Q2 2023 Ardmore Shipping Corporation Earnings Call
Speaker 1: Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Ardmore Shipping's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call.
Speaker 1: Today's call is being recorded and an audio webcast and presentation are available in the investor relations section of the company's website, ArdmoreShipping.com.
Speaker 1: We will conduct a question and answer session after the opening remarks. Questions will follow at that time.
Speaker 1: A replay of the conference call will be accessible anytime during the next two weeks by dialing 344-7529 or 1-412-317-0088 and entering passcode 812-7
Speaker 1: 6419
Speaker 1: At this time, I will turn the call over to Anthony Gurney, Chief Executive Officer of Ardmore Shipping. Please go ahead. Good morning and welcome to Ardmore Shipping's second quarter of 2023 earnings call. First, let me ask our Chief Financial Officer, Bart Kelleher, to discuss forward-looking statements.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Tony. Turning to slide 2, please allow me to remind you that our discussion today contains forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements.
Speaker 3: the format of today's call. To begin with, I'll discuss highlights, capital allocation, and current market conditions.
Speaker 3: After which part, we'll provide an update on tanker fundamentals and on our financial performance, and then I'll conclude and open up the call for questions. So, turning to slide four for highlights, we're seeing MR and chemical tanker TCEs continuing at elevated levels, well above our cash breakeven rate, which now stands at $14,000 per day.
Speaker 3: Rates have demonstrated resilience both during the second quarter, which was impacted by above average refinery maintenance for this time of year, and into the third quarter during normally weaker summer months. The second quarter results show adjusted earnings of $23.7 million or $0.57 per share, reflecting robustness of these markets.
Speaker 3: which are continuing into the third quarter. Our MRs earn $27,500 per day for the second quarter, and with 45% booked so far in the third quarter, we're at $26,100 per day. Our chemical tankers on a capital-adjusted basis earn $27,500 per day for the second quarter, and with 63% booked so far in the third quarter at $23,000.
Speaker 3: to de-lever, thereby enhancing the quality of our earnings and the substance behind our net asset value.
Speaker 3: And we've today declared a quarterly cash dividend of 19 cents per share, consistent with our policy of paying out one third of adjusted earnings.
Speaker 3: Overall, Ardmore continues to benefit from its strategic focus and optimization of its spot trading performance while tightly managing costs and lowering our breakeven rate.
Speaker 3: And as a final important point on this slide, our entire fleet is exposed to the spot market, including our time charter end vessels, allowing Ardmore to fully capture the benefits of the elevated market and seasonal strength we anticipate in the coming months.
Speaker 3: Turning now to slide five on capital allocation policy. We remain committed to our long-standing policy, which has been and will continue to be our guidepost.
Speaker 3: Given our robust financial position and our strong operating performance, we now have the ability to pursue all of our allocation priorities simultaneously, namely maintaining our fleet over time by continuing to invest in exciting new technology, reducing carbon emissions, but also generating strong incremental returns.
Speaker 3: something that Bart will speak about in more detail later on. Continuing to de-lever, currently now down to 18% on a net debt basis.............
Speaker 3: Evaluating potential accretive transactions in a patient and discipline matter.
Speaker 3: and returning capital to shareholders, currently in the form of scheduled dividends comprising one third of adjusted earnings.
Speaker 3: And it's important to consider the philosophy that underlies our capital allocation policy. This is a highly cyclical industry where financial strength can pay off hugely if it permits well-timed investment and growth, but also mindful of the fact that we must balance reinvestment growth with returning capital to shareholders.
Speaker 3: I'm moving now to slide six.
Speaker 3: The near-term outlook continues to be very positive.
Speaker 3: Based on existing and anticipated conditions, we expect the market to build through the second half of the year.
Speaker 3: The EU embargo is continuing to positively impact the charter market with the reordering of trade adding significantly to ton-biles.
Speaker 3: Notably, an increased number of product anchors carrying Russian cargo resulting in fewer ships trading in the global fleet.
Speaker 3: We believe this bifurcation of trade is persistent and ultimately creates more inefficiencies in the product type of market, thus supporting stronger rates.
Speaker 3: In addition, near-term demand drivers are robust. Global oil demand is forecast to grow by 2% this year, with a lot of that coming in the second half.
Speaker 3: Refineries around the world are ramping back up following above normal maintenance activity.
Speaker 3: And we're seeing resilience in US refined product exports and believe that product exports from China will also increase in the second half.
Speaker 3: Finally, as Barb will discuss, it's important to highlight that conditions are set for near-zero net fleet growth for at least the next two years.
Speaker 3: So moving to slide seven, we will discuss in more detail how the EU embargo is impacting the product hacker market.
Speaker 3: As highlighted in the chart on the lower left, the EU diesel inventory is built up ahead of the implementation of the embargo in February of this year. And as a consequence, imports subsequently declined as these stocks have run off.
Speaker 3: As inventory levels now normalize, we believe that product hyperton-mile demand from this important region is poised to increase significantly, particularly given that EU product imports are now sourced from very far away as compared to before the war.
Speaker 3: As you can see from the chart on the lower right, this 10-mile impact appears to be accelerating.
Speaker 3: Looking at the orange line, you can see that May and June 2023 experienced similar diesel import volumes to the same period last year.
Speaker 3: Contrast this with the green bars over the same periods, noting ton miles have actually started to increase significantly.
Speaker 3: So while there's been a lag to the EU diesel import story, it's starting to take shape and should further support the overall market.
Speaker 3: And with that, I'll hand the call back over to Bart.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Tony.
Speaker 2: Building upon Tony's comments on market conditions, we will examine the industry fundamentals in more detail.
Speaker 2: Overall, the supply-demand dynamics remain highly favorable.
Speaker 2: On slide 9, we discussed the significant supply-demand gap.
Speaker 2: Strong ton-mile growth, which is highlighted in the green bars on the chart, is driven by the robust underlying fundamentals and further enhanced by the EU embargo, as Tony discussed in the last slide.
Speaker 2: This has been a key driver in 2023, and there is also an anticipated full year impact for 2024.
Speaker 2: While there has been some specific new ordering over the quarter, which we will put into context on the next slide, the multi-year supply-demand gap remains wide. With shipyard birth availability limited to 2026 and beyond, and the continued lack of clarity on emissions regulation and propulsion technology.
Speaker 2: deterring incremental investment. So overall, this minimal net fleet growth over a multi-year period, combined with increasing ton-miles, we believe supports prolonged market strength.
Speaker 2: Moving to slide 10, where we highlight how the low product tanker order book contrasts sharply with the rapidly aging fleet.
Speaker 2: As discussed, supply fundamentals remain highly supportive.
Speaker 2: Although we have seen some moderate recent ordering of product tankers, this represents only a fraction of the natural replacement cycle of the aging fleet, with only 16 million deadweight tons on order versus nearly 70 million deadweight tons within the scrapping age profile in the next five years.
Speaker 2: and specifically for MRs, the gap is even more pronounced.
Speaker 2: The current MR order book stands at a low 5%, the existing fleet, and the overall product tanker order book is at 9%.
Speaker 2: It is important to point out that a large portion of this ordering is for LR2s.
Speaker 2: which is the exact same vessel type as an Aframax crude tanker.
Speaker 2: simply with coated tanks to enable it to also trade refined products.
Speaker 2: Analyzing the combined AFERMAX and LR2 fleets, net fleet growth is forecast at near-zero levels.
Speaker 2: This implies that an increased proportion of LR2s, most likely older vessels, naturally transition to trading crude to cover the shortfall in AfroMax tankers.
Speaker 2: This is a trend we are already seeing in the current market.
Speaker 2: On slide 11,
Speaker 2: We depict a strong underlying demand growth in the product and chemical tanker markets.
Speaker 2: As we've emphasized throughout, the EU refined product embargo has resulted in a persistent reordering of the global product trade.
Speaker 2: The EU refined product embargo has resulted in a persistent reordering of the global product trade, driving demand.
Speaker 2: And the IEA is projecting continued growth in underlying oil consumption with 2023 forecast at almost 3 million barrels per day above pre-pandemic levels.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the long-term trend of refinery dislocation between east and west will continue to have a positive impact on product and chemical tanker ton-miles, providing an additional layer of growth.
Speaker 2: Overall, with such strong underlying data, our demand outlook is very positive.
Speaker 2: Moving to slide 13.
Speaker 2: Ardmore continues to build upon its financial strength. Net leverage at the end of June stood at 18% with total net debt of $110 million. As a reminder, the chart on the bottom left notes that we have reduced our cash break-even levels by $2,500 per day in a rising interest rate environment as a result of our effective cost control, reduced debt levels, and access to revolving debt facilities.
Speaker 2: As always, Ardmore is focused on optimizing performance, closely managing costs in this inflationary environment, and preserving a strong balance sheet. Turning to slide 14 for financial highlights. As noted, we are very pleased with our performance as we report results of $0.57 per share for the second quarter. We are correspondingly reporting strong EBITDA R for the quarter and continue to frame EBIT DAR as an important comparable evaluation metric against our IFRS reporting peers.
Speaker 2: Please note that there is a full reconciliation of this presented in the appendix on slide 25.
Speaker 2: Although our favorable floating-to-fix interest rate swaps will roll off this summer, we have reduced our debt levels significantly to mitigate the impact of rising interest rates.
Speaker 2: And please also refer to slide 26 in the appendix for our third quarter 2023 guidance numbers.
Speaker 2: Moving to slide 15. As Tony mentioned earlier, we're making some exciting investments in our fleet to further optimize operating performance and improve earnings.
Speaker 2: This year, during our eight scheduled dry docking periods, we will also be installing scrubbers and performance enhancing technologies as well as ballast water treatment systems.
Speaker 2: Overall, we plan to install nine second-generation carbon capture ready scrubbers on board our vessels in 2023 and early 2024.
Speaker 2: All of these elective CAPEX projects, including new performance-enhancing technologies, have relatively short payback periods and IRRs ranging from 20% to over 100%.
Speaker 2: Furthermore, we are excited to announce that we have started rolling out Starlink technology across our fleet to provide industry-leading connectivity.
Speaker 2: benefiting crew welfare and facilitating enhanced real-time monitoring of vessel performance.
Speaker 2: Also noteworthy, we had very strong on-hire availability for the second quarter as a result of the continued close coordination of our teams at sea and onshore.
Speaker 2: Moving to slide 16.
Speaker 2: Here we're highlighting the significant operating leverage. This is what makes the shipping business exciting.
Speaker 2: As you can see in the chart, for every $10,000 per day increase in TCE rates, earnings per share is expected to increase by approximately $2.30 annually.
Speaker 2: with free cash flow increasing by nearly $100 million annually as well.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: As depicted.
Speaker 2: The business inherently has significant operating leverage to even stronger market conditions.
Speaker 3: And regarding the company, we continue to produce strong TCE results, both on a relative and absolute basis, while lowering our breakeven in an otherwise inflationary environment, which is now down to 14,000 per day.
Speaker 3: And given our financial strength and strong operating performance, we're now able to pursue all of our capital allocation priorities simultaneously, including the payment of dividends, de-levering, and investing in energy savings upgrades, which not only reduce our carbon footprint, but are also great investments in their own right and are meaningfully improving performance.
Speaker 3: And with that, we're pleased to open up the call for questions.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session.
Speaker 1: To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad.
Speaker 1: If you are using a speakerphone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2.
Speaker 6: Today's first question comes from John Chappell with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon. Bart or Tony, let me start with the capital allocation policy. Pretty clear on slide five how you laid out the four different avenues that you're pursuing.
Speaker 6: I don't recall your leverage ever being this low. I don't recall your liquidity ever being this high. And yet, you know, if we annualize the seasonally low dividend, you're still in the mid-single digit yield and the stock trade is one of the biggest discounts probably in the peer group. At what point does the fifth element come along? And I know I'm risking sounding like I write for a financial blog, but...
Speaker 2: and then Tony can chime in as well. But I think when we set the capital allocation policy and reinstituted the dividends, we were focused on that as a sustainable level through the cycle. And to your point where we can address all of the pillars, the four pillars of the capital allocation policy simultaneously.
Speaker 2: We see continued runway 4D-levering to continue to bring down our break even and increase the quality of earnings, and also to continue meaningfully investing in our fleet. And then also always exploring a creative growth opportunities, but certainly with discipline and patience.
Speaker 3: performance upgrades and then what's left is there to continue delivering. I don't think we'll continue delivering at nearly the same rate as we did last year. And Tony, it's good on going to debate about dividends versus buybacks, but at the moment we're focused on dividends.
Speaker 6: All right, just a quick follow up to that on the investment side. I mean, obviously you're doing a lot to your current fleet and thinking about the next evolution of regulations. But we've been hearing from some other owners in a more public setting that tankers' asset values are quote unquote too expensive.
Speaker 6: So as investment in either new technology or secondhand ships for the immediate accretion kind of below a return threshold at this point.
Speaker 3: If I understand the question, I guess at the moment, it's pretty clear that pricing both for new buildings and second hand is pretty frothy, but we do keep on looking for pockets of opportunity and we will, whether it's individual shifts or blocks. But in the meantime, there is two ways to look at that.
Speaker 6: We're very pleased with the opportunities that we found to invest in our own fleet and improve cash flow. My second question is more market related. I think it was really interesting to show the inventories down in Europe . The calendar is getting close to winter again. This will be the first winter with true sanctions in Europe . As you think about or maybe as you talk to your customers about the next three to four months in undercut water are more Dumbledore to coming
Speaker 6: the sanctions are now in effect and then the inventories are drawing.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you frame it up that way, it's probably quite a little tighter because you are going into a seasonal increase in demand and the embargo is in place and inventories are still relatively low levels.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you frame it up that way, it's probably quite a little tighter because you are going into a seasonal increase in demand and the embargo is in place and in the stories are still relatively low levels. Okay. Thanks, Tony. Thanks, Bart.
Speaker 1: And as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star than one. Our next question today comes from Omar Noctow with Jeffries. Please go ahead.
Speaker 7: Thank you. Hey, Bart. Hey, Tony. Good afternoon. I just wanted to follow up maybe just on the market and then also on the capital allocation. Just first on the market, it seems that the guidance you've given us is fairly strong, 45% on the MRs for 3Q at nearly $27,000. And that seems to be above.
Speaker 7: market index averages and so just want to get your sense, you know, how did you you know, how do you view this rate that you've achieved thus far for the quarter? Is this an outperformance on the part of Ardmore? Are the indexes off or is it a bit of both perhaps?
Speaker 3: We never really know about a relative performance until everything else comes in. We don't even have a sense of that for 2Q yet, but for the last while we've been doing quite well. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with the indexes.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's yeah, it's
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think
Speaker 3: I think our performance is reflective of the overall market. And if that's not coming through clearly in the index as we're looking at.
Speaker 3: I think our performance is reflective of the overall market and if it's not coming through clearly in the indexes we're looking at, then we'll have to think about that.
Speaker 7: Okay, all right, that's fair. I guess you guys are first and leading off. So a question maybe for should have been later in the earning season. And then just maybe kind of thinking about the capital allocation and following up on Bart's comments, you know,
Speaker 7: What is it, you know, you want to pay down debt further, which is obviously great. You want to lower your break even. And in terms of the special dividend, you know, what does it take for the balance sheet?
Speaker 7: What does it take in terms of debt reduction for you to feel comfortable to pay out a special? And all else equal, if the debt doesn't change from here, and you have some banner quarter saying 4Q, is that good enough to pay out a special, or do you want to get the debt down to a certain level before you entertain the idea of a special?
Speaker 3: I think we're taking it kind of as it comes. We didn't expect we'd get our leverage down at this level. We had hoped that we'd find some incremental investment opportunities, but we're being disciplined in that regard. I think it's important to...
Speaker 3: You know, to score the fact that we're very happy and the board would be very happy to pay special under the right conditions. But we can't we can't predict that or give give any guidance. So.
Speaker 7: Okay, no, that's fair. Thanks, Tony. Thanks, Bart. I'll pass it over.
Speaker 1: Thank you and ladies and gentlemen this concludes our question and answer session and today's conference call.
Speaker 1: We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.