DHT Holdings, Inc.

Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining DHT Holdings' fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. I am joined by DHT's president and CEO, Svein Moxnes Harger. As usual, we will go through financials and some highlights before we open up for your questions. The link to the slide deck can be found on our website, dhtankers.com. Before we get started with today's call, I would like to make the following remarks. A replay of this conference call will be available at our website dhtankers.com until February 16th. In addition, our earnings press release will be available on our website and on the SSC Edgar system as an exhibit to our Form 6-K. As a reminder, on this conference call, we will discuss matters that are forward-looking in nature. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations about future events as detailed in our financial report. Actual results may differ materially from the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements. We urge you to read our periodic reports available on our website and on the SSC Edgar system, including the risk factors in these reports, for more information regarding risks that we face. Our balance sheet is in excellent shape. The quarter ended with 126 million of cash, and in addition, the company's availability under our evolving credit facilities was 234 million, putting total liquidity at 360 million as of December 31st. Financial leverage is about 19.4% based on market values for the shifts, and net debt per vessel was 11.8 million at quarter end, which is significantly below current scrap values. Reflecting on the strong freight market and our competitive cost structure, EBITDA for the fourth quarter was 95.4 million, with net income at 61.8 million equal to 38 cents per share. Affects for the quarter was 19.9 million and included some periodical variations, mainly related to stores and spares. G&A for the quarter came in at 2.8 million. In the fourth quarter, the vessels in the spot market earned $63,800 per day, and the vessels on time charter made $36,100 per day. On average, the achieved TCE for the quarter was $56,900 per day. The first three months of 2022 was more or less breakeven. Net income for the full year came in at $62 million, equal to $0.37 per share. DHT continues to show a very stable and competitive cost structure, and OPEX for the year was $73.8 million, equal to an average of $8,250 per day for the fleet. On the next slide, we present the cash bridge for the quarter. We started the quarter with $65.7 million of cash, and we generated $95.4 million in EBITDA. Ordinary debt repayment and cash interest amounted to $9.5 million. $4 million of new debt was issued in connection with the refinancing and $7.5 million was allocated to shareholders through the dividend payment. In December, we prepaid $23.7 million of long-term debt and the quarter ended with $125.9 million of cash. In the fourth quarter, we entered into a $37.5 million refinancing of DHT Tiger with Credit Agricole. The facility is repayable in quarterly installments of $625,000 per quarter, with a final payment of $22.5 million in addition to the last installment in December 2028. The new loan bear interest at a rate equal to SOFR plus 205 bits, which is equal to LIBOR plus 179 bits. As mentioned on the previous slide, in December, we prepaid 23.7 million under the Nordea credit facility. The voluntary prepayment was made for all regular installments for 2023 and reduces the company's cash break-even levels for the year. In January, we entered into a $405 million secured credit facility, including a $100 million uncommitted incremental facility. The new facility will refinance the outstanding amount on the ABN AMRO credit facility and is secured by 10 of the company's vessels. The facility is repayable in quarterly installments of $6.25 million, equal to $625,000 per vessel with maturity in January, 2029. The new loans bear interest at a rate equal to SOFR plus 190 bps, which is equivalent to LIBOR plus 164 bps. The mentioned refinancing of the Credit Agricole and the ABN AMRO credit facilities are in line with DHT style financing. which includes a 20-year repayment profile and a six-year tenor. Subsequent to these refinancings, DHT's weighted average cost of outstanding debt and revolving credit facilities is equal to LIBOR plus 177 bps. With that, I will turn the call over to Swain.

Thank you, Reina. We announced our new dividend policy last year. With our strong balance sheet and no new building capex, we simply think our new dividend policy to distribute 100% of net income to be good business. And as promised in our last earnings call, we are showing you the money. Based on the 22 fourth quarter financial results, we will pay 38 cents per share as a quarterly cash dividend on February 24, to shareholders on record as of February 17. In connection with our new dividend policy, we will on a regular basis inform the market on how much our ships have made on a time-chartered equivalent basis. This advice will be released shortly after every quarterly close, so well ahead of our quarterly financial results. Additionally, we will at the same time advise of bookings made to date for the subsequent quarter. The purpose is to be transparent and to guide on our SHIB's earnings, thereby assisting you all in setting out your expectations for our financial results. We are here updating you on our bookings to date for the first quarter of 2023. As you will see, we expect 510 days to be covered by our term contracts at an average rate of 33,900. We expect to have 1,390 spot plays for the quarter, of which about 66% has been booked at an average rate of 66,400 per day. Combined, as of today, this indicates bookings of 75% of the total days at weighted average earnings of 48,400 per day. In the last line, we are estimating the spot P&L break-even for the first quarter, allowing you to model a net income contribution based on your own assumptions for the unfixed spot dates. You saw a dip in the freight rates towards the end of last year. and there were decent resistance levels reflecting on the underlying market balance. And based on what we see now, we expect rates to improve for the balance of the quarter. We think our plan for guiding to make good sense in relation to our new dividend policy. On this slide, we are sharing our estimated breakeven levels for the year of 2023. The estimated P&L breakeven for the fleet as a whole is about 27,200 per day. This includes the increased annual depreciation of 7.2 million related to our retrofit program for exhaust gas cleaning systems. When adjusted for the fixed income that we have, the P&L breakeven for the spot fleet is about 25,400 per day. The estimated cash breakeven for the fleet as a whole to be 18,100 per day, with the spot chips requiring to make 14,200 per day for the company to be cash neutral. Keep in mind that our cash breakeven numbers include all true cash costs, i.e. OPEX, G&A, maintenance capex, cash interest, and debt amortization. This illustrates a headroom of about 9,000 per day between cash breakeven and net income breakeven levels for the fleet. with these potential cash flows being allocated to general corporate purposes. Here we provide you with an update on our project to retrofit the remainder of our fleet with exhaust gas cleaning systems. We have to date completed two of the retrofits and there are two currently at the yard. Another two will enter the yard later this quarter and the final two early in the second quarter. The project is developing according to plan, both from a cost perspective and in terms of planned off-fire days for the ships. The fuel spreads are holding up well, resulting in premium earnings for ships with systems installed. We are not facing any operational issues and are pleased with our decision to fit the last batch of our ships with these systems. Following this, our entire fleet will be fitted with exhaust gas cleaning systems. Additionally, these ships are attracting increased interest from customers for long-term charters. There are very favorable fundamentals in our market, and we expect these to have legs resulting in good earnings for the tanker sector. We see the early innings of the impact of China's reopening. The size of the now second batch of crude oil import quotas for refiners in China suggests expansive domestic demand requiring increasing refinery runs. Non-OPEC supply is growing, supporting longer haul transportation. Additionally, geopolitical events are disrupting certain trades, reducing the productivity of the larger fleets. This disruption is not expected to disappear anytime soon. And as we all know, there's hardly any new supply or ships coming in. The VCC order book now stands at 2.2% of the sailing fleet. The older part of the fleet is growing quickly with about 14% of the fleet being older than 20 years of age and 30% being older than 15 years. These numbers will expand rapidly over the coming years and at the time when regulatory requirements are expected to result in reduced speed for a good part of the fleet. An increasing number of ships are engaged in trades either partly or fully sanctioned. This fleet is also referred to as the shadow fleet. Although these ships currently serve a purpose in the greater markets, we find it hard to believe that they will stay in business over time. or ever return to the compliant market. We believe this could be viewed as the new scrapping. In due course, our expectation is that the fleet will start shrinking over the next couple of years. So, going forward, our plan is clean and simple. You should expect continued strong discipline in executing our business model and strategy. We have a great team of people in a no-nonsense company culture, all focused on delivering safe, reliable services to our customers and strong results for our shareholders. We are tuned for rewarding times with a quality fleet of ships all in the water, a rock-solid balance sheet, premium revenue generation and a low-cost structure. We think returning 100% of net income to shareholders could be fair and square and good business. And with that, we open up for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. We will take our first question, and the question comes from the line of Evan Koldgaard from Clarkson Securities. Please co-ed, your line is open.

Hi, Anne, thank you. So I noticed you had a debt capacity this quarter by 100 million. So could you talk about a bit about your leveraged position? And in general, would you be willing to increase debt on your existing ships to pay for the extra portion on potential new investments?

Our investment strategy is very much counter-cyclical. By building the balance sheet that we have done and likely will continue to do, this of course forces the company to have investment capacity when we find the time to be right. The core of this is that we should hope and want to expand at the right time organically, i.e. without having to rely on new or external capital to do it. So if we can have a balance sheet that has the capacity to invest, those investments will be highly accretive to our owners. So that is the simple plan.

Okay, and a small follow-up. You still have a few older vessels in your fleet, which have seen quite a significant increase in value. So how do you look at these assets today, and how is your decision process in making divestment decisions now?

I think it's unlikely that we will divest additional ships at this juncture. These ships are really high quality ships. They are used to service our customers. They make good earnings and we expect them to continue to make good earnings in this tanker market going forward. So they are not sales candidates anytime soon.

Okay, thank you. That's it for me.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of John Chappell from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning or good afternoon. Two quick ones for you to find, one on DHT specific and one on the broader market. Just to DHT to be clear, I think the payout ratio is perfectly clear and makes a ton of sense given your balance sheet and where we are in the cycle right now. But Does that make fleet expansion and or modernization kind of an unusually exclusive decision? Or do you still have the capabilities, whether it's through adding finance or, you know, the part of the cash flow, not the net income that you're not paying out, to consider that?

Two things to that. I mean, this is a very relevant question. So, Of course, our balance sheet with the current leverage ratio has capacity to increase the debt level if you like to make investments. But we do find that the current asset prices are sort of too high to our liking to invest. So there's no immediate urge to do that. But in due course, that is the way we are building investment capacity. As he also tried to illustrate on the deck, there is meaningful difference between net income and break-even and cash flow break-even. So we will be able to continue to build some level of funding that can be used for either investments or even further deleverage if we have to. So let's see how all that plays out. you know, the size of our balance sheet is quite meaningful, and I think you should expect us to have the capacity to make a splash, if you like, when the time is right, and then there's more also clarity on shape designs.

Okay, that makes sense. On the market, this cycle is like no other. You know, usually the LCCs that kind of lead the recovery, both from a timing perspective and from a magnitude perspective, and that certainly hasn't happened this time around. Given the fact that a lot of the ton-mile expansion has been mid-size driven, and the fact that OPEC is maintaining their cuts through this year, how do you foresee the historical relationship between VLCCs and mid-size crude playing out over 2023 and the longer term?

Of course, these past sort of nine months in particular has been annoying, if I can use a modest word, being a pure-play VCC company. But I think over time, things tend to sort of normalize because cost of transportation do matter for the customer base. And, you know, maybe not a quick fix this, and the smaller ships might still have an edge in the near future. But keep in mind that VCCs tend to transport almost 50% of seaborne crew And, you know, most of the new oil coming to the market this year is in the Atlantic. And it's really for also big clients, new large refineries in China in particular. So we don't think all of this is going to go on smaller ships. And it's really inefficient after this. And it creates problems in ports, you know, with turnaround, you know, and some level of congestion, et cetera. So I think there is a desire at least for, some of the big clients to continue to use the big chips for sure. It's hard to say when this will go normal again. As I alluded to here in the comments, we don't think the disruption is expected to disappear in the near immediately. It will continue for a little while longer. It doesn't mean that these will not make good money. As we saw in the first quarter, we had some fixtures well above $100,000 a day in the mix. And I think it proves it's certainly possible. It's not being hampered by the smaller asset classes.

Okay. Thanks, Simon.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the next question comes from the line of Omar Nocta from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Hi, Devine. Just wanted to follow up maybe on John's question. We've seen some fits and starts of the VLCCs over the past six months or so, a strong run up in the fall, a pullback here back in December, January, and some momentum here the past couple of weeks. Can you maybe just give us a backdrop of what's been driving some of this volatility in your eyes and then what you think is in store for this market over the next few months? Just some big picture perspectives.

I think some of the volatility was related to imports to China, Chinese buying of crude in the fourth quarter. So we see this is sort of back on again. And in the last couple of weeks, the rates are up some 10 plus world scale points and it's still moving. And the US Gulf to the Far East trade is up at least a million. And that's also still moving. And it's really buying crude and planning for this, and we think it's related to the reopening of China. And if you look at the quotas being put in store now, not only for the crude oil import, but also for refined oil export, there are still strong numbers for both, but there is somewhat of a dislocation in the favor of imports. And I think the only way you can read that is that they expect domestic demand to expand quite meaningfully in China. And that is going to continue to drive rates for the big ships up, we think.

Okay, thank you. And then, you know, you mentioned the Atlantic Basin just in your earlier comments. You know, the SBR was a big driver of volumes late last year, but we haven't seen any real, I don't think there's been any SBR releases this year. Is that affecting VLCC cargo demand out of the U.S. Gulf? Or is that not yet translating into any reduction in volume?

Well, it did, of course, have a positive impact in sort of teeing up to the beginning of the fourth quarter. But US production is expected to increase. And you see that Europe, of course, are taking some of those incremental barrels in these cities. Those used to go on small ships. So you have a number of our ships trading to Europe, which are two to three to four port discharge. So I don't think you should, it's not only about SPR, it's just about, there's demand for that oil and production is going up, although not by big numbers. But Brazil is up, North Sea is up, Guyana is up, so there's other areas, not just US.

Okay, yeah, thanks for that, Svein, and just maybe touching on West Africa, that was also a bit of a, or that was a bit of a laggard last year, although there's been some positivity here recently. Are you seeing any increase in volumes in that region?

Not really. It's been sort of sideways. I think that they certainly have the potential to ramp things up if they can, for lack of a better word, get their act together on many fronts. So there's been a lot of disruptions and difficulties there, but they have the ability within OPEC quotas to increase production. I think where the oil prices are, they have all the financial or commercial incentives to make it happen as well. So we can only assume that they are working on trying to make it happen. So, yeah, let's see.

Okay, good. Well, thanks, Brian. I'll turn it over.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Chris Sung from Weber Research and Advisory. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, Stein. How are you? Good, thanks. I wanted to just touch on your scrubbers program. It looks like you were able to complete two of the eight, and you have a few more now sliding to Q2. I was just curious, is this a function of where the spot market was in Q4, availability at the yards to retrofit these vessels, lining downtime with their dry docking schedule, just trying to get a sense of what's going on there?

Yes, so the rates were very strong in the fourth quarter, so we had the opportunity to take ships to the arcs in November if we wanted to, but we decided to push it back. These voyages are quite long, so you quickly go a couple of months out or three for your next position. Two completed in the first half of January. We have two in the arcs now that will come out shortly. and then another two going in in sort of early March, and the last two we expect early on the second quarter. And as I said, the off-fire time is according to plan. We plan for 30 days per shift. We're probably slightly improving on that, but that's sort of early days. We don't see really any challenges with the yard in terms of capacity to get these things done, so it's not driven by that in terms of yard capacity.

I see. Perfect. Thanks for the color. And just, I noticed that, you know, I think there's a consensus view there that, you know, the tanker market, the tanker fleet, sorry, is shrinking, as you presented in your earlier remarks. Like, what would it take for you to invest in fleet expansion? And also, would you be more interested in new builds or a process like a used vessel?

If we are to buy ships in the water, they have to be of eco-design. I built in 2015 or later because they have a superior fuel economics to their older siblings. At some point, we will also look at new buildings, but there we want to have more clarity on what type of fuel our space is going to consume in the future. So we are in no rush to order anything. Of course, lastly, we want prices to be more in our favor before we deploy capital. So we do think we have 23 ships in the water, all moneymakers, and the company will certainly be profitable on most forecasts now, only in terms of earnings. So it will be steady as it goes.

All right, perfect. That's it for me. Thank you, Sean.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Anders Karlsson from Kepler Chevrolet. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. I was just wondering, you said in your comments that you see an increase in interest for the vessels that you hit for discoveries for period business. Are you contemplating to do additional term business or are you happy with the mix that you have between spot and term at present time?

It's part of our plan to build more fixed income. You want to build that book in a measured way and take one step at a time. Liquidity is also super deep, but there is an increasing number of clients now asking for term contracts. The tenants are also getting longer and rates are going up. You should expect us to eventually build more fixed income. But there has to be the right chip, the right counterparty, the right structure, the right model, all that. So it's not as quickly done as fixing a small chip.

Okay. Any guidance in terms of what would be your ideal mix in terms of the sample capacity and duration?

So I gave you a simple answer. So the higher the rates are moving, the more we will be willing to fix for longer. So we are sensitive to the money, right?

That's fair enough. All right. That's all for me. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Robert Silvera from RE Silvera and Associates Marine Surveyors. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Well, thank you, gentlemen, for taking my call, first of all. And I wanted to compliment you. You know, we consider ourselves long-term investors. And I watched a few years ago when your long-term debt was over $900 million. And because of the way you've run the company and the rates that surged back aways. You've brought it down to about under $400 million, which I think is an amazing achievement on your part of good management. We, as shareholders, look at the $0.38 dividend and the fact that it's 100% of the earnings as nice and generous on your part. But we would personally like to see you issue like half of that dividend and the rest of it go again to prepayment of debt. Because of the things that are going on in the interest rate markets, I don't see interest rates going down particularly in a hurry again. And that this company... gets stronger and stronger with the minimum of debt minimizing the debt and it will put you in that position you spoke of strategically to move when the time seems right to move because you'll have a rich cash position and a balance sheet with very very little debt so that's where we're coming from and is there any chance that you would shift to a position of increasing the debt reduction rate?

The dividend policy we announced last year is quite fresh, but we spent a lot of time thinking about how to frame this, in particular to the point that you are raising here, that we have a comfortable capacity to continue to reduce our debt. As you might see from this report, in addition to paying out 100% of the net income, we also did an extraordinary prepayment of all the amortization of one of our largest facilities. We did that in the end of the fourth quarter. So that's just continuing to work down the balance sheet even further. And also, as I said, there's about $9,000 a day difference between the P&L breakeven and the cash breakeven. And that, depending a bit on offer days and dockings in the air, but that is in the tune of $70 million. And that capital will be allocated for general corporate purposes, which could be investments. It could also be further debt prepayments. And in the cash flow breakeven, that includes the ordinary debt repayments, which for this year, 2023, is 30 million. So we try to be wise about it. It's not the only way to do things, but we think we have sort of struck a good balance here that to continue to work on the balance sheet, whilst at the same time reward our shareholders.

And I agree, you have done a wonderful job. I'm just encouraging you to give a little less dividend and more debt reduction. I think it will pay off in the long run. The share price will definitely go higher with the lesser debt. Also, I have a question about your reference to parent. I didn't realize we had some sort of a parent. And could you explain that? for me a little bit more color on what is your reference to the parent in the report.

I didn't refer to a parent, so maybe my pronunciation of another word was bad or maybe the line was a bit crappy. So in what context did you hear the word parent? You don't have any parents.

Well, let me read it to you. It says attributable, this is in the profit loss after tax, and it says total comprehensive income slash loss for the period attributable to owners of non-controlling interest and then attributable to the owners of parent. And I'm just asking for clarification. What's the parent?

In this context, DHT Holdings, Inc. is the parent. So it's no other parent. It's DHT Holdings, Inc.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Well, just keep on doing the great job that you've been doing. We've been with you for years, and we're really pleased. I think you're one of the best crude oil shipping companies in the world, in my opinion, and in the company's opinion. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for the kind words and the encouragement. Have a good day.

You too.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Jeffrey Scott from Scott Asset Management. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. I don't mean to get into a debate with the prior caller, but you rightly point out that you have $125 million approximately in depreciation expense non-cash, which is available for debt repayment and or purchase of new ships. And so there's plenty of debt capacity if you pay out 100%. My question has to do with the policy itself. When the announcement was originally made, it was effective immediately, right? If all things change, if it were to change to something other than 100%, would that change also be effective immediately, or would that change be announced and effective after a six-month period or a 12-month period or a 24-month period or some other time frame? So the question is really, if it were to change, could it be done effectively immediately? Thank you.

That's a good question. So I think, you know, bearing sort of a major curveball in all markets and our business and whatnot, then I think to change this new policy, it would have to be in the context of some big strategic changes or a strategic move or a big M&A transaction where you need to phrase things differently. And if that is the case, I think we need to give the market and our holders a good heads up well in advance as opposed to say starting next week. So that's just the general thinking behind that. But it's been sort of our ambition all along to try to build a company that has the ability to really reward holders with generous dividends. Part of that is also to have low leverage. That's the sort of pillars of what we're trying to build. We don't want to be a company that is viewed as turning quickly from left to right and not have visibility for our owners. I think there was one person who told us some years back that, what's wrong with you guys? You're just doing what you said you were going to do. And we took that as a compliment, and it's still with us. All right.

I have nothing but compliments. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. And we will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Michael Beale from Devonport. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning. I'd like to go back quickly to the dark or shadow fleet. What do you estimate the size of that fleet is? And presumably, we define it as ships owned by Russian interests. And can you comment And perhaps it's speculation it to one of the longer term ramifications of this ownership. Uh, do you believe that they will behave in the marketplace like someone who is a commercial operator? Or do they have a little different agenda that may cause them to ultimately make the market tighter, worse? Uh, can they weaponize this ownership of critical world infrastructure?

That's a big question. There's some nuances here in the Shadow Fleet. You have the trade that is fully sanctioned, being transporting crude from Venezuela and from Iran. And then you have what is partly sanctioned and also by some companies self-sanctioned, which is the transportation of Russian crude oil. And we have seen in the last six to nine months in particular a significant amount of funds being made available to companies in Dubai that are either owned maybe, whether it's owned by Russians or other people, there's a lot of variation there. But the source of funds is really the key for us in understanding what drives this. And we do have a sense that a lot of these businesses that are buying older ships are funded by Russian capital in some shape or form. And they are buying these ships to transport Russian crew. And they do that at a significant premium. So they make more money than the compliance market is doing. So there's a significant commercial incentive for them in being willing to do that in itself. Whether they have any sort of political agenda or military agenda and stuff like that, frankly, I don't know. In terms of size, we saw earlier this week one of the largest trading companies in the world suggested that this shadow fleet is moving up towards 600 ships in total. And this is not only the ECTs, obviously, so it's also SUSEMAXs, AFRAMAXs, and... and product tankers that are transporting refined products. So this could well be, and I'm sure they're very careful about this because they are big users of ships, so they're probably monitoring this space to great detail to avoid being entangled in something undesirable. So it's becoming a big deal, frankly. Maybe the politicians that have set out current sanctions were so aware of this that it would happen, and it's an acceptable collateral damage, if you like, by trying to achieve the other things of depriving these countries of revenues related to selling oil. There are some flag states here that are registered on a number of these ships. uh we question whether they are actually uh following up uh the ships that are registered and whether they are complying with the laws and regulations so there's a lot of murky stuff going on and uh we just can hope that the politicians that you know set out these uh these strategies related to sanction also try to start to pick into these issues because there's also going to be safety concerns, and I would wonder if we suddenly have a big old oil tanker with 2 million barrels running around in a space that is also close to where people live. So, say, for the sake of argument, the Singapore Straits, for that matter, or, you know, West Indian Coast, or in the middle of the Arabian Gulf, or whatnot. So, that is, sadly, maybe that's what it takes for this to get up on the attention span of politicians.

Okay. Murky. I think that's a good word to sum all that up. Thank you very much. Thank you for your question.

There seems to be no further questions at this time, so we'll hand back for closing remarks.

Thank you very much to all for following DST and we wish you all a good day.