Earnings Labs

KNOT Offshore Partners LP (KNOP)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, May 8, 2015

$10.70

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to the KNOT Offshore Partners’ First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Arild Vik, CEO and CFO of KNOT. Please go ahead.

Arild Vik

Analyst

Thank you and good morning. Welcome you all to our first quarter 2015 results call. And then please note the cautionary statements on Page 2. And we can then go on to talk about the first quarter, which has been a stable and good quarter for the partnership. We now have in total operation eight vessels, so we have expanded with four since we did our IPO. So we have generated revenue of $36.2 million, operating income of $17 million, and net income of $7.2 million reflecting that there is also certain derivative losses which I’ll come back to which are basically mainly unrealized. And we generated adjusted EBITDA of $28.3 million and we generated distributable cash flow of $16.4 million. We have had strong than budgeted utilization virtually no downtime on our fleet and we did declare increase in distribution 4% up to $0.51 for the first quarter and this reflects the coverage ratio 1.36. Further, Mr. John Costain has now been appointed as the new CEO and CFO of the company and he will take his position up on June 1. And he is currently – he is previously been on our Board and he has long experience within the tanker industry in various finance positions. And also under the partnership agreement we elect directors independent elected directors have appointed Mr. Simon Bird UK National currently employed with Bristol Ports and also have long logistics experience to become a new member of our board with effect from today. And if we then look more closely at our income statement on Page 4, I’d just like to highlight in addition to what we talked about on the revenue side as previously there are certain non-cash items, minor amounts and I suppose the main area worth noting is the derivatives…

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Spiro Dounis of UBS Securities.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst

Hey, good afternoon. Arild, how are you?

Arild Vik

Analyst

I’m fine, thank you.

Simon Bird

Analyst

Fine, and how are you?

Spiro Dounis

Analyst

Great. Not too bad. So just wondering how you and maybe some of the oil majors you speak to are viewing this I guess rebound we have had in crude prices over the last month or two? I know you've mentioned in the past maybe the distribution growth rate guidance could be scaled back a bit in response to the market, and maybe some projects coming offline in a few years, and just where the unit price was trading. I was wondering if that's still the case, or are you feeling optimistic these days, or are the oil majors feeling more optimistic these days, just given where the crude price is?

Arild Vik

Analyst

I think we have throughout felt that this development is not stopping and obviously the fact that the oil price seems to come back somewhat is helpful in this respect. But I think the main message from our side is that we have said throughout that much of the activity that we are going to see over the next five years is things were which have already come a long way and on that basis we continue to see as I said there is - continued to be activity on discussion of new contract. So and the oil price I think obviously is helping that in the right direction, but we are never been in a position that sort of things have been held back to a large extend.

Simon Bird

Analyst

Spiro, this is Bird, remember that when the oil price dropped considerably we said the activity in the markets for new shuttle contracts really improved, so we have seen a lot of discussions in the markets for new deals and I don’t think it’s fair to say that this short-term list we’ve seen lately has really changed anything in the market. Oil companies seem to be quite confident on the way down and they stay long on the way up.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst

And is that a result of owners just doing enhanced oil recovery to squeeze every last drop out of the wells they've already poured a lot of money into? Is that the driver behind the increase?

Arild Vik

Analyst

No I think it’s just maturement of projects that are up for shuttle tanker demand and of course what we have discussed is of course is very good development in Brazil and that’s been quite positive and I think those the companies exposed that they wanted more capacity to transport their oil.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst

Makes sense. And with respect to the potential BG Shell merger, I guess a lot of talk so far has been around the impact on LNG carriers, but how are you viewing this potential merger from a shuttle tanker perspective?

Arild Vik

Analyst

Well I believe that one of the reason Shell booked BG is that they find their oil activity and their oil assets in Brazil interesting and all we hear is that there is good speed in relation to making sure that can be developed as quickly as possible. Over time of course we would expect once the merger becomes effective that there will be some level of coordination, but we don’t think that will affect the activity levels.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst

Gotcha. Great. That's it for me. And I guess we'll see you in a few weeks at [NAPPP]. Take care guys.

Simon Bird

Analyst

Very good.

Arild Vik

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And the next question comes from Lin Shen of HITE.

Lin Shen

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. Can you remind us what you think for the timing of the next drop down, and also how do you plan to finance the drop down?

Arild Vik

Analyst

Yes, that’s a good question. We obviously have said that we’ll continue to grow the company I think we are looking to do further acquisitions this year, the unit price has been not encouraging so of course that also goes into our evaluation of this and obviously when it comes to – so we will not guide specifically on timing, but obviously we have these drop downs and we are going to do them. And of course in terms of financing we would believe that will be mix of debt and equity and we obviously need to follow the unit price a bit to see how we can optimize that in the interest of the existing unit holders.

Lin Shen

Analyst

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Next we have a question from Ben Brownlow of Raymond James.

Ben Brownlow

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to follow up on the last question. I know the Ingrid vessel is a slightly higher spec, more expensive vessel. But could you give us just an idea of kind the range in multiples you expect for that drop-down to take place?

Arild Vik

Analyst

Well, I think we are – again we don’t guide specifically, but I think it will be something along the lines of what you have seen.

Simon Bird

Analyst

I mean the contract was bit longer, but I mean it’s not a reason to really change pricing based on that and then in the fairly stable interest rate environment we don’t see that relationship change a lot.

Ben Brownlow

Analyst

Great, thank you. End of Q&A

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And showing no additional questions I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Arild Vik

Analyst

Yes, thank you very much. Once again thank you all for listening to us and we look forward to welcome you again in three months time for our second quarter earnings presentation and that of course will be with the new management, so for me I take this opportunity to thank you all for your support and for your – my dealing with you during this time.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.