Inger Klemp
Analyst · Evercore. Please go ahead, your line is now open
Thanks, Robert and good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let's turn to Slides 4 and 5 and look at the financial highlights and the income statement. Frontline achieved total operating revenues net of voyage expenses of $122 million, and EBITDA adjusted for certain non-cash items of 78 million in the fourth quarter. Frontline reports a net income of 25.4 million, which is equivalent to $0.15 per share, and a net income adjusted for certain non-cash items of $26.3 million, also equivalent to $0.15 per share. The non-cash items this quarter consisted of $8.9 million gain on the termination of the leases on Front Ariake and Front Falcon. We had a $0.2 million share results of an associated company, a $5.4 million unrealized loss on marketable securities, and also 4.7 million loss on derivatives. The fourth quarter shows an improvement of 31 million against adjusted EBITDA of 47 million and an improvement of 34.8 million against adjusted net loss of 8.4 million in the third quarter of 2018. The improvement in net income in the quarter of 34.8 million is mainly explained by an increase in the result on time charter basis of $33.1 million. This is due to the increased and reported TCE rates in the fourth quarter, compared to the third quarter. However, our net income in the fourth quarter was impacted significantly by high number of ballast days towards the end of the quarter, especially for the VLCC, which deferred revenue recognition into the first quarter of 2019. The company is required to account for voyage revenues and voyage costs and the load-to-discharge method according to the ASC 606 on the U.S. GAAP. The total impact of this is about 15.8 million in net voyage revenues have been deferred into the first quarter. Where 13.5 million relates to the VLCCs and 2.9 million relates to the Suezmax tankers. For the LR2 tankers, 0.6 million net voyage costs have been deferred into the first quarter. I Note 2 in our Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements for more details. The Spot TCE estimates for the first quarter are 41,300 contracted by 84% of vessel days for VLCC; 33,300 contracted for 77% for vessel days for Suezmax tankers and 26,100 contracted for 73% of vessel days for LR2/Aframax tankers. This includes the deferred revenue recognition from the fourth quarter of 2018, which I just went through. These spot estimates are provided using the load-to-discharge method over accounting as described in more detail in Note 2 through our Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements. The rates quoted are for days currently contracted. The actually rates to be earned in the first quarter 2019 will therefore depend on the number of additional days that we can contract. Of course, more importantly the number of additional days that each vessel is laden. Therefore, the high number of ballast days at the end of the quarter will limit the amount of additional revenues to be booked based on accounting under ASC 606. The load-to-discharge method of accounting results in revenues being recognized over few days, but at the higher rate for those days. Over the life of a voyage, there is no difference in the total revenues and costs to be recognized, and when expressing the TCE per day the company uses the total available days for the quarter and not just the number of days the vessel is laden. Let’s then take a look at the balance sheet on Slide 6. The changes to the balance sheet as of December 31, from September 30 mainly relate to a decrease in vessels of 25 million due to depreciation in the quarter. A decrease in vessels on the capital leases by 46.8 million, due to termination Ariake and Falcon. An increase of the long-term asset of 7.5 million, mainly due to advances made on scrubber investments, a net decrease in depth with 25 million, and also a decrease in obligations on the capital leases with [59.96 million], due to the termination of the leases on Front Ariake and Front Falcon. We also had an increase in equity of 26 million [representing] the net income in the fourth quarter. As of December 31, Frontline has 158 million and cash equivalent, including the undrawn amounts under our unsecured loan facilities, marketable securities, and minimum cash requirements. Our remaining newbuilding CapEx requirements amounted to 114 million, related to the two [indiscernible] and we had approximately 114.7 million in debt capacity under our newbuilding credit facilities. We had no near-term debt maturities. The first debt maturity is in November 2020 on our senior unsecured loan facility of $275 million matured. We had drawn down 186 million under this facility as of end of December and following repayment of 15 million in January, we currently have drawn 171 million under this facility. Let’s take a closer look at the cash break even rates and OpEx on Slide 7. We estimate average cash cost breakeven rates for 2019 of approximately $24,400 per day for the VLCCs, $19,900 per day for the Suezmax tankers, and $16,700 per day for the LR2 tankers. These rates, they are all in daily rates that our vessels must earn to cover budgeted operating cost on dry dock, estimated interest expenses, TC and bareboat hires, installments on loans, and G&A expenses. The reason for the breakeven rates are higher than in 2018 is that we have included dry dock costs for 6 VLCCs, 4 Suezmax tankers and one LR2 tanker in 2019. In the upper right-hand graph, we show Frontline historical VLCC cash breakeven rates. Along with average VLCC spot earnings in the period from 2009 to 2019. We can see from the graph that Frontline’s low cash break even rates offers a strong downside protection against the low rate environment and at the same time creates a great upside potential in the strengthening tanker markets. Every $1,000 per day in achieve rates in excess of our cash breakeven rates translates to approximately $19 million in incremental net income per year or $0.11 per share, which shows the high importance of maintaining those low cash breakeven rates. The operating expenses per day in the fourth quarter of 2018 were $7,600 for the VLCCs, $7,000 for the Suezmax tankers and $7,100 for the LR2 tankers. We did not [try dry dock any vessels] in the third quarter and no vessel is scheduled to dry dock in the first quarter of 2019. With this, I leave the word to Robert again.