James Doyle
Analyst · B. Riley. Please go ahead
Thank you, Emanuele. Slide eight please. Our thesis and outlook remain the same as they did at the start of the year. We expect quarterly increases in refined product demand as the global economy reopens from COVID 19 pandemic against historically low inventories and constrained supply curve. Lars will speak to the factors that have resulted in a strong rate environment. But first, I will review a few key points as to why we expect the current strength to continue. Slide nine please. At a high level, it may appear that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the driver behind the current strength in the product tanker market. While it certainly created significant commodity price volatility, we have not seen shifts in Russian refined product exports going to Europe. Year-to-date, European imports of Russian refined products have increased slightly year-over-year. And the European diesel deficit shown in the lower right-hand graph is less about the conflict and more about a reduction in refining capacity and a shift to renewables. However, the EU has announced plans to reduce Russian imports refined products by next year. If European countries were to completely ban Russian product imports, it is expected that these hydrocarbons would flow to Africa, Asia and Latin America. To replace the lost Russian imports, Europe would have to source barrels from the U.S., Middle East, India and Asia. In the event this happens, there would be a substantial increase in ton miles as every replacement scenario requires replacing a barrel from further away. So what's been driving the market. Slide 10 please. Similar to Europe's diesel deficit, and regardless of the conflict in Ukraine, there is a global mismatch of refined products. However, continued improvement in demand as the global economy reopens from COVID-19 has exacerbated this mismatch. For several quarters refined product demand has continued to outpace supply. Despite an increase in refinery utilization inventories remain at historically low levels, and the increase in supply has not been enough to offset the increase in demand. This has been most evident global diesel market, but similar scenarios exist for gasoline and other refined product. The supply and demand mismatch becomes quite clear when looking at refining margins, which reached record levels remain extremely strong. We view elevated oil prices and refining margins not as temporary but rather reflect consistent under investment in the supply chain. Reason Brent crude oil is currently trading at $112 per barrel while diesel was trading at 140 is because there's not a shortage of crude oil, although that may come later, but a shortage of refining capacity. Put differently, global refined product demand is at or above pre-COVID levels more refining capacity is lower and more dissipated than before COVID. This has led to an increase in seaborne export and ton mile demand for refined products as product tankers serve as the conduit to reallocate refined product barrels around the world. Slide 11 please. Changes to the global refining system continue to increase ton mile demand, which is the quantity of cargo multiplied by the distance it needs to travel. This is important because an increase in ton mile demand tightened supply and as a driver for higher freight rate environment. From 2019 to 2021, about 2.6 million barrels of refining capacity closed, and a reason why refined product prices remain so high today. After a refinery closes, in most cases, the loss output needs to be replaced with imports. As you can see lower left as Australia's refining capacity declined, refinery product imports have increased to replace the lost production. Over the last decade, we have seen a structural shift in refining capacity, which is moved further away from the consumer and closer to the wellhead. Excluding China, export-oriented refining capacity additions in places like the Middle East have offset closures of older, less efficient domestic refining capacity in places like Europe. Simply these refinery changes lead to an increase in seaborne exports of refined product and the distance those products need to travel. New export-oriented refining capacity additions in the Middle East, U.S. and India will help to alleviate the global shortage in refined products over the next few years. However, it's difficult to change refining capacity in the short-term. And thus we expect the global supply demand tightness and refined products to continue to persist. Slide 12 please. Our view at the start of the year and now remains the same, refine product demand continues to increase as COVID restrictions ease. Given the challenge for refiners to increase main play capacity in the short-term, we expect existing refining capacity to continue to operate at higher utilization levels. We have seen this in the U.S. Gulf, where refineries have operated at 97.6% utilization over the last four weeks, while diesel exports have hit record highs. Seaborne exports of refined products have been above pre-COVID level since March, and the underlying refined products market is expected to get tighter rather than going forward. We expect refined product demand to increase by an additional 2 million to 4 million barrels a day through the end of this year. If 25% of this increased, demand is exported, seaborne exports of refined products will increase by an additional 500,000 to a million barrels per day. We started to see the additional uptick in volumes in June and July. With inventories at have historically low levels, the ability to supply demand from inventory draws is limited. And thus refinery runs and exports will need to increase. These developments create a very constructive environment. Seaborne product exports and ton mile demand are expected to increase 3% and 10% this year, and we see several scenarios where this could be higher. Next year seaborne exports in ton 10 miles are expected to increase by an additional 4% and 6% respectively. And these demand increases will be met by very limited fleet growth. Slide 13 Please. The product tanker order book is at a record low with 5% of the existing fleet on order today. Shipyard capacity is fully short-term orders from other shipping segments such as containers and gas. With only 19 products ordered year-to-date, we do expect more orders but even if those were ordered today, it would not be delivered until 2025. Unlike other sectors, product tankers were not built in mass until the early 2000s. So scrapping has been minimal and basically everything that's been delivered hasn't left the fleet. Today there are 249 product tankers 20 years and older by 2025, excluding scrapping, it will be 664 product tankers 20 years old. Perhaps more than half of the fleet will be 15 years and older by 2025 without additional rebuild motors. Using modest scrapping assumptions product tanker net fleet growth will average 0.3% in 22 and 23 before going negative. However, if scrap rate that reflects the age profile of the fleet supply growth is essentially zero next year before going negative in 24 and 25. All of this said, it's likely that the product tanker fleet trading in clean petroleum products will shrink over the next few years. Slide 15 please. The quality of Scorpio Tankers is an investment and balance sheet continues to improve. As Emanuele mentioned, our focus has been on improving the balance sheet through debt reduction and maintaining a strong liquidity position. In the first half of this year, the company reduced overall indebtedness by $511 million. Net debt has also declined almost $750 million from the start of the year through July 27. In addition, we recently gave notice to repurchase six MRs and sale lead arrangements for $95 million, further accelerating the deleveraging of the company. This voluntary debt repayment along with scheduled amortization, and debt repayment related to a vessel sale we will reduce our indebtedness by close to $700 million in the first nine months of this year. At the same time, given the strong rate environment if the fleet average is $35,000 a day in the third quarter, the company could have close to 700 million in pro forma liquidity by September. This would result in a net debt reduction of 1.1 billion in the first nine months of the year. Slide 16 please. Scorpio Tankers has tremendous operating leverage. Every increase in spot rates above are all in breakeven goes directly to the bottom-line. So far in the second quarter the fleet has surged TC rate of $44,800 per day. Assuming product tanker rates were to average $35,000 a day for the year, the company would generate almost a billion dollars in free cash flow before debt repayment or a little bit over $20 a share close to a 50% free cash flow yield from yesterday. If you include debt repayment, the company would repay $4.20 per share in debt. And then it's 742 million or 12.60 a share in free cash flow increasing the NAV of the company by $16.80 per share. And now I would like to turn the call over to Lars for an update on the factors leading to the current strong environment. Slide nine, please.