Frontline - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2023 Frontline plc Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star one one on your telephone keypad. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw a question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to a speaker today, Lars Barstad. Please go ahead.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Thank you. Dear all, thank you for listening in to Frontline's third quarter earnings call. To start off, I believe it's prudent to mention that Q3 this year started challenging, and remind the audience of July, August, and September, is normally called the summer lull in the tanker industry. The excitement in June did give us high expectations for the fall market, and although not jaw-dropping, we have seen worse. The tanker market continues to be firm, with risk rather on the upside than the downside, but there are many pieces to this puzzle. I will get to some of them in this presentation. Before I give the word to Inger, let's look at our TC numbers on slide three in the deck.

In the third quarter, Frontline achieved $42 per day on our VLCC fleet, $37,600 per day on our Suezmax fleet, and $33,900 per day on our LR2/Aframax fleet. We saw the more normal split between the segments, but this converged again as we progressed into Q4, with 81% of our VLCC days booked at $48,100 per day, 70% of our Suezmax days at $50,300 per day, and 70% of our LR2/Aframax days at $51,300 per day. Again, all numbers in this table are on a load to discharge basis, and they will be affected by the amount of ballast days we end up having at the end of Q4.

We would also like to highlight that these numbers exclude the 24 VLCCs that are delivered during this quarter and next. Further, as we can only account for revenues when a vessel is laden, the new vessels are not likely to affect the revenues for Q4 materially. I would now like to let Inger take you through the financial highlights.

Inger M. Klemp (CFO)

Thanks, Lars, and good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Then I think we can turn to slide 4, profit statement. Frontline achieved total operating revenues and net of voyage expenses of $232 million in the third quarter, and adjusted EBITDA of $173 million. We report net income of $107.7 million, or $0.48 per share, and adjusted net income and net profit of $80.8 million, or $0.36 per share in the third quarter. The adjusted profit in the third quarter decreased by $129 million compared with the previous quarter, and that was mainly driven by a decrease in our time charter equivalent earnings due to lower TCE rates in this quarter, which was partly then offset by appreciation in other income and expenses.

The adjustments in the third quarter consist of $17.9 million gain on marketable securities, a $1.7 million share of losses of associate companies, $400,000 unrealized loss on derivatives, and $11.1 million of dividends received. Let's then look at the next slide, slide five. Frontline has strong liquidity of $715 million in cash and cash equivalents, including the undrawn amount of our senior unsecured revolving credit facility, the marketable securities, and minimum cash requirements for the bank as per September 30, 2023. The current portion of long-term debt in the balance sheet at the third quarter includes $91 million from a loan facility due in the first quarter of 2024, which was refinanced in November 2023.

Then also $75.3 million related to the senior unsecured revolving credit facility, which we in October 2023 extended to the first quarter of 2026. We have no remaining new building commitments and no meaningful debt maturities until 2027, and we also have a healthy leverage ratio of 52%. Then I think we can turn to slide 6. We estimate average cash cost break-even rates for the fourth quarter of 2023 of approximately $28,200 per day for the VLCCs, $35,700 per day for the Suezmax tankers, and $17,100 per day for the LR2 tankers, with a fleet average estimate of about $24,200 per day.

The fleet average estimate includes dry dock of 7 Suezmax tankers this quarter, where one vessel only includes 50% of its dry dock cost due to docking in between two quarters, and also one VLCC in the fourth quarter. The cash break even rates, excluding dry dock cost, is estimated to be $2,000 lower or to $22,200 per day. We recorded OpEx expenses, including dry dock in the third quarter of $7,400 per day for VLCC, $7,500 per day for Suezmax tankers, and $7,100 per day for the LR2 tankers. One Suezmax entered dry dock in the third quarter and finalized in the fourth quarter. Q3 fleet average OpEx excluding dry dock was $7,400 per day.

Then lastly, let us look at slide seven, and how the acquisition of the 24 VLCCs is funded. As we can see from the slide, we will finance the purchase price of $2.35 billion for the 24 VLCCs with the bank facility of $1.4 billion, $252 million cash proceeds from the sale of the 13.7 million shares of Euronav to CMB, $49 million cash on hand, $99.7 million from our senior unsecured revolving credit facility, and also $540 million from the shareholder loan from Hemen. The ambition is to minimize need for cash from the shareholder loan through Frontline's capacity to re-leverage the existing fleet due to the historically low loan to value and or sale of all the non-fuel efficient vessels. With this, I leave the word again, Lars.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Thank you very much, Inger. As I started with, in the introduction, Q3 was a challenging quarter, and just so the audience on slide 8 can remind themselves, if you look at the three graphs at the bottom side of the slide, and you look at July, August, and September, you'll see kind of what state we were in. Despite this, we actually managed to turn quite a good return for this quarter, I believe. The big theme in Q3 was definitively the G7 Price Cap that came into force in earnest on Russian crude and increased scrutiny on the fleet sailing with Russian crude.

A lot of these vessels and owners decided to return to the non-Russian fleet, which increased supply basically competing with the Frontline fleet as we progressed through Q3. I think on the positive side, China continued to grind and in with record import volumes, and U.S. exports surprised to the upside, incurring very healthy ton miles. We got U.S. sanctions on Venezuela lifted. I'll come back to that later. We did see towards as we got into Q4, a growing political risk and the Israel-Hamas conflict. This has yet to affect the physical kind of trade of ships per se, but it's a security concern in respect of our seafarers, and it's also an operational concern when we sail through the area.

I've also mentioned earlier in presentations that we do have normal seasonality at play, now that we have kind of less amounts of black swans in operations in the market post-COVID. And then we come back to, which is very, very current, OPEC action, and OPEC's eagerness to balance markets. So on that note, let's move to slide 9. So I was actually just trying to check on Twitter whether if OPEC has actually come with a statement yet. But it seems that, you know, there is a lot of people betting on a 1 million barrel per day cut into next year or during next year, in addition to to Saudi Arabia's 1 million barrel voluntary cut.

I think, you know, it's prudent to remind the audience that OPEC output, production, and export, these terms are not kind of equal. Output and production is not exports. As oil demand is very firm, we also need to remember that OPEC is not the only supplier. Also, these production targets leaves room for individual nations to adjust their export levels. And exports seem to be more correlated to domestic demand among the large producers rather than kind of the stated OPEC targets. What we've experienced since August this year, for instance, from Saudi Arabia, is that their exports have actually increased. Also, if we look at an aggregated graph on the right-hand side, looking at all the OPEC producers, we've actually seen the same trend.

So as production is actually coming off in line with the adjusted targets, exports is actually increasing. And again, the reason for this is basically because the domestic needs for this oil, or for oil, has been reduced, which enables the various OPEC members to actually export more. At the end of the day, I believe it's oil revenues that is what really matters for these nations. And you know, we kind of commitment to balance in the oil market is probably difficult for OPEC, considering all the alternative sources of crude we currently have. With that, let's move to slide 10. And some of the tanker narratives. One thing that's quite surprising is, first of all, the stickiness to Russian exports amidst kind of a very stated policy against... Sorry.

Well, first of all, the market is quite surprised about Russia and the resilience of Russian exports against kind of a very firm policy on crude being purchased above the price cap. We've also seen Iran, who is still heavily sanctioned, managing to maintain their exports and even increase them as we come into the second half of this year. And then lastly, Venezuela is kind of the new entrance to the table, where U.S. sanctions have been lifted. Also, U.S. exports are at record highs, and they're increasing. With regards to Venezuela, we expect their exports to be able to increase by around 300,000 barrels per day, short term, basically to reach 600,000 to 700,000 barrels per day annually.

This is not a massive number, but if you look at just now, as we speak, there are 4 to 6 VLCCs on subs to lift Russian, sorry, Venezuelan crude, in late November and December. And this is actually a significant number of vessels then, that are not available to U.S. exports. So we believe that this will actually, to some extent, tighten up the Atlantic market. Then lastly, what we have seen, and I mentioned this before on seasonality, we've had 2.5 million barrels of refinery capacity, which is now back after the fall maintenance. And since a lot of this volume is directed to ocean-going oil, this is a significant percentage of the 42 million barrels of oil that is transported every day.

Let's move to slide 11. We've included in this presentation what we call the very long view. This is kind of an interesting observation, both from a products point of view, but also from a crude point of view. East and west of Suez, and how the pipelines of the ocean seem to be stretching. New oil production capacity and shale is being contributed from west of Suez. We've seen Brazil increasing production, we've seen new production coming out of Guyana, we're seeing Venezuelan exports increasing, and we see that shale continue to increase productivity. Same time, we're seeing a strong refinery capacity to be built up, or having been built up and to continue to be built up east of Suez.

This would benefit both crude transportation as feedstock into these refineries, and products trade would benefit from this development as this, the clean product or refined product will flow back west of Suez. And I think it's important to note that the future tanker capacity is not reflecting these projections and the trade extension whatsoever. Let us move to slide 12 and have a look at order books. We've gone through this slide every quarter now for quite a while, and, it's not materially changing, I would say. We see virtually no new orders for VLCCs over the last quarter, and the order book stands of 1.8% of the fleet. I think it's, at least in my time in shipping, it's the first time we're only looking at 3 VLCCs to be delivered next year.

This will affect the markets come Q1. Normally, you will have, I wouldn't say a wall, but you would have a significant amount of VLCCs being delayed from the previous year into Q1. This is also likely to affect the demand for LR2s, as a lot of these vessels on their maiden voyage will carry refined products. This will not be available in Q1 next year. We've seen both the Suezmax and the LR2 fleets increase but predominantly in 2026, and to some extent in 2027, most recently. This gives us an indication of that, the yards capacity to build in 2026 is waning, and we're now more focused to 2027. I've repetitively said this quite many times now this gives us quite a long time going forward where the fleet growth is expected to be muted.

Also, please keep in mind that the effective age of a clean trading LR2 is much closer to 15 years than 20 years. Lastly, on page 13, I thought I'd spend a little bit of time on EU ETS. As most of the listeners would be aware of, EU has imposed a tax or a fee, or whatever you call it, on carbon emissions inside the EU and in and out of EU, and shipping is to be included from the first of January, 2024. The EUA exposures on current voyages going into 2024 are already exposed. 100% of the emissions on voyages within EU and the EEA needs to be accounted for, and 50% of the emissions going in and out of EU and EEA will apply.

This scheme will cover 40% of the total emissions in 2024, 70% in 2025, and 100% in 2026. This is a fairly big change to how shipping is being orchestrated within the EU. For every ton of carbon we emit inside the EU or on our way or in or, or on our way out, we actually emit 3.2 tons of carbon. And this means that we need to buy carbon credits for each ton we emit. EUAs are easily available and can be traded through various exchanges. The European Union are the ones monitoring this, and we need to report, you know, during our or via our normal MRV reporting to the authorities. I think the headline here is that for the big question mark here, is our industry really prepared for this change?

At Frontline, we have decided to take a very pragmatic approach. First of all, we have a modern and energy-efficient fleet, meaning that we should be competitive as our emissions is most likely to be lower than our peers. We also have decided to look at this as an additional fuel cost. So basically put it into our voyage calculations and put it in our freight calculation. So it's basically an additional voyage cost. Also, our overall fleet, it's only 60% of our voyage days that are exposed to the EU ETS. But I think it's very important that this is coming basically around the corner. There has been some discussions in the press about this. There are ongoing discussions between charterers and owners on how we deal with this, from a charter party and a legal perspective.

Worldscale has already picked EU ETS into their Worldscale calculations. But how this is gonna end up when we start to see the same patterns develop, going in and out, with an and, evidently increased cost to the charter, or hopefully, I think, to the charter, I think it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out next year. And as I mentioned, we're already getting exposed because vessels that go into the EU for a cargo operation in 2024, and some of these are being fixed as we speak, will be exposed to the EU ETS. So let's move to 14 and go through the summary.

So tankers are performing, and if you look at the bottom chart here on this page, and I think this is important because we're obviously, you know, as I mentioned today, and I was quoted in the press, I would obviously love a lot of fireworks in the market. But if you look at the columns to the right, we are actually on average, you know, combined tanker fleet, including all the tankers, we are actually not doing too bad. So tankers are performing, and maybe now it's time for the VLCCs, at least looking at the most recent development in the market. Frontline has more than doubled its VLCC position, and we are gearing up for tighter fundamental. The fundamental backdrop remains.

We have decade low order books, and we have further extending lead times for that to be replenished. Frontline has, by this transaction, increased our operational leverage as global oil demand is expected to grow, and short and medium-term oil demand expectations are very good, and we're seeing that in the numbers. We have seen political risk increase, and this creates tension in the oil and the freight markets, but we believe Frontline's large modern fleets and very efficient business model is ready as these next chapters unfolds. Thank you very much for that. With that, I'll open up for questions.

Operator (participant)

... Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by, we'll compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now we're going to take our first question. It comes from the line of Jon Chappell from Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Jon Chappell (Senior Managing Director in the Transportation Team)

Thank you. Good afternoon. I have three kind of quick clarification questions, mostly. Lars, if I can start with you. So the slide on the output versus production versus exports is very interesting. Obviously, the exports have started to pick up meaningfully from August. But if I look at your quarter to date, bookings on the VLCCs just a little bit, only a little bit higher than what you did for the full third quarter, and you're also, you know, insinuating that because of the ballast days, that number comes in less than 48,000. So you know, probably even a shorter or more narrow outperformance relative to 3Q. What's been holding back the seasonal recovery in the fourth quarter so far for VLCCs, if the exports have lifted so meaningfully off the bottom in August?

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Oh, it's a very good question. It's a daily discussion point, you know, among us at least in-house in Frontline, because the general activity in the tanker market is extremely high. There are a lot of cargos being worked, a lot of fixtures being conducted every day. But, you know, quite a few players there are seemingly very happy with doing last done. I think kind of one way to explain it, and I'm gonna be quite frank here. If you look at Middle East as an export region, about 70% of the cargos going out of the Middle East are contracted. So it means that they're either under a COA or some form of time charter coverage.

The COAs are priced off spots, you know, the spot market, the spot spots. But it only leaves, like, kind of 30% of the cargos coming out into the spot market to be negotiated. And then if you look at the balance between the owners, you also find that quite a few of those 30%, owners that are appearing kind of in that market, don't necessarily have, you know, are very inclined for the market to go up. You know, it's either they're kind of, you know, they're both charters and owners, or for other reasons, they're not really that interested in fighting this market.

So it leaves us with kind of very few, well, to use the term, "real owners," that are there to basically hold back and fight for the next Worldscale points. And I think, I think kind of regretfully, the market has become more and more efficient. So, you know, when we have situations in the VLCC market where, you know, you would say, "Okay, this is gonna pop by five points because there's only one ship in position." Suddenly that one ship in the position does last done or two points below last.

Jon Chappell (Senior Managing Director in the Transportation Team)

Mm-hmm.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

So it's a very kind of the dynamics, it's very difficult to understand right now. On the Suezmaxes and the Aframaxes, I believe kind of, you know, it is explained by the increased scrutiny, particularly by OFAC on former Russian traders, which basically has increased the fleet supply in kind of this conventional market at a price of the indices.

Jon Chappell (Senior Managing Director in the Transportation Team)

Mm-hmm.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

So I think, you know, basically what you need to see is this market just need to grind for a bit longer before the tightness becomes evident. Lastly, we do still see a significant volume of oil being transported on ships that are totally out of IMO or insurance or legal or whatever kind of framework. So, you know, if you look at the population of ships that are above 20 years, and it was commented by one analyst in the morning meeting today, you know, you see a 1996 VLCC lifting Iranian crude, you do wonder, you know, why is this still going on?

Jon Chappell (Senior Managing Director in the Transportation Team)

Mm-hmm.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

So, I think, you know, that should answer both your and many other people's questions, I guess.

Jon Chappell (Senior Managing Director in the Transportation Team)

Okay. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. Inger, second one's for you, on slide seven. Completely understand the ambition to minimize the shareholder loan of $540 million, and I understand that there's opportunities to refinance and also potentially sell some non-core vessels. But your liquidity is $715 million. If I look at this chart, I assume that that $149, the cash on hand, $49, the $100 on the senior unsecured, is part of that $715. So that takes you down to $565 of liquidity, which would be more than the shareholder loan.

I guess the question is: why couldn't you use the existing liquidity, understanding you don't want to use every last dollar of liquidity, to bypass a significant portion of the shareholder loan immediately without being then reliant on, you know, vessel sales or refinancings?

Inger M. Klemp (CFO)

Okay. Yeah, as this is $715 million, that includes the shares in Euronav, as also it's a part of the financing of this transaction.

Jon Chappell (Senior Managing Director in the Transportation Team)

Mm-hmm.

Inger M. Klemp (CFO)

So we have to take that out first, at least. And then also this 715 includes the undrawn portion under the senior security revolving credit facility, where we have stated in this slide that we will plan to use about $100 million of. And also, of course, we need to have some cash on our balance sheet to support the operation and also minimum cash requirements. So I think you will find that we do need the cash of $540 million as well.

Jon Chappell (Senior Managing Director in the Transportation Team)

Mm. Okay. Last one, super quick, just understanding the dynamics for the fourth quarter. I think you were clear, the revenue from the 24 VLCCs, we shouldn't expect anything until January, when they lift their first cargo. Obviously, the interest expense would fall in December. What about operating expense and depreciation? Will operating expense and depreciation hit the profit and loss statement as soon as the vessels hit, and therefore, the revenue will be the only lag?

Inger M. Klemp (CFO)

Yeah. I guess what we talked about earlier today was that you could probably assume that as much as 15 vessels will be delivered in the fourth quarter out of this 24. Let's assume that one vessel is delivered every second day in December, then you will get to about 255 operating days in December for these vessels. So as you say, you will have operating expenses, of course, because from the very first day you take delivery of a vessel, that will start to accrue. You will also have interest expense on the loan drawdowns, and you will also have depreciation on the vessels. So that's correct. Yeah.

Jon Chappell (Senior Managing Director in the Transportation Team)

Okay. Thank you, Inger. Thanks, Lars.

Inger M. Klemp (CFO)

Bye. Thanks.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The next question comes from the line of Amit Mehrotra from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Chris Robertson (Equity Research Analyst and VP)

Hey, good morning. Good afternoon, Lars and Inger. This is Chris Robertson on for Amit. Just first question, Inger, for you. On slide 6, talking about the dry docking expected for 4Q. How have dry docking days kind of trended recently? I know that they were pretty elevated during the COVID congestion times, but are they around 30 days now per vessel, 35? You know, where does that sit?

Inger M. Klemp (CFO)

No, no, as the assumption for these dry dockings that we have in the fourth quarter is about 20 to 25 days for each docking.

Chris Robertson (Equity Research Analyst and VP)

Okay, that's helpful. And then, Lars, maybe a market question for you. Turning to China, Chinese oil import demand has been pretty robust this year, I guess, despite some economic issues and the property market issues going on still. What are you seeing in terms of today of Chinese oil product demand domestically, and what are your expectations around export quotas coming into 2024?

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Well, as you're absolutely kind of right in, you know, the economic headwinds that have kind of, you know, dominated the narrative around China hasn't really been noticed on the crude oil import side. And incidentally, it's actually the same case if you look at LPG and the and coal and iron ore as well, that you know, China is seemingly pretty healthy. I think over time here, China you know, oil and oil products have become more kind of a consumer good rather than an industrial good, potentially explaining some of this resilience. We're also seeing that China did u- ...

or at least, it's implicated, that they built a lot of inventories, kind of as we proceeded into Q3, but, which they're apparently drawing on now. On the product export side, I think kind of how this winter will bear with us is gonna be a key to that. Because we did see that a little bit last year, that with the fairly mild winter in the northern hemisphere across the globe, you saw that, China's kind of ability to export or willingness to give export quotas on product was pretty good, at the beginning of 2023. So I think that the last questions on product and product quotas is probably more a weather question than anything.

On the import side, we saw them just recently increase the import quotas of fuel oil, which is, you know, actually quite quite positive, in light of of kind of the fear of of China to to stop growing.

Chris Robertson (Equity Research Analyst and VP)

Got it. Oh, yeah, thanks for the color on that, Lars. I'll turn it over.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. And the next question comes from the line of Omar Nokta from Jefferies. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director)

Thank you. Hey, good afternoon. Hey, you know, Lars, I think obviously, as this call has gone on, we're starting to see headlines coming out that OPEC+ have agreed on a cut, and it looks like we're still waiting for the statement, but it appears 1 million barrels of incremental cuts. Now, we don't know if that's a cut or just a quota reduction, but just I guess, in general-

... you know, historically, there's always been this close relationship with VLCCs especially, that, you know, a cut is bad, a boost is good. That seems to have been challenged here over the past, you know, several quarters, I guess, and with your commentary in the presentation. But I guess, Lars, as you kind of think about it, how do you think that this market plays out here in the near term, if indeed there is 1 million barrels taken off the market? Obviously, it reads as a negative, but just big picture, what do you think this means for VLCCs and, say, the Suezmaxes, you know, over the next few months?

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

No, I, you know, I'm tempted to say it's flat out positive, but, but, you know, you can't really say that. I think kind of this notion of OPEC cuts and, you know, predominantly that happens, in and or around the Middle East. If you look at in a very historical perspective, this was when, the Middle East countries dominated, you know, crude oil exports in total. Now, the landscape has changed. U.S., South America, even the North Sea and West Africa, to some extent, is a big contributor to the ... I think there is no doubt that the demand side, is kind of east of the Middle East and east of Suez.

And then, you know, and I'm not the only commentator that has kind of said this, but this is in fact great news for U.S. fracking and great news for U.S. production. But then it will also then benefit the long-haul trade of crude oil. But I think, you know, initially, it's obviously a bearish sign. It do contradicts OPEC's very, very bullish stance on demand. So that's maybe something one needs to dig a bit more into. But you know, so number one, you know, assuming demand is gonna be the same, you need to source oil from elsewhere. But number two, also keep in mind that, as I mentioned, production is not necessarily exports.

And we do see that the Middle East and exports are actually more correlated to the temperature in the Middle East over the summer, when they do consume a lot for cooling, rather than you know the stated kind of production quotas.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director)

Thanks, Lars. I appreciate that. And I guess maybe it does feel perhaps that the. You know, as time goes on, we're gonna see more of that non-OPEC production start to fill the gap. I guess, you know, as you think about the 24 VLCCs coming on, obviously, you have those financed, and you've been pretty vocal about not needing to raise any equity to fund the transaction, and kind of went over the liquidity earlier, Inger. I guess, any updated thoughts on the need or potential willingness to want to issue equity, even though your leverage is still at 52%? Any updated thoughts on perhaps wanting to tap into equity just to de-risk the transaction?

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Not, not, not really, to be quite honest. I believe we're fairly vocal in this presentation. And Inger, you know, do clearly stated that, you know, we have capacity in our existing or old Frontline, to say, to use another word. We're also kind of looking to see if we can divest certain assets to maintain our very, very modern fleet. So, we, you know, I believe we have the same message as we did when we went public with the transaction. And we'll just continue that.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director)

Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to ask that. And then final one, just on the dividend. Obviously, you have the—I think I may have asked you this last quarter or maybe last month when you held the call, following the announcement of the deal. Just in terms of the dividend, you've had this unofficial policy of perhaps paying out 80% of earnings. You know, that was recently with a lower net debt gearing. How are you thinking about that dividend? Does that change percentage-wise once the deal is complete, and you're up to a higher leverage, or are you still comfortable with, say, that 80% being a good threshold?

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

As you rightfully say, we don't have a policy, but the expectation should be around 80%, and we will continue to do that as long as the market allows us to do that. This is why we don't really have a policy, because we don't want to be forced to pay out the dividend when it's not kind of feasible from a financial perspective, or in you know. This is basically at the discretion of our board. But you know, we have a main shareholder who is more interested in dividends than you are. I think you should expect that to continue going forward.

Omar Nokta (Managing Director)

Okay. Yeah, very good. Makes sense. Thanks, Lars. I'll turn it over-

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question over the phone, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we're going to take our next question, and it comes from line of Greg Lewis from BTIG. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Greg Lewis (Managing Director and BTIG Energy and Infrastructure)

Yeah. Hey, thank you, and good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for taking my questions. You know, Lars, I guess I had a question around, you know, as we look out at potential pockets of oil production outside of OPEC. Clearly, there's been some. Guyana has been a nice bright spot. You know, I'm kind of curious as, you know, as we look at South America, you know, what's your outlook on volumes from that? And then I guess there's been more recent headlines this week. Again, it's. They're coming at us in a million directions about Venezuela, potentially. I don't know, they're unhappy with what's happening in Guyana, and there's talk of invasion of Guyana.

You know, I guess my question is: what is—how much crude is hitting the international market from Venezuela today? How much is coming from Guyana? And if there's a disruption there, you know, what segments of the tanker market are probably gonna be most impacted by that?

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Well, the Venezuelan exports, and it's obviously strongly advocated by the U.S., you know, on relief on the sanctions. It's basically because the U.S. kind of refining industry or the crude slate, which is the word for that, do need these barrels. You know, they can't refine more shale, so they actually need this mix into the refineries. So kind of one would assume that most of this Venezuelan oil is then going short haul on Aframax and potentially through Suezmaxes into U.S. But what we've seen just recently is that there's a lot of VLCC cargoes being built up, and actually some of them are pointing towards India.

I guess the jury is still out on Venezuela. You know, Venezuela is, we're exporting between 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day prior to the sanctions getting lifted. It's expected, and this is not my number, it's what I've basically read in the press, is that they may might short-term be able to increase this to 300,000 barrels per day, or with 300,000 barrels per day. So they're gonna be in a 600,000 to 700,000 barrels per day, kind of, export capacity. You know, which portion of this is going to U.S., Europe or Asia is very, very difficult to gauge.

They do still apparently owe China $2 billion, for you know, that oil for loan kind of or financing deals that were done some years back. When it comes to Guyana, Guyana is producing and exporting because it's a small nation, they don't really consume anything, around 450,000 barrels per day. I think in the Venezuela-Guyana discussion, one could probably have some comfort in the fact that virtually all their oil production is owned by U.S. interests, so it's probably likely to think that the U.S. will help Guyana in protecting their sovereignty over these areas. But you know, it's very early days to speculate on that.

Operations are going as normal out of Guyana as we speak. But, I think kind of there is a you know, the bright spot here is that we have. You know, I think, you know, most analysts have been quite surprised by how resilient US production has been this year, and even going kind of above expectations, despite the lack of DUCs and the lack of CapEx and the lack of everything. And at the same time, we've seen that Latin America, there are more and more barrels being kind of squeezed out of the various basins there. So, we're kind of mildly optimistic about that development going forward.

Greg Lewis (Managing Director and BTIG Energy and Infrastructure)

Okay, great. And then as I think about the, you know, the queue at the Panama Canal, I mean, clearly that looks like it's impacting the smaller segment of the product tanker markets, just as we look at like, you know, North American cargos heading down to Southwest South America. Has there been any knock on effect on the LR2 market, just, you know, given that's where your focus is? You know, trying to understand, you know, these disruptions and I guess, you know, container ships have priority over product tankers, which is keeping product tankers more. I was hearing that you might even see some MRs go through the Strait of Magellan. Is there anything...

Is there any kind of knock-on effect that we're seeing there that's impacting the LR2 market?

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

I wouldn't say it's significant, to put it that way. And we haven't really... It's not that often we've been exposed to the Panama Canal. We've, on the other occasion, ballasted through from the other end. But it's not... Yeah, I would play down the impact, at least on the larger clean vessels, because we haven't really seen that tighten up the market very much or increase the ton miles, to be quite honest.

Greg Lewis (Managing Director and BTIG Energy and Infrastructure)

Perfect. So thank you for the time, everybody.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Thank you. Dear participants, just a last reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions at this time, and I would now like to hand the conference over to Lars Barstad for any speaking remarks.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Well, thank you all very much for listening in. And I wish you a pleasant day. Well, hopefully there is some. I've used the word fireworks. At least there's some firecrackers left in this market as we move into December. Yeah. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.

Lars H. Barstad (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Yeah. Have disconnected.