Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for attending Pacific Basin's 2022 annual results earnings call. My name is Martin Fruergaard. I'm CEO of Pacific Basin, and I'm joined by our CFO, Peter Schulz. Please turn to slide 3. I'm pleased to report that in 2022, we achieved record underlying profit of $750 million and EBITDA of $935 million. Our second-best net profit of $702 million also produced an excellent Return on Equity of 38%. Thanks to these strong cash flows, we were able to end the year with net cash of $65.3 million, and we have available committed liquidity of $615 billion as at 31st December, 2022.
Given the excellent performance of the company in 2022 and our confidence in the longer term fundamentals of the industry, the board has recommended a final basic dividend of HKD 0.17 per share, consistent with our dividend policy of paying out at least 50% of net profits. Additionally, a final special dividend totaling HKD 0.09 per share will also be paid. In total, the proposed final basic dividend and the proposed final special dividend amounts to HKD 0.26 per share. When combined with the HKD 0.52 per share interim dividend distributed in August 2022, this represents 75% of our net profit for the full year. Total 2022 interim and proposed annual dividends to be paid out to the shareholders is equal to $525 million.
We continue to be committed to distributing excess cash to shareholders through dividends. Please turn to slide 4. In 2022, the dry bulk freight market saw an increase in average market freight rates during the H1 of the year due to high demand for minor bulk commodities. This was further supported by port-related congestion and limited new supply. The H2 saw a decrease in freight rates due to a variety of factors, including rising inflation and interest rates contributing to slower global growth. The Ukrainian conflict restricting Black Sea grain exports and lower construction activity and restrictive COVID policies impacting the Chinese economy. Our Handysize and Supramax achieved net daily TC earnings of $23,430 and $28,120 respectively, resulting in a total contribution of $747 million before overheads.
2023 freight rates have started lower than those of 2022, as demand continues to be impacted by lower global economic activity at the typical seasonal weakness seen around Lunar New Year. Nevertheless, we are optimistic that rates have bottomed and sentiment has improved as China resumed its opening from COVID and the East Coast South American grain seasons begin. Please turn to slide 5. Global dry bulk loading volumes experienced a 2% year-on-year growth, mainly driven by an increase in the demand for minor bulks and coal. Minor bulk loading rose 6% in 2022, with bauxite, forest product and salt being the primary contributors. The H2 of the year saw a 3% uptick in minor bulk loadings, with the main contributors being forest product, agribulk and bauxite.
Grain loadings were adversely impacted by unfavorable weather conditions affecting crop yields in most major exporting countries, as well as limited grain export from the Black Sea due to the Ukrainian conflict. Coal loadings rose 2% compared to the previous year, as countries in Europe and notably India, source coal from non-Russian areas such as the United States, Australia, Colombia and South Africa. Iron ore loading decreased 1% due to seasonal weather in the H1 of the year, limiting cargo availability in Brazil and Australia, as well as reduced demand in China as domestic property construction slowed and economic growth was negatively impacted by continued COVID mitigation controls. Please turn to slide nine.
We delivered record daily TC earnings with our Handysize rates in 2022, up 15%, while Supramax rates were down 4% on average compared to the same period last year. We have covered 95% and 100% of our Handysize and Supramax vessel days in Q1 2023 at $13,460 and $13,680 per day net respectively. As mentioned in our Q3 trading update in October last year, we have been focused on optimizing our short-term cover to maximize earning over what is commonly a softer market during the Northern Hemisphere winter and also the Lunar New Year periods.
We have covered 46% and 68% of our Handysize and Supramax vessel days for 2023 at $12,490 and $13,310 per day net respectively. Please note that our Supramax forward cover estimates exclude the scrubber benefit. Which is currently about $2,160 per day across our Supramax vessels. Please turn to slide seven. For 2022, both our Handysize and our Supramax delivered an exceptional performance, we outperformed the indices by $5,210 per day and $7,080 per day respectively. Our performance continues to benefit from our diverse cargo and customer base and a close customer interaction facilitated by our extensive global office network.
It is worth noting that scrubber fitted to our core Supramax vessels contributed $2,510 per day to our performance in 2022. Handysize and Supramax vessels have outperformed the indices over the last five and six quarters respectively. Our operating activity generated $56 million equal to an average margin of $2,840 net per day over 19,830 operating days. Although the margins fluctuated over the period, it stayed at historically high levels, our operating activity provides us an ongoing opportunity to leverage Pacific Basin's commercial and operational expertise as well as our global proximity to our customers who generate additional income for the business.
In the H2 of 2022, our operating performance and margins were negatively impacted by the high cost of short-term time charters, especially for our Supramax vessels. Please turn to slide 8. Our Handysize-owned vessel costs increased mainly due to higher costs related to crew repatriation and other pandemic-related manning expenses. These cost increases moderated and went into reverse as China abandoned its zero-COVID policy. We have continued our efforts to diversify our seafarer recruitment and are actively working to increase the proportion of Indian seafarers. This has also helped in reducing costs associated with repatriation over the period. Higher depreciation over the period relates to the reversal of vessel impairment of $152 million at the end of 2021. Please turn to slide 9.
Our Supramax-owned vessel experienced decreased depreciation and finance cost, and finance costs for both our Handysize and Supramax vessels have continued to benefit from the decreased debt on our balance sheet. This has been particularly evident in light of the current rise in interest rates. The long-term chartered vessel daily costs for our eighth time charter in Supramax ships increased to $16,590 per day due to the strong market conditions, which have resulted in higher charter cost overall. Three out of the eight long-term charter vessels have scrubbers. Despite the increase in cost on a small number of long-term charter vessels, our blended Supramax costs remain controlled, and our owned vessels decreased costs by $340 per day.
I will now hand over to Peter, who will present the financials, and I will be back afterwards with outlook and strategic summaries.
Thank you very much, Martin. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. If you turn to slide 11, we will set out our P&L in summary. As you can see, our record daily TC earnings, we generated our best result in both underlying profit and EBITDA despite higher Handysize-owned cost and higher Handysize and Supramax chartered cost, as Martin has explained. Our G&A has increased mainly due to higher discretionary remuneration provisions given our result for the period. Below underlying profit, our net profit was further improved by gains on vessel disposals, although offset by our hedging portfolio and incentive fees paid to bondholders for the early conversion of our convertible bond. If you please turn to slide number 12. Our operating cash inflow for the year was $874 million, that's inclusive of all long and short-term charter hire payments.
This compares with the $830 million for the full year 2021. We had $74 million in proceeds from the sale of 7 smaller Handysize vessels, which were sold and delivered in the period. CapEx spending remains well controlled, and for 2022 totaled $85 million, of which we paid $38.1 million for 2 secondhand Ultramax and around $47 million for dry dockings and ballast water treatment systems. We expect CapEx expenditure for 2023 to be approximately $60 million to $65 million, predominantly relating to dry dockings and ballast water treatment system and excluding any vessel purchases. We paid $72 million in incentivized conversion payments and various repurchases of our convertible bond, reducing the outstanding convertible bond to $31.4 million.
The $716 million in dividend payments relate to the 2021 final annual dividend of $367.7 million paid in May 2022 and the interim dividend of $348.5 million paid in August 2022. Now please turn to slide 13. Despite significant shareholder distribution, we have continued to delever our balance sheet, and we are to date $65.3 million net cash positive, while our committed liquidity is $615 million. The conversion offer and open market repurchase of our convertible bond was an important factor in this deleveraging exercise, which is now largely complete. Our goal going forward is to ensure that we maintain our strong available liquidity position for potential growth investments while still providing returns to our shareholders through dividends.
As a testament to this strategy, we expect to pay 75% of 2022 profits through dividend, as Martin mentioned. I will now hand you back to Martin for his outlook and strategy.
Thank you, Peter. Clarksons forecast a recovery in the market for 2023, with grains and coal set to be the major drivers. They anticipate a stronger grain season in East Coast South America, which is expected to begin in the next couple of weeks, with additional support from Canada and Australia, despite a lower harvest of Ukrainian grains. Food and energy security is expected to result in an increase in ton-miles as both commodities are sourced from further distances. It is believed that dry bulk freight rates have bottomed and that soon we'll see an improvement in Chinese demand as workers return from Lunar New Year holidays and factories increase production and China continues with its post-COVID recovery.
In the long term, we see upside demand from, first of all, China increasing its domestic and global trade with a focus on economic growth through property, infrastructure, and domestic construction. We see significant global infrastructure investments going forward, much of it driven by the green transition. Continuous growth in emerging markets such as India and ASEAN region. Finally, geopolitical instability and increased food and energy insecurity, which is likely to further drive ton-miles demand for grain and coal. Please turn to slide 16. We have continued to see that the long-established relationship between dry bulk earnings and new building contracting has been broken. High new building prices and long delivery time of about three years has continued to discourage any significant new ship ordering.
While uncertainty around decarbonization rules, technology limitations, and reduced life of older technology ships have contributed to 2022 new building ordering being down 54% compared to 2021, and dry bulk order book now at 7.2% of the total fleet. While balance sheets have been repaired, we are seeing more companies like ourselves acting on short-term weaknesses in asset prices to acquire high-quality assets in the second-hand market. We continue to think that new building orders will remain limited as designs for zero emission capable vessels are developed over time. Please turn to slide 17. Despite 2022 having even less scrapping than 2021, the global dry bulk fleet grew only 3% net during the year compared to 2.9% in 2021, mainly due to slowing new building deliveries.
Vessel speeds have reduced in connection with lower TCE earnings and high bunker prices. While capacity through increased vessel speeds is possible, we expect current and future decarbonization rules to continue to limit vessel speeds over time. COVID-related inefficiencies around the world, particularly in China, have begun to be alleviated, and we have seen congestion in most major loading areas come back to more normalized levels. We expect IMO 2023 regulations at the introduction of the European Union Emissions Trading System from 2024 will start forcing slower speed and higher scrapping from 2024 at the earliest. Clarksons has forecast scrapping of 1.6% and 2.2% of the fleet in 2023 and 2024 respectively. These supply constraints and limited scope for speeding up the global fleet provides structural long-term support for the dry bulk market.
Please turn to slide 19. Our strategy continues to remain unchanged. At our core, we will remain asset heavy, continue to acquire selectively and in a disciplined way, quality second-hand ships. We'll continue to gradually sell our smaller, older ships when the time is right. We have a world-class ship management team, and we are committed to keeping this function in-house with the ambition to further improve our safety and environmental performance, our cost competitiveness, and our service quality and reliability for our customers. We will maintain our high level of service to our customers while ensuring our crew are healthy and safe, and our vessels continue to operate safely and efficiently. We repeat again that we will not contract new buildings with zero emission capable, until zero emission capable ships are available and commercially viable in our segments.
We will keep our balance sheet strong while contributing excess cash to shareholders. Please turn to slide 20. We remain committed to grow our Ultramax fleet and renewing our Handysize fleet. During 2022, we acquired one Ultramax vessel and one Supramax vessel, which we expect to be delivered within February 2023, and one Ultramax vessel expected to be delivered in March 2023. We currently own 115 Handysize and Supramax ships, and including chartered ships, we currently have approximately 240 ships on the water. In addition, we have eight vessels we purchased, which we expect to be delivered during the H1 of 2023, which includes six Ultramax, one Supramax, and one Handysize.
This return to growth is utilizing our strong balance sheet to make counter cyclical investments, which we feel fit our long-term strategy to continue to grow our fleet. During 2022, as the prices approached historical highs, which allow us to sell some of our smaller, older Handysize ships, thereby crystallizing value and further optimizing our fleet to meet tightening environmental regulations. In the year, we sold and delivered seven Handysize vessels while also selling one Ultramax vessel. We will continue to look for opportunities to divest these smaller, older Handysize vessels depending on market conditions. Please turn to slide 21. We'll continue to trade our ships efficiently for high laden to ballast utilization, and we'll constantly seek, assess, and implement energy efficient operating measures, including looking for collaboration solutions with our customers, tonnage providers, ports, and other stakeholders.
As many of you are aware, the IMO adopted global regulations, which came into effect from January 2023. We aspire for our ships to achieve an AER rating of C or better, but we will continue to prioritize EEOI with high laden to ballast utilization while managing our AER to ensure CII compliance. We are preparing ourselves for shipping inclusion in the European Union Emissions Trading System, which is scheduled for January 2024. In addition to our initiatives to reduce the carbon intensity on our existing ships, we are collaborating and making preparations to achieve the longer-term goal of complete decarbonization by transition to entirely new zero-emission capable ships and fuels, which are soon to become commercially available.
During the year, we committed to cooperate with Nihon Shipyard and Mitsui in investigating alternative green fuels and their availability and to develop new zero-emission vessel designs and potentially invest in related bunkering infrastructure. Through our investigation, we have concluded that green methanol is currently the most optimal fuel for the first generation of zero-emission vessels, we are now collaborating with our partners to develop an efficient design for what we expect will be our first dual-fuel Ultramax ship, able to run on either methanol or fuel oil. We should be ready to contract our first zero-emission vessel for delivery well ahead of our originally 2030 target. We believe that our example will help accelerate the transition to zero-emission shipping in our dry bulk sector. Please turn to slide 22.
2022 was another exceptional year, which has allowed us to further improve our balance sheet through a significant reduction in our debt, while also returning capital to shareholders. We believe the underlying demand and supply fundamentals of the minor bulk market will be supportive of rates that will allow us to generate steadier and more sustainable earnings over the long term. We continue to position the company for a decarbonization future through initiatives to reduce the carbon intensity of our existing ships while we maintain our focus to achieve our long-term goal of complete decarbonization. Our efforts in digitalization, fleet optimization, sustainability, and collaborating on the development of zero-emission vessels and associated green fuels are all ways we continue to adapt to a more sustainable business strategy.
This ends my update. Before going to Q&A, I would like to thank our CFO, Peter Schulz, who will be leaving us in March 2023. We are incredibly grateful for Peter's unwavering commitment and dedication to our company over the years. His expertise and leadership has been instrumental in our success and growth. We wish him all the best and success in his future endeavors. Thank you very much, Peter. As always, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all our loyal and talented Pacific Basin seafarers and shore-based staff, as it is not without your commitment and professionalism that we can deliver these results and continue to improve our safety performance. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now hand over to the operator who will be open the line for any questions you may have.
Operator, over to you. Thank you.
We will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for any of today's speakers, please join the Zoom link with the Join Video Conference button. Press the Raise Hand button, and you will enter a queue. After you are announced, please unmute yourself, state your name and company, and ask your question. If you find that your question has been answered before it's your turn to speak, please press the Lower Hand button to leave the queue. You may also type your questions in the Q&A box. Our first question is from Andrew Lee. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.
Hey. Hi. Can you hear me?
Yep.
Hello.
Hi, Andrew.
Hey. Hi. no. Hey. Hi. How are you guys? Okay. I've got a few questions, right? The first question I have is on the outlook. Is the view that in the short term there's going to be headwinds, because in the press release, right, it says that long-term prospects of dry bulk shipping despite any short-term headwinds. Are we saying that rates have bottomed? Are we saying that there's gonna be headwinds in the short term? All right, that's my first question. Second question I have is, you mentioned that crew costs actually increased, right? Could you give us a little bit of guidance in terms of how much it increased by? Also you mentioned that the costs are now reducing.
Looking into this year, how much should we take off the cost, right, when you break it down into Handysize at Supramax, in terms on the cost side? Third question I have is on your forward coverage ratio, right? If we're thinking that rates have actually bottomed, would it make more sense to actually reduce the forward coverage ratio so you play more of the little bit of the spot market, and then you lock it in when rates are higher, so that your earnings will be stronger? Final question I have is on the dividend. Last time you mentioned what the minimum cash level was, if you were going to pay a special dividend. Could you just give us a little bit update in terms of have those numbers changed? I'll ask the rest of the questions next time.
That's all I have for now.
Try the first three. Hopefully Peter will take the last. Thank you, Andrew, for the questions. I think on the outlook, if it's bottomed or if it's a headwind, I think it's clearly bottomed, you definitely see and that's quite normal for Q1 , that you see market coming down, then it starts going up in February. The market is actually acting exactly as we had expected. That being said, then, you know, the rates are definitely improving, but they're still at a low level. I think when we if we mention headwind, it is probably a little bit of discussion about how quickly will we see recovery in the market.
If we look at derivatives, they are actually increasing quite sharply, and the rates for H2 on the derivative market is up $14+ thousand. That is quite. That indicates at least that there's a momentum in the market. The thing is that the South American grain season is just starting now, and I would also say Lunar New Year has just finished and China is coming back and starting up. We are quite positive, and we definitely believe the market has bottomed out. Exactly how long it will take to really see, you know, how quickly the market will go up, that remains to be seen. The last three days, it's definitely seen a positive trend, we're actually quite positive about that.
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There has been some inflation also on the cost side, but I would expect us to be able to bring it down. We just started the year, so let's see. Reduce cover, clearly if the market goes above $14,000 of our cover level, then yes, it would probably be smarter to have less cover and be in the spot market. I think historically we have always had some cover. I think it's fair to say, remember on the Supramax, it doesn't include the scrubber. Also remember, we are usually quite good at operating and improving our results over the period. Of course, let's see how we do. Lots of our cover is also what we call a fronthaul business.
It's actually a contract that brings the ship into the loading area, and then there's an upside because you are in the loading area. Hopefully there is some improvement to be done. Of course, as always, Andrew, we have to see how the market develop. I think we're quite happy with what we have at the moment. Actually, very happy about the cover we had for the Q1 , where we had very good cover coming into the year. That has been very beneficial. Then of course, we somehow hope that the cover we have rest of the year, I should say we shouldn't have done because the market becomes better, but let's see.
Yes. Andrew, I think the numbers you're referring to are the available liquidity of preferably over $400 million to $500 million, which I think we've always said was quite a, you know, a big buffer preparing us, you know, well for the future. I think that still a long-term goal to have that level of liquidity cushion. Of course, as we're now entering into more of a growth phase, you know, buying more ships as we see long-term value in buying ships, I mean, you will have seen the deal for six ships that we did in January. There could of course be periods where there will be, you know, greater requirements on cash, et cetera. We might dip below that for periods of time.
That's quite natural because, you know, we don't always fund acquisitions fully, in the bank market when we do them. I think, I mean, as a long-term target, I still think you can think around $400 million as a sort of a good cash buffer for us to have. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew.
Our next question is from Jon Ogden. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.
Good afternoon, guys. Thank you very much for great results and fantastic dividends. As investors really appreciate that. Yeah, a couple for you. Just on obviously the freight rates, you know, fantastic last year, $25,000 a day, roughly speaking, and that was with China actually in, you know, lockdowns and so on. Now we've got China out of lockdowns, and rates have dropped precipitously. You know, obviously, it's a slack season, but, you know, we've actually seen $2,000 a day on Capesize, so that's very low. I just wondered how much of that sort of super high level we saw in 2021 and 2022 was down to port controls, COVID controls that sort of tied up ships.
In other words, we had ships either waiting outside port or in port for longer than normal, so that reduced the available capacity. That's gone, all those ships can move around in a normal way, and then rates are down. I don't know if, you know, is a contrarian sort of type of view, if there's any sort of water in that or if it's just we've had the China pandemic sweep through there and then we've had a long Lunar New Year, and now we're hopefully off to the races, maybe that.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Jon. A very sort of valid question and we have also had that discussion. There's I think it's fair to say that the market in 2021 and 2022 was driven by demand and, but of course, also further helped for these exceptional earnings, helped by increased congestions and inefficiencies and maybe also these, you know, these things happening around the world like Ukraine and so on. All these things, of course, helps in the sense that it creates a lot of inefficiencies on the trading pattern on top of a actually strong demand in market as most countries came out of COVID. I think it's important to remember during that time, not much support from China in sort of demand thing.
Of course, you can say on the, on the congestion side, and probably also a little bit of help from the container market that they had exceptional earnings as well, and of course, that was probably a little bit of spillover to us. Sum of all, creating 2 years of what is, of course, exceptional earnings. You can say now we have returned to more normality. We saw, of course, reduced, as the world economy came down in speed, we saw reduced demand also for minor bulk during H2 , bringing the market down to more normal levels. I think also, as you mentioned or hint to, that today the congestion is probably, it is actually back to pre-COVID levels, so it's actually less than it was before that. There's basically no congestion left.
Of course, that has added, probably reduced the market a little bit further to it. We have all been waiting for China to sort of wake up and get going again. They're doing that now, but I think it's probably a little bit too early still to see the results of that. Remember, it's not long ago we all spoke about that they would have major problem opening up with COVID and so on, but it seems they got out of that quite well. The feeling we have, and we also see it in China at the moment, we see increased lending, we see increased housing prices actually, we see increased construction going on in China. We see increased steel prices and iron ore prices.
Actually, we see China coming back. China is, of course, also in the recovery we're talking about is extremely important. They are a big part of the dry cargo market. Of course, we sit and look at China and hope and also believe actually that they are going now back in a growth mode, coming from a lockdown for a long, for extended period. You're right. I also think China is part of the recovery we're gonna see going forward.
Thank you. If you don't mind, I'll just ask a couple of other quick questions. One of your numbers there is that the actual cargo carried was down 14% from 79.2 to 68. It's interesting you had a great year, but cargo actual carried was down 14%. I just wonder what that was about, whether it's longer distances or ballasting. The other question I've got for you, just on the, you know, it's great the cover you got in Q1. That was really smart. I missed the coverage you said you had for the full year, which, I wouldn't mind if you, say that again, please.
The other one is that the long-term charters you got in the H2 of last year at 16,000 US a day, it obviously now doesn't look so great. The whole sort of chartering in side of the business, I just wonder if that's, you know, really necessary because it sort of increases the risks to the business and maybe you're better off sticking with just your self-owned vessels . I just wonder if you could explain the sort of risk and reward of the chartering, because obviously you've got to get the chartering timing right. If you charter out at high levels, as we've seen, it can be, you know, a risk to the company. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. If we,
What was the first question? Was it demand?
Yeah, it was about the volumes, carried.
Volumes, yes. I mean, the reason for that is it's a function of how many ships we have on the water. you know, the ships are generally full or carry capacity, right? The amount of cargo is the amount of ship we have on water. It so happened when the market peaked in 2021, we had a lot of ships on water, especially Supramaxes, in that strong market, as the demand was very strong. It's not surprising that in 2022 there is a slightly lower carriage of volume because we had slightly few chartered-in ships in the portfolio on average.
Yeah. on the cover, Jon, we said we had, for the full year, including Q1 , so the full year-
Mm-hmm
we have 46% on the Handysize at about $12,500. On the Supramaxes for the full year, 68% at $13,100. That includes basically 100% cover for the Q1 . That's the cover we have. Remember, again, it's a lots of it is fronthaul. These are not optimized, and they do not include the scrubber benefits, which is about $2,160 on the Supramax ships. Yes, you are of course right that we have 8 ships, a fairly small fleet. 8 ships, long-term charter at a little bit of a high rate at the moment. $16,000.
Well, the market H2 this year is, at least on the derivative market, is $14,000 on an Index Handysize ship. That is +$15,000 on a ship like these. These are better ships. Plus, three of them have scrubbers, which again will add something, some money to the... Yes, there is an exposure to it, but it looks manageable. Eight ship is not a lot. It is always like that when you come from a market that is very good. There will be an overlap of ships you have taken. Of course you try to time it right. Here we have a few ships that is a little bit long. We always...
We have less long-term charter now than we have had in the past, and probably have more own ship than we ever had. So maybe a little bit agreeing with you on that part, but, it is a part of the dry cargo market that you try to optimize with shorter and long-term charters. When you look at our operating business, we have made $56 million this year, and we made $60 million last year. Also when you look at last year, and I hope that will also be this year, we outperformed the indexes, the indices. That of course by combining these things and taking advantage of the market. I think it's actually a good part of our business to do that part.
Of course you have to be careful, for sure.
Thank you very much. I've got one or two others, but I better give somebody else a turn. I'll come back if I'm allowed later. Thank you.
Our next question is from Nick Harvinson. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.
While we find Nick, I'll just take a question from the online. Haki from DNB Bank asks if you have any plans for any share buybacks over the next quarters. If so, how would this likely be structured given your 10% buyback mandate?
At the moment, we have no plans for any share buybacks. It's an ongoing discussion with the board, depending on valuation of the stock relative to NAV and these kinds of things. No, no concrete plans at the moment.
Another question from the online from Nick Scott from Mackenzie Investments. Why did you achieve better cost control on your Supramaxes versus your Handysizes in 2022?
I think the answer is a little bit like I said before. On the Handys we have fortunately more, have proportionally more Chinese crew on these ships. Of course that was the area where that was hit the hardest by the COVID restrictions and where the costs increased the most. That's, as we also said earlier, we have moved some of the ships to Indian crew. Of course, availability of Chinese crew has been difficult. Now we actually also see that the cost of the Chinese as COVID disappears in the COVID restriction disappears in Japan, we see costs coming down. The reason is that majority of our Chinese colleagues have been on the Handysize ships.
One more question before we go back to Nick. In terms of the China reopening, what commodities do you expect to benefit the most with the China reopening and which vessel types?
I wish I would, I wish I could say the minor bulk and the Handys and the Ultras. I think the first thing we probably will see is, because we already see it now, that steel prices are increasing, and we see also iron ore commodity prices increasing. That is the Capesize market, which is also, have been incredibly low. I think that activity will come up if Australia and Brazil can deliver the volumes. So that will happen. I also think, we also think coal also because China has lifted the ban on Australian coal, and we start now seeing shipments of coal from Australia to China.
We also hear that in China they have, they are starting to use the stockpiles of coal. So it also seems like they are starting increasing consumption of the coal and hopefully there will be more coal import to China.
Over time, and as, hopefully, as we see now, construction starts picking up and so on, it will migrate down to the minor bulk segments. We do historically a lot of logs into China out of New Zealand. That has been very quiet the last year. That will of course pick up again as soon as construction starts again, so. I think in all fairness, I think the Capesize and the bigger ships will probably benefit first. We also need to see that happen. Slowly thereafter, the minor bulk will also come.
Deepak from HSBC has two questions. The first one going, "Current spot rates are well below your breakeven. Any color on the impact to P&L at these levels and are current FFAs a good signal to the market for H2 earnings?
Yeah, the spot market or the index market is below. Remember our cover, that is not. You know, remember we had basically 100% cover for Q1 at 13,000, about 13,500 on the two segments. That is definitely above our PL breakeven. The other question, Peter?
The second question is, on slide 30, you mentioned long-term charters. How many of these are contracted with customers at profitable rates?
well, Those long-term ships, they go into the fleet as our own fleet. They are not, they're not chartered out, except the cover that we, of course, mentioned earlier.
Could I get in with my question now?
Yes, please go ahead.
It's really just a question on valuation. I'm sure everyone on the call that's a shareholder is frustrated at how little value the market seems to want to accord to the business. Just a general question, what do you think you gain from being a public listed company?
That's not a, you know, easy question to answer. We've been listed since, you know, 2004, right?
I know. I've been...
Yeah.
I've been a shareholder for much of that time.
Of course, I hope over parts of that time, we have produced good shareholder value for our shareholders, right? Especially in the last couple of years, it's been a phenomenal investment for shareholders, right?
Yeah.
We do believe that shipping can. You know, this is a philosophical discussion, you know, I don't think we should spend too much time on it. You know, shipping can constitute, from an investor's perspective, an interesting part of a well-diversified portfolio. You know, we are a bellwether of the global economy. You know, we give investors the ability to play, you know, play on the cycle, play on assets, you know, historically play on China and these things. I think there are many reasons to invest in companies like ours. Why don't we get full value for it? Sometimes I guess we would ask the investors that question as well. We think we should get value for it.
I mean, you know, Pacific Basin in particular, we don't just have ships as a tonnage provider. We're not floating real estate. We operate our ships better than the competition, with higher TC rates, with lower cost and bigger scale. We also have an operating business completely independent of our owned ships, right? We add up all of that. There's a significant value in that, in that business. Of course, I think historically and for a long period of time, shipping was unable to earn a Return on Equity because of oversupply. I think that lingers a little bit in people's consciousness. That took, it took a long time to work out that supply from the super cycle, you know, 10 years ago +, right?
I think now the situation on supply is completely different. You know, whereas 10 years ago, we were staring at a decade of oversupply, you know, there is a possibility now that we're looking at the next decade as a decade of undersupply. Don't rule us out as a, as a good investment for the future. It might be one of the better bets you can make now in the beginning of this decade, given the order books and given global economy. You know, I don't wanna be a, you know, a snake oil salesman and try to sell everything here, but I think there are good reasons to invest in shipping.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Jon Ogden. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.
Thank you very much for another couple from me. Just on the cover, when you talk about, say, $13,500, is that including the scrubber benefits or does that come on top? That's one question. On the sort of the fleet, you know, the strategy of renewing the fleet to go to net zero, just wondered, are we going to see sort of like 3, 4 years from now, very large CapEx, you know, sort of huge fleet, renewal and large orders of new buildings, or is it gonna be sort of a drip feed over the years? Is it just far too soon to say, given that, you know, you're saying methanol might be the thing, but, you know, in fact, that may not be workable.
I guess just on a technical point with methanol, I know that it's only half the energy density of fuel oil. I just wondered, you know, this ship design, I mean, would it be able to use the same fuel tank? Would you be able to sort of swap fuels very readily? You know, the performance of this ship, obviously it'll have bigger fuel tanks, so it's more space is used for fuel. It may perform in an inferior way to a regular ship. Anyway, I mean, that's... I'm just kind of trying to get a handle on the, how realistic methanol actually will be, given there's no methanol infrastructure either.
You know, if there is going to be some kind of large sort of fleet renewal or if it would just be a sort of really something fairly, just a very slow process. Thank you.
Yeah. First of all, the question about the Jon, the question about the cover. Again, the cover does not include the scrubber upside. The scrubber upside.
Mm.
-go $2,000. You have to put that on top, on top of it. Remember, when you look at our cover, it is, it is. There's a lot of fronthaul. So there's a lot of voyages that brings that into the loading areas where there usually will be an upside, on the next leg. Remember that we normally actually outperform a little bit on these things, as we go along, as we optimize the operation. The renewing of the fleet, yes, there is an ambition to renew the fleet. If you look. We have an ambition to grow. I think it's fair to say that if we want to sort of maintain size, we probably have to buy 10 ships a year.
If we wanna grow, we of course have to do more than that. We have an ambition to grow. If you go back in time, I don't think. Of course, we have become a bigger company now, so of course the CapEx might be higher, but we have always tried to sort of look at the cycles of the market and try to do the best timing of buying our ships. Last year we didn't buy anything really. We sold seven, eight ships of the older, smaller ones. Early this year we have bought quite a bit.
I think we bought 9 ships, again, as we saw asset prices coming down about 20% from the peak of the market in the middle of last year. We will always do that. In respect to the methanol ships, that has to be new buildings over time. We have our project in Japan with our partners there, and at the moment we are looking at the design of the ships. How many and so on, that remains to be seen. I think there's a little bit of more work to be done on that part. It's clearly our ambitions, and we think it's the right thing. We need to decarbonize as an industry, and also Pacific Basin has to do that.
At a certain stage we need to go into zero-emission ships. We think methanol is the right plan at the moment. We are definitely working on that part. How much and how quickly and so on, let's see. On the technical side of it, no, you cannot have methanol in fuel oil tanks. You have to have coated tanks to carry methanol. That's part of the project, of course. We are spending quite a bit of time and resources on these things. There's a lot of design things that you wanna get right before you go down that way. I hope that replies the questions.
Thank you. I've just got one quick follow-up. Just on when you said fronthaul and backhaul, I mean, I heard this used, and I'm a little bit. Just like some clarification. Let's say fronthaul would be some grain coming out of South America going to China. That would be fronthaul. Because you've got into, say, Shanghai, and now your ship's there, that means that a backhaul cargo, the Because your ship's there, that's handy for somebody who wants to ship out of Shanghai and take that to Thailand or something. Is that the right way of thinking about fronthaul and backhaul?
Yeah. You can say our contract cargoes are mainly. Lots of it is voyages that goes from different places in the world down to the main loading areas. That could be cement from Southeast Asia or from Japan down to Australia. Australia is of course a loading area for lots of other commodities. It could be fertilizers going into South America, which is also a loading area for grain. You can say that some of the contracts we have are voyages that actually brings the ships down to the main loading areas. Normally you will discount them somewhat because you get down to a bonus area, normally. That's what we mean when we talk about it. I hope that makes sense.
Okay, fronthaul will get you to the main loading area, like a grain area or coal area, and then the back haul is coming out of there and going somewhere else.
It's the other way. It's the other way around.
The fronthaul would be lower.
I know. I'm also getting confused. It's the other way around.
Okay.
Okay. Did I say it wrong?
Right. Sure.
Okay. Thank you very much, John.
Thank you.
One last reminder. If you have a question, please join the Zoom link with the Join Video Conference button. Please raise the Hand button, and you will then enter the queue. As there are no further questions, we will now begin closing comments. Please go ahead.
Yes. I'd like to thank you again for joining us today and for your continued support of Pacific Basin. If you have any further questions, please direct them to our investor relations team, who will be happy to answer. Thank you very much, and thank you again, Peter.
This concludes our conference call. Thank you all for attending.