2/17/2022

speaker
Operator

Good morning and good afternoon to anyone or everyone dialing in. Welcome to Frontline's fourth quarter earnings call. We continued our stride through what ended up being a somewhat less exciting market than expected. Towards the end of the third quarter, we actually started to see a recovery in demand for freight as exports volumes grew, which was continued into the fourth quarter. But regretfully, it was not enough to move the needle in the vessel supply and demand equation to make a significant change in rates in absolute terms. So I think we'll just move straight on to the highlights on slide three. In the fourth quarter, Frontline achieved $6,500 per day on our VLCC fleet. $1,200 per day on our SUSEMAX fleet, and $13,900 per day on our LR2-Apramax fleet. So far, in the first quarter of 2022, we have booked 58% of our VLCC days at $21,300 per day, 65% of our SUSEMAX days at $19,600 per day, and 56% of our LR2 slash APRAmax days at $18,800 per day. All numbers in this table are on a low to discharge basis. And I was thinking, in order to make it clear to all listeners how we achieve these numbers when the benchmark indices are reported to show negative numbers, I'd like us to quickly move to slide four. So we've said time over again that Frontline has a large, diverse fleet of modern tankers. And it was kind of made clear to us today in a call this morning that we should elaborate further on this. The thing is, with these indices that are supposed to represent the market performance, these are based on a methodology that is somewhat old-fashioned, because a modern tanker will trade very differently from an older tanker. And the economics of a modern tanker, and if you add the scrubber, is extremely different now with the record-wide spread we have between high-sulfur fuel oil and low-sulfur fuel oil. So the fleet of frontline, the average age is five years. 79% of the fleet are ecovessels, and 54% of the fleet have scrubbers installed. If you look at the diagrams on the right-hand side of this slide, what we've done here is basically to take some benchmark indices that are classified for non-ecovessels, non-eco with scrubbers, ecovessels, pure eco, no scrubber, These are normally the vessels built after 2015, and an eco with scrubber. Based on the average in Q421, you can see on the VOC side that the non-eco, non-scrubber, non-nothing will achieve $5,400,000 per day, according to the index. But an eco with scrubber will achieve a premium of $12,500,000 per day, which is basically created by lower fuel cost. And it goes on on the SUSE, MAXIS, and LR2s. And it's this you need to keep in mind when you look at Frontline as a share. We both have a very modern fleet, and we have very low cash break-even levels. So with that, I'll give the word to RCFO, Inger Klepp.

speaker
Frontline

Thank you, Lars, and good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Then I think we should start or turn to slide five and look at the income statement. Dunbaran achieved total operating revenues, net of wage expenses of $101 million in the fourth quarter and had an adjusted EBITDA of $51 million. We report net income of about $20 million, or $0.10 per share. And adjusted net loss is about $5 million, or $0.02 per share. The adjustments that we have made in this quarter are different items. We have a $5.3 million gain on derivatives. We have a $0.5 million loss on marketable securities, a $5.1 million gain on sale of vessels, the recognition of the distribution from D&K of 13.4 million after tax, and also 1.3 million amortization of acquired time charters. So adjusted net loss then in the fourth quarter decreased by 31.1 million compared with the third quarter. And the decrease was driven by an increase in our time charter equivalent earnings due to the higher TC rates, and also by a reduction in ship operating expenses. This was partly offset by an increase in interest expense and depreciation due to delivery of three vessels in the fourth quarter. Let's then take a look at the balance sheet on slide six. The total balance sheet numbers have increased with about $130 million in the fourth quarter. The balance sheet movements in the quarter are primarily related to the ticking delivery of the LR2 tanker front feature and the VSC front driva and front tausta, in addition to ordinary depth repayments and depreciation. As of December 31st, Frontline has 181 million in cash and cash equivalents, including undrawn amounts under our senior unsecured loan facility. marketable securities and minimum cash requirements. Frontrun's remaining capex, new billing capex of $437.4 million as per December 31st is fully funded by the $390 million in committed debt and also by part of the net cash proceeds of $68.6 million through sale of four LQ tankers. The company has no debt maturities until 2023. Then, please Move to slide seven, cash breakeven and cash generation potential. We estimate average cash cost breakeven rates for 2022 of approximately $22,700 per day for the VCCs, $18,900 per day for the SUSEVAX tankers, and $16,000 per day for the LR2 tankers. The fleet average estimate is about $19,300 per day, and includes dry dock of 16 vessels in 2022, with an impact of $740 per day. The distribution of the 16 vessels is 5 ECCs, 5 Swiss-backed tankers, and 6 ERA-2 tankers. These rates are the all-in daily rates our vessel must earn to cover budgeted operating costs and dry dock, estimated interest expense, TC and bare-bottom tire installments on loans, and G&A expenses. We recorded OPEC expenses in the fourth quarter of $7,600 per day for VLCs, $6,900 per day for SUSEPACs, and $6,100 per day for LR2. And we dry docked one VLC and one SUSEPAC tanker in the fourth quarter. Then, the graph on the right-hand side of the slide shows the free cash flow per share after debt surveys and free cash flow yield basis current fleet and share price of February 16 at alternative TCE base. If we think about the slide that Lars went through on slide four, I think it was, with respect to how our fleet, based on ECO and scrubber adjustments, show a very premium TCE rates, that is also used in this slide. So based on historic Clarkson TCE rates for non-EKO vessels in the period 2000 to 2021, adjusted then for premiums on scrubbers and EKO vessels, Frontline has a free cash flow per share of $2.44 and a free cash flow yield of 32%. The free cash flow yield potential increases, of course, with higher assumed TCE rates and also on a fully delivered basis. With this, I leave the floor to Lars again.

speaker
Operator

Thank you, Inger. Let's move to slide eight and do a recap on the Q4-21 tank market. As you see the headline there, and we'll start there, oil in transit is approaching the heights of 2018 and 2019. If you look at the graph in bottom, and in particular the dark blue line where you have a red circle, you'll basically see the dots of volume of oil in transit gradually increasing throughout the fourth quarter. Just a small note, if you look at the yellow line on the left-hand side of the chart, that's actually January and preliminary numbers for February, where we are now. Global oil demand was estimated to have averaged 99.7 million barrels per day in Q4. And that's an increase of 1.5 million barrels per day compared to the third quarter. But we continue to draw on inventories, and this to the tune of 1.4 million barrels per day during the fourth quarter, as demand continues to outpace supply. And I'd like to make a comment there, because if we rewind 12 months when I was sitting here having this call, I was being very optimistic, and primarily due to the fact that we were expected to stop drawing on inventories in August, which basically boded for an interesting second half of the year. Well, that hasn't happened, and we've continued to draw way beyond anybody's expectation. Projected demand growth for 2022 will predominantly be non-OECD, if one believes EIA's numbers, and we're going to reach very close to 103 million barrels per day by the end of the year. The current oil price signals tightness in the market. There are production issues, or have been, in Libya, Nigeria, Angola, and overall, the OPEC Plus is over-compliant. This means that when they have kind of pre-decided production levels, they're actually not able to reach them. So basically, the unwinding of the OPEC plus cuts is going much slower than expected. But nevertheless, oil in transit has continuously risen since October 21, and it's now up 20% from lows. And this could be pretty directly equated to tank demand. So basically, tanker utilization is improving. Despite increased activity and these growing volumes, we have yet to reach the turning point for it. So let's move to slide 9 and look at the tank order books. And this is an obvious one. As vessels are delivering and no orders are being placed, the order book is shrinking. And we also have this very unusual situation where 6% of the global VOC fleet is now above 20 years. 2022 is indeed a large delivery year, but by the end of 2022, there will be more than 80 VOCs due for recycling in the same period. And we have a big question mark on net fleet growth in the end. as this plays out. Sue's max, same picture, the 12% of the fleet, or 72 vessels, are either above or passing 20 years in 2022. The LR2 order book is more populated, but again there, 15% of the fleet will pass 15 years. The thing with LR2s is that they're obviously used for lifetime. It's far more than 15 years. But in the clean trade, charters do not prefer a vessel that's older than 15 years to carry a clean cargo, basically due to the fear of contamination. So it means that an LR2 above 15 years will normally move or change to become an Afromax. The VLCCs through SMACS and LR2 order books stand at 8%, 7%, and 13% respectively. And more importantly, meaningful capacity for new tanker orders is now moved out to 2025. Let's move to slide 10 and dig a little bit further into the current fleet composition. And here I've been looking at the tankers that We are exposed to the asset classes that we hold. And as you all know, by 2023, IMO will impose new measures. We like to refer to them as tickets to trade. We're going to get refrigerator ratings on all vessels in the world. And for those of you who've looked at those, it's A, B, C, D, E, which is basically the range. And you need to be C or better in order to get the ticket to trade. The front end's own fleet overall weighted carbon intensity rating is A, based on the 2021 data. But if you look at the chart to the left, you'll see how many ships in the tanker fleet that firstly the ones that are over 20 years are challenged in the first place, 6% of the fleet. If you have the ones that will be efficiency challenged, basically we're facing an EEXI rating, which is below C, you can add another 17%. If you look at the non-ecos that do struggle to trade economically in the current oil price environment, you're getting up to another 29%. CII is mentioned a few times on this chart. And CII is a measure for a vessel's carbon intensity and its average emission per volume transported. A vessel's carbon intensity is important to charters who are going to charter the vessel if they have carbon footprint policies or when they have. This is also a relevant measure when we talk about carbon tax and the potential of shipping entering the European ETS training program. So basically, I think we all can agree that the global fleet of DLCC, SUSEMex and LR2s is somewhat challenged over the next few years. The most efficient measure you can apply in order to reduce your CII, as in carbon intensity, is speed. So basically speeding down will reduce your carbon footprint. But to deal with EXI, you would actually need to do physical work on your vessel. you will basically need to cap its ability to produce power, which ends up reducing speed as well. And it's important to note that at the front line fleet, we don't foresee any challenges with regards to maintaining the IMO projectory until at least 2025. So next. Let's move to slide 11. And thank you, recycling. This is basically a bit that's been missing in our market for a while. But with record high recycling steel prices, activity is finally looking to accelerate. The last two big recycling years were 2017 and 2018. Now, in 2021, we actually have seen 2.3% of the overall tanker fleet above 10,000 dead weight, which is basically a measure for the carrying capacity of the tanker fleet, being reduced by 2.3%. And we believe this trend will have to continue. The aging fleet is severely challenged in the compliant spot markets, and alternative use or opportunities for older tankers And this is typically for storage or conversion. It's virtually nonexisting. If you look at the bottom graph there, recycling steel prices, I, in fact, tried to find longer history to see if we've ever been at these levels. And I simply couldn't find it, at least in the history I could access. So we believe this combination of the regulatory challenges which I described on the previous slide. The very challenging market for non-eco vessels and the recycled steel price should produce a positive outcome for a tanker element. Let's move to slide 12 and look at frontline and how we are addressing the ESG. As I think I mentioned a few quarters back, Frontline started its project, which we call the decarbonization journey towards IMO 2013-2050. We started that in 2019 already. And the first thing we did, which we refer to as the veracity platform, was basically to find out where are we now. And this includes digitalization. This includes making us able to record live from every vessel we control and feed that into a database where we can analyze not only carbon, but also the speed and consumption and incidents from all our vessels, basically to find out where we are. When we had that in 2020, we started to plan for how do we prove it. Well, we have in the first place one of the youngest and most energy efficient fleet in and we're obviously at all times in compliance with increasing regulations, and we're making strategic initiatives towards decarbonization. We've, amongst other things, done successful trials of low-carbon marine biofuel. Frontline targets to reduce our carbon emissions by 3% per year, which equates to about 55,000 metric tons. The thing is, why this actually works is that it also automatically gives us an increased earning potential. And I don't think I need to go into depth that we actually, you know, we do share the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the CFER's well-being. We publish our ESG report, obviously, every year, which I encourage all the listeners to have a look at. We also, of course, do what we refer to as sustainability accounting, following the SASB principles. So let's move to slide 13 and try to sum it up. So demand and supply of oil continues to rise. The Omicron version seems to have a far more modest impact than we could have feared. Tanker markets have, in fact, recovered since Q321, but obviously to a modest degree, far too modest for our liking. And we're still challenged by oil supply not fully at pre-pandemic levels. Tanker recycling, as I mentioned in this presentation, is finally starting to make an impact on the vessel supply. And there is a lot of moving parts in addition. We've seen US SPR releases. There is now discussions about the OPEC strategy going forward. And we have the Iranian nuclear talks. So there's a lot of moving parts. Oil in transit continues to rise. Energy prices are at record highs. And oil is now flirting with 100 barrels per day. And how that's going to affect what I mentioned just now. with regards to the SPR releases, with regards to OPEC strategy, and with regards to the OPEC nuclear talks, sorry, the Iranian nuclear talks, is creating some very interesting dynamics. And last but not the least, Frontline's financial commitments are fully funded. And we've done so with a reduced overall financing cost. And we think we're well positioned as the story of this market unfolds. With that, I think we'll open this call for questions.

speaker
Sue

Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. We have the first question from the line of John Campbell from Iveco. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

speaker
John Campbell

Thank you. Good afternoon, Lars Ninger. Lars, first thing I want to ask you about, you brought it up in the presentation and the press release, is that OPEC's obviously having a difficult time getting to their production quotas. Not Saudi Arabia, not UAE, but there's some other countries with probably some more structural issues. As you think about the supply that the tanker market needs to catch up with this recovery in demand, and countries in West Africa and other places can't really meet their quotas, Where do you foresee this coming from, especially as U.S. companies try to be more disciplined? And could it be an issue where the inventory draws last a lot longer than anticipated because we can't respond to that increase in demand with global supply?

speaker
Operator

Yeah. You know, I realize it was a question, but you basically answered it a little bit yourself. So the obvious answer, where you actually could relatively quickly have increased supply, and basically what we need is increased exports. That is obviously the U.S., but the discipline amongst U.S. producers have been so far, well, not good for us, but good for the oil price. And if that continues, this is a challenge. Obviously, you still have barrels in the Middle East and countries, I would assume. Otherwise, we are in a lot more trouble than we'd like to think of. So I think that's the likely initial phase, should we continue to be where we are now, or the oil price should even rise further. I think OPEC will have to basically open the taps completely. And OPEC, although they would like to have a very, very high oil price, I also think they have a huge respect for demand destruction. And oil price significantly north of 100 will put us in that position. So that's kind of my thinking here. I also think that if we are in a situation where U.S. doesn't grow more. I believe EIA has about 800,000 barrels per day of U.S. production. Regretfully, U.S. demand is also rising quite rapidly, so we don't know how much is going to be left for exports. But I think you have a huge incentive to get something done with Iran. Okay.

speaker
John Campbell

Well, that Iran thing kind of led to my second part, my second question as well. I mean, you've been pretty public calling out the illicit fleet, the illicit trading fleet. Pretty interesting graph in here, you know, showing the difference between the non-ECO, the ECOs with scrubbers, and then also the whole thing on the IMO 2023. It feels like if there's so much optimism in the market, you know, people are reluctant to scrap older ships because they're fully paid off and they can make a good return on their recovery. At what point do either regulations, economics, or maybe more importantly, just vettings and charters, I assume you speak to the biggest ones, really put their foot down and force more removals of 15-plus-year-old ships?

speaker
Operator

Well, I think if you speak, you know, we need to speak. There are two different markets there. So in the compliant market, the big charters are already doing this. So in the compliant tanker market, which we are on the part of, you know, we're under scrutiny every day. And we obviously are doing all we can to protect ourselves from being exposed to, you know, sanction-breaking activity. But you have a parallel market here that is making a lot of money. The reason why they make this money is because sanctioned crude is discounted crude. And as long as that discount is there, you have an incentive to trade kind of sanctioned crude. So in my kind of simple analysis, that's where you need to, or that's how we can address this issue. So in an event of, say, sanctions being lifted against Iran, all that volume will need to go on compliant vessels because the normal customers of Iran And mind you, historically, that's been tight. India, Northwest Europe, Korea, and so forth, they simply cannot take that oil on a vessel that doesn't have its compliance in order. So that would be a massive trigger to the demand for compliant tankers. And I think that would be the death blow for this shadow market, to put it that way.

speaker
John Campbell

Gotcha. Thanks for the thoughts, Lars.

speaker
Sue

Thank you for your question. The next question is from Randy from Jefferies. Let's go ahead.

speaker
Howdy

Howdy, Lars and Inge. How are you?

speaker
Operator

We're good. Howdy, Randy. Howdy.

speaker
Howdy

Excellent. Looking at your fleet, let's start there. You agreed to sell the four LR2s, all delivered to the new owners. Thoughts on further asset sales as the asset values continue to outperform spot rates?

speaker
Operator

This is obviously an ongoing discussion. We have As you're all aware, we've done some investments on the VLC side over the last year. We have to look at various avenues of raising equity for that. We have done this for LR2 sales because we thought it was a very good opportunity at the time, and we'll continue to look at various opportunities But I would say that this was potentially a very kind of favorable both deal structure and time for us to do so. So it shouldn't be regarded as a completely change of how we think about the market. We would ideally like to keep as much earnings potential as we can, but we do believe that or have historically seen that we get most bang for the buck in the VLCC market. But right now we don't have any immediate plans of further kind of selling LR2s or Suezmaxs for that sake.

speaker
Howdy

Got it. Okay. And then your quarter-to-date rates, Suezmax and LR2s are above break-even, VLCC is still below Any thoughts on catalysts to really move those higher? And in the meantime, while we wait for the spot market to move, are you looking to maybe sign some six-month, 12-month time charters to secure some cash flow?

speaker
Operator

Well, I'll take your second question first. So, you know, we are of the opinion that freight markets are mean reverting. And the history shows us that they are. And obviously, each top and each bottom has different durations. And obviously, then we are somewhere in between. We don't see this as a time where you secure cash flow by doing long time charters. So we would rather do that. If we are to do that, it's going to be at a different point in the curve. And we don't feel we're forced to do it because we have a solid financial position. And we also have a fleet that actually gives us some comfort in these really dire markets. As to the different earnings on the different asset classes, as you well know, this is related to basically what trades are working in the oil market. And what the SUSEMAX show is that oil has, to a large extent, been trading relatively short. I'm not going to go too deep into details, but one effect of the energy crisis in Europe on natural gas means that refinery margins have been under pressure in dealing with high-sulfur crude. So it means that the natural home for U.S. barrels has been Europe, and that's predominantly a SUSEMAX trade. And this then hurts the VLCC trade. And also, the VLCC market is exposed to the fact that the majority of OPEC increases recently is coming in the Middle East. And obviously, the Middle East is closer to the key market being Asia. And 10 miles has basically suffered for that.

speaker
Howdy

Got it. Well, hey, thanks for that robust answer. That's it for me.

speaker
Sue

Thank you for your question. The next question is from Magnus Feier from H.S. Wenright. Please go ahead.

speaker
H.S. Wenright

Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon, Lars and Inger. Just a question on... On the dry dockings first, I guess you mentioned 16 ships due for dry docking in 2022. Should we expect them to be dry docked evenly through the year, or are you trying to speed up the dry docking given your positive market outlook?

speaker
Frontline

The plan is actually now four in the first quarter, five in the second and the third quarter, and then two in the fourth quarter. That is the plan. But we can obviously try it. to adjust in line with what happens in the market in a way.

speaker
H.S. Wenright

Okay, and I think you mentioned about $740 per day for dry docking. Is that around $20 million for those 16 vessels?

speaker
Frontline

Yeah, it's a bit less than. It's about just below $18 million.

speaker
H.S. Wenright

Okay, very good. Just a question for Lars, maybe. I mean, rates... I think you guys booked really strong rates during the quarter, and some of that was due to recognizing, I guess, from a revenue standpoint. But going forward, and with rates, and thanks for laying out the premiums compared to non-ECO, but going forward, are you booking similar rates now that you did in the first quarter? I know the market's been weaker here in January, February, so... just kind of get a feeling for if that premium is still there.

speaker
Operator

For the VLCCs, no, regretfully. So I think one has to appreciate that. But on the Suze Maxes, yes. And the LR2 Afris is a bit more mixed bag, I would say. The Suze Maxes have actually showed some promise over the last week, week and a half.

speaker
H.S. Wenright

Okay, good. And do you see, you know, with the market being a little different this year, do you see the seasonality playing out, you know, with the 2Q, 3Q typically the lowest quarter, or do you expect a kind of steady projection into the fourth quarter this year?

speaker
Operator

That's actually a really good question, because As you know, in our industry, we normally follow this seasonality, and it's very rare or seldom that we actually move out of it. I think kind of as a lot of the challenge that we have in the tanking market is actually a reflection of the really, really tight supply situation in the oil market, I think we could in theory, get a very, you know, kind of quickly end up in a very untypical market, basically due to the fact that, say, OPEC increase more than planned, something happens on the Iranian side. And basically, you know, I mentioned earlier, we're still drawing from inventory. And I think if you look at the oil curve, it's quite obvious. Why? Because crude today is, you know, as expensive as it's ever been compared to crude delivered, say, in May. So the backwardation is super steep. And should something happen to that curve, you would actually start to see inventories start to build again. And it's basically a rapid change in the oil curve would trigger a lot of activity. And it's actually... almost scary looking at the political tension between, for instance, Ukraine and Russia, that the rest of the world dares run on such low inventories when you are, you know, in the bag is potential action against one of the biggest oil producers in the world.

speaker
H.S. Wenright

All right. And you mentioned that most of the barrels from the U.S. have gone to Europe, given that OPEC's been supplying Asia with crude. If OPEC starts struggling, increasing production further, can you see a scenario where actually shale production starts increasing more and that incremental barrel is going to the Far East?

speaker
Operator

Absolutely. And I think it's, I know where you're calling from, and it's something which is almost like, you know, at least we look at as a little bit ironic. What we've observed is that there is a correlation between U.S. SBR releases and U.S. exports. And those exports tend to end up in Asia. So basically, you know, obviously it's not the same molecules. But what you do when you release from an SPR is that you make crude available in the local markets in the US and then obviously allow players in the US market to export more. So it's kind of an indirect supply into strategic kind of inventory in either Japan or China or even Korea. So that's basically what's been the backbone of the VLC trade in Q4 and to some extent into January, was actually this increased exports from the U.S. Gulf that was landing in Asia.

speaker
spk05

Great. Well, thank you, Inger, and thank you, Lars, and also thanks for a very informative presentation. Thank you.

speaker
Sue

Thank you for your question. The next question is from Chris Tsung from Weber Research. Let's go ahead.

speaker
Chris Tsung

Hi, good afternoon, Lars and Inger. How are you?

speaker
Operator

Hi, we're good. Thank you.

speaker
Chris Tsung

Great, great. First question I wanted to ask is just to touch on your presentation from slide four. It shows that in your fleet there's three non-equal vessels, and the chart on the right that you guys laid out shows there's a significant premium. with non-equal vessels with scrubbers. So I just want to ask, is there a plan to install scrubbers for these three vessels? Or perhaps would you look to sell them as it looks like the average TCE and Q4 for non-equals with scrubbers is still below cash-breaking levels?

speaker
Operator

Well, this is an ongoing kind of discussion, and obviously having non-eco, non-scrubber, you basically choose do we sell them or do we install scrubbers to move them basically up the chain. So I can't answer that on this call, but I'd say it's a valid question, and it's kind of being discussed. I think on the... You know, we like to call it the scrubber spread, right? And, you know, the kind of spread between high sulfur fuel and low sulfur fuel has obviously widened immensely, you know, in the last five to six months, basically making it very economic to install a scrubber. But then again, there are practical considerations to be made. you know, taking a ship out to the market, which doesn't really matter too much in this market, but then, you know, you need to find a yard and you need to time it and all that stuff. But I assure you, this is extremely high on our minds, particularly for those vessels.

speaker
Chris Tsung

Great. Thanks. And just one more follow-up from me. The 6th VLCC new belt, do you have an updated timeline or schedule? Just trying to get a sense of the cadence for the deliveries.

speaker
Operator

Yeah, the first one will be delivered in Q2.

speaker
spk05

The end of Q1.

speaker
Operator

The end of Q1, but it's April, early April. And the rest will be obviously not, we're not pushing to have them as quickly as we can yet. So they will be coming as pearls on a string in the second half of the year.

speaker
Chris Tsung

Okay. Great. Thanks for that. And that's it for me.

speaker
Operator

Thank you.

speaker
Chris Tsung

Thank you, guys. Thank you.

speaker
Sue

Thank you for your question. We have the next question from Greg Lewis from BTJ. Please go ahead.

speaker
Greg Lewis

Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. And good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I apologize if this was already asked. I was having trouble getting on. You know, just given Frontline's exposure and ownership of scrubbers, Clearly, the spread between high sulfur and low sulfur is widening. Are you hearing or seeing or at all concerned about availabilities of either grades just as oil demand has picked up or any kind of color you could give around that and how you're thinking about that through the rest of the year?

speaker
Operator

Well, availability hasn't really been a big issue, but it has from time to time in certain ports been such a situation that they actually need to book further ahead. This is more related to the players in the bunker market not wishing to hold inventory in a steep backwardation. So basically they will try to limit what they hold and wait until basically an order has been placed for a certain amount of bunkies. So this is creating some issues. But you are right, in certain places high sulfur is actually difficult to come by. But I think this is actually expected to ease as we move out of the winter in the northern hemisphere, because some of the tightness in this market has been caused by straight-run fuel going to the power generation pool. Gas prices have been so high. So I don't know if that answers your question, but so far we haven't seen incidents where it's impossible to get hold of fuel, to put it that way.

speaker
Greg Lewis

Okay, great. Hey, thank you for taking my question. Have a great day.

speaker
Sue

Thank you. Thank you for your question. We have the next question from Robert Silvera from Silvera Associates. Please go ahead.

speaker
Robert Silvera

Thank you for taking my question. My question is this. At what level do you see rates having to go to before you will reinitiate or initiate a dividend again, cash dividends?

speaker
Operator

Well, that's actually a difficult question to answer. I think historically, you know, we don't have, you know, like a fixed dividend policy, right? But we have, it's more at the board's discretion. But history shows that whenever frontline has a meaningful positive net income, we will distribute dividends. And then I think you basically need to look at our cash break-even levels, which are all in cash break-even, and that could maybe give you some guide to what levels you should kind of look for. And that's, you know, 19,300 on average over the fleet, but, you know, the minute the VLCC start to make meaningful changes kind of earnings above $22,000, $23,000 a day and, you know, say $19,000 for the Seuss Max and $16,000 for the LaTouche Afromaxis, that's when we get into a position where we can start to distribute money.

speaker
Robert Silvera

Do you feel that it would be like a 10% above those levels when you might initiate the dividend again? or would it be only 5%? Can you give us some color on that? What level?

speaker
Operator

Yeah, no, I wish I could, to be quite honest, but it's, I think I would ask this or answer this question a bit differently. You know, the, if you kind of frontline will always try as hard as we can to pay out dividends. And we've actually had incidents where we pay out dividends, in a quarter where we've not really made money because we have visibility into the earnings in the following quarter. So I wouldn't doubt the aggressiveness of Frontline in paying out dividends to our shareholders, but I don't really want to get into a percentage discussion if that's okay.

speaker
Robert Silvera

That's okay. I miss the days of 2003 and 2004. So do we. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much for a very insightful answering of questions and a presentation. Thank you.

speaker
Sue

Thank you for your question. There are no further questions at the moment.

speaker
Operator

Okay. I think we'll wrap it up. Thank you very much for listening in. Have a good evening and a good day to everyone.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

-

-