Hafnia Limited (OSL:HAFNI)
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Apr 30, 2026, 4:26 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q2 2022

Aug 26, 2022

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

Operating within the product and chemical tanker market. We have our own in-house technical management and global commercial platform with chartering teams in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and U.S.A. Our technical management team ensures that the highest safety and environmental standards are maintained on board, while our commercial team are managing more than 110 third-party vessels in pools. At the end of the second quarter, we own and have chartered in a diversified portfolio of 142 vessels. Our own vessels have an average broker valuation of $3.5 billion, giving Hafnia a net asset value of around $2.2 billion. Being the largest operator of product and chemical tankers in the world, Hafnia's fleet, low average age of 7.7 years, and unparalleled scale enables steady utilization and improved earnings capability.

Our business model is also robust with diversified revenue streams such as our pool platform and bunkering service. With improving market fundamentals, the market outlook in the coming months remains strong on the back of oil supply dislocation from oil consumption, leading to increasing ton-mile demand. At Hafnia, we put people first. In addition to our valued employees, this also means maintaining strong relationships with our stakeholders, such as banks and industry partners, giving us access to industry-leading debt financing to lower our operating costs. Lastly, we also have a clear ESG profile. With growing impact from environmental regulations and increasing demand for social and governance focus as well, Hafnia is well-equipped to take all matters that affect us and our stakeholders seriously. Slide number 5 . Moving on. Hafnia today provides a much wider and deeper value proposition.

Since listing in late 2019, Hafnia has grown significantly and is now the world's leading product and chemical tanker company. This has been achieved through thoughtful consolidations, understanding the market and the needs of all our stakeholders. Over the last couple of years, Hafnia has concluded two key strategic acquisitions and two joint ventures cementing our foothold in the market. This allows us to operate on a larger scale, seen by the strong increase in Hafnia's commercially operated fleet. Growth and scale enable us to unlock synergies in chartering, operations, bunkering, back-office, and opens Hafnia up to new trading opportunities. With the volatile global environment in the last couple of years, we had to ensure we navigate through them cautiously. The various acquisitions have increased the overall leverage of Hafnia, raising our cash flow break-even levels.

As a result, we have been actively capturing synergies from the acquisitions, working on our capital structure by reducing our leverage levels, refinancing deals, and a capital raise. This also allows us to be in a good position to take advantage of any future opportunities. Even in challenging markets, Hafnia has always demonstrated the ability to produce shareholder value. We have consistently been paying dividends of 50% of the net profit and have a total shareholder return of over 170% since the start of 2021. Hafnia's vision is to be best on water. These various factors not only underscore Hafnia's commitment to growing our platform to maximize stakeholder value, but also exhibit that we follow through on our intentions. Moving to Slide number 6. Let me continue by giving an update on the two key strategic acquisitions that we have executed earlier this year.

The first being the acquisition of CTI with a fleet of 32 vessels, and second being the acquisition of 12 modern LR1s from Scorpio Tankers. As an update, we have in June completed the handover of all LR1 vessels from Scorpio. Apart from operating on a larger scale, we believe that the acquisitions have been executed at an impeccable timing due to the recent rise in freight rates and asset prices. Looking at recent tanker rates, we can observe a great increase across all segments since the acquisition, due mainly to increased oil consumption and dislocation of supply because of the situation in Ukraine. The chemical fleet has close to 90% spot market exposure and hence benefit significantly from Hafnia's ability to trade clean petroleum products.

Hafnia has been able to take full advantage of this, signaling strong earnings potential for upcoming periods. For the second quarter, the income from the acquired fleet has been above $40 million, with the chemical fleet of 12 LR1s contributing $19.4 million and $21.3 million respectively. This corresponds to an annualized net profit of $162 million from the acquired fleet. The acquired fleet value has also increased greatly since. Based on second quarter average broker valuation, the acquired fleet has increased by 13%, with the chemical fleet increasing by $72 million and the 12 LR1s increasing by $64 million. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our dedicated team and industry partners for their hard work and commitment to make all of this possible.

Looking ahead, we will continue to utilize our well-positioned modern fleet to take advantage of the continued upturn in the product tanker market and seek further opportunities to extend the level of services to all existing and new customers. Perry, why don't you take us through our financials?

Perry van Echtelt
CFO, Hafnia

Yes, thanks, Mikael. Despite increasing concerns of high oil prices and potential economic slowdown or even a recession, product tanker markets remained robust in the second quarter, as it continued to be heavily influenced by worldwide low oil stocks and the effect of sanctions of Russian product exports, which increased the ton-mile demand. As a result, we are pleased to announce that Hafnia has delivered the best quarterly results in our company history. The second quarter generated a TCE income of $348.3 million, more than triple than what was made a year ago. Building on that, we've recorded a net profit of $186.2 million for the second quarter of the year, and for the first six months, it was $207.5 million.

Under other income, we reported revenues from the management of third-party vessels and buying bunkers on behalf of third-party clients, which is $9.4 million for the quarter and $15.4 million for the first half. This fee-driven business has profited both from increase of activities and strong TCE rates. If we move to the next part of the results, we're happy to announce also a 50% dividend payout of $18.62 per share for the second quarter, reinforcing our strong ability to produce shareholder returns. For the quarter, we saw a return on equity of 53.5% and return on invested capital of 27.6%. The balance sheet remains strong with a cash position of $87.5 million.

We've also noted a significant decrease in our net leverage ratio for the quarter, down from 64% to 55.7%. This is mainly due to the recent strong increase in asset prices. As you can see, there's also been a strong build-up in working capital based on the strong increase in rates during the second quarter, and we expect that to normalize thereafter. Cash flow from operations and the capital raise have been allocated towards reducing our revolving credit facilities as they have the highest flexibility in our capital structure. Meanwhile, we are also actively working on refinancing part of our balance sheet to reduce funding costs. As Mikael already mentioned earlier, we will focus in the strong market on reducing our cash flow breakevens to the level from before the recent transactions. Moving to our TCE breakdown.

For the second quarter, we achieved an average TCE of $29,077 per day, more than doubling the rate a year ago, which is across the fleet. From the graph, you can also see the rates have improved significantly from the previous quarters. Looking forward, we can expect high product tanker rates to continue amidst the more restricted oil market and longer trading routes. We already know now that the third quarter will prove significantly stronger based on the covered rates. As of 23rd of August 2022, 72% of the total earning days in Q3 2022 were covered at an average of $36,504 per day.

For the remainder of the year, we have covered 42% of our 24,089 total days at an average rate of $34,394 per day. The widening gas premium over oil products, which has led to fuel switching from natural gas to oil products for power generation in Europe, has led to increased oil transportation demand, which is positive for the freight rates.

For the week beginning 15 August, Hafnia's pools have earned an average of $60,370 per day for the LR2 vessels, $46,731 per day for the LR1 vessels, $30,994 per day for the MR fleet, $28,413 per day for the handy vessels, $45,792 per day for the chemical- MR vessels, and $33,135 per day for the chemical- handy vessels. The next on to OpEx, which includes our vessel running costs, tech, and common fees, was based on 10,952 calendar days, resulting in an average of $7,038 per day. All-in G&A expense per day for the quarter was $864 per day.

Our operating cash flow breakeven for the full fleet in the second quarter was $14,974 per day. Due to the leverage used or assumed in the recent transactions, this has also impacted the breakeven levels. Next to that, the increase of base interest rates, LIBOR and SOFR, have added to this. Additionally, industry low breakeven levels and access to funding have enabled us to execute these strategic transactions, building to the record result we published today. Going forward, we will strongly focus on bringing back our cash flow breakeven across the fleet and positioning for the future. We are constantly benchmarking our performance against our peers, and we're pleased with our relative performance.

The graphs on this page reinforce this where we stand out in all areas, which comes from a good understanding of the market conditions and the quality of daily commercial decision-making. Moving on to the next page. With the continued upturn in the product tanker market, we already know that Q3 will be significantly better than Q2. This represents strong earnings potential for the future. Looking at the various scenarios where we apply recent realized rates into our forecast for the remainder of the year, you can see the strong earnings and expected distribution potential Hafnia has for the year. The combination of the recent fleet acquisition and a large exposure to the spot market enable Hafnia to take full advantage of the upturn in the product tanker market and generate strong returns and dividends. Jens, why don't you take the next few pages.

Jens Christophersen
EVP and Head of Commercial, Hafnia

Thank you, Perry. The next few pages show the global oil outlook and our expectations for the product tanker market. Global demand has been recovering during the last quarter, due mainly to the widening natural gas premium over oil products, which has led to increased gas to oil switching for power generation in Europe, boosting oil demand. Mobility indicators have also remained robust in 2022, as we see a rebound in air travel around the world, lending strong support to the demand of jet fuel, which typically is transported longer distances from refineries in the east to the west. Despite that, high commodity prices, concerns related to a potential recession and resurgence in COVID outbreaks in China casts a cloud of uncertainty on future oil demand.

Global oil demand is, however, still expected to increase by 2.1 million bbl in 2022 to 99.7 million bbl/d . On the supply side, global production has been gathering pace and reached a post-pandemic high in July to 100.5 million bbl/d . This was due mainly to rebounds from maintenance in the North Sea, Canada, and Kazakhstan. Further, OPEC has also agreed at its third August meeting to raise its supply target by 0.1 million bbl for September. Hence, despite an anticipated decline in Russian production, rising OPEC volumes and expanding non-OPEC supply will keep global inventories building during the rest of the year.

World oil production for the second half of 2022 is expected to grow by 0.1 million bbl /d , reaching 101.6 million bbl/d . Slide 15. Global oil trade routes have been redrawn as a result of E.U. sanctions and self-sanctioning. While the impact on tanker earnings appears to be significant already now, the fact remains that the daily volumes of clean petroleum products loaded in Russia on tankers destined for the E.U. continues to be above 1 million bbl/d . By February 2023, the E.U. will have to buy that cargo volume from the U.S. Gulf, or more likely the Middle East, which will result in significantly longer transportation distances for oil going into the E.U., as well as for Russian exports, which will be redirected towards the rest of the world.

Russian seaborne clean petroleum product exports does not appear to have suffered significantly from the war. On the contrary, Q3 exports are higher than in previous years. Slide 16. Moving on to the refining sector. Global refinery runs have been ramping up in line with seasonal trends and is expected to reach 82 million bbl /d in August, the highest level since January 2020. Throughput is, however, expected to fall again in the fourth quarter due to seasonal maintenance. Looking at July's export levels, we're still waiting for new refineries in the Middle East to operate at full capacity. Saudi Aramco's Jazan refinery has reached 78,000 bbl /d in July, representing only about 17.5% of its capacity, and we expect them to reach full capacity in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, Kuwait has seen higher exports in recent months, and this was mainly attributed to higher utilization of existing refineries. Kuwait Petroleum Company's new Al- Zour Refinery has received its first batch to clean the refinery, and we also expect them to reach full capacity of 0.6 million bbl/d in the fourth quarter. Both refineries are built to produce ultra-low sulfur petroleum products and are intended to service the Western Hemisphere with about 1 million bbl of clean product in the next year. Slide 17. With oil outputs set to increase in the Middle East, this will represent an increase in cargo volumes and ton miles for product tankers, which has been increasing since the pandemic. Cargo volumes and ton miles of clean products and chemicals have already surpassed pre-pandemic levels compared to our crude counterparts.

Sanctions on Russian supply has led to recalibration of the trading route, supported by strong demand of Middle East distillate barrels into Europe and Africa, having a positive impact on product ton-mile. In short, the steady growth in oil demand and opening and closures of refineries around the world has boded well for the tanker trade volume, which is expected to grow further in 2022. Slide 18. Storage levels is also a significant driver for the overall tanker market. Global oil inventories, which have been drawn to below long-term averages, are expected to build for the remainder of the year by approximately 0.9 million bbl/d , helping to alleviate market tightness and ease oil prices. However, this is not expected to last as we expect oil demand to catch up by early 2023.

World clean petroleum product inventories have been declining in recent quarters, but this is not proportionate across regions. The diversification between refining of clean products and end user demand is gradually increasing, due mainly to build-ups in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and draws West of Suez. This once again bodes well for the tanker trade volume as we can expect the volume of long-haul interbasin trade between petroleum products to increase, driven by these increasing flows from the East to the West following the start-up of significant refining capacity in the Middle East. Slide 19. Looking at the supply side, we remain bullish on the tanker market with declining order book levels and aging fleet.

Yards are fully booked till 2024, and the order book for new deliveries has been consistently declining over the last few years and is now at the lowest levels since the mid-1990s. The capacity side is not going to change anytime soon, and this will push for higher utilization of existing vessels to meet rising oil demand. Additionally, we see significant differences between the level of new builds relative to the aging profile of product tankers. The level of product tankers reaching scrapping age is set to increase greatly over the next three years. Older ships tend to be less efficient, and with increased emission and efficiency targets, it will continue to put pressure on the older vessels, accelerating scrapping levels and further reducing the supply of tankers. Mikael, over to you for the next couple of slides.

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

Thank you, Chris. We're now on Slide number 21. I'm proud to announce that in the last quarter, Hafnia has set up two additional pool platforms in the LR2 and chemical segments. This brings us up to a total of six pool platforms. This will expand and fill the only gap in Hafnia's portfolio of product tanker pool and incorporate the added capabilities of our chemical fleet from our CTI acquisition. The LR2 pool is launched in collaboration with long-standing LR1 partners, Reederei Nord and Chartworld, and we can expect significant synergies of the two pools due to significant overlap in both markets. The chemical pool has also welcomed TRF as its first partner. These partnerships and collaborations further reinforces the strengths of Hafnia's reputation and ability in commercially managing vessels.

We look forward to operating these new pools and believe our experience and the synergies with our existing business will further broaden our service offering and sector relations. Secondly, following initial design and prototype testing, we are pleased to announce the launch of our very own Pool Participant Mobile App, aimed to providing additional value to our pool members through enhanced communication and information. The application contains many features which provides insight and updated information for all our pool members, such as fleet performance, analytics, and monthly pool earnings, improving the quality of our service to our partners and reducing any time lag in information. Moving to Slide number 22. On top of excellent commercial performance and notable consolidation efforts, Hafnia also has a strong focus on ESG.

Demand for ESG information has been gaining traction over the past decade, and it is our responsibility to report comprehensively to ensure all stakeholders are clear on our strategy and performance in the respective areas. Shipping is the backbone of the global economy and is facing increasing pressure to decarbonize its operations. We are in full compliance with the IMO 2020 regulations on sulfur emissions, but are still always on the lookout for potential partnership opportunities to accelerate our environmental initiatives to improve our vessel efficiency. For 2021, across Hafnia's own fleet, our carbon intensity, as measured by the Annual Efficiency Ratio, was 5.22 g per ton-mile, 10.9% better than the present IMO baseline.

We are working hard to reduce our current fleet carbon intensity to 4.35 g per ton-mile by 2028, meeting the IMO's 2030 target two years in advance, and we are well on track to achieve that. The COVID-19 pandemic. As Hafnia seafarers around the world in precarious situations, it is our goal to foster an environment where all employees feel safe and valued. We strive towards a unified company culture and do this through extensive training at all levels, ensuring our employees' physical and mental health, and to encourage everyone to reach their full potential. Hafnia is also committed to upholding the highest corporate governance standards and business integrity across all activities.

Our highly reputable board of directors and seasoned management team is responsible for the company's overall management, focusing on the implementation of good governance and effective risk management that ensures the long-term sustainability of the company. Going to Slide number 23. Hafnia has a holistic approach to ESG. The Board and leadership group anchors our ESG strategy and is responsible for the supervision and strategic direction. We have identified 19 material topics which we believe are most important to us and our respective stakeholders to ensure that Hafnia is aligned with our business priorities with a long-term focus on ESG. We have an ESG function that assists the leadership group in tracking our ESG performance and progress, making sure everyone is accountable for executing the company's sustainability ambitions. We have integrated sustainability into our core business principles, governing the way we strategize, make decision, and carry out our daily routine.

That way, we can look towards a cleaner future as championed by everyone across the company. Looking ahead, global macro environment is expected to remain volatile on the back of deceleration of economic activity. However, amidst this considerable uncertainty, the oil and tanker market fundamentals remain strong, and we believe Hafnia is well-equipped to face the future. With that, I'd like to open up the call for questions.

Operator

We will begin our Q&A session now. Should you wish to ask questions, you can submit them via the chat function or use the Raise Hand function to be unmuted to ask your question verbally.

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

Oh, [Odin], do you have a question?

Speaker 6

Yes. Thanks. Hi, guys. Just a quick one on the market. I mean, this E.U. embargo coming up seems to be big event really. Curious if you have done any sensitivity analysis or anything to quantify that potential impact on numbers?

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

It's a very good question, [Odin]. For the time being, the E.U. continues to import quite a large share of its diesel from Russia. Our numbers, which are tracked by using AIS and tracking ships that are loading out of the Baltic and the Russian Black Sea, shows that Europe is still importing about 1 million bbl /d . If we just, on the back of an envelope, try to convert that into MR tanker equivalents, it means that there's constantly about 3.5 MRs every day delivering cargo into Europe. The average voyage duration is about 15 days. It's fair to say that the current rate is a full 50 MR equivalent.

From first of February next year, the likely scenario is that Europe will have to buy its diesel oil from the U.S. Gulf or from the Middle East, and that means at least a doubling up of voyage distance. Instead of using 50 MRs to supply Europe, we believe that it will take 100 MRs. The other side of the coin here is that in addition to this, we expect that Russia will continue to produce oil and refine oil and export it. It will now go, it will travel further distance towards markets in Latin America, Africa, and perhaps also the East. The Russian exports will probably also require more than a doubling up of what is currently being used. To sum it up, we would expect an additional ton-mile demand in excess of 100 MR equivalents.

To put that into context, the current international MR fleet is about 1,500 ships. That's a good sort of 7% top of the head calculation. The market is already tight, so we believe it has a significant impact on the market.

Speaker 6

Interesting. That seems to be a huge one, yeah. 7%. Given that backdrop, do you actually see that in the physical market that, let's say the charterers are positioning in terms of rates and willingness to buy ships, et cetera?

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

We see that there's still a fair gap between long-term time charter interest and c urrent spot market earnings. Right now, we see that we are in a seasonally low quarter, Q3, and we expect the spot market to pick up. Yet the period market has not picked up significantly, but activity is increasing, and we expect that we will see this once everybody is back from holiday and realize that the market is going to be tighter.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thank you.

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

You're welcome.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

We have a question from Sean Nelson. He's asking, could you explain the drop in the MR rates the last two weeks?

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

Yes. The drop in the MR rates, and I assume that you refer to the Atlantic basin, is explained by a transition of MR tankers from a drop in handy rates over the last couple of weeks, I can see. That is, I think best explained by a simple, you know, lack of activity in Northwest Europe and across the Mediterranean Sea. From a Hafnia perspective, we look at that drop as something which is probably going to disappear sooner rather than later. The argument for that is that the handy fleet is quite insignificant compared to the MR and the LR fleet, which right now is in a significantly stronger market. It would not seem logical that the handy rates would stay down there for a long time. Does that answer the question?

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

Yes. Any further questions?

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

I think when I look at the question again, it looks to me that perhaps we're talking 37,000 tons gasoline traveling from Europe towards the States on MRs and 38,000 tons diesel typically traveling from the U.S. Gulf towards Europe. That drop is a normal seasonality effect to the way we see it. When we look at the Atlantic market, we see that Europe is long on gasoline and the U.S. Atlantic coast is short on gasoline. In specific numbers, Europe is the Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp area is long about 3 million bbl of gasoline, and the U.S. Atlantic coast is 16 million bbl gasoline short compared to six months ago. What we expect is that this is going to be a bit of a catch-up effect coming in.

That will pick up on TC2, and we think it's quite likely that the U.S. Gulf will pick up more or less on the same time.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

We have a question from Nick. He's asking, you've naturally reduced quickly from cash flow at current market rates. At what debt level would you think it doesn't make sense to reduce debt further? Would you then need to reconsider shareholder distribution policy?

Perry van Echtelt
CFO, Hafnia

Yes, good question. It's Perry from Hafnia here. Of course, we're in a strong market at the moment. We've also reconfirmed our dividend policy of 50% of annual profit that we're paying out quarterly. As you rightly say, we have a normalized reduction in our debt portfolio. As also indicated in the first quarter, our leverage increased quite a bit on the back of the acquisitions that we did earlier in the year. Going forward, we'll be looking at restoring leverage ratios back at the situation that we were before we did these transactions. Importantly, also looking at the cash flow break even rates.

Having done these deals, largely with assumed leverage and neutral leasebacks, we would like to bring our cash flow breakevens back to the industry low that we had before these transactions. Then, of course, ultimately, depending on the strength of the market, we will always look at the combination of what our debt levels will be and shareholder distributions. That is something that will be evaluated on an ongoing basis. I hope that answers your question.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

I think so. We have a question from Hamish. He's asking if you could get rates that were satisfactory to you, assume you won't share that number publicly, what percentage of the fleet would you be willing to lock up on long-term time charters in the coming 12 months?

Jens Christophersen
EVP and Head of Commercial, Hafnia

Hi, Hamish.

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

Yeah.

Jens Christophersen
EVP and Head of Commercial, Hafnia

Mikael, you wanna take that one?

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

Yeah. I mean, I think it's obviously an interesting question. Basically, when it comes to hedging, I mean, our view has always been that it's something that we will value as we go along and how we see markets develop. It's perfectly clear we came into this market with, you know, more than 90% available spot. We've also seen different years where we've had up to maybe 30% coverage.

You know, although we are not giving out any numbers, it's also clear that when we at some point feel that we can get really length, which is further out the curve of a number of years at good rates, we will be looking at taking coverage at that point and make sure that we protect the company in terms of good earnings going forward.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

Any further questions? Now is the chance to ask your questions. One more question. Could you respond to the bear argument that a global recession could weaken demand? It's also from John.

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

When we look at the market today and we look at Hafnia's business model, our view is that from an industry perspective, as we've explained also, you know, during the presentation, we feel that particularly because of the supply and demand balance that we've been through an interesting period of time. The real worry is, as you mentioned, if a deep recession would occur and consequently oil demand would really drop. I mean, that's obviously, you know what I mean, that's a risk that we all have to relate to in terms of the macro environment. What we do notice is when we look at, for instance, what happened after the financial crisis, following 2008 and 2009, actually it turned out that oil demand only dropped about 2.5%.

You know, we still think that it's unlikely we're gonna see such a deep recession that is gonna have an impact on demand that will, in a way, take away the advances that we're seeing by very reduced supply coming into the market the next two to three years.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

Thanks, Mikael. We have a question from Nick. He's asking, how long do you think it takes before chemical tanker rates reach MR rates? Put another way, how much does the gap between current chemical MR and product tanker MR rates represent a time lag effect versus rates that are just likely to remain lower for chemical tankers?

Jens Christophersen
EVP and Head of Commercial, Hafnia

It's a good question, Nick. Historically, when we look back, it's difficult for chemical rates to follow clean rates when they go really high. Reversely, in very low clean markets, chemical tanker rates seem to be more stable. The reason for that is multiple. It's a contracted market that holds a fair amount of contract coverage between charters and owners. Secondly, it's a more systemic trade which is not necessarily driven by arbitrages. For that reason, our expectation would be that chemical tanker rates wouldn't be catching up in such a high market as we are in today. In fact, it could take a very long time before they do, and they would do so in smaller volumes.

On the other hand, when the market turns around, these ships should be in a better place than the vessels that are trading CPP. In short, it could take years.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

We have a question from [Rune]. He's asking, some scrapping will start when product tankers are 20 years or say 15 years. Any views?

Jens Christophersen
EVP and Head of Commercial, Hafnia

Yeah. Hi, [Rune]. That's a good question. Our view is that ships can trade up to 20 years of age without any significant problems. The tradability of a vessel depends also on the quality of the vessel and the quality of the technical managers. We're trading multiple ships above 15 years of age without any significant issues. In a tight market, as we see today, we do also see that oil majors tend to accept older ships. When we look at our different segments, we've seen the handy fleet, which is a fleet that has a worldwide average age of about 15 years. It trades well among oil majors. If we look towards some of the older ships, there is a preference for ships that are below 15 years of age.

That preference has also been largely by trading regulations for, in particular, naphtha, which trades on an open spec contract that stipulates that the ship must be 15 years of age or younger. We believe that it's the ships up to 20 years of age can well trade in international trades. Above 20 years, it's starting to become quite difficult, we would say.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

We have a question from [Niels]. What are the capital allocation priorities for cash that is not paid out in dividends?

Perry van Echtelt
CFO, Hafnia

Yes, good question, [Niels]. Well, at the moment, any excess cash that we have is deployed towards the capital structure. We have a combination of term loans, leases and revolving credit facilities in our capital structure. In the short term, that will be used to reduce leverage and financial expenses by reducing the revolving credit facilities. Then, we have a refinancing plan, especially for the acquired CTI fleet to reduce financing expenses. That's where, in the short term, excess cash would go to.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

Thank you, Perry. If there's no further question, I think we'll round it off for today. We look forward to talk to you again next quarter.

Mikael Skov
CEO, Hafnia

There's a question from Nick.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

Nick has a question here. You mentioned that long-term contracts are common in chemical tanker segment, but you show very little coverage on chemical MRs and handys past Q3 2022. Can you explain that apparent discrepancy?

Jens Christophersen
EVP and Head of Commercial, Hafnia

Yeah. Hi, Nick. We acquired the CTI fleet, our chemical ships, only in the beginning of this year. We take delivery of the ships in Q2, and therefore we didn't have any contract coverage. We are actually benefiting from our CPP trading skills and the high TCEs that are available in the clean market. Over time, we expect to build a contract portfolio and to make sure that we can benefit from the combination trade between chemicals and CPP, which we think there's a synergy for us as a company.

Thomas Andersen
EVP and Head of Investor Relations and Performance Management, Hafnia

Thank you, Jens. That would be it for today.

Operator

We have come to the end of today's presentation. Thank you for attending Hafnia's second quarter 2022 financial results presentation. More information on Hafnia is available online at www.hafnia.com. Goodbye.

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