Bruce Chan
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, Ken Hoexter from -- sorry, from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thank you, Ryan. Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me here in Vancouver is Vince Lok, Teekay Tankers' Chief Financial Officer; Brian Fortier, Corporate Controller of Teekay Corporation; and Peter Evensen, Teekay Corporation's Chief Executive Officer. During today's call, I will be taking you through Teekay Tankers first quarter earnings results presentation, which could be found in our website. Beginning with our recent highlights on Slide 3 of the presentation, Teekay Tankers generated cash available for distribution of $0.10 per share in the first quarter, down slightly from the $0.13 per share generated in the fourth quarter, mainly due to the change in employment of certain vessels from fixed rates to lower spot rates upon expiry of their time-charter-out contracts. We reported an adjusted net loss of $0.04 per share, an improvement from our adjusted net loss of $0.09 per share reported in the fourth quarter of 2012. Although the spot tanker market remains at challenging cyclically low levels, our spot fleet successfully outperformed industry benchmarks during the quarter, supported by Teekay Corporation's commercial pools, namely, Taurus Tankers, Gemini and the Teekay Aframax RSA. The beneficial relationship we enjoy with our sponsor, has enabled us to utilize Teekay's extensive customer and chartering relationships to secure favorable spot rate employment for our vessels, allowing us to outperform the market. The company declared a dividend of $0.03 per share for the first quarter. Teekay Tankers' 22nd consecutive quarterly dividend, which we paid out on May 28 to all shareholders of record on May 20. This quarter marks the commencement of the fixed dividend policy change we announced last quarter. Teekay Tankers' dividend is currently set at an annual dividend of $0.12 payable quarterly. We believe this dividend policy allows Teekay Tankers to retain operating cash flow in a recovering tanker market to fund attractive growth opportunities. Given the challenging rate environment, we continue to be focused on managing our fleet employment mix to ensure we preserve cover from fixed-rate charters to support and provide stability for our cash available for distribution and our dividend as we enter the seasonally weaker summer months. In addition, by extending our time-charter-in of the Star Lady for another 6 months at a below market rate, we successfully gained short-term spot exposure at a favorable spread while limiting the risk associated with a longer charter commitment. Finally, as announced in April, Teekay Tankers entered into an agreement with STX Offshore & Shipbuilding of Korea to order 4 fuel-efficient, long range or LR2 product tanker newbuildings. This order is a reflection of our positive view of the developing long-haul product tanker market fundamentals. In addition, because LR2s are essentially Aframax size tankers with epoxy coated tanks, they will have the flexibility to trade in both refined product or crude oil cargoes. At an attractive fully built-up cost of approximately $47 million per vessel, these newbuildings will provide good value for Teekay Tankers as they deliver into an expected improving tanker market in late 2015 and into early 2016. Turning to Slide 4. We have provided an updated overview of Teekay Tankers' fleet employment mix and fixed rate coverage. Including our recent LR2 newbuilding order, the current fleet consists of 31 owned vessels, as well as 2 time-chartered-in Aframax and one 50% owned VLCC newbuilding, to be named The Hong Kong Spirit, scheduled to be delivered in the second quarter on to a 5-year charter. As I noted a moment ago, in the current weak spot tanker rate environment, locking in fixed cover continues to be a focus as we expect the current spot market weakness and volatility to continue for at least the near term. Recently, we successfully time-chartered out the Aframax tanker, Everest Spirit, for a 3-year period, at a rate of $15,500 per day, increasing our fixed cover percentage to 40% for the 12-month period from March 31, 2013. Turning to Slide 5. I want to take a moment to review Teekay Tankers' performance against the challenging first quarter market backdrop. Demand for crude oil tankers has been weak through the early part of 2013, particularly for the larger vessel classes. A steady increase in non-OPEC oil production, primarily due to the ramp-up in U.S. shale oil production, has led to a reduction in OPEC crude supply. This is negative for large tankers as OPEC barrels are generally ton-mile intensive. In addition, a heavy spring refinery maintenance schedule, particularly in Asia, has impacted demand for crude tankers in recent weeks. Though this will likely improve as refineries come back online in the coming months. The Aframax sector, which is less influenced by long haul oil trades and more by regional factors, has also been weak since the start of the year. However, at times, seasonal factors have resulted in short-lived rate spikes. This was particularly evident in the Atlantic where some late-season ice in Northern Europe and bad weather in the U.S. Gulf region led to an increase in rate volatility during March and April. Aside from these one-off events, Aframax rates remain under pressure from a relatively weak demand environment, though an expected contraction in the Aframax fleet size should offer some relief during the second half of the year. In the LR2 sector, rates fell during the early part of Q1, having reached 3-year highs of approximately $20,000 per day during December 2012. In recent weeks, rates have steadily improved, aided by high levels of naphtha arbitrage movements from Europe to Asia to make up for a shortfall in local supply. In fact, naphtha movements from the West into Asia have averaged around 1 million tons per month this year, more than 60% higher than the 2012 monthly average. As noted in the table on the slide, Teekay Tankers outperformed industry benchmarks across all its major vessel classes during the first quarter. This highlights the benefits of our participation in the Teekay managed commercial tonnage pools, including greater scale economies and fleet utilization that enables Teekay Tankers to earn relatively stronger rates even in a challenging rate environment. Turning to Slide 6. We have provided our medium-term outlook for the tanker market. On the chart on the slide, the dark blue bars show tanker demand growth, while the light blue bars show tanker supply growth. The green area shows overall tanker fleet utilization, which is simply total tanker supply divided by total tanker demand. As shown on the chart, tanker demand and supply growth, at approximately 3.5% each, are expected to offset each other during 2013, meaning little change in expected tanker fleet utilization this year. However, in 2014, the outlook is for an improvement in utilization based on reduced tanker supply growth and improved demand fundamentals. On the supply side, the tanker order book has shrunk to a current level of just 54 million deadweight, the lowest level since 2001. Put another way, the tanker order book currently equates to just 11% of the size of the existing fleet, the lowest level since the second quarter of 1997. For 2014, we expect the tanker fleet will grow by less than 3%, the lowest rate of fleet growth since 2002. The majority of the growth will be in the VLCC and MR segments, with low fleet growth expected in the Suezmax, Aframax and LR2 segments. For Suezmaxes, this marks the end of a long period of aggressive fleet expansion, which should enable fleet utilization to recover as ton-mile demand improves. Looking at demand, most international forecasting agencies are expecting an improvement in the global economy during 2014, and therefore, an improvement in oil demand although the overall health of the global economy remains an uncertain part of the equation. We have assumed that global oil demand will return to growth of between 1 million and 1.5 million barrels per day in 2014, spurred by demand growth in the non-OECD and China in particular. This is expected to translate into tanker demand growth of between 4% and 5%, similar to or slightly better than demand growth seen in 2012. When taken together, we expect an improvement in tanker fleet utilization of around 2 percentage points during 2014, bringing with it improved spot market rates and an expected accelerated recovery through 2015 and beyond. Moving to Slide 7. We have provided a summary of our recent LR2 newbuilding order with STX Offshore & Shipbuilding. In April, we announced our firm order for 4 fuel-efficient LR2 product tanker new buildings, at an attractive fully built-up cost of approximately $47 million per vessel. These vessels will deliver in late-2015 through early 2016, which we believe is well-timed to benefit from an improving rate environment for refined products shipping, which I'll talk about more in a moment. With fuel-efficient design features including a hydrodynamic hull profile, new generation G-type engine and propeller efficiencies, these vessels are expected to save between 20% and 30% or roughly $7,000 per day in fuel consumption when laden, compared to vessels in the existing global LR2 fleet and will be especially attractive to our customers. In addition with epoxy coated tanks, we have the ability to trade these vessels clean or dirty, which provides us with the greater flexibility in a recovering tanker market. In addition to the 4 firm newbuildings, the order with STX includes an attractive fixed price option stream, which provides further upside potential in a recovering tanker market. These options allow us to order up to 4 additional LR2 product tankers at each 6-month interval over the next 18 months, for a potential total of 12 additional vessels. Importantly, the option stream is noncontingent, which means we still maintain the subsequent options in the event market conditions are not favorable to declaring the earlier options. This effectively preserves our optionality for as long as possible as we monitor market developments into late 2014. Lastly, we have negotiated a favorable tail weighted payment profile with STX, which will result in the majority of the purchase price being paid on delivery. This will limit the near term impact on Teekay Tankers' liquidity and provide sufficient time to arrange longer-term financing. Slide 8 provides an overview of the outlook for the LR2 product tanker market and supports our view that the sector has some of the best fundamentals in the tanker space. The global refining industry is currently undergoing some significant changes, which are expected to result in considerable changes to the way in which refined products are traded. In the OECD, refining capacity has been shrinking rapidly as old relatively unsophisticated refinery capacity has been unable to maintain competitiveness given high crude feedstock prices and increasing competition from cheaper refineries in the East. This is particularly evident in places like Europe which has seen 1.8 million barrels per day of refining capacity shut since 2009, and Australia, which plans to close approximately 40% of its refining capacity by the end of 2014. At the same time, refining capacity in the Middle East and Asia is expanding rapidly to meet both domestic demand and the export market. As this occurs, the net result is that refined products will start to move longer haul on larger vessels, creating significant demand for LR2 tankers, which are the largest class of tanker currently carrying refined products. On the supply side, the LR2 sector has favorable fleet fundamentals, with just 26 vessels on order out to 2015. When combined with the positive demand outlook, we expect LR2 fleet utilization to recover from the 2012 low of just under 80% towards 90% by 2015. As a reminder, 90% is considered to be full fleet utilization. With this positive outlook, the option stream on our new LR2 order could provide significant upside should vessel values begin to rise over the next 18 months. In the table at the bottom of the slide, we have provided an illustrative calculation of the intrinsic value that these new building options would provide on a per share basis for each $1 million increase in the market value of vessels above our fixed option price with STX. As you can see, with up to 12 vessel options available, this option stream could provide significant upside in a rising newbuilding price environment. Turning to Slide 9. I will take a moment to provide an update on our investment in 2 term loans. In July 2010, we invested in 2 $57.5 million, 3-year, first priority mortgages, secured by 2 2010-built VLCC tankers. Since our initial investment, these ship mortgage investments have generated approximately $30 million of income for Teekay Tankers. Unfortunately, the borrower is currently facing financial difficulty and has defaulted on its interest payment obligations since January 2013. However, we estimate that the current value of our security interests in the 2 VLCCs are still sufficient to cover all amounts currently owed by the borrower, including our original principal amount and accrued interest to the expiry of the loan agreement in mid-July 2013. To protect our security interest in the vessels, we have agreed to taking over technical and commercial management of the 2 vessels. By taking control of chartering and having Teekay crews operate these vessels, we will be in a better position to work with the borrower to realize the full value of our investments. Turning to Slide 10. Teekay Tankers remains financially strong and well-positioned for growth in the tanker market recovery. With total current liquidity of approximately $294 million, we are more than capable of servicing the shipyard installment payments on our 4 LR2 newbuildings without the need to issue additional equity. In addition, our move to a fixed dividend policy will allow us to retain additional cash from operations for future growth as the tanker market improves, while still enabling us to pay a sustainable dividend based on our existing fleet size and employment mix. Realizing the value of the term loans discussed on the previous slide, will also add to Teekay Tankers' available liquidity. Teekay Tankers' covenant-light debt facilities mean we have no financial covenant concerns like many of our shipping peers. And lastly, our favorable debt amortization profile requires low principal repayments through 2016, enabling us to retain a greater portion of our operating cash flow for future growth. Wrapping up on Slide 11, we provide a cash available for distribution outlook matrix for the second quarter of 2013 based on our expected fleet employment profile. Based on a weighted average of approximately 40% of spot revenue days booked for Suezmax and Aframaxes, and 2/3 of spot revenue days booked for LR2s, our second quarter spot rates have averaged approximately $12,300 per day, $13,800 per day and $14,900 per day, respectively. We have continued to include our cash available for distribution matrix in the earnings presentation as we believe this measure continues to reflect Teekay Tankers' cash equity return even though the company has moved to a fixed dividend policy. Even in a low spot rate environment, Teekay Tankers generates positive cash available for distribution, allowing us to pay a fixed quarterly dividend from vessel earnings, while retaining operating cash flow for future growth opportunities. With that, operator, we are now available to take questions.