing in 2022. Where we are right now is sort of around the 70%, 7-0, which is high, which is also a reflection of our high fixed cost. So in a way that makes sense. But I want to be optimally prepared for the uptick in the market in 2022. So we are considering to have a lower COA going forward. And as I said, to really benefit from that. So Clearly, that will give us some strong negotiations with some of the customers, but either we need to see some good increases on those COA contracts or we will go longer on the spot market. So I'm very confident about the 2022 markets, the way I look at it right now. If I can do that, last but not least, outline you a bit our ambition on the decarbonization. We have set the 50% carbon intensity reduction compared to the 2008 levels. We're using the AER ratio for that because that's becoming more and more the standard in shipping. We have gone as far back as we could with collecting the data because it's finding the data in the past that makes this one may be more difficult. So what we did over and above is we validated the data and the process with which we gathered it with DNV and they confirm our figures that so far, compared to 2008, we have already taken 27% out, which is great. And it means that we're still 23% shy of our target. Now underneath, you will see there's a lot of initiatives that we take and we can take still to reduce the target is the optimization of our -- and the way that we operate our ships it's technical changes that we can make to our systems, but it's also gathering more data that we understand better on how we can do things and we will also clearly have some not so well performing ships be phasing out of our fleet in the coming years. On top of that -- that is not enough. So on top of that, we have joined the Maersk Mc-Kinney another center for zero carbon shipping, quite a mouthful. And it's right now the leading partnership in shipping that has one thing in mind that is how we can get to carbon shipping as quickly as we can. So all the leading shipping companies, engine manufacturers, but also oil and gas producers are part of that partnership where we look into R&D. We look at the future fuels. We look at the supply chain, but we'll also look at how we can get the financing community, the regulatory communities and primarily also our customers along in this journey. And we already have some good discussions with customers who voiced interest in, let's say, not let us pick up the bill by ourselves, but do that in a jointly basis. So Niels that's what I would like to give the audience when it comes to Stolt Tankers.

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

Thank you. Thank you, Lucas. Then we will move on to Stolthaven Terminals on Page 14. You can see that the operating revenue went up from $60.6 million to $62.9 million. EBITDA with a slight increase up to $35.4 million, operating profit at $19.8 million and utilization rose from $90 million to $92.3 million. If you look at the operating profit variance between the second quarter and the third quarter, we had higher revenue of $2.3 million, slightly lower operating expenses, slightly higher depreciation, lower equity income from our joint ventures and slightly higher A&G, bringing in to $19.8 million, very steady. The improved utilization and throughput volume resulted in an increased operating profit compared to prior quarters. The impact from Hurricane Ida was limited to $0.6 million due to good preparation by local team and the flood wall, which we had in New Orleans, which was really the first time we properly tried out, worked very well on kept water outside of the terminal. So limited damage, it was more wind damage than anything else. The joint venture equity income decreased due to a reversal of -- in the second quarter of $0.9 million tax charge at the terminal in South Korea and that was partly offset by a third quarter tax incentive at our Belgian joint venture in recognition of energy savings and investments that we did. Moving on to the 15, you see steady performance from the Terminal division. What I can say is that we're seeing the pickup in utilization in most terminals. And what usually follows when there's high utilization, subsequently, you always -- when the contract comes up for renewal, we are able and also to push up the rates that we charge for our services -- our Terminals. So nice recovery. Most of our terminals are resulting in higher utilization. And I expect rates will also follow. Moving to Stolt Tank Containers. This has really been a phenomenal quarter for Stolt Tank Containers. There were lower shipments but at higher rates. So if we just do the variance first, the operating profit for the second quarter was $12.5 million. We had higher transportation revenue of $7.6 million. That's the revenue that we charge to our customers, higher demurrage of $9.1 million, slightly higher move-related expenses. That's what we pay to the container lines in our trucking companies. So we were able to charge and pass on previous costs and get the rates up to our customers and we're able then -- the move-related expenses were held at similar levels as we had in the second quarter. We had lower repositioning costs, approximately [ $300,000 ] lower repositioning expenses from previous quarter. And we had higher other operating expenses in A&G. The operating environment is still very challenging because it's very difficult to get space on the container lines. And very often, when you do get the space on the container lines, you get bumped off or move to the next sailing and all the paper work has it. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done to do one shipment. And as I said, shipments was actually down in the third quarter. That doesn't really reflect the market. The market is very strong, and there's a huge demand for containers. But since there's so much congestion in the ports amongst the container lines, each shipment takes a long time. So that's why the number of shipments were down. Transportation revenue was up $7.6 million, driven by a 12.6% increase in transportation rates and that was, as I said, offset by a decrease in number of shipments of 5.6%. Again, it doesn't reflect underlying market. It just reflects that it is -- that each shipment takes a longer time. Demurrage revenue increased substantially as a result of customer holding on to tanks, coupled with increased volume and ocean freight cost continued to rise during the quarter caused by carrier constraints, which are passed on to our customers. Move-related expenses increased by 8.2% Unfortunately, that was lower than the transportation increase that we achieved. Lower repositioning costs, as I said, and also increase in ancillary charges due to carrier delays, port congestion, capacity constraints and lack of truck drivers drove increase of other operating expenses. Demand remains strong across all markets and sectors. And to meet that demand, we -- on a continuous basis, we order repurchase. We order new tank containers, but we also lease additional tank contents. And in the last quarter, we ordered another additional 1,000 tank containers. We are seeing that customers are considering alternative option to move cargoes as port congestion and containership capacity constraints continue but not significant change occurred due to the cost of the change. So what we're saying -- what we have said in the previous years is that the tank container market is actually cannibalizing from tankers, but we are now seeing more and more inquiries actually customers considering because -- one thing is the cost, but it's also the unreliability of the timing because of the delays in the container lines we are seeing inquiry both for our terminals, where customers want to see if they can lease tanks so that they can ship it back in containers -- in our chemical carriers. But -- so we have seen inquiries. We have seen some cases, but not a lot yet. Not that much -- again, not that much driven by what they pay for, but it's more reliability, and it's very important for the customers to receive the container or the product on time. If you look at the bottom side, this is the percentage movement per quarter what we see in the revenue per shipment and the transportation cost per shipment. And you can see over the last 2 quarters, the second quarter and third quarter, we were able to -- we saw a bigger increase in revenue per shipment that we -- again, what we charge our customers compared to the change that we see with the transportation cost per shipment. We've also always said there's a lag -- there will be a lag on the way up, and there will be a lag on the way down. Market outlook. I think the container market -- the tank container market will remain strong for the foreseeable future. We are seeing an increase, again, the growth in demand for shipment and tank containers continue then more products being produced and more locations being shipped to more destinations. With the port congestions in -- for the container ships, it takes longer to ship each shipment, which then causes a squeeze on the available both dry boxes for the container lines but also for us. So I expect that this market that we're experiencing today to continue in a similar fashion as we're seeing for the container lines. And if you look at the order book for the container lines, they're saying that the big part of the new deliveries will be in 2023. So I do expect both remainder of '21 and '22 to be very strong or as a strong market for Stolt Tank Containers. Opportunities. It is obvious that tank container costs have been rising and demurrage has remained low. So higher demurrage rates will be expected, which we're passing on or we're pushing through. And we are going to reduce the number of free days as this will expect to increase incentive for a faster turnaround by our customers using our containers, so we can free up the container more quickly. Demand cost is moving away from unsustainable flexibags to tank containers due to the global dry box shortage and focus on sustainable supply chain. I mean, the flexibags is basically one huge plastic bag, you put into a dry container. And once that container has -- that move has ended, that plastic bag -- enormous plastic bag is thrown away. And we are arguing that it's not a very sustainable way of doing it and pushing it to those customers to move into tank containers. Sustainability in the supply chain, STC has established its own sustainability goals, which I showed you earlier. Leadership in digitalization, we will continue. So we are now running a fantastic wave in this market, which we expect to last for the next couple of 2 years. But we haven't lost focus on the long-term trend that this business is becoming more and more competitive. So the innovation and the drive towards utilization and direct integration with our customers and vendors will continue even in this strong market. Moving to Stolt Sea Farm. Again, that's a picture of our turbot farm and sole farm in Cervo, Spain. The upper part of the picture is the turbot farm, the lower part of the picture and the middle part of the picture, where you see the sole farms. That's the new recirculation farm that we've been talking about. That farm was the first one. It's been operation almost 1.5 years now. It is producing -- we're looking -- the growth on that farm is higher than we expected. We expected 200 -- no, 300, 350 and it looks like we are up at 400 tonnes, and that's, again, a recirculation farm. So production is higher than expected, which means the production cost is lower than expected. So it's moving along very nicely. If you look at Page 21, we had a negative operating profit in the third quarter. But if you look of -- sorry, that must be second quarter -- in the second quarter. We had higher turbot sales of $10.4 million, higher sole sales of $1.7 million. Higher operating expenses of $7.4 million. That is not our own operating expenses. That's the cost of the fish that we sell on behalf of our partner. So we have a sales agreement with another farm and that's basically the cost of that fish we think part of the sales commission on that scale. Lower A&G, FV adjustment of $8.5 million as a result of the higher prices -- fish prices, bringing the operating profit to $12.8 million. The turbot sales increased by $10.4 million to higher price by 21.9% and sales volumes by 36.4%. Operating expenses per kilo increased 4.5%, well below price increases. Sole sales increased $1.7 million with a higher production volume coming from the new farm, the RAS farm. That prices improved by 22.3%, while operating expenses per kilo decreased by 5.6%. The fair value adjustment of the biomass was a gain of $9.3 million compared to a gain of $0.8 million in prior quarter. This is a reflection again to the recovery in the prices and the growth in the biomass. And we had lower A&G expenses because in the second quarter, we paid for this IPO attempt that we did earlier in the year. Delivering on the growth plan. So in the earlier year, we went out and explore the appetite to see if we would consider to explore the opportunity to do an IPO. And we presented to the market the growth plan that we have in place. So in 2021, just on the sole side. And we're using sole as an example. Based on the technology that we have now developed, in 2021, we will produce approximately 1,000 tonnes of sole and we will reach 1,500 tonnes of sole next -- at the end of next year. And that, again, is based on the current capacity, the current building, the current infrastructure that we have. And then we have plants and applications in place to build additional modules at existing farms basically where we already have provision in place, but we need to do the preparation, the drawing and the permits. We have the design in place just to add additional module at existing farms. That's basically organic growth, which will bring an additional 1,200 tonnes by 2025, which brings the total up to 2,700. Then when we have done that, we have definitely proven the RAS land-based sole technology, and then we will then more aggressively, when we feel comfortable, to go out and build more of these farms in the market. And the target for 2035 is up to 11,400 tonnes of sole. And just to give you an example where we are today with RAS module cost us $12 million, that's excluding the subsidies because the subsidies actually brings the cost down to $9 million. And what we're now seeing today, based on what we're achieving today, we're getting out of that $12 million investment, we're getting a $2.4 million EBITDA. But if you really look at the learnings that we have in husbandry and farming practices and breeding if you apply what we learn in turbot over the years and apply that to the sole, which is expected and we are actually achieving better growth than we expected. I think that, that $12 million will more likely bring that EBITDA to [ $3, $3.5 million ] per farm. So I think we have now cracked the code, and we just want to run conservatively, really prove to ourselves that these modules can deliver, and then we will roll it out as fast as possible. Moving over to Stolt-Nielsen Gas, and let's talk a little about Avenir. Where we are today, we are mentioned on several occasions that we have ordered 6 ships. And we have built one terminal. So today, where we stand is that 3 of those ships will be going to our already on time charter or bareboat and 1 additional when it gets delivered is we're negotiating to do one more time charter or bareboat. That's not really our strategy. Our strategy is to be a supplier of small-scale LNG to stranded demand. But these ships that we order on, you can say, on spec because we didn't have offtake or we didn't have work for it. So the first -- the 3 ships we will take on time charter, while we build up supply business. And those 3 time charter, we kind of finance the company and give us the cash flow. We're taking advantage of the relatively strong LNG shipping market. So 3 ships out of the 6 will go on some sort of time charter/bareboat. Two of them already are generating cash flow from it. And then we are working on 2 deals where we are contributing our ship at basically today's market rate for those ships, but also we are also getting an equity stake in companies that are involved in supplying and selling LNG. The deals haven't been announced, so I don't want to go too much into detail, but those are supply deals, and we're using those excellent positions that we have to participate also on the supply side of the business. And the final ship, the sixth ship. Actually, that's a ship that is being delivered today or this week, will be used for our own supply deal, which is towards HIGAS in Sardinia. Sardinia is up and running. It's received its first cargo. We are selling LNG to the local market, and that is going actually faster. And taking into consideration as we've gone through the pandemic or at the end of the pandemic, plus the extremely high LNG prices that we're seeing, there is still a growing demand for the LNG and the LNG is being sold. So the 1 on the ships -- 2 of the ships, we're going to use in joint ventures in developing supply deals. And 1 ship, we're going to use ourselves towards supplying LNG to the end user in Sardinia. If you look at, based on what we have on the table today, the EBITDA based on that business conservatively will -- as the business rolls out, will reach $40 million EBITDA. But I would say that's quite conservative because we want to free up the ships on time charter. By the time those top 3 ships that are on time charter will be released from, we will then look at further sales the supply deals for those ships. So conservatively, that's kind of the EBITDA evolution we see based on the contracts that we're currently looking at, but with a huge upside potential depending on how much of these joint ventures will -- how fast these joint ventures will develop? The company is fully funded. Don't need more equity. With the EBITDA that's coming out of the business, it's fine. But of course, as new opportunity comes a lot, there might be other investment opportunities coming our way, and we will find the funding for that. That completes the business presentations. So I'll give the word to Jens for the financials. Thank you very much.

[Jens F. Gruner-Hegge]

As normal, I will take you through a few further items on the income statement as well as talk you through some balance sheet items. I also want to remind you that our fiscal year is a little bit skewed running from December 1 through November 30. So this quarter that we're talking about now was from June 1 through August 31. If you look at the income statement, starting with the top line, the revenue line, you see for this quarter, there was a significant increase that Niels has talked to already. But also year-to-date, we have seen a good growth in the revenue line, increasing about $114 million. And the bulk of this has been driven by Stolt Tank Containers, the underlying freight rates that also underlying fright rates that Niels has talked about, but also then captured by our ability to recover those increasing costs through our charges on to our customers. That makes up about [ $8 million ] of it. In addition, as you recall, last year, Stolt Sea Farm had a difficult year with a significant impact from COVID, and they have foreseen a recovery of some $17 million year-to-date over last year. And finally, Stolt Tankers with the additional operating days related to the CTG ships, has also seen a good increase. Moving down, you will see that the share of profit of joint ventures and associates, this quarter was up about $2 million that is driven really by 3 ships that were in a prior quarter tied up in dry dock and having them now come out means that we increased the operating days and got some additional joint venture profits in tanker joint ventures. Also, year-to-date over last year, you see there's an increase of $7 million and that's tied to improvements in our terminal joint ventures as well as some improvement in gas as they have now operating assets on the water. Moving to administrative and general expenses. You see there's a significant increase this quarter and last quarter over the third quarter of 2020. Because of the COVID impact last year, we quickly put in place cost controlling measures and put in place a higher increase. And that was a big driver of the increase this year once that was released as we came into catch-up mode. But also FX has moved against us since last year, and that has also driven some of the increase in the administrative and general expenses. Going then down to the operating profit line, you see we have a good increase from quarter from $41.4 million, up to $76.5 million before one-offs, and the one-off that we have is the gain on sale of assets, as has already been discussed. And moving then below the operating profit line. You see that net interest expense has come down steadily from the prior quarter. And compared to the same quarter last year, we're down about $5 million. And year-to-date, it's about a $9 million reduction. This is driven by lower debt levels and lower interest rates. So it is really a good trend that we're on in terms of driving through the cost reduction there. FX gain -- this FX loss, I should say, this quarter is due to loss on hedges predominantly. And then moving to the income tax expense that reflects 2 items predominantly. One is the improved operating results that we've seen very much in Stolt Sea Farm, but also, to some extent, terminals and tank containers. And also, for those of you who follow the U.K. taxes, the government has approved an increase in the corporate income tax rate in the U.K. And that has caused us to increase the deferred tax liabilities at our Dagenham terminal by $1 million. That brings us to a net profit from continuing operations of $33.5 million and up, as Niels mentioned, from $7.8 million. Moving to the next page. This is a pictorial view of the balance sheet. If we start with the top 2 quadrants to the left and right, those are bank covenants that we have in our most of our loan agreements. And you see the top left, the debt to tangible net worth is driven by -- on one hand, our debt levels, which at the third quarter ended at just over $2.5 billion (sic) [ million]. And on the other hand, the tangible net worth, which was at $1.67 billion (sic) [ million ]. That has resulted in a debt to tangible net worth of 1.50. That's down from 1.59 in the previous quarter, and we would like to see this trend continue as we go forward. Top right is the EBITDA to interest expense. EBITDA plays an important role here. But this quarter, we have seen both a reduction in interest expense and an improvement -- slight improvement in the EBITDA and therefore, the ratio has gone up from 3.7 to 3.9x. Now if you look at the bottom right, I mentioned the EBITDA development. We are -- we did have a very good quarter. Typically, the covenants are run on a 4-quarter rolling basis. So we had a significant quarter. The third quarter 2020 drop off from the covenant calculations, but an even stronger quarter, this quarter. So that's why we're able to bring through the improvements. Our run rate for EBITDA has now been relatively steady, hovering around the $500 million mark for the last 4 to 5 quarters. So that's positive to see. And this is even though we haven't seen a significant improvement in any way from tankers yet, which is the biggest division. So then going to the bottom left. Net debt to EBITDA. You can see the net debt difference from the top left is really our cash position of $146 million. So net debt is down at $2.37 billion (sic) [ million ] against the EBITDA puts the ratio at 4.7x. Moving on to capital expenditures. The first 3 quarters are the actuals year-to-date, which total was about $172 million. The third quarter was not very significant in terms of capital expenditures. We have on paper that we're going to spend some $63 million in the fourth quarter. Typically, we do see a little bit of that move over to subset to the next fiscal year. If we are able to do it all, then we will end up having spent $235 million this year and that's really redundant between terminals that postponed a lot of capital expenditures from last year to this year as well as the 3 CTG ships that we bought in the first quarter. And then next year, we expect to see this drop down to $144 million, and that includes a significant jetty rebuild at our Dagenham Terminal in the U.K. Moving on to our cash flow and our liquidity position. You see on the top line, there is a good improvement in our -- the cash generated by operating activities. We started the year very slow, but the third quarter saw this accelerate. We're still trailing year-to-date last year versus year-to-date this year a little bit, but we are on the good momentum. Interest paid is down, as you see, about $12 million, $13 million. But I need to remind you that typically, the big interest payment quarters are the second and fourth quarters as some of the loan facilities we are on -- are on 6-month interest payments. Going down to the net cash generated by operating activities is an improvement of $75 million, mostly driven by operating activities, some of it related to the reduction in working capital. Then you can see we had a low month on capital expenditures, $30.2 million this quarter. The difference from what I showed you on the previous slide of $27 million is related to dry docking of ships. So in total, we spent $30 million. We also had the proceeds from the sale of the assets of $10.2 million brings our net investing cash spent on investing activities to negative sort of $20 million. That's down from $31.5 million. So not a significant drain on our operating cash flow. Then there was a very quiet month from a refinancing perspective, as we didn't take out any new financings this quarter and ended up seeing a reduction in debt of some $76 million from a cash perspective. And that's net of FX brings us to an ending cash balance of $145.8 million at the end of the quarter, up from $122.3 million last quarter. And if you look to the bottom right, we have some liquidity available. And you will see that now for -- as we ended the third quarter, we were about $450 million just shy of this quarter, up from the previous quarter. Moving to the next slide, you see our maturity profile, and this is what is keeping our corporate finance team led by Julian Villar, very busy. As they continuously keep on putting in better loan agreements in place. The next big maturity that we have is really not until the second quarter of 2022, which is a Japanese operating lease maturing secured by tank containers and a further similar transaction maturing in the fourth quarter. And in between those 2 in the third quarter of 2022, we have our fixed rate dollar bond of $174 (sic) [ $175 ] million maturing. Our plan for refinancing this is going to be through operating cash flow through refinancing those Japanese operating leases. And if needed, we will also put in place further secured financings. We are following the bond market. We are interested in keeping a presence in the bond market. We would like to perhaps bring that presence down a little bit. But we are, of course, keeping an eye on that, and you see that also as an alternative. In the bottom right, you have our average cost of debt. And you see this has come down steadily as we have renewed our loans as we have also seen interest rates drop, but also because we have reduced our dependency on the bond market, which tends to be a little bit pricier. Mind you, this excludes the leases that as part of IFRS 16 have become part of the balance sheet. So this is really a more traditional financing, but it does include the Japanese operating leases. It does include the sale leaseback deals that were done on ships. So it's been a very good trend. And if you look at what that means in terms of annual savings, it's about $11 million in annual cash savings. And with that, if I could...

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

Thank you. Yes, we made a slide highlighting the returns that we're trying to provide to the shareholders. If you look at the last 20 years or since 2000, this company has cumulative dividends returned to the shareholders since 2000 has been around $1 billion. We have consistently paid dividends every year since 2005. Last 5 months -- last 12 months, the dividend yield has been 5.6%. On the bottom right, you can see, the last 20 years, the dividend yield, if you were sitting on Stolt-Nielsen shares was 4.5%. Our dividend policy -- and we already received the question in regards to what dividends we can expect going forward? Our dividend policy and the way the Board looks at it is that we look at the current earnings and the future prospects, looking at the market conditions and also the capital structure and the CapEx commitments being able to continue to grow the company and maintain our market share or market position all of that takes into consideration how much dividend we can pay out to the shareholders. But we keep on reminding ourselves that the reason that we're here is actually to provide a return to the shareholder. And we are doing that quite steadily. As a shipping company that might have been -- we've only been in a shipping company that might have been difficult, but because of the conglomerate structure where we're enrolled in terminals, tank containers, fish and tankers, we have been very stable and we're very consistent with our dividends. Historically, the last 20 years, we have been paying $1 dividend per share per year. And that is our intention to go back to that as soon as possible. So we'll see how the year ends, but I wouldn't be surprised that we will go back to a normal dividend of $1 per share. The last 2 years, I don't know -- last 2 years, we have given $0.50 per share. Then going to key messages to wrap it up. We're seeing improved profitability in the quarter, was driven by Stolthaven, STC and Sea Farm. The chemical tanker market remains challenging, though good progress will be made in the underlying efficiency as Lucas mentioned. The building blocks of the tanker market recovery and early signs with the crude and CPP market is with us. It looks favorable. However, short-term market uncertainties remain, the supply chain challenge and the easing of the Covid-19 restrictions are still uncertain how quickly the market will go back, the world will go back to normal. Stolt-Nielsen, as I said, is committed to delivering competitive cash returns to shareholders. And we are a very strong underlying market fundamentals across all our businesses and our conglomerate structure and stable capital structure position us well to capture the upcycle. That completes our presentation. And now we will be going to questions. And I can start by reading some of the questions. I think you are also able to call in.

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

So I think, Jens, can you talk a little about the announcement in regard to the cancellation of the treasury shares?

[Jens F. Gruner-Hegge]

Yes. Treasury shares are shares that are owned by SNL. It owns its own shares. These are shares that do not have voting rights nor do have economic rights. And we had up to recently 10.6 million treasury shares in place. If you look at the overall capital structure, just to put it in perspective, Stolt-Nielsen has 65 million common shares as authorized share capital. We had issued 64.1 million shares, an outstanding number of shares were about 43.5 million shares. The difference between the 64.1 million and the 53.5 million are those 10.6 million treasury shares, common shares that were held in treasury. We have previously used this for various funding activities. We felt now that with the outlook in the markets and with our financial position, that we could cancel a good portion of those. We're leaving 5 million common shares as treasury shares in case there should be some interesting opportunities that come around. But in effect, what this means is when we have our AGM, it will still be 53.5 million common shares that are eligible to vote at the AGM. So there's no change to that. When we calculate our earnings per share, that will still be based on the 53.5 million shares. So there's no change in that. But what it does change is the number of shares overhang, if you like, that are held in treasury that we can quickly turn around and issue back into the market. So as such, it's a good thing, I think, for the existing shareholders and that you really reduce that overhang.

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

Thank you, Jens. There's another question here, which is Stolt Tankers. Within Stolt Tankers, is it correct that the higher trading results versus the second quarter result of 8.6, is the result of higher rates under the COA contracts that has been renegortied in previous quarters and not by higher spot rates?

[Lucas Vos, President Stolt Tankers]

Shall I?

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

Yes, go ahead, Lucas.

[Lucas Vos, President Stolt Tankers]

Yes, I'll take that. Yes, that is correct. So I did say that the spot rates were higher than the previous quarter, and that is a fact, but they're not compensating for the higher bunker costs. So the improvements that we see are driven by higher volumes than we had in general, but also by the higher contracts that have been negotiated in previous months. So yes, it's correct.

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

And there's also another question in regards to emissions, Lucas. Emissions from shipping to be included in the EU ETS from January next year. Have you made any reflections on what impact this might have on Stolt Tankers' contract and earnings?

[Lucas Vos, President Stolt Tankers]

Yes. So this refers to the proposal from the commission, which is called Fit for 55, which includes shipping and some other sectors as well into the ETS regulation. And the -- it's not January next year, but it should come into effect January 2023 and building -- sort of a staggered buildup until 2026 when it will be in full effect. As I said, it's still a proposal. It's not yet approved by the European Parliament or by the national government. And that still has to be done, but we also still then have to see what it means for the different shipping segments. If it stands right now, the way it stands right now, it would penalize our -- the chemical tanker business more than some of the other shipping companies because we use some of the fuel as well for the complicated ships that we have. It's not only the propulsion, which is for many of the ships but we use it clearly also to operate the complex machinery that we have. The impact for Stolt tankers really will depend clearly on the level of the carbon price. Right now, it stands at sort of $60 per tonne. And that would mean that as of 2023, it will ramp up cost-wise, for us something around $25 million or so, which is a lot of money, but if you compare it to our revenue, it is -- to the matter, it's still a lot of money. So we are starting discussions with our customers to see how we can absorb this together into the supply chain. What we will be doing, even though it doesn't come into effect in 2022, but only in 2023, we will already now put into our contracts, clauses around CO2 taxation. Why? It's because the expectation is that it's not only going to be Europe, but that the U.S. will follow and the China will follow. And so yes, this will leads to a good dialogue that we need to have within the industry and totally with our customers.

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

One more question to tankers, Lucas, can you say anything on expectation and recent developments in COA rates? Further -- approximately how much of the COA portfolio is due for renewal in the coming quarters?

[Lucas Vos, President Stolt Tankers]

Yes. It's always a heavy contract season when you get to the end of the year, so around 50% to 60% of the contracts are coming up. As I said, we are quite bullish on 2022. So that's also how we'll approach the contract market. And as I stated in the presentation, right now, we have a coverage ratio of 70%, but that's not a sacred number. I wouldn't mind to be a little lower, meaning that we can better benefit from the spot rate increases in 2022. But as I said, a big chunk of the contracts are up for negotiation in the coming 6 to 8 weeks.

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

Thank you. Then I have a question in terms of Tank Containers. Demurrage revenue was high in the third quarter. Can we expect this to remain at the current levels into Q4? And on -- or do you expect it to come down toward normal level? As I mentioned in the slide, I actually think that it might even go up because we will be charging higher demurrage rates because of [indiscernible] customers to turn the tanks around as quickly as possible. Revenue per shipment per container was up quarter-on-quarter. Can we expect this level to remain high? Or will it fluctuate with the container market rates also going forward? High level activity and the high container rates have driven the revenue per shipment in third quarter. We expect higher container rates to persist in 2022, which started to be supported to the revenue per shipment.Let's see, do we have any other questions? Is there anybody that is on the -- is it possible to dial into? Anybody online and would like to ask any questions or any questions that we haven't covered? I have one here, sorry. It says any meaningful progression on finding strategic partners for Stolt Tankers and/or Stolt Sea Farm. Any progression on finding strategic partners. Well let's just told, but Stolt Tankers, I've said it on several occasions that I think that a step towards a sustainable industry in the chemical tanker segment is further consolidation. And that's why we are looking at doing an IPO. We would like to separate our Stolt Tankers at the right time, as you can see from our balance sheet, we don't have to do anything. We are in a very flexible situation, but it is our wish -- it is our intention at the right time to do an IPO in Stolt Tankers so that we can pursue further consolidation opportunities where Stolt-Nielsen doesn't have to pay cash, but we can use Stolt Tankers on balance sheet to pursue such deals and making that a more transparent stand-alone company. For Stolt Sea Farm, we're not really looking for -- we did -- and I'd like to remind the market, the reason that we went and explore the opportunity to do IPO for Stolt Sea Farm, it's not because we want to sell the company. We think that this company has the biggest growth potential amongst our businesses. But we felt that if the market is willing to pay or price or value land-based recirculation farms like they were late in 2020 and early 2021, it is our obligation to see and kind of make the underlying value to mix more transparent. We explored. We didn't feel that the valuation that we were -- given us an indication that we weren't able to achieve. So we decided to stop the process. Doesn't mean that we won't try again, but I think it's only helpful for us that we continue to deliver on what we said that we will deliver and prove to the market the potential both for land-based and turbot. So we -- for the time being, it's on hold, but we will keep an open mind and maybe pursue at a later stage. I just been told -- this is a tough one, Lucas. How sensitive are the 2022 tanker rates took recovery to the MR rates? Good luck.

[Lucas Vos, President Stolt Tankers]

Well, it's not necessarily a tough one, but because there is a strong correlation between the MR rates and the -- what's happening in our tanker -- in our tanker segment then. So then you would have to look at how confident are we about the recovery in the MR market. Again, there -- they have the same dynamics on demand and supply, which is very favorable for that segment. Also there is an increased scrapping ongoing because of the higher steel prices. So that bodes well. But it will all come down to the fact on 2 things basically that OPEC starts to ramp up its production and it's feeling a lot of pressure from the different world economies right now. And the second thing is that the COVID regulations will be scaled down even further particularly the fact that for Interjet fuel needs to move again. So when we again and the jet fuel will go, that will help that segment to go out of our market. So yes, there is a big correlation between our rates and the MR rates, but we also think that the underlying fundamentals are okay in the MR markets with a big question mark around the COVID regulations.

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

Got any new question, which I think applies partly to Stolt Tankers and partly to Stolt Tank Containers. Can you address the issue of marine transportation delays in terms of the impact on shipments, specifically of liquid chemical? What kind of delays is Stolt experiencing? How long the situation with regard to transport -- in regard to port congestion continue. I don't think we are seeing any pickup in the port congestion for chemical tankers. And the reason why we're seeing inquiries of our tank container customers coming back. First, they need to find a storage tank at our terminals and then see if they can ship that product in our chemical tanks. The reason for that is the port congestion caused by the container lines. And that is very much driven. Well, we've always had historic congestion amongst the major ports, especially on the West Coast of America, but it's very much driven by the pandemic where there is -- you can imagine, there is -- there hasn't been a lot of investment in container port capacity, but at the same time, because of the pandemic if one dock worker test positive, the whole shift has to go into isolation and that reduces the capacity. The other part is also, of course, the shortage of lorry drivers or truck drivers. That is not only an issue in the U.K., which we are currently experiencing here, but it's actually an issue in all of Europe and all of North America, where it's become -- it's been difficult to attract enough people to pursue a career as a lorry driver or a truck driver. So those combined issues where you have less capacity due to the constraint because of pandemic in the ports, plus the truck drivers. I foresee that this will continue for some time. So until all COVID restrictions are lifted, I think that we will continue to see port congestions. And that -- Lucas, a new question, how will the new IMO regulation impacts Stolt Tankers and the chemical tanker fleet in general, both with regard to EEXI and CII, please?

[Lucas Vos, President Stolt Tankers]

Yes. I think it's a bit similar to the previous question. EEXI, of course, is about the fleet currently in the water and improvements we would need to make that to make sure that they are allowed to remain in the water. As we have a slightly fleet that is -- average age is a little higher. It will have some impact, but we are putting already the measures in place to make sure that we can still continue with those ships. In general, I think IMO, I wouldn't mind if they take a little bit more leadership on this issue. We feel that somehow they are being passed by, by the different national and higher regulatory bodies like the EU. And I'm not loaning this by voicing to say that the IMO should really take on -- take back leadership when it comes to the sustainability development of shipping in general.

[Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen]

All right. Thank you very much. We have answered, I believe, all questions. Thank you very much for participating and listening in. And hopefully, we will join us again on the fourth quarter earnings release. That completes our presentation. Thank you very much.

[Lucas Vos, President Stolt Tankers]

Thank you.