Frontline - Q3 2022

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2022 Frontline Ltd. earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, CEO, Mr. Lars Barstad. Please go ahead.

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Thank you very much. Good morning and good afternoon to you all. Welcome to Frontline's third quarter earnings call. It's quite gratifying to be able to report from a corner of the market that sees the spectacular earnings these days. I have jokingly referred to tankers as a safe haven during market turmoil. Well, it's proven true the last 6 months. In the third quarter, we saw all the asset classes Frontline trade starting to perform. I say starting as there has been some water under the bridge since end September. There are 3 key headlines I will talk more about later in this presentation. Crude and product displacement due to the sanctions on Russia, Chinese imports starting to re-recoup lost terrain from COVID-19 lockdowns, and the U.S. export situation.

Before we get to the third quarter financials and what lays ahead, let's have a look at the highlights on slide three in the deck. In the third quarter, Frontline achieved $25,000 per day on our VLCC fleet, $41,100 per day on our Supramax fleet, and $40,200 per day on our LR2/Aframax fleet. So far, in the third quarter of 2022, we have booked 75% of our VLCC days at a solid $77,200 per day, 76% of our Supramax days at $65,400 per day, and 70% of our LR2/Aframax days at a cool $58,000 per day.

Again, all numbers in this table are on a load-to-discharge basis and will be affected by the amount of ballast days we end up having at the end of the quarter. It does hint to an okay Q4 regardless. If we quickly jump to slide 4 in the deck, I'll repeat a few key points on the Frontline fleet composition. We, and I just want to remind kind of all the listeners that we continue to have one of the youngest and most energy efficient industry. We have received a few new buildings during the year, and there are 2 more to come in January on the VLCC side. Post delivery, and post installment of scrubbers in Q4 and Q1, we'll have 21 of our 23 VLCCs will be fitted with a scrubber.

On the Supramax side, 21 of our 29 Supramaxes are fitted with scrubbers, and on the LR2s, 4 out of 18. As you can see on the right-hand side there, the average or the spread between kind of the eco scrubber segments and the non-ecos looks to have shrunk, but they haven't really. It's just that the absolute rates have increased, so it looks less prominent now. A VLCC or an eco VLCC fitted with a scrubber will earn $24,200 per day compared to a non-eco, non-scrubber. The same relationship is at $30,500 per day for the Supramaxes and $12,300 per day on the LR2s. I'll let Inger take you through the financial highlights.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Lars, good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We can turn to slide 5 and look at the income statement. Frontline achieved total operating revenues less the voyage expenses of $209 million and adjusted EBITDA of $148 million in the third quarter of 2022. We report net income of $154 million or $0.69 per share and adjusted net income of $82.9 million or $0.37 per share in this quarter.

On the right-hand side of this slide, we have shown the adjustments made this quarter, which consist of a $15.8 million gain on derivatives, a $5.7 million share of results from associate companies, a $0.3 million amortization of the acquired time charters, a $2.8 million gain on insurance and other claims, and a $47.1 million gain on marketable securities. The adjusted net income in the third quarter increased by $40.7 million compared with the second quarter.

The increase in adjusted net income was driven by an increase in our time charter equivalent earnings due to higher TC rates in the quarter, partly offset by an increase in interest expense as a result of higher interest rates and an increase in administrative expense as a result of costs in relation to the proposed business combination with Euronav. The board of directors announces its intention to declare and pay cash dividend in respect of the third quarter of 2022, only after the tender offer has been completed. This dividend is expected to be in the amount of 80% of adjusted net income for the third quarter of 2022. Payable to record holders after the completion of the tender offer in 2023. Let's move to slide 6 and take a look at the balance sheet.

This quarter, the total balance sheet numbers have increased by $184 million. The balance sheet movements in the third quarter are primarily related to taking delivery of one newbuilding VLCC, the Front Stratus. The increase in carrying value of the shares held in Euronav, the increase in all the current assets due to increase in voyages in progress and trade accounts receivable, and also the net income in the quarter. As of September 13th, Frontline had $406 million in cash and cash equivalents, including undrawn amounts under our senior unsecured loan facility, marketable securities and minimum cash requirements. Let's take a closer look at slide 7. Cost comparison with peers.

Keeping costs down has always been in Frontline's DNA, and the core values of the Frontline platform is to keep it simple and focused and maintain a lean and efficient management team. This slide shows that we outperformed our peers in terms of lower OpEx and interest expense in the third quarter. On D&A, one peer is lower than Frontline this quarter due to increase in administrative expenses as a result of cost in relation to the proposed business combination with Euronav. I think we should move to slide 8. Cash break-even and cash generation potential.

We estimate average cash cost break-even days for the remainder of 2022 of approximately $25,000 per day for VLCCs, $20,200 per day for Supramax tankers, and $17,200 per day for LR2 tankers which with a fleet average estimate of about $20,900 per day. The fleet average estimate includes drydock of 2 vessels, 1 VLCC and 1 LR2 tanker in the remainder of 2022, with an impact of about $380 per day. Sorry. We recorded OpEx expenses including drydock in the third quarter of $8,800 per day for VLCCs, $7,500 per day for Supramax tankers, and $8,900 per day for LR2 tankers.

We drydocked 4 vessels in the third quarter, one VLCC, one Supramax tanker, and two LR2 tankers. The graph on the right-hand side of the slide shows free cash flow per share after debt service and free cash flow yield bases current fleet and share price, November 29 at alternative TCE rates. Based on historic character and TCE rates for non-eco vessels in the period 2,000 to year to date 2022, we adjusted for premium from scrubbers and eco vessels. Frontline has a free cash flow per share of $2.37, and a free cash flow yield of 18%. Free cash flow yield potential increases with higher assumed TCE rates and also on a fully delivered basis. With this, I leave the word to Lars again.

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Thank you, Inger. Let's start to dig into the tanker markets. If we look at slide 9, the headline I've chosen this time is this the start of a new bull market? Global oil supply is back to 2019 levels, around 100 million barrels per day. EIA in September reported 101 million barrels per day of production and 100 million barrels per day of consumption. Global crude oil exports reached 40 million barrels per day during the third quarter. This is approximately 40% then of global production that moves kind of to the oceans. This is a normalized situation for tankers. Oil in transit, though, moved significantly up, reaching the high of 20.

You can see this on the chart, at the bottom left here, where global crude oil exports is around or about 40 million barrels per day. The yellow line, global oil in transit, is actually flirting with the levels we saw in Q1 2020 when Saudi and Russia were engaged in a crude oil price war. The explanation for this is to a large extent, around the situation, with sanctions on Russia. I'm gonna come back to that. I would like to note that laden days are only up 10% year-on-year, whilst the load-to-load, distances, meaning the distance between a ship loads a cargo until it gets to its next cargo or engagement is up 20%.

If you look at the chart on the right, and this is important, right now in particular, as we, you know, we're overwhelmed with news of OPEC, news of Russian sanctions, news of absolutely everything. People tend to forget that China is actually starting to move. So Chinese oil imports are on the rise. They're actually up 1 million barrels per day in Q3 alone, and it's a steep trajectory. Preliminary numbers for November tells us that Chinese crude oil imports are in fact up 3 million barrels per day from the bottom in July. As I'm gonna come to, kind of a bit later in the presentation, is that time charter markets and asset prices are on the move. Let's move to slide 10 and look at the new trading patterns.

The somewhat confusing graph at the bottom left-hand side, you will see that European imports of oil and products from Russia are down 1.4 million barrels per day year-on-year. This is November last year compared to this November. This shortfall is to a great degree replaced by imports from U.S., Latin America, and Asia. If you look at the two kind of under the European import, the two blue columns on the right, they amount to 1.3 million barrels per day. The products and oil that comes from Asia is three times the length of the travel distance than from Russia. What comes from America or Americas or Latin America is at least two times further afar than Russia.

We've seen exports from Russia to the same extent, same path to Europe, to Asia, and you'll find the orange column under the Russian headline is 1.3 or 1.4 million barrels per day, equating to what Europe is replacing. Mind you, Europe continues to import 3.2 million barrels per day from Russia, and we're now facing the kind of increased sanctions represented by the price cap. After 5th of December, the jury is still out on how this will play out, but these flows may change even further. If you look at the chart on the right, U.S. have played an important role kind of in the last 6 months of the year by adding volumes to the market through their SPR releases.

It, it is the fair in the market that once this SPR release finishes, you know how much volume will we lose or capacity will we lose out of the U.S. In the bottom chart on the right-hand side, I've tried to do this a little bit simplistically, and I know a lot of people would be able to arrest me on this. The gray area is U.S. net export. It's basically U.S. exports and I basically deduct the SPR release. We all know that the SPR is not connected to the ocean. The SPR feeds the U.S. refining system, which on the other hand has the capability of exporting more. What we've seen is that despite the SPR release, the outright or the net exports from U.S. has actually increased, and particularly so lately.

I would also say that the jury is still out of how significant the fall in U.S. exports are gonna be once the SPR stops releasing barrels. If we then move to slide 11 and look at the assets and the TC markets. As the spot markets move, so will the time charter rates and the asset prices. There has been, and there still is a hectic activity in the time charter market for tankers. This is as charters try to seek cover. With the current order book and the fundamentals for oil, there is an increasing interest for tonnage. I didn't write it, but it's almost like there is a fear for not having the capacity to freight oil going into the future. Resales are now pricing higher than contracting, and this is due to the timing of available yard space.

If you look at the chart at the bottom left here, this is resale values as quoted. The dark blue one is for VLCC resales. It's actually a little bit under where it's the actual market is. The last kind of whisper number on a VLCC resale is $130 million for a scrubber-fitted prompt delivery. A new order will be delivered in 3 years at the earliest, so this basically puts a hole in the whole kind of delivery chain of freight capacity, and this is a worry to people that are short freight. As the conviction in the current rate environment grows, rates will follow. I had an interesting discussion with a investor the other day, and we discussed the current fundamentals, and he suddenly realized that this could actually last, and what then?

Kind of a funny one is if you look at long-term historicals, and I was even surprised by this myself, the weighted tanker sector earnings are now at levels last seen in 2005. The reason for this is obviously that the Aframax, the, and the LR2 segments are making far more money than they have ever previously. This is not a typically unusual market for a VLCC. It's a high market for Supramaxes, but an astronomical market for Aframax and LR2. The current resale prices, we haven't actually seen these levels for 14 years. Let's move to slide 12 and look at the Tanker order books. This is at least half the explanation for why we are here. On the top, left-hand chart there, I've tried to kind of lump together the asset classes that Frontline are exposed to.

Namely, the VLCC, the Supramax, and the LR2s. If you just sum up the number of vessels that are currently over 20 years, and where we argue that your trading efficiency is not only limited, it's almost impossible in the compliant tanker market. That kind of pile of ships amounts to 163 vessels. The order book for the same segment stands at 92, and that order book is to be delivered over the next 2-3 years. This relationship does not make sense. If you wanna really make it ridiculous there, you can just add some of the 303 vessels of these asset classes that are currently over 15 years, and whereas almost half of them will reach the 20-year threshold whilst the existing order book delivers.

I think half this recycled pool order book ratio, I kind of think I invented it myself, anyway, it's an interesting one. Let's move to, from slide 12 to slide 13, and just a few comments on the Frontline Euronav combination. As you know, kind of, anything and everything around this combination is obviously quite sensitive. I just want to go through the steps and the Frontline relocation comes first, and it's in process, and post that will launch the tender offer. A lot of analysts and market players have asked us about these delays. These are regulatory-caused delays. The process of moving Frontline to Cyprus, from Bermuda to Cyprus, has proven complicated. There are lots of regulatory bodies involved, and they use time.

We continue to be committed to this process. However, the launch of the tender offer has slipped to Q1 next year. The outcome remains the same depending on how much support we get in the tender offer. If we get above 75%, we will have a merger or move for a merger. If we are between 50.1 and 75%, we will form a group. Frontline will gain controlling interest in both scenarios. Let's then move to slide 14 and try to sum up what we discussed. The ton mile story continues, and further inefficiencies are expected post December 5th. The global crude oil exports are now at pre-COVID levels, and oil in transit continues to be very firm. The order book to recycle pool ratio at unprecedented levels.

The order book is around 5% of the existing fleet, and then I'm only speaking about the segments we are exposed to versus 9% is in the so-called recycling pool. The markets are, in fact, pricing in limited fleet supply, both in the spot market, in the TC market, and also on assets. In all this, Frontline has a modern, efficient spot exposed fleet and as history unfolds and winter is in fact upon us now. With that, I'll say thank you and open up for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, please press star one and one if you would like to ask a question. We will now take your first question. One moment, please. Your first question comes from the line of Omar Nokta from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Hi, Lars. Hi, Inger. Good afternoon.

Speaker 5

Good afternoon.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks for the update. Obviously very, you know, very exciting times across the tanker space. Wanted to ask obviously on the, you know, the latest topic you had in the presentation about the merger. Maybe just on the re-domicile from Bermuda to Cyprus. I know obviously there is regulatory issues there. Does that require ultimately a shareholder vote to do or can that be done in the ordinary course of business?

Lars Barstad (CEO)

No, it will require a shareholder vote.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. That will. All right. Then when you think, and I hate not trying to back you into a corner, but when you think about the tender offer timing in the first quarter, you know, based off of the dialogue you're having with the different authorities, can you see that happening? Is that more of a January event, or do you think that happens more in March? Any way you can handicap that for us?

Lars Barstad (CEO)

It's, it's almost impossible to answer. As, as we've proven, the timing With the kind of the filing of relocation has obviously taken unexpected long time. We remain positive and optimistic. You know, kind of the documentation has been done in parallel here. We do hope that process will be far more efficient. In fact, we can file documentation for tender offer before the relocation is effective.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, thanks. And, yeah, thanks for that. Maybe just more about the market. Obviously, you were talking about the Aframaxes and the LR2s, you know, being at exceptionally high levels and at rates we haven't seen before historically. You know, how are you know, thinking about that segment right now? You've got those 18 ships, two of them I see are on those attractive longer term contracts, but the remaining 16 or so, how are you trading those? Are those in the clean trades, or some of those shifted into dirty?

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Well, they... Kind of the majority of them remain in the clean. I think last quarter, I mentioned that we had 6 out of 18 trading in dirty. Now that number is temporarily 7, basically because one ship was often offered a cargo it couldn't refuse. Overall, you know, I think kind of you need to look at this in two dimensions. One is kind of the general macro or macro, whatever, change here, where refining capacity has increased further away from key demand centers. The COVID-19 pandemic was a death blow to quite a lot of refining capacity in Europe and some in the U.S. That's kind of the-- that underpins, you know, a fundamental change in trading patterns, and that's here to stay.

Obviously this has, you know, been turbocharged with kind of the inefficiencies surrounding the sanctions on Russia. Europe is dependent on or has been dependent on quite significant product imports from Russia, in particular diesel, and this now needs to be sourced from elsewhere. It's causing a kind of refinery margin environment that we haven't really seen before, or at least not in a very long time. I think kind of short term that, you know, will continue. We can actually expect these, you know, super inflated clean rates continue. In the longer term, we have this kind of fundamental change in the dynamics that will kind of help this market going forward, but maybe not to the same kind of elevated state we're seeing right now.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Got it. Thanks, Lars. I'll pass it over.

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now go to our next question. One moment please. Your next question comes to the line of Chris Robertson from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Chris Robertson (Senior Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. This is Chris on for Amit.

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Hi, Chris. Good morning.

Chris Robertson (Senior Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Yeah, I just wanted to talk about the dividend for a moment, not as it stands today, but maybe in the future. Lars, you talked about maybe a stronger for longer scenario here with rate strength. I'm just curious on with 80% of adjusted net income for the dividend for 3Q, how should we think about that going forward as we get closer to maybe 2030, as there's maybe more technological clarity around future fuels, things like that? Would there be a change so that you could have more cash on hand as dry powder for either pursuing additional growth opportunities or pursuing a fleet renewal in the future?

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Well, I, you know, it's a good question. I think if you point to history, Frontline has had, has the tendency to actually pay out dividends. Then you'd use other means of financing in order to finance, for instance, investments in new tonnage and so forth. The only times where we have kind of kept back from paying a handsome dividend has been in a situation where it's been clearly that the markets have changed fundamentally. I don't know if that kind of answers your question fully. I would like to say though that 80% of net income is in line with what Frontline historically pays when we make money.

It's our key ambition to give our investors more or less directly the cash we make. I think that's the normal conduct of business.

Chris Robertson (Senior Analyst)

Yeah, that's fair. I guess just as a follow-up, you know, I think that's the million-dollar question, as you mentioned, is will the market fundamentally be different as we approach 2030 as compared to today? It seems like there's quite a few years runway here with the current order book and everything else going on. Then once we get closer to the end of the decade, that's kind of the question I was trying to get at is.

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Yeah.

Chris Robertson (Senior Analyst)

How different is that market?

Lars Barstad (CEO)

No, I'm sorry, Chris, but it's, you know, it's a very good question, and you called it the million-dollar question. I wish I could answer it. You know, we at Frontline, we tend to be late adapters when it comes to kind of new technology, new fuels. We will always try and position ourselves towards kind of regulatory change and so forth. You know, execute best practice as far as we can. You know, the jury is still out. You know, most of our tonnage is, deep ocean, kind of, long-traveling ships. And as it stands right now, there isn't really an alternative energy source for these ships.

You know, it could be that if gas prices or LNG prices drop significantly, the econs of LNG propulsion could come back to compete. It's kind of difficult to envision it. I think, you know, with putting the long goggles on, you know, you have to, you know, keep in mind that at least the kits are gonna be more expensive as we proceed, basically because you need to make investments to reduce your carbon footprint. You know, I don't even dare trying to, you know, to put some numbers on that apart from kind of the general direction.

That, you know, but, you know, in all fairness, we have actually reduced, and we are kind of every year now committed to follow, kind of regulatory, you know, demands to reducing our emissions. We will do so. Obviously, after a certain point of time, the ships can't really go any further.

Chris Robertson (Senior Analyst)

Sure. Yeah, thanks for indulging the scenario and walking us through that. It's a great color. I'll turn it over. Thanks.

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. We will now go to your next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of Greg Lewis from BTIG. Please go ahead.

Greg Lewis (Managing Director)

Yeah. Hey, guys. Thank you, and good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. you know, Lars, clearly, you guys have been doing a lot of work. you know, thank you for the presentation. I did have some questions around, you know, the impact of the Russian crude embargo. Really, I guess a couple questions I have is, you know, as these volumes need to go farther afield because they're getting diverted away from Europe, what types of port restrictions are there, you know, from these export areas? Really, what I'm wondering is could there be the potential for, you know, in a place like the Gulf of Mexico, there's a lot of lightering and ship transfers as smaller vessels then move out to move oil on larger vessels for their final destination.

Is that something that logistically we should be thinking about happening, which probably further tightens the market?

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Yeah. It's, you know, first of all, it's a good question, and this is kind of evolving as we go along. I've, you know, I've previously been kind of talking a lot about the dark fleet of oil and the markets involving Iran and Venezuela. I'd say the Russian trade, I tend to refer to as the gray market because these are all good vessels that's sailing accordance to class and insured, you know, potentially in other markets than shipping normally does and so forth.

You know, what you're referring to here is that this largely inefficient trade which is going on now, will, you know, kind of grow and that you would use, kind of bigger tonnage, you know, to take, kind of benefits of volume of scale and so forth, at least if Asia is going to continue to take Russian crude. Yes, we're actually already seeing this, not inside the kind of, EU territory, but we are seeing other areas where STS operations are happening. The very concerning part of that is that not all of these areas are suited to do an STS and, you know, so safety and pollution risk increases.

We also seen there's been very high activity in the sale and purchase market or the asset market for kind of more vintage tonnage, which we are expecting to see kind of entering this market. I'm talking about the, you know, 17 to 17.5 or even 15-year-olds of Supramax and VLCCs that have been purchased recently that may kind of appear, you know, in order to make this trade a bit more efficient and to scale it towards the price cap coming in.

Greg Lewis (Managing Director)

Okay. Great. Thank you for that. My other question was more around, and you touched on it a little bit around the uninsurance or insurance. You know, realizing that, you know, every trade this has happened in the past, in parts of the Middle East and elsewhere. As I think about a cargo looking for insurance, I guess in the gray or the black market, I guess is that cargo generally speaking, are those cargoes insurable and really is it something that's usually provided by the buyer or the seller for the shipment?

Lars Barstad (CEO)

It's, you know, kind of the environmental risk, once the cargo is on board the ship is taken care of by the ship owner. You know, you're pointing to a very good question here. You know, kind of Russia has a big insurance market, like internal insurance market. Whether if that insurance market can underwrite this type of risk is obviously a big question. Kind of with this price cap, and we don't know how this is gonna play out. You know, we have received some indications from OFAC on how they kind of look to organize the price cap. We don't really know the fine details on how this price cap is gonna be imposed.

I'm saying that because there could be a scenario here where actually oil will be sold according to the price cap, and then actually the sanctions wouldn't apply. The western insurance market would actually be able to service it. You know, just to repeat, you know, there is the question mark. If this oil continues to trade in a manner where insurance is not certain, that's obviously a big concern and a problem.

Greg Lewis (Managing Director)

Yeah. Yeah, definitely interesting times in the market. Hey, this was super helpful. Thank you very much.b

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to you.

Lars Barstad (CEO)

Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for listening in. Exciting times indeed. Have a very good Christmas when that comes. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.