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spk00: Hello all and a warm welcome to the overseas ship holding group first quarter 2022 results conference call. My name is Lydia and I'll be your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the prepared remarks, you may do so by pressing start followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. It's my pleasure to now hand you over to our host, Sam Norton, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead when you're ready.
spk04: Thank you very much, Lydia. Good morning. Thank you all for joining Dick Trueblood and me on this call for the presentation of our 2022 first quarter results and for allowing us to offer additional commentary and insight into the current state of our business and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. To start, I would like to direct everyone to the narrative on pages two and three of the PowerPoint presentation available on our website regarding forward-looking statements, estimates, and other information that may be provided during the course of this call. The contents of that narrative are an important part of this presentation, and I urge everyone to read and consider them carefully. We will be offering you more than just a historical perspective on OSG today, and our presentation includes forward-looking statements, including statements about anticipated future results. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by our forward-looking statements and could be affected by a variety of risk factors. including factors beyond our control. For discussion of these factors, we refer you to our Form 10-K for 2021 filed with the SEC and our Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2022, which we anticipate being filed later today. Both are available at the SEC's Internet website, www.sec.gov, as well as at our own website, www.osg.com. Forward-looking statements in this presentation speak only as of the date of these materials, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as may be legally required. In addition, our presentation today includes certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we define and reconcile to the most closely comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release, which is posted on our website. The continuing impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine The profound hardship being borne by the people of both countries as a result of decisions and actions directed by the Russian leadership are foremost in our thoughts as we speak with you today. As has been the case since the onset of the conflict, we are hopeful for a swift end to the ongoing violence and destruction there. At the same time, the persistence of COVID-19, its toll on human life, and especially outside of the United States, its impact on economic output, serves to remind us how far we still need to progress to return to normality. While indications of improving business conditions in our core businesses are encouraging for OSG, the conflict and the pandemic continue to lower global energy markets, which remain disjointed, volatile, and difficult to forecast with any degree of confidence. While our core businesses have remained largely insulated from the direct impact of events on the ground in Ukraine, Indirect effects have nonetheless been very visible. U.S. product exports to Europe and Central and South America have increased, resulting in domestic production failing to keep pace with growing domestic and international fuel demand and the concurrent need to restock depleted inventories. Formal sanctions and informal boycotts of nearly all things Russian have altered energy flows and created a highly unusual set of market conditions within which energy products are traded today. New trading routes have emerged to meet shifting supply patterns, resulting in almost universally increased ton-mile demand. This is good news for most ship owners, including OSG, who have seen freight rates rise in response. While the full impact of falling Russian crude volumes has likely yet to be felt, it is fair to say that what was initially looked like a global crude oil supply problem has morphed into a product supply problem, middle distillates in particular. In an attempt to settle crude oil prices, the U.S. made an historically large and internationally coordinated release of its strategic petroleum reserves. U.S. production has increased, and there are prospects for the return of Venezuelan and potentially even Iranian crude exports to the markets. All these actions have served to ease concerns of the emerging shortage of crude oil supply. The easing of COVID restrictions around much of the world has seen a sharp rise in travel and transport activity. Demand for jet fuel and diesel has increased, coincident with the curtailment of Russian product exports into European and North American markets. U.S. refinery exports of petroleum products exceeded 6 million barrels per day for much of the past month, a historically high figure. The present circumstances have resulted in falling inventory levels in the U.S., and increasing prices for jet, diesel, and gasoline. U.S. refiners have become the marginal supply source of the fine per product for nearly all of Europe and South and Central America. U.S. refining margins have soared with the 321 crack spread and an extraordinarily high $55 per barrel last week. The U.S. continues to enjoy natural gas price competitive advantage over the rest of the world. These conditions in many respects caused a reversal of forces that delayed recovery in our core shipping markets last summer. Then, the insufficient demand for jet fuel ballooned middle distillate inventories and depressed middle distillate margins. Now, refineries are maximizing their output of jet fuel at the expense of diesel, which has seen inventories shrinking rapidly despite what one analyst has described as biblically high diesel refining margins. Slide six. in our deck provides a graphical depiction of the Energy Information Agency's data on domestic product inventory movements since early 2020. Low jet and diesel inventories have been especially observable in U.S. East Coast locations, most notably in the New York Harbor market, where recent diesel inventory levels have dropped below 25 million barrels, more than 30% below historical averages. Current price spreads between New York Harbor and U.S. Gulf Coast for both diesel and jet have far exceeded $1 per barrel, multiple times the transport costs needed to arbitrage these differentials. An even more acute shortage of jet fuel in the area has pushed spot jet fuel prices to $6.71 last Friday, $6.71 per gallon last Friday. Most analysts concur that these market conditions are not sustainable. While high prices could impact demand in the immediate The general consensus is that demand will be relatively resilient. Increases in global refinery output in the months ahead are expected to satisfy demand while gradually rebuilding depleted inventories. Higher refinery output means more product to be shipped, which should sustain elevated demand for Jones Act shipping. What does this mean for OSG? The strong demand I have just described has allowed us to achieve better sequential TCE and EBITDA performance for the fourth consecutive quarter. Operating activities during the just-completed quarter have generated positive free cash flow after debt service and capital expenditures, with the quarter-to-quarter change in cash balances attributable solely to changes in working capital. These results give us a heightened confidence in our belief that an enduring recovery in our core markets is solidifying. As we have communicated in recent months, we consider the Jones Act markets to be progressively healing from the demand shock imposed by the rise and fall of multiple variants of COVID-19. All of our laid-up vessels are now operating or in the process of reactivation. Before the end of June, our full fleet of vessels will be in service. This leads us to anticipate continued improvement in all important financial metrics and a gradual build in available cash balances over the next several quarters as higher utilization and stronger time charter rates is realized by substantially all of our vessels. These expectations and opportunities inherent in an improving market environment should set the stage for us to realize the latent potential of our long-term business strategy. Before turning things over to Dick to provide a deeper dive into the numbers, I would like to mention a few important developments that occurred during the first quarter. First, the mix of tanker vessel operating days time charter equivalent rates realized during the quarter stands in sharp contrast to what we were experiencing one year ago. Our Jones Act tankers had 331 more vessel operating days in this year's first quarter than were attained during the same period in 2021. Nearly 80% of these days were earning freight in a firming spot market. Resulting spot earnings improved more than $30,000 per day as compared with last year. A similar jump in time charter equivalent earnings was seen in our internationally trading MR tankers. Clearly, having spot vessel availability in a tightening and rising market has been a good thing for OSG. Yet it bears remembering that our model chartering strategy is to attain longer-term charters at profitable rates. Now that market rates have risen to above break-even levels, our focus is gradually shifting to building some length in our charter book. This objective remains a challenge, as the volatile trading markets continue to inhibit and to inhibit our charter counterparts from entering into longer-term commitments. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the year, we have succeeded in fixing four time charter contracts of between 90 and 120 days, and have recently concluded a number of contracts for six months duration at progressively firming rates. We are optimistic the tightening market conditions and the emergence of incremental demand for shipping renewable diesel will lead to constructive negotiations in the future for charter periods of one year or longer, allowing for more stability and forward visibility in our earnings strings. The second notable development during the quarter was a short-term charter booked for one of our vessels to move liquid urea ammonium nitrate. We are carefully watching the outcome of the Commerce Department's tariff ruling due to be finalized this summer to understand whether or not domestic demand for UAN transport will be sustained. As with renewable diesel, this product's move is incremental to conventional petroleum product demand, and a Commerce Department ruling favorable domestic producers of UAN could result in increased ton-mile demand for conventional Jones Act tankers and ATPs. Third, the Biden administration's mandate for a historically unprecedented release of strategic petroleum reserve barrels will continue at a rate of approximately 1 million barrels per day over the next four to six months. While the SPR barrels moved to date have largely been transported by pipeline or exported on foreign flag vessels, there remains potential for these movements to generate incremental coastwide crude oil transport demand over the next several months. Fourth, I would like to highlight again the important implication of Congress's full appropriation of funds for the Tanker Security Program. This program allocates $60 million for stipends for 10 U.S. flag tankers. Once the program is operational, OSG's current MSP vessels, the overseas Mykonos and overseas Santorini, will move over to participate in the tanker security program with the resulting step-up in annual stipend amounts to be received. OSG will also propose the overseas Suncoast to be entered into this program. If approved, the overseas Suncoast would be converted to U.S. flags. Establishing the tanker security program has been one of our key long-term objectives in recent years, and it is gratifying to see the project become a reality. Last but not least, I want to again commend OSG's personnel who have continued to manage operations in the face of COVID with no disruption to service and have allowed us to meet our customers' needs and our safety and environmental KPIs while maintaining operating cost discipline. Everyone who has a stake in OSG should pause and reflect on just how hard it has been to keep everything in our business moving forward without incident. I am proud of and grateful for the work all of our employees have done to sustain this performance. I will now turn the call over to Dick to provide you with further details on our first quarter results for 2022. Dick? Thanks, Sam. Please turn to slide eight.
spk02: Our sequential increase in TCE revenues and adjusted EBITDA continued in the first quarter of 2022. TCE revenues increased 17% from Q4 2021 and adjusted EBITDA rose $8.8 million or 53% from the prior quarter. The year-over-year TCE revenue increase was 43% or $28.4 million, while adjusted EBITDA quadrupled from $6.2 million to $25.4 million. The market remains active in an increasing rate environment, and market volatility has prompted traders to seek shorter contract durations to maintain their flexibility. Thus, the durations have remained shorter than historical norms. Recently, we've been successful in executing contracts of 46 months duration, and we continue to work on extending durations to return to historical market length. Please turn to slide nine. We returned two vessels to service during the first quarter, the overseas Long Beach and the overseas Texas City, each providing additional revenue days from their reactivation points. The three vessels returned to service during 2021's fourth quarter, provided a full quarter of operations during Q1 this year. Our Jones Act conventional tankers continued the sharp upwards trend in employed days. We have almost doubled employed days from last year's third quarter when we began to return ships to service. Correspondingly, layup days decreased from 415 in last year's third quarter to 75 in the current quarter for our Jones Act conventional tankers. Our employed days for this component of our fleet rose to 82% of total days, 45% employment in Q3 of 2021. Unemployed days continued to decline and during the quarter we had 49 dry dock days. We are returning the remaining two vessels currently in layup to service during the second quarter and at that time our fleet will be fully active. The overseas Tampa will leave layup on May 10th. and undergo over a required drive-off period before commencing operations. The OSG 350 vision is expected to return to service later in May. Please turn to slide 10. Lightering volumes continue to remain strong, delivering continuing strong utilization levels and TCE revenues consistent with 2021's fourth quarter. Revenues from our two ATVs, both of which are on time charter, remain stable as the two units continue to operate as contracted. The Mykonos and Santorini continue to participate in the Maritime Security Program and provide services to the government of Israel. During the quarter, we performed one GOI voyage and five voyages for the Military Sealift Command. During the fourth quarter, we performed one MSC voyage and one GOI voyage. We recognized an increase in rates on our non-US flag tanker during the quarter as well. As a result, non-Jones Act tanker revenues increased $2.4 million from the previous quarter. Jones Act handy-sized tanker revenues increased $12 million based on the previously described increase in employed days as well as a stronger rate environment. Revenues from our Jones Act shuttle tankers and Alaskan tankers were consistent with the fourth quarter. Please turn to slide 11. The niche businesses registered a $3 million increase in revenue driven by the increase in non-Jones Act product tanker revenues. We performed more voyages for the military SEALIF command during the quarter. Additionally, strong international MR tanker rates resulted in better performance for our Marshall Islands flag vessel. Lightering revenues remained consistent with the previous quarter, while shuttle tanker revenues increased due to no off-fire repair days. Please turn to slide 12. Vessel operating contribution increased $12 million from Q4 2021 to $31.1 million in the current quarter. Jones Act handy-sized conventional tankers, reflecting the high degree of operating leverage in our business, swung from an operating loss of $8.7 million in the fourth quarter to a $1.5 million contribution in the current quarter. Higher demand level, general improvement in rates, all coupled with an increase in conventional tankers available for hire, resulted in 228 more employed days. Niche market activity increased from the fourth quarter as the MST activity increased, coupled with a slight increase in shuttle tanker contribution as we experienced no off-fire repair days. The ATV contribution and Alaskan tanker contribution remained relatively constant between the quarters. The combined vessel operating contribution of our niche market activities, ATVs and the Alaska crew tankers, continue to provide a vessel operating contribution that is consistent and growing in the current quarter of $29.6 million compared to $27.7 million in the fourth quarter. Turning to slide 13, adjusted EBITDA continued to sequentially improve rising from $16.6 million in the fourth quarter to $25.4 million in the current quarter. Compared to the first quarter of 2021, this represents a $19.2 million increase, reflecting a continuing improvement in our business fundamentals. Turn to slide 14, please. The first quarter net loss was a half million dollars. This results from the continuing improvement in operations we have delivered since the first quarter of 2021. As a reminder, 2021's third quarter included a $7.9 million pre-tax loss associated with our refinancing, resulting from prepayment fees and the write-off of previously deferred financing costs. Additionally, during that quarter, we recognized a $1 million impairment charge related to the right of use assets associated with two of our bare boat chartered tankers. Please turn to slide 15. At December 31, 2021, we had total cash of $83 million. During the first quarter, we generated $25 million of adjusted EBITDA. Working capital used $13 million of cash. We expended $5 million on dry docking and improvements to our vessels, and we made $14 million in debt service payments. As a result, we ended the quarter with $77 million of cash. Please turn to slide 16. Continuing our discussion of cash and liquidity, as we mentioned on the previous slide, we had $77 million of cash at March 31, 2022. Our total debt was $445 million, which represents a decrease of $5 million in outstanding indebtedness since December 2021. Scheduled loan amortization over the next three quarters is $17.2 million. With $338 million of equity, our net debt to equity ratio is 1.1 times. This concludes my comments and financial statements, and I'd like to turn the call back to Sam. Sam?
spk04: Thanks, Dick. Our first quarter results are evidence of gathering momentum towards a healthy and sustainable operating condition in our core markets. has been and remains well-positioned to respond to the continuing recovery in domestic and international transportation fuel demand, as well as to facilitate many of the emerging trading opportunities that have resulted from geopolitical disruptions in global energy markets. As of today, 95% of our available vessel operating days have been covered for the balance of the second quarter, and 75% of available days during the third quarters has also been fully fixed at improved rates. Rates obtained for recent spot voyages have exceeded $65,000 per day, and current time charter period rates have been fixed in a range of $60,000 to $63,500 per day for periods of three to six months. All of this activity gives us good visibility towards the results expected for the second and third quarters of 2022. In the second quarter, we expect both TCE and EBITDA to increase sequentially over first quarter results, with TCE results likely to approach or even exceed $100 million and adjusted EBITDA estimated to approach $30 million. For the third quarter, absent a change in the trajectory of current market trends, healthy fundamentals offer the prospect for continued quarter-to-quarter sequential improvement in TCE and strengthening cash flows. Attaining these targets should result in 20 to 25 million of free cash flow before working capital changes over the next six months. As always, challenges remain. In particular, our experience is that traders have remained reluctant to commit vessels on time charter for more than three to six months. There remains considerable uncertainty around what will be the longer-term impact of high commodity prices and rising inflationary pressures on broader economic activity and energy consumption patterns in particular. The full effects of labor shortages in our industry have yet to be completely understood. The conflict in Ukraine imposes conditions of broad uncertainty at all levels. Outside of the inherent volatility of the pure commodity trades that we participate in, we see the stabilizing aspects of our niche businesses emerging even more fully as we plan for the future. Renewable diesel trades improved prospects for increased Alaskan oil production and the important role that our subsidiary, the Alaskan Tanker Company, will play in that trade and the implementation of the Tanker Security Program offer real catalysts for achieving revenue growth in these specialty markets. Higher oil prices also bode well for our shuttle tankers in the future. As we achieve more stability in our financial profile, we will realize positive cash flow in the quarters ahead and improvements in our balance sheet. Moving beyond recovery, our focus will be on using OSG's unique franchise to position ourselves for a better future. Lydia, we can now open up the call to questions.
spk00: Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad now. To draw your question, it's star followed by two. Our first question today comes from Ryan Vaughn of Needham & Company. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk01: Great. Thank you. Hi, Sam. Hi, Derek. Nice job on the quarter and navigating market and being in a position to capitalize as demand has improved here. Great to hear about Tampa and Vision. I have a few questions, but the first one is just on Tampa and Vision. Can you just talk about early plans? I think you said by the end of the month. both will be out, but what you plan on where they'll be positioned and used for.
spk04: So, I'll take the 350 vision first. The likely use of that vessel is to reposition the vessels in the Gulf of Mexico to participate in grudo movements within the Gulf of Mexico, at least in the short term. We see that as during the period of time when the strategic petroleum reserve releases are continuing, we think there is a pretty good prospect for sustained demand for crude movements within the Gulf. The Tampa, we are involved in a number of different discussions right now. I can say that generally demand for, you know, MR tankers in the Jones Act market is very healthy right now. And we're... working a number of different opportunities to employ that vessel. And as we touched on in my comments and Dick's comments as well, the issue for us right now is less a matter of whether or not we can find business is trying to find business at the rates that we would like to attain for longer periods. And that's kind of been the dynamic of negotiations at the moment. Not so much no business or spot business, but who and for what length a period charter can be fixed.
spk01: Thank you for that. Sam, you just touched on it at the end there about renewable diesel. We've been hearing several corporates talk about having more come online by the end of the year and certainly into the next couple of years. You've obviously had the Key West. You have some experience there. Can you just talk about what that might look like and is that a 2022 prospect or do you think that's something more for next year?
spk04: I think it's a little bit of both, Ryan. From what we're looking at in terms of incremental MR tanker demand, the Jones Act, there's three projects that are significant. Diamond Green Valero expansion project, which was slated to come on stream in the first quarter or second quarter of next year has been advanced and based on their recent corporate disclosures, seems to be ready to start producing in the fourth quarter of this year. So from memory, that's like another 25,000 barrels per day of production coming out of Port Arthur. And most of that production is still targeted for the West Coast, for California, and to some degree Washington and Oregon. So we would expect some incremental demand for renewable diesel coming out of that startup towards the end of the year. And then next year you have, at least based on their disclosures, PBF, Chalmette Refinery, they said second quarter of next year they expect production to begin at about 20,000 barrels per day. And then you have Vertex Energy. They bought Shell's mobile refinery and they're converting that. And from what we understand, that's a first half 2023 startup on that as well. My understanding of that's also about 20,000 barrels per day of production. So, you know, in a 15-day round, sorry, in a 30-plus day round voyage, 20,000 barrels per day of production is generating considerable new incremental demand for MR tankers, and we're encouraged by that. We still need to see all that production come online, of course, and there's an open question as to whether or not all of that production will go to the West Coast. We think as long as the low-carbon fuel standards that are rules that are present in California at the moment that those remain as they are in the spreads that are offered by the subsidies of that program, that's creating a major economic incentive to move any renewable diesel to California at this time.
spk01: Great. And then you touched on at the end there as well about the expected sequential improvement in EBITDA. And nice to see that 95% covered and 75% covered for the next two quarters, so good visibility there. Maybe just a question, I guess, for both of you guys. You mentioned the $20 to $25 million of free cash flow over the next six months. Just your thoughts being in a position of strength now compared to the last couple of years. And then, Dick, just more specifically, the $13 million of working capital use, what does working capital look like for the rest of the year? And can you just fill us in on, I know there's 5 million of Tridec and other CapEx for the first quarter. What's the expectations for the rest of 22 and any sort of early look on CapEx for 23? That's all for me. Thank you.
spk04: Dick, you want to take those? Sure.
spk02: So working capital, you know, part of it is really maybe two facets of the change there. One is, you know, As we make and install ballast water treatment systems on the vessels that we bare boat in from American Shipping Company, we are, in essence, fronting those costs to be reimbursed by American Shipping, and that contributed a large portion of the working capital change in the first quarter, somewhere in the order of magnitude of $5 million of that change. So we would expect that we'll recover that over the next few months. The other aspect of it is that there are a series of items that we are billed for at the end of one fiscal year that we pay in the beginning of the next fiscal year, which range from insurance premiums that we pay for the succeeding year. We pay that in the first quarter. deferred compensation arrangements from our Alaska tanker subsidiary and things of that. And that added another probably 40% of the changes in working capital. The rest just are kind of nominal timing differences. So those things don't really recur as the year progresses. Those are sort of, in a sense, one and done for this year. We'll continue to have some ballast water treatment system for instance, for the Tampa as the year progresses, but we would expect that that number would begin to come down and we would reach probably a slightly higher level of ongoing payables based on the fact that we'll have more shifts in service than we have had in the last year. So I would expect we would start to trend back towards more of a neutral working capital change position. From CapEx, I think our total budget for 2022 is about $24 million. So we've got about $19 million more that we will extend in the second through fourth quarters and likely sort of on a preview basis, but it's not finalized yet. I would expect that 23 would reflect a small, an increase over $24 million for the actual 23 capex.
spk04: Yeah. Uh, and Ryan, I'm sorry, but the first question you, the first part of your question, I can't remember what you asked.
spk01: Yeah. You just about, uh, you mentioned that you're going to generate 20 to 25 million of free cashflow over the next six months. Just plans, um, for the free cashflow.
spk04: Yeah. Well, that's kind of a refrain we've talked about a number of times in the past. You know, in a hierarchy of sort of priorities, we would always probably look at three obvious uses of cash. One would be to reinvest in businesses that we think are value generating over time, either in specific assets or in businesses that we think are are uh complementary to our existing businesses uh as we've said many times in the past in the jones act in particular those opportunities don't come along every day but they do come along from time to time as we saw with our alaska tanker company acquisition um and we think that you know we keep our eyes out for that sort of thing so that's that's kind of the first priority and we want to keep enough cash around that allow ourselves to be able to look at those sorts of things uh prudently and without stretching our balance sheet The second sort of level of priority would in all likelihood be reducing the financial leverage of our business through one form or another to either repay debt or in other ways reduce the financial leverage through derivatives of one sort or another. And then the third, of course, is always an option to be looking at share repurchases or somehow looking at the bottom half of the right-hand side of the balance sheet. So you've got the left side of the balance sheet probably being the first priority, the upper half of the right side of the balance sheet being second, and the bottom half being the third. That's the way we kind of look at it.
spk00: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jay Minsmeyer of Value Investors. Please go ahead.
spk03: Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Congrats on finally turning the corner, and it looks like a pretty good quarter here.
spk02: Thank you.
spk03: Yeah, so I got on the call a little bit late, so apologies for that. So if it's already been asked, feel free to breeze over quickly. But I note you're at about 100 million EBITDA run rates. And before the whole COVID situation, you're pushing 120 or better on forward estimated EBITDA. What do you think now is a realistic, normalized EBITDA once you get all the tankers working and you get those spot rates even back out a little bit? Are we talking 120, 125? What do you think? Reasonable range?
spk04: Well, look, the... the reactivation of vessels clearly improves our EBITDA rate. The operating leverage inherent in our business works both ways. It's now working in our favor. As we said, we think second quarter EBITDA, 30 million, adjusted EBITDA, 30 million is achievable. That's really before we take into consideration the contributions that we would expect to get from the reactivation of the Tampa, which really doesn't contribute much this quarter because it will be in dry dock pretty much through the middle second half of June. So the contribution from the Tampa will really only be visible in the third quarter. To some extent, the same is true for the 350 vision. We'll probably get a month worth of contribution this quarter, and then hopefully a full three months next quarter. So that gives us confidence that we should see continuing sequential growth in EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA above that $30 million number. Beyond that, I remind you that at this time, we intend to re-deliver three of the tankers that are unleashed from AMSC back to AMSC in December at sort of current levels, you know, those vessels probably generate order of magnitude, you know, $10 to $12 million across the three of EBITDA. So you would need to adjust that out on a forward-looking basis off of sort of, let's call it, third quarter or fourth quarter numbers. Um, and, and then, you know, of course then we have to think about what are the rates rates environment. But, uh, you know, I think that, that we're pretty confident that under the current, um, market environment where there's a, there's a relative balance in, in vessels and we're seeing kind of time charter rates in the $60,000 a day plus or minus rate. Um, and even after giving back, uh, three tankers next year, Yeah, $125, $130 million a year is something that we think is probably right.
spk03: Okay, thank you. Yeah, it's really helpful to walk through that and to see that 120 is already happening basically next quarter. And that was kind of where you capped out before this whole COVID mess. So it's really good to see you back there. You segued really nicely.
spk04: Yeah, I think, you know, just to echo that, you know, next quarter will be the first quarter in some time where we have all of our vessels operating. All right. So, you know, we've been suffering from idle capacity. And that flows through to the results, as you can see in Dick's charts. And next quarter, let's see what next quarter looks like. And then that will give us, you know, probably better visibility going forward as to what sort of run rate to expect after adjusting for giving back three shifts.
spk03: Yeah, certainly. We've been patient. We've been waiting for this. We're definitely looking forward to seeing Q2 and back up. You segued earlier nicely when you mentioned giving those three tankers back to AMSC because I'm just a little curious. I know you gave those back because you wanted to bring down the leverage a little bit. How does the current market rate and environment compare to those legacy leases? Is there a potential to go back to AMSC and get those ships back for even cheaper? Or what do you think happens to those vessels? Right, because they have to trade in the US market, right? So what do you think goes on with those?
spk04: You're correct in your statement that they have to trade in the US markets. You know, we've always said that there probably is a set of circumstances under which we would look at, you know, trying to find a way to keep those ships within our fleet. But it's not a high priority for us because, you know, we see the let's call it the medium term five-year horizon as requiring us to be thinking about how we transition into other markets other than the commodity markets of moving transportation fuel around the United States. And so at least from a capital allocation point of view, we consider it an important objective to want to have the resources available to allow us to pursue opportunities. As I've mentioned in the past, whether it's in wind or whether it's in movement of other liquid bulk commodities, maybe it's hydrogen, maybe it's CO2 in liquid form, or in other areas that are less directly tied to an expectation of continued use and growth of fossil fuels, it strikes us that taking a little bit of our leverage to those markets off the table and having the opportunity to maybe redirect them to things that have longer lifespans and maybe more niche-like activities, that's more consistent with a sustainable future for us. Again, that's not to say that we wouldn't look at an opportunity, certainly in the short run, for perhaps sustaining those vessels within our fleet. But longer term, a reduction of our exposure to the commodity elements of our tanker business is probably something to work into your base case assumptions.
spk03: Yeah, certainly. I think that makes sense in the longer term. I mean, the challenge right now, of course, and I know you're more aware of this than anybody, but the challenge right now is the market is giving you such a tiny multiple on your current equity. I mean, if you take 120, 125 million EBITDA run rate and apply even a halfway decent comp multiple, you're at 450, 550 per share, if not higher. And so it's really hard to talk about growth you know, in an environment where your equity trades where it does. I mean, this will be my last question because I appreciate the time you've given me, but I'm just curious on the trade-off because I know the questioner before me asked what you want to do with capital allocation. You kind of listed a menu. And we understand, right, there's dividends, repurchases, growth. But, I mean, how do you balance out that growth with the equity multiple you trade at? Because it just seems like repurchasing your own shares would have such a high, you know, implied IRR or RE or whatever you want to call it.
spk04: I have said pretty much every time we've spoken on the phone that how the markets work in valuing our business is a mystery to me. I think there are a lot of other factors that go into valuation than just multiples. We're relatively thinly traded. We don't have any analyst coverage. We've tried to work on solving those issues, but some of them are difficult to solve. I also think that know there's probably a little bit of an attitude in the market about even though we've been showing sequential progressive quarter to quarter uh uh improvements uh you know the first quarter of this year we still on an accounting basis gap counting we didn't make money so there's maybe a little bit of wait and see still left in in people that are looking at our stock uh maybe we see some improvement through the next couple of quarters as the sustainability of our cash flow generation becomes more apparent. So maybe that helps our stock price and shifts that multiple equation that you referred to, to looking a little bit more forward-looking rather than backward-looking. So those are all things that we still think need a little bit of time to play out, but I would state again that if we're generating cash and we see we have the quality problem of now having more cash than we think is necessary to sustain our business, we'll look at those three different categories of use of cash continuously and constructively to see how to use that cash. I use the word priority in terms of how we look at those opportunities, but that doesn't preclude one over the other. So all things have to be considered in what's the best use of our cash, and we'll continue to give that our focus when and if we start to see that cash balance begin to build.
spk03: Yeah, it's certainly understandable. You've been through a lot of rough quarters. We're looking forward to Q2, and keep up the great work turning this thing around.
spk06: Thank you.
spk00: As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press start, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad now. We have no further questions in the queue at the moment, so I'll hand back to Sam Norton for closing remarks.
spk04: Thank you, Lydia, and thanks again for everyone participating on today's call. We look forward to speaking again with you following the conclusion of the current quarter, hopefully with continued good news about the development of our business. Good day, everyone.
spk00: This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.
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