3/25/2021

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Welcome to Hapnia's full year 2020 financial results presentation. We will begin shortly. You will be brought through the presentation by Hapnia CEO Michael Skovs, CFO Perry Van Eckthelt, EVP Commercial Jens Kristoffersen, and EVP Head of Investor Relations Thomas Anderson. They will be pleased to address any questions after the presentation. Should you have any questions, you can submit them via the chat function or use the raise hand function to be called upon to ask your question verbally. Questions will be answered at the end of the presentation. You will receive further instructions as required. Certain statements in this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements based upon management's current expectations and include known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors many of which Hapnea is unable to predict or control. That may cause Hapnea's actual results, performance, or plans to differ materially from any future results, performance, or plans expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In addition, nothing in this conference call constitutes an offer to purchase or sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase or sell any securities. With that, I am now pleased to turn the call over to Hafnir CEO, Michael Skov.

speaker
Michael Skov
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you for that. My name is Michael Skov, and I am the CEO of Hafnir. Let me welcome you to the full year 2020 conference call. With me here today, I have our CFO, Perifan Egtelt. I have our Executive Vice President, Commercial, Jens Christoffersen. and Executive Vice President and Head of Investor Relations, Thomas Anderson. The four of us will present the full year 2020 financials for Hafnir. Before we go into details for 2020, I would like to thank all employees, both at sea and ashore, for their extraordinary efforts during these challenging times and stress that the priority for Hafnir will always be the health and safety of our employees. With that, let's move to slide number two. This is the disclaimer safe harbor message, and I would like you all to be aware of the mandatory part of the disclaimer, which I will urge you to read.

speaker
Thomas Anderson
Executive Vice President and Head of Investor Relations

Moving forward to the next slide. And we will move straight into slide number four.

speaker
Michael Skov
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you. Let me start by giving a small introduction to Hafnir, which is a Singapore-based company with offices in four other key shipping hubs. We own or have chartered in 101 vessels and commercially manage an additional 83 vessels, bringing us to a total of 184 vessels under commercial management across four product tanker segments. Last year, we expanded our commercial management business into a new segment focused on small product and chemical tankers, which is tonnage under 20,000 deadweight. We set up a brand new pool called Hafnir Specialized for the commercial management of these vessels, adding an additional pillar to our successful pool management business. We have also expanded our bungering business further and are now buying bungers for more than 450 vessels, including third-party clients. Based on the success of our commercial management and bunker business, we plan to expand our adjacent business further in the years to come. In 2020, we had a fee revenue of $23 million from our commercial management, bunker business, and technical management activities. We have an industry-low operational cash flow break-even of $13,000. We are listed on Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker code Huffney.

speaker
Thomas Anderson
Executive Vice President and Head of Investor Relations

Moving on to slide number five.

speaker
Michael Skov
Chief Executive Officer

2020 was the most extreme year in the product tanker space that I have seen. We have seen record high and low earnings and even negative oil prices. I'm very pleased that Huffney has delivered yet another best-in-class result, When we look at timeshot equivalent earnings per day, return on invested capital, return on equity, and distributions to our shareholders. Due to COVID-19, 2020 was a year where we were living with confinement restrictions leading to demand destruction and weak economic fundamentals, resulting in a massive buildup of inventories. We can now see that demand is coming back, and that inventories are being drawn back to normal, and it is expected that consumption and inventories will be back to pre-COVID-19 levels in the fourth quarter of 2021. In addition, we have together with a strategic joint venture partner invested in a methanol project, exemplifying our strategy to look at sustainable and modern shipping technologies, as well as securing long-term transportation contracts at guaranteed rates. In our Vista joint venture, we have invested in two dual-fuel LR2 vessels that are chartered out to Total on long-term contracts. These vessels will be delivered in 2023. Finally, we have sold three LR1 vessels, the Hafnir America for $11.6 million and the Compass and Compassion for $5.5 million net each. All three vessels were sold as part of a planned fleet renewal. Perry, why don't you talk us through the financials?

speaker
Perry Van Egtelt
Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Michael, and good day to everyone. To summarize the 2020 financials, time charter equivalent earnings for Hafnia was $623.3 million for the year, and then EBITDA was $362.8 million. commercially managed pool and bunker business generated a revenue of $23 million for the year. We achieved a net profit of $148.8 million, and for the first two quarters of 2020, we already paid $77 million in dividends. Including the dividend declared for the fourth quarter 2019, we paid during the year a cash dividend of $98 million. We will pay no dividends for Q4 2020 and have therefore paid then 52% of full year net profit. If you then move to page six, focus on the fourth quarter, it was in line with the lower rates, the weakest quarter in the year. The combination of lower rates and the write-off of $11.4 million on assets for sale resulted in a net loss of $26.4 million for Q4. But in all, we feel that we got a very good year in 2020 with a profit of $148.8 million compared to a profit of 71.1 in 2019. Furthermore, the income from the management of third-party vessels and buying bunker on behalf of third-party clients was $23 million for the year. More on the economics of the pools will be explained later. For 2020, the full year resulted in a return on equity of 13.1% and a return on invested capital, or ROIC, of 8.9%. The balance sheet is strong with an equity ratio of 45.1% and a cash position of $101 million. We continue to see strong access to the banking environment, and we are in the final process of refinancing two facilities, including the one with a 2022 maturity. Also, with the substantially reduced interest rates for US dollar financing, we have gradually increased our interest rate hedging position to lock in lower interest rates to match the tenor of our debt profile. Then the average estimated broker value of the owned fleet was $1.9 billion as of 31st December 2020. And at the end of the year, Hafnir had a total of 101 vessels, of which 88 owned, including one new build and 13 vessels chartered in. If you then move on to the next page, with a TCE revenue of $623.2 million, basis 34,450 earning days, we made $26,514 per day on the LR2 vessels, $19,475 per day on the LR1 vessels, $17,283 per day on the non-pool Panamax vessels, 17,089 per day in the MR segment and 15,321 per day in the Handy segment. From the pie chart to the right of this page, you can see that 46% of the total earnings came from the MR segment and 29% from the LR1 segment. And if you move to the next page, a bit more about the pool economics. As said, we made $23 million in fee income in 2020. And this includes pool fees, but also fees for bunker services and for technical management. The pools work with a fixed fee and a commission on time charter earnings. So there's a $250 per day fixed fee and a 2.25% commission of net TCE earnings made by a vessel. So in an example, where a vessel makes $20,000 per day, Hafnia will earn $250 plus $450 totaling $700 per day. The $250 per day cover roughly the fixed cost of running the pool for the external vessels. Based on a fleet of approximately 80 externally managed ships and a TC hire of $20,000 per day gives Hafnia an additional income of $30 million before tax. We will continue to invest in our commercial platform to increase the service level and build scale through the pools. Michael will now present the next page before Jens guides us through the commercial developments. Michael.

speaker
Michael Skov
Chief Executive Officer

So thank you for that. And we are now on slide number nine. So here we're going to go through a little bit about Hafnir and some of the investment highlight summaries that we'd like to present today. We see six important reasons why Hafnir is one of the leading product changer companies today. So if you look on the left side of the slide, it is the best commercial platform. We have the lowest operating cost, the lowest cost of funding. $23 million in revenue from the pools and other fee-generating activities, a strong focus on environmental, social, and corporate governance, ESG, and a firm believer in consolidation. Before Jens takes us through the detailed product and market, let me just elaborate on these key differentiators for Hafnir. If we start focusing on the first one, best commercial performance. So over the years, we have benchmarked ourselves against our peers to evaluate our commercial performance while adjusting for fleet composition, speed, and consumption. When we look at these so-called apples-to-apples benchmarks, we are at the absolute top in all of our segments. We continue to focus on having the lowest operating and funding cost. Our operational cash flow breakeven is below $13,000 per day. the lowest in the industry. Our industry-leading financing costs, our solid balance sheet, and low SG&A expenses of $800 per day are also key contributors to our competitiveness. $23 million in fee revenue generated by our pool and bunker operations. And in addition, we plan to expand these businesses further by adding more vessels to existing pools and by focusing on new segments. On the ESG side, it's very important for Hafnir to have a clear ESG profile. We believe that joint global efforts are needed to combat climate change. As a leading shipping company, it is Hafnir's goal to keep providing safe, sustainable and efficient hydrocarbon transportation solutions and thereby contribute to the shipping industry's efforts to reduce environmental impact. Additionally, we have continued to promote diversity at sea and ashore. By 2024, we strive to have 40% female colleagues throughout the organization, including in key management positions. The development, implementation, and maintenance of good and well-functioning governance policies and practices are important processes and focus areas for Hafnir. Finally, a few words on consolidation. Hafnir is a firm believer in further consolidation within the product tanker sector. Firstly, our large-scale number of vessels enables better performance in chartering, operations, bunker, and back office. Secondly, with consolidation comes clear cost synergies. We have seen examples of how smaller platforms of 20 to 25 vessels could have reduced the daily SG&A per vessel by more than $1,000 per day and saved a total of more than $20 million per year, including better financing. Thirdly, digitalization across a large fleet improves data intelligence significantly and enables faster and better decision-making. Smaller platforms lack the scale needed to properly utilize the added information from a big fleet. We move on to slide number 10, and Jens, why don't you take the next few pages?

speaker
Jens Kristoffersen
Executive Vice President, Commercial

Thank you very much, Michael. This whole page sums up our expectations for the product tanker market. The outlook for the product tanker sector in the first half of 2021 appears challenging with COVID-19, inventories, and lack of oil consumption expected to continue to weigh on market conditions. Against the backdrop of renewed lockdowns in key regions negatively impacting oil demand and refinery throughput, seaborne oil products trade remains subdued. In the first half of 2021, market pressure is further expected from the sustained unwinding of floating and land-based storage, in addition to an underlying global fleet expansion of 2% in the product tanker sector. However, current trade projections suggest a rebound in seaborne products trade in the second half of 2021 contributed to by oil demand recovery, normalization of inventories and the anticipated seasonal uplift towards the end of the year. Potential legitimate also exists as storage on wines, whilst efficiencies from port delays, reposition and reactivation could also provide windows of opportunity for rate improvement. Although COVID-19 vaccine programs have bolstered hopes of improved oil demand levels later in 2021, there remains major uncertainty in the outlook with concerns of new COVID-19 variants and sustained high case numbers in some regions. According to Clarkson's research, global oil demand is projected to rebound by approximately 6% in 2021 to 97.1 million barrels per day. Improving economic activity and the easing of mobility restrictions relative to 2020, aided by the rollout of vaccines across major regions, is projected to provide support predominantly for gasoline and diesel demand. According to IEA, oil demand in the fourth quarter of 2021 is expected to be 99.2 million barrels against 100.6 million barrels in the final quarter of 2019. Around 1.2 million barrels per day of global refining capacity was closed, mothballed or converted in 2020. However, the addition of 0.7 million barrels per day, potentially rising to 1 million barrels per day in 2021, is likely to exacerbate the existing surplus of refining capacity. This is likely to result in the closure of inefficient refineries near consumption areas and could lead to an improvement in ton-mile demand. In line with improving oil demand and refinery runs, seaborne product trade is expected to see improvements in 2021 with volumes expected to grow by 6% year on year following the disruption in 2020. Trade volumes for 2021 are still anticipated, however, to remain below 2019 levels as the demand for certain fuels, example given jet fuel, would require more time to recover from the impact of COVID-19. Total product tank or ton-mile demand or ton-mile trade in 2021 is projected to exceed growth measured in tons, expanding by circa 7%, partly as disruptions to trade flows continue to raise average voyage duration. We are currently seeing that oil demand is higher than oil supply. Hence, we're drawing on oil inventories. The cargo split for 2020 shows that gas oil was the most important cargo grade carried, followed by gasoline and fuel oil. Historically, small order book, total ton mile, outgrowing supply of new tonnage. and growth in oil demand following the decline in 2020. We expect peak oil to be 10 years into the future. It is not because we are blind to the green evolution, but we can also see that this is not something that happens overnight. The capacity to build new infrastructure and power to X facilities are simply not there to do it faster. Looking at the oil inventories of industrial stock in the OECD region, we note that the growth in inventories plateaued in the May-August period 2020, and we expect that it will continue its downward trend over the next few months, as OPEC has agreed to reduce production. The most important element to watch is the inventories measured in days of consumption, which has dropped from just below 80 to just above 70 by year end. We move to the next slide. Floating storage has been a significant driver for the overall tanker market in 2020, with a massive increase in capacity used for floating storage in the second quarter. However, we've seen it peaked in May and have reduced with approximately 200 million barrels since then. The most important element to note is that the expected oil demand by end 2021 will be on par with the oil demand in 2019. Here we show the main trading routes being Middle East to Asia, Middle East to Europe, North America to Latin America and interregions. Further refinery expansion is also projected in China, in particular in the independent refining sector. The product trade is expected to see new long-range trading patterns as 1.3 million barrels per day of export-orientated refinery capacity comes on stream in the Middle East in 2021. This is likely to lengthen the ton miles for the product market. Whilst 1.2 million barrels per day of global refinery capacity was closed, mothballed or converted in 2020, not including capacity temporarily offline due to the impacts of COVID-19, and with an additional 0.7 million barrels per day announced for 2021 closure, potentially rising to 1 million barrels per day. This is significant. When we look at the global product tanker fleet, the most interesting thing to note is the very low order book that result in the lowest tanker fleet growth for the next two years in the last 20 years. End year 2020, the product tanker order book was just below 7% of the fleet and the net addition this year is expected to be 2% and 0% for 2022. Here on this slide, we simply see the extreme rates in 2020, both record highs and record lows. Average MR earnings peaked at a record of $74,000 per day in April, while SLR2 earnings on the benchmark Rastanur-Achiba route spiked to $168,000 per day. Weighted average earnings across product tanker markets hit a record of over $90,000 per day in late April, and the first half of 2020 was the best half-year period since 2008. In November, clean MR and handy spot earnings averaged circa $5,300 per day and $1,200 per day respectively. the second lowest monthly average on record in both sectors. And with this, Michael, over to you for the next few slides.

speaker
Michael Skov
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you for that. We will now be moving into slide number 18 and talk a little bit about Hafnir's ESG strategy. So in Hafnir, we base our ESG strategy on five sustainability pillars. safety of life, environment, governance, right people, and right resources. These are founded on 16 material issues in our day-to-day work that again is based on UN's sustainable development goals. Moving into slide number 19, here we see one of the accomplishments which we are most proud of this year, Hafnir's progress on the IMO's carbon intensity targets. Hafnir believes that our sustainability journey starts with decarbonization. We strive to support and promote the industry decarbonization while still transporting the resources necessary to sustain the modern world. Hafnir has achieved some significant milestones in our work to reduce overall emissions and improve vessel efficiency through years of investment in emission reduction measures and by continuously optimizing vessel operations. We are in full compliance with the IMO 2020 regulations on sulfur emissions, and we are on track to meet the IMO's greenhouse gas reduction goals of reducing carbon intensity by 40% by 2030 using 2008 levels as the baseline. In 2020, across Hafnir's own fleet, our carbon intensity, as measured by annual efficiency ratio, also known as AER, was 5.7 grams CO2 per deadweight ton per nautical mile. This is 5.6% below the present IMO baseline. We have set a goal to reach IMO's 2030 target already in 2028 by reducing our current fleet's carbon intensity to 4.47 grams CO2 per deadweight ton per nautical mile. We are constantly looking to improve our existing vessels through smaller but impactful optimization measures that improve operational efficiency and reduce environmental footprint. Moving on to slide number 20. At Hafnet, we have a strong focus on corporate governance, first and foremost through a highly reputable board of directors, a seasoned audit committee, internal audit, an extensive authorization matrix, remuneration committee, and fully aligned incentives with no fee leakage. All of these issues safeguarding a best-in-class governance structure.

speaker
Thomas Anderson
Executive Vice President and Head of Investor Relations

With that, I'd like to open up the call for questions.

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.

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