Samuel Rubio
Analyst · Baird
Thank you, Piers, and good morning, everyone. I would like you to take you through our financial results and discuss some key points that make up these results. My discussion will focus primarily on quarter-to-quarter results of the first quarter of 2022 compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. As noted on our press release filed yesterday, we reported a net loss of $12.2 million or $0.29 per share. From an operational perspective, we showed modest revenue improvement quarter-over-quarter. Our revenue for the first quarter of 2022 was $105.7 million. This is $554,000 or approximately 1% increase from the fourth quarter of 2021.
Utilization and day rates were up slightly in the first quarter with active utilization of 82.5% compared to 82.4% in the previous quarter. We also saw average day rates increased about 1% to 10,687 per day in the first quarter from 10,583 per day in the fourth quarter. Overall, gross margin for Q1 increased nicely to 35%, up from 32% in Q4. Vessel operating costs for the quarter was $68.5 million, a decrease of $2.7 million from Q4. The decline in operating costs consisted of reduction in COVID-related costs, down about $400,000, stacking costs down about $400,000 and vessel reactivation expenses down about $300,000. The remaining reduction is primarily the result of lower repair and maintenance spend. We sold 5 vessels during the first quarter for net proceeds of $4.6 million and recorded a net gain of $300,000 on the sale of these vessels.
Our operating loss of $7.3 million for the quarter decreased by $19.7 million from Q4 due to the absence of the $13.5 million asset impairment and $1.4 million affiliate credit loss incurred in the fourth quarter, along with modestly higher revenue and lower vessel operating expenses. We did not record any credit losses during the first quarter.
However, we did book a $500,000 impairment credit as we returned 1 vessel -- 1 of our vessels held for sale back to the active fleet. G&A costs for the quarter was $18.2 million, up about $600,000 from Q4. G&A for the first quarter included $2.2 million of transaction expenses associated with the Swire acquisition. Our legacy Tidewater projection for G&A costs, excluding transaction and synergy type costs was previously $68 million per year, and we feel that number is still a good number. However, with the addition of Swire, that number will increase initially by $2.8 million per month, but decrease in synergies begin to materialize.
Next, I would like to provide a brief update as it relates to Swire combination and what expectations are now that we have closed the transaction. If you recall, we previously announced we expect to achieve $20 million in G&A synergies related to the transaction. We have already commenced efforts to integrate the Swire business into the broader Tidewater platform. We anticipate having the G&A functions principally integrated by the end of 2022 and begin to realize the full run rate of these synergies in early 2023. We also noted to expect to achieve $25 million of OpEx-related synergies. As previously discussed, we anticipate this effort will take a bit longer to realize the synergies, probably closer to 18 months. We expect to spend another $5 million to $6 million this year in professional fees related to the completion of the acquisition and $14 million in costs achieved in noted synergies, which includes items such as severance costs, lease termination costs, stay bonuses, integration performance bonuses and IT costs.
In the quarter, we incurred $12.6 million of deferred drydock costs compared to $9.9 million in Q4. As expected, Q1 was a heavy drydock quarter with a combination of drydocks that crossed over from Q4 and previously scheduled dry docks for the first quarter. In the quarter, 12 drydocks were in process, and we incurred 547 drydock days, which negatively impacted our overall utilization by 5 percentage points. We expect the second quarter to be another heavy drydock quarter with spend of around $21 million, including about $2 million of drydocks associated with the recently acquired Swire vessels.
We anticipate full year 2022 drydock costs to be approximately $54 million, up modestly from our prior estimate of $51 million, principally related to the addition of the Swire vessels. In the quarter, we also incurred about $1.2 million in capital expenditures. We expect CapEx for 2022 to be about $9 million, including $2 million on Swire vessels. Free cash flow was negative $10.4 million this quarter due primarily to the heavy drydock spend and the build in working capital. Q2 will be another challenging quarter as drydock will be substantial, and AR will continue to build due to the increase in revenue. However, as dry docks, COVID and stacking costs decreased and working capital timing begins to improve, we do see significant improvement to free cash flow occurring in the second half of the year. On previous calls, we talked about collections challenges related to Pemex. While outstanding AR with Pemex dropped nicely in the fourth quarter, we have seen that balance build up approximately $5 million from Q4. We continue to engage with Pemex to keep the DSO within a reasonable range. We also had some buildup in other locations to customers falling behind on their payables of approximately $6 million. Along with a natural build in AR due to meaningful revenue increases in Trinidad, Egypt and West Africa to an extent. We fully expect DSO to get back to the normal range. But I do want to remind everyone we would expect AR to naturally increase over the coming quarters as revenue increases, but will similarly work to keep DSO in a reasonable range.
In Q4 of 2019, we began reclassifying vessels on our balance sheet from property equipment to assets held for sale. And at the end of 2021, we had 18 vessels held for sale at a value of $14.4 million. During the first quarter, we sold 5 vessels for proceeds of $4.6 million and transferred wood vessel back to the active fleet, leaving our vessels held for sale at 12 with a value of $8.6 million.
During the quarter, we entered into an at-the-market sales agreement pursuant to which we may offer and sell shares from time to time of our common stock, having an aggregate offering price of up to $30 million. We did not issue any shares under the ATM program during the first quarter of 2022. We intend to utilize the ATM program to create a market for outstanding Jones Act warrants, including the 8.1 million Jones Act warrants issued to Swire upon closing the transaction.
I would now like to focus on the performance of the regions. Our Americas region reported a small operating loss of $82,000 for the quarter compared to an operating loss of $2.9 million in Q4 '21. The region reported revenue of $28.4 million in Q1 compared to $27.9 million in Q4. The region operated vessels in the quarter, which was an increase of 1% from Q4. Active utilization for the quarter was 76%, which was down from 80% in the prior quarter due in part to 56 more drydock days in the quarter. However, day rates did increase to 5,501 from 14,603 per day in Q4. The decrease in operating income was due primarily to an increase in revenue. In addition, in Q4, we accrued for legal court claim in Brazil did not occur in Q1, which reduced operating costs for the quarter as well. Our Middle East, Asia Pacific region reported operating income of $290,000 compared to operating income of $1.1 million in Q4. The region reported revenue of $25.1 million in the first quarter as compared to $26.9 million in prior quarter. The region operated at 38 vessels, which was up 1 vessel compared to Q4. Active utilization decreased by approximately 6 percentage points to 86% in the quarter compared to 92% in Q4 as the region incurred 230 dry dock days.
However, day rates remain constant at 8,589 per day in Q1 compared to 8,580 per day in Q4. The decrease in operating income was due primarily to the decrease in revenue caused by the lower utilization. Our Europe and Mediterranean region reported an operating loss of $2.4 million in Q1 compared to a nonoperating loss of $4 million in Q4. We saw revenue increase by 6% to $23.9 million compared to $22.5 million in Q4. The region operated at 24 vessels in the quarter, which was an increase of 1 vessel from Q4 and active utilization increased to 91.3% compared to 88.5% in Q4. We did see a slight uptick in day rates to 12,124 per day compared to 11,917 per day in Q4. The improvement in operating income for the quarter was mainly driven by the increase in revenue and decrease in operating costs due mainly to lower reactive aging costs. Our West Africa region reported operating income of $3.2 million in Q1 compared to an operating loss of $1.1 million in Q4. The market in this area has continued to improve as we have seen revenue increases steadily for 5 straight quarters and was the region with the highest increase in revenue for the quarter with 14% from Q4.
In addition, revenue also increased 69% from Q1 2021. Revenue for Q1 was $26.4 million compared to $23.2 million in Q4. The region operated 3 more vessels in Q1 and active utilization increased meaningfully to 79.1% in Q1 compared to 71.4% in Q4. Day rates did drop modestly to 8,834 per day in Q1 from 9,052 per day in Q4. The increase in operating income from Q4 resulted mainly from an increase in revenue on essentially flat operating expenses. In January, we required 51% of the Sonatide joint venture, which included 2 vessels. Those vessels contributed approximately $1 million to the increase in revenue. In summary, we are encouraged to see the increase in revenue, day rates and utilization, and we are encouraged to see the continued positive signs in market activity. We reactivated 20 vessels in 2021 and 5 in the current quarter with a few remaining to be reactivated later this year.
The original 20 vessels have begun to contribute nicely to the operating results. Revenues have increased operating cost is beginning to stabilize. As noted, we still have a few remaining reactivations, so operating costs will still be a little bumpy, but we are starting to see a significant decrease in COVID and stacking costs, which will also have a positive impact in our results. We completed the Swire acquisition in late April and very excited to begin integrating both employees and the vessels into Tidewater operations. As I mentioned last quarter, we have a great team of people high-quality fleet with strong commercial positions, this made them successful and will be essential to Tidewater's continued success in creating a world-leading OSV company. We remain very encouraged with all the positive signs and look forward for this to continue in 2022 and beyond.
With that, I will now turn the call over -- back over to Quintin.