Ole Hjertaker
Analyst · BTIG
Thank you, and welcome all to SFL's first quarter conference call. I will start the call by briefly going through the highlights of the quarter. And following that, our CFO, Aksel Olesen, will take us through the financials, and the call will be concluded by opening up for questions. Our Chief Operating Officer, Trym Sjølie, will also be present for the Q&A session.
Before we begin our presentation, I would like to note that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as expects, anticipates, intends, estimates or similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are based on our current plans and expectations and are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause future activities and results of operations to be materially different from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.
Important factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, conditions in the shipping, offshore and credit markets. You should, therefore, not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more detailed discussions on our risks and uncertainties, which may have a direct bearing on our operating results and our financial condition.
The announced dividend of $0.22 per share is an increase of 10% over last quarter's dividend and represents a dividend yield of around 8.8% based on closing price yesterday. This is our 73rd quarterly dividend and over the years, we have paid more than $28 per share in dividends or nearly $2.5 billion in total. And we have an increasing fixed rate charter backlog supporting continued dividend capacity going forward. The total charter revenues were $166 million in the quarter with the vast majority from vessels on long-term charters and only 20% from vessels employed on short-term charters and in the spot market.
The EBITDA equivalent cash flow in the quarter was approximately $119 million. And over the last 12 months, the EBITDA equivalent has been approximately $455 million. And the net income came in at around $47 million in the quarter or $0.37 per share. There was also a positive mark-to-market on interest rate swaps and equity investments but only a small portion of the total economic effect of the swaps flow through our profit and loss statement. Most is defined as hedging accounting and the book effect would have been around $10 million higher otherwise. In the quarter, there were around $1 million higher operating cost in the quarter due to additional crew rotation costs linked to COVID restrictions in some areas and increased airfare and also higher legal expenses in connection with the Seadrill bankruptcy and redelivery of the rigs. We expect this to come down when travel restrictions ease and the rigs are redelivered to us later this year.
Our fixed rate backlog has increased significantly and stands at approximately $3.6 billion from owned and managed vessels after recent acquisitions and charters, which provides continued cash flow visibility going forward. The backlog figure excludes revenues from the vessels traded in the short-term market and also excludes future profit share optionality. In March, we announced a $540 million added backlog on our 6 large 14,000 TEU container vessels. The vessels will finish their initial 10-year charters to Evergreen in 2023 and '24, and we have now added another 5 years to Hapag-Lloyd, taking the charter coverage to 2029.
Hapag-Lloyd is the world's fifth largest container line, and the transaction highlights the value and importance of our strong operational platform and our time charter strategy enable us to build strong customer relationships with industry-leading counterparties. In connection with Seadrill's Chapter 11 process, we agreed to take over the charter contract on West Linus with effect when all government approvals are in place. Based on current charter rate, around $500 million was added to the backlog. But given the market adjusted charter rate, this could increase if the drilling market strengthens.
West Hercules will be redelivered when the current drilling assignment for Equinor in Canada is finalized towards the end of the year. Thereafter, that rig will be managed by Odfjell, a market-leading operator of harsh environment drilling rigs, and we will drop the West prefix on the rig names. The sale of the last 2 VLCCs on charter to Frontline marks the end of an era and demonstrates the transformation SFL has gone through. Initially, Frontline was our only customer and the fleet consisted of nearly 50 crude oil tankers. The 2 remaining vessels were 18 years old and we sold them after the quarter end for approximately $70 million, including a compensation from Frontline. We expect to book a gain of approximately $2 million in connection with the sale.
And subsequent to quarter end, we have also delivered the 19-year-old 1,700 TEU container vessel to MSC Alice, which has been on a hire purchase agreement to MSC for the last 5 years. This transaction illustrates the value of having optionality where the final payment was intended to be marginal as the vessel had effectively been paid down over the 5 years, but we negotiated a profit share agreement into the deal at the time. And while we, of course, hope that there would be some value in that option, we didn't expect it to be more than $1 million or $2 million. Assuming 5 years forward to today, the very strong container market currently meant that we ended up with a profit split of nearly $12 million instead. The vessel was debt-free and SFL expects to record a gain of approximately $12 million in the second quarter. Excluding the drilling rigs, the backlog from owned and managed shipping assets were $3.6 billion at the end of the quarter, up from $2.8 billion in the previous quarter.
Over the years, we have changed both fleet composition and structure, and we now have 71 maritime assets in our portfolio after these transactions. Over the years, we have gone from a single asset class chartered to 1 single customer to a diversified fleet and multiple counterparties. And over time, the mix of the assets and charter backlog has varied from 100% tankers to nearly 60% offshore 10 years ago to container vessels now being the largest segment with nearly 60% of the backlog and tankers only at around 10%.
Most of the vessels are on long-term charters, and in the quarter, only 12% of hire was from vessels in the spot market. Also, we have nearly 90% of charter revenue from our shipping assets on time charter contracts and only 11% on bareboat or dry lease arrangements. We have also had significant contribution to cash flow from profit share over time, both relating to charter rates and fuel savings. The aggregate profit share was $22 million last 12 months and $4.5 million in the first quarter. We do not have a set mix in the portfolio, focus is on evaluating deal opportunities across the segments and trying to do the right transactions from a risk-reward perspective. Over time, we believe this will balance itself out, but we try to be careful and conservative in our investments with a focus on technology and transition over time to more fuel-efficient vessels.
SFL owns 2 harsh environment drilling rigs, the West Hercules and West Linus, which have been chartered to subsidiaries of Seadrill since new. We have now been through 2 Chapter 11 rounds in Seadrill. And while we have been paid charter hire during the processes, we have decided to end our chartering relationship with Seadrill. The long-term drilling contract for West Linus with ConocoPhillips will be assigned to us as soon as customary Norwegian regulatory approvals have been obtained, currently expected to be completed in the third quarter. Thereafter, the rig will be managed by Odfjell Technology, a leading supplier of our offshore operations who is already performing extensive drilling services for ConocoPhillips on the fixed installations. The West Linus has been drilling for ConocoPhillips at the Greater Ekofisk Area since it was new in 2014, and its contract runs until the end of 2028 at market index charter rate. It was ordered against the contract and has several features which makes it particularly effective at the Ekofisk field on the Norwegian Continental shelf.
The Ekofisk field was the first oil discovery in Norway and has produced more than 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent since its start-up in 1971. Recently, the production licenses in the Greater Ekofisk Area was extended from 2028 to 2048, and the area's license partners has recently announced new significant investments in future productions given the size and proximity to European markets. The harsh environment semisubmersible rig, West Hercules, will remain on charter to Seadrill, while it finalizes a drilling contract with Norwegian oil major, Equinor, in Canada. This is expected through the fourth quarter this year, and thereafter, the rig will be redelivered to SFL in Norway. It will then undergo a scheduled 5-year special survey estimated to take around 3 months before the rig is ready to work again.
Odfjell Drilling, a market-leading harsh environment drilling rig operator will perform commercial and operational management of the rig after redelivery from Seadrill. The rig is only -- is one of only a handful rigs fully equipped to drill in the harshest Arctic environment. And market analysts are positive to market prospects after the strong oil price development and the realization that there has been a fundamental underinvestment in the segment for a number of years. We follow the market closely, of course, and will announce future employment in due course. The strength of our counterparties and diversification is key when you assess our portfolio and quality over contracted backlog. And the list speaks for itself with market-leading operators like Maersk, MSC, ConocoPhillips, P66 and Volkswagen to name a few. Relatively few of our customers are intermediaries where we have less visibility on the use of the assets and quality of operations.
Strategically, this also gives us access to more deal flow opportunities such as the repeat businesses with Maersk, MSC, Evergreen and Trafigura, for example. Our strategy has therefore been to maintain a strong technical and commercial operating platform in cooperation with our sister companies in the Seatankers Group. This gives us the ability to offer a wider range of services to our customers from structured financing to full-service time charters. And with full control over vessel maintenance and performance, including energy efficiency and emission minimizing efforts, we can impact improvements to our vessels through the life of the assets. and not only be passively owning vessels employed on bareboat where the customer may not always have an incentive to make such improvements. In addition, we can retain more of the residual value in the assets when we charter out on a time charter basis. And in the current environment with rising raw material costs and inflation driving replacement costs for vessels, this value is for the benefit of SFL and our stakeholders. For bareboat deals, this mass value is usually retained by the charterers through fixed price purchase options.
And with that, I will give the word over to our CFO, Aksel Olesen, who will take us through the financial highlights of the quarter.