Welcome to the presentation of the fourth quarter results of Klaveness Combination Carriers. Today in this webcast, Liv Hege Dyrnes, CFO of Klaveness Combination Carriers, and myself, Engebret Dahm, CEO, will present. We in Klaveness Combination Carriers are owners and operators of combination carriers, which are ships that can transport both dry bulk and tanker cargos. We have two unique concepts, our CABUs that are servicing the alumina industry, and our new and more versatile CLEANBUs that are, in addition, servicing petroleum, petrochemical, and the biofuel industries. Both shipping types are transporting tanker cargos into regions that are big exporters of dry bulk commodities, combining efficiently dry bulk and tanker cargos. In our company, our main priority is the safety and well-being of our crew.
That means we are working hard to ensure that the spread of coronavirus is not coming to our ships, and that we succeed to make the necessary crew changes to get our crew back after ended service period on board. I can tell you it's not easy at the moment, and it has not become easier the latest weeks either. I'm pleased to see, as we see in these graphs, that we have succeeded to increase the number of crew changes, and also have succeeded to increase the number of crew, both on sign-ons and sign-offs, that has been accommodated in the last two quarters. We are now back to nine out of 10 planned crew changes are carried through. 2020 has been a remarkable year in terms of market. Extreme volatility in all the three markets that are impacting our business.
The fourth quarter was a bit more boring, with both the product tankers and dry bulk market weak in October and November, and improving in December. Far in this year, it's been quite more action-filled, with product tankers dropping down to historical low levels, while the dry bulk market has had the strongest start of the year for, I guess, 10 years. The fuel market has improved through the year. In these market circumstances, we are pleased that the fourth quarter was a strong end of a profitable and successful 2020. The time charter earnings of our fleet substantially outperformed the standard markets, with the CABUs earning closer to $19,000 per day, and the CLEANBUs $20,800 per day, which is 1.9- 3 times the earnings of standard tankers and 1.7- 1.8 times the standard dry bulk vessels.
We are also pleased to report an EBITDA of $11 million, which is about $1 million higher than the third quarter. The contributor to the improvements is mainly the CABUs that has performed well in the fourth quarter. We have to remind you that our results are negatively impacted by COVID-19 costs, both with respect to crew change, off-hire, and also generally higher operating costs caused by COVID-19. The delivery of two new builds during the second half has a negative impact through start-up costs. We are continuing to live up to our dividend policy and are paying unchanged dividends, $0.03 back per share in the fourth quarter. We believe that we, in 2020, have demonstrated the soundness and future-proofness of our business model, where we provide the lowest carbon shipping solution to our customers.
We have far lower earnings volatility than the standard tanker markets, we provide the higher earnings at marginally higher operating costs, giving higher profitability over time than the standard markets. Starting off with the emissions, we see the focus on decarbonization of shipping is continuing to increase. With the shipping business getting into the EU's emission trading scheme in 2022, it's interesting to see how the EUA pricing has developed over recent months, which has increased by 60% since early October. If you ask analysts, they expect this to at least double over the next 5- 10 years. That reminds us that the shipping business needs to start paying for emitting CO2, and either through paying carbon taxes or buying quotas through emission trading schemes or through initiating new type of propulsion or using new type of fuel.
What will the future cost of emission be? We have made some calculations that you see out to the right. The current EUA price corresponds to $46 cost per CO2 emitted. If this should increase to EUR 100 per ton, we are up at $120 per ton of CO2 emission. The most competitive standard solution today for reducing emissions is LNG propulsion, burning LNG fuel. It costs $10 million more in investment, and it translates to around $150 extra cost per CO2 emission, taking into account the benefit of the fuel. Biofuel is currently available in European ports, and this translates to a cost of $425 per CO2. We, in Klaveness Combination Carriers, are delivering a service which are 30%-40% lower carbon emission per ton transported than the standard solutions.
Today, we are actually offering our service at a discount to the standard markets, hence, are not getting paid for the benefit of lower carbon emission to our customers. I can tell you that the importance of emissions is increasing in our discussions with current customers, and is a door opener for when introducing the CLEANBUs into the market. It's quite interesting to see what are the value creation that we make through the low emission we are producing. Here, this example shows what is the total value creation to our customers with a different cost of CO2. Starting up with the current EUA price, it translates to a $9 million value creation for the 17 ships that we will have in water this spring. If the EUA price improves to $100, we are up at the value creation of $23 million.
The cost of LNG translating to CO2 emission cost would imply a value creation of $36 million, and likewise, the biofuel more than $8 million. This shows the soundness of our concept, and we believe over time, also, Klaveness Combination Carriers can get part of the value creation into our results. In our strategy, we focus on maintaining lead as the world's lowest carbon emission shipping provider. We have a number of initiatives that are started up, both on the technical installations on the ships and in the operation of our vessels. So far as the KPIs we show here on the carbon intensity and the CO2 emission per ship is above the trajectory we have established in our environmental strategy. We expect to show results of the initiatives that we have started in this year.
We would like to tell you more about this, and we invite to a separate webcast, the 23rd of March, in connection with our presentation of our sustainability report, where also we'll tell you more about what we're doing and what our plans are in this respect. Looking at this graph showing the market development since June last year shows the value of the diversification that our business model has, being dependent on three different markets. The gray curve shows the MR tanker market development coming down from the boom last spring, falling down to low levels, with some up and down turns through the year and in early 2021, coming down to historical low levels in January and February.
The opposite development we see clearly in the blue line, which is the dry bulk market, Panamax market, recovering during the spring last year, and I know last month has spiked, and we see the strongest start of 2021 compared to the last 10 years. The tanker market is, we expect, to remain weak for at least the last half year, and we see here the oil consumption is still below historical levels, and we expect this to take some time before the effects of the COVID-19 vaccinations come into the economy. Likewise, we see there are still floating storage of crude and product tankers that will be released and will have a negative impact on the market over the coming months.
The fundamental balance in the market is still strong as we look here on the fleet growth for crude and product tankers for the last years, coming down to historically low levels for product tankers for the coming year, below 2%. We see the forward market for MR1 tankers illustrates the small optimism for the market for the first half, improving for the low point at the moment, but still at fairly low levels through the year. We have in our company a very strong tanker market coverage for the first half, and we expect this to improve over the coming month as we are in the process of tendering in for additional contracts for the year.
Likewise, for second half, there will be contract renewals that are likely to bring up the contract coverage for second half of the year closer to 50% when coming into the spring. The situation in the dry market is completely different. The Panamax market, where our combination carriers are competing, the transportation of grains are the most important part, followed by coal. Looking at the development in the dry market and the demand, as shown in the second graph, we see how the positive development in demand through 2020 in the green graph, and we see the strong start of the year in the blue dots for January. The grain market has been extremely strong, with increased exports of grains out of the US Gulf to China, and in parallel with strong exports of grains from South America.
Coal shipments has been strong in the early part of this year due to especially the harsh winter. For the dry bulk market, the market balance is strong, with a low order book below 6%, meaning low supply growth in the market. The forward market illustrates the spike in the market now in February and March, and a normalization for the last quarters of the year, but still at high levels. We have built up our contract coverage somewhat for 2021. For the last three quarters of 2021, we have about 50% fixed-rate coverage, and we expect to keep it at that level for the coming months, having a significant exposure to an expected positive dry bulk market. Look, we have, as mentioned, produced strong earnings for both vessel types, starting off with the CABUs.
Where the main driver is the very positive development of the CABUs in the Pacific market, where we service the Australian alumina industry, where we have six to seven of our 9 CABUs employed. We see to the left here the development in the number of caustic soda cargos booked, which explains partly the positive results of the CABUs for 2020. There's also been a strong start of the year for booking of caustic soda cargos to Australia. In the balance of the caustic soda market, we believe that to increase considerably over the next months, which will support the earnings also for 2021. With strong contract coverage, we have been able to increase the operational efficiency in the Pacific market, where we have a 95% hit with respect to time in combination trade, and we have been able to reduce the ballast down to 9%.
These are all important factors for explaining the results of the CABUs for 2020 and the fourth quarter, showing how the results for the CABUs for the fourth quarter of closer to $19,000 per day, which is three times the earnings as illustrated in Clarksons MR Tanker Index. This is also 1.8 times the Panamax market earnings in the fourth quarter. Looking at 2020 as a whole, we have earnings of $19,900 per day for the CABUs, which is 1.3 times the standard MR tanker market and 2.3 times the Panamax dry bulk market. It's especially pleased to see the strong development compared to the tanker market and the market which is historical high for the year seen as a whole. We are continuing to progress with the phasing of the CLEANBUs. We are starting up new trades, and we are entering into business with new customers.
I would especially like to focus on the positive development in the Australian market, which is one of our main target markets. We have, after the first shipment made in September, October, we made additional two shipments, we expect to increase this further over this year. We are pleased also to see that the structural development in the Australian and New Zealand market has developed to our benefit, where three of the remaining refineries in Australia and New Zealand are closing down now over the first half of this year, meaning increased CPP imports to Australia and opening up new import ports that will be a good fit with the export of dry bulk commodities. Looking at the earnings of the CLEANBUs, ending at $20,840 for the fourth quarter, which is 1.9 times the MR1 tankers and 1.7 times the Kamsarmax dry bulk ships.
As mentioned, this is especially pleasing in extremely strong tanker market seen as a whole for the year, with $23,854 per day for the CLEANBUs in 2020, 1.1 times the standard MR1 tankers and 2.4 times the standard Kamsarmax bulk carriers.
Yes, then over to EBITDA and some more financials for both Q4 and 2020 in total. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 11% from third quarter to fourth quarter and ended at $11 million. CABU EBITDA increased by $1.3 million, mainly due to higher utilization of the fleet, both as scheduled and unscheduled off-hire came down compared to third quarter. As Engebret showed, we had stable TCE earnings between third and fourth quarter, despite the weaker tanker markets, due to very efficient combination trading in the Pacific. OPEX came down slightly as well. CLEANBU EBITDA for the comparable fleet, down $1.3 million, mainly due to lower TCE earnings, $3,300 per day lower, but still 1.9 times the tanker market. OPEX increased as well, at $1,200 per day. We see some volatility in the operating expenses from quarter to quarter.
CLEANBU EBITDA for additional vessels on hire, approximately 0.35 vessel years, contributed with $1.1 million in the quarter. All in all, CABU EBITDA up 20% and CLEANBU EBITDA down 8% Q-on-Q. As mentioned, we continue to take delivery of vessels. The two vessels delivered in Q3 and Q4 started trading in the fourth quarter. We have as well taken delivery of one vessel in January and the next two, or the last two vessels, are expected to be delivered in March and May this year, which means that we will have a full fleet in operation towards the end of second quarter.
However, it is challenging to take delivery of the vessels these days, and as you can see from the illustration to the right, the days from delivery until we start trading the vessels have increased from an average of 12 days in 2019, until approximately 40 days for the two last vessels, and it was as high as 57 days for the vessel delivered in Q3. We expect the situation to be somewhat similar for the next vessels, but of course, we try to do this as efficiently as possible. Off-hire is down 49 days from Q3- Q4, and unscheduled off-hire is down 10 days. We had 27 COVID-related off-hire days in Q4, slightly down from Q3. Operating expenses, as you can see to the right, increased by 8% from 2019- 2020 for the CABU vessels, and improved by 15% for the CLEANBU vessels.
The CLEANBU OPEX is impacted by the phasing of the vessels. Hence, we expected this to come further down or improve, so that OPEX is down in 2021, but the uncertainties related to COVID-19 is still quite high. The total negative COVID effect in Q4 was $2.7 million. That's quite in line with Q3. This is approximately 50% lower earnings, mainly due to more off-hire and 50% related to higher costs. In total, we estimate the impact for the total of 2020 to be negative $5.8 million from COVID. EBITDA increased, as mentioned, by 11% from Q3 to Q4. Profit after tax, slightly down from Q3 and ended at $1.2 million. Let's have a look at full year 2020. EBITDA increased by 80% from 2019- 2020 and ended at close to $50 million for the full year 2020.
CABU EBITDA increased by more than $7 million on the back of increased TCE earnings. The TCE earnings were the strongest we have had since 2015. This was partly offset by 69 less on-hire days, whereof 55 COVID-related, as well as some higher operating expenses. CLEANBU EBITDA for the comparable fleet increased $3.6 million on the back of higher TCE earnings and lower operating expenses. The CLEANBU EBITDA from additional vessels, approximately two additional vessel years, contributed with more than $11 million in 2020. If we, in addition, adjust for a full fleet on water, that would imply approximately 4.5 additional vessel years. The EBITDA for 2020 would have been around $75 million. KCC really demonstrated the value of flexibility and diversification in 2020. We saw very efficient combination trading for the CABU vessels on the back of strong caustic soda volumes.
The stronger tanker market was reflected in through the index contracts for this segment. We saw the effect of diversified market exposure towards the end of the year. For the CLEANBUs, we took advantage of the peak in the tanker market while the vessels traded in combination trades for the remaining part of the year. We saw, on the back of this, a strong EBITDA increase of 80%. We, of course, also saw some higher interest costs due to higher mortgage debt related to new builds, as well as increased bond debt. Profit after tax ended at a strong $15.2 million, up from $0.6 in 2019, while dividends per share doubled from $0.06 in 2019 to $0.12 in 2020. The cash flow position developed as expected through the quarter. The main cash flows relates to delivery of one new build.
We had drawdowns related to two new builds in Q4, both the vessels delivered in Q3 and Q4. We as well repaid the last part of the KCC03 bond. Cash per year-end ended at $65.7 million, while the remaining net new build CapEx is estimated to be $18 million. Equity ratio ended at 39% for the year, in line with expectations following delivery of new builds. Yes, that was the short summary of solidity and liquidity. Over to you, Engebret.
To wrap up, after a very strong 2020, especially seen in light of the large COVID-19 cost effects, where we have reached a number of important milestones both on the CABUs and the CLEANBUs, the start of 2021 will be weaker, mainly due to the very weak start of the tanker market in 2021. The spike in the panamax market now in February will have positive effects that will mainly translate into the second quarter of the year. We are guiding for the CABUs of earnings between $16,750 and $17,750, which is above the level in 2019. The CLEANBUs we guide between $17,000 and $18,000 per day, which is also at the level of what we achieved in 2019. Especially in relation to the underlying tanker market, these are still strong earnings.
Looking at 2021 as a whole, as mentioned, we expect the tanker market to be weak in the first half of the year. While we expect it to improve somewhat over the coming months. There should be some upside in the second half as the world economy recovers. We are very optimistic for the private market, and we see the spike now in February and a post-development for the remaining part of the year. We also, as mentioned, expect to book more caustic soda volumes to be more or less fully booked for the CABUs in their trade in the Pacific and in the Americas. We also expect positive benefits of having the full fleet on water by second quarter, and for the second half, having in total 17 ships trading.
There will be more freight on the CLEANBUs in 2021 compared to this year, which partly will be covered by a freight insurance. We expect, we are positive to our ability to expand the CLEANBU commodity trading. We have shown good progress so far, we expect to report more progress over the coming quarters. To summarize again, we believe Klaveness Combination Carriers has a future-proof and profitable business model that should be attractive to both investors that are focusing on shipping and investors that are trying to avoid shipping investments. Having the lowest carbon emission shipping solution, producing earnings with a far lower earnings volatility than the standard tank and dry markets, and delivering higher earnings both in terms of dollar per day and in terms of profitability. Thank you. Now we are ready to receive your questions. Let's see what we have. That's it.
Let me start up here with a question from Dennis in ABGSC. He asked, "The derivative market has been unseasonably strong in the first quarter 2021. To what extent do you believe that this is elevated port congestion has been driving this tightness? Furthermore, has the Australia-China standoff affected your trades in the Pacific basin?" I think based on the statistics that we are seeing, the congestion level is high for the season, while it has in fact decreased slightly over the last week. It has been a positive factor. I do believe also the large increase in grain shipments and also what you call the resumption of coal shipments into China has probably as well a positive effect. When it comes to the standoff between Australia and China, we have so far had no effect on our ships.
As this relates mainly to coal and we transport very little coal. Then we have another question from Dennis, asking a question regarding your capital allocation. You report $66 million in cash and $27.6 million in net new building and drydocking CapEx, leaving you with around $38 million remaining. Is this level of cash you expect to maintain on the balance sheet?
Yes, I would say at least through 2021, we will probably not do any large changes to that. After the full phase-in of the CLEANBU fleet, then, of course, we will try to optimize cash on the balance sheet.
Let's see. The next question comes from Herman Hildan. He asked, "With the same framework as seen with sulfur and NOx regulations approaching CO2, it clearly may be a bit premature to ask, do you intend to target profit sharing with your clients on the environmental benefit your transportation solution provide, or do you see that a pass-through benefit to your clients to build larger scale for Klaveness Combination Carriers?" I think I was partly answering that in the presentation. I think we have up to date provided our customers with a lower cost or even cost with the standard tanker and dry bulk solutions, meaning that our customers has got the full benefit of our lower emission service. How this will develop is, of course, early to say, but we do expect, as mentioned, as the cost for emission CO2 will increase over the coming years.
We expect also our company to get a share of this benefit. Today, as mentioned, it provides us a unique access to new customers and to opening up the market for a new type of ships. Here is a question from Fredrik Nas, "How will EEXI regulation impact Klaveness Combination Carriers? Will you need to make any technical changes to your vessels, instance, lower engine power? Do you expect EEXI to impact supply for tankers and bulkers?" On the EEXI side, the new CLEANBUs are fully complying with the regulations from 2023. The last generation CABUs, that is at 2% below the EEXI requirement, which we expect to solve by small or minimal installations, fuel-saving device installations on the ships. All our modern ships, that means 11 of the 17 ships, do comply or will comply with limited extra initiatives.
The six oldest CABUs were four are built between 2021 and 2022. There is a bigger gap. We are starting up to study how we will do this. For the two younger ships that are built between 2005 and 2007, we expect to make investments in the ships to improve the fuel efficiency. For all the six ships, we may evaluate also to reduce speed and engine power. What is the average fixed coverage in dollars per day for Panamax in first half 2021 and second half 2021? In terms of TC5 Kamsarmax earnings, we are looking at the round voyage calculation, which is the way the standard ships are trading. The coverage is around $13,000 per day. Another question from Frode Mørkedal. How is the CLEANBU combination trade developing last quarter? 67 of days were in combination trades.
What is the expectation in terms of the coming quarters? We have in the first quarter allocated more capacity into the dry market given the extreme weak tanker market. We expect the combination trade to be approximately at the same level in the first quarter. We expect over the remaining three quarters to increase the combination trading percentage for the CLEANBUs up to a target over 80% for this year. Another question from Frode. Can you repeat the expected benefit to you from a rise in bunker prices of $100? As we calculated, it is around between $600 and $800 per day in benefit from a $100 increase in fuel cost. I have a question from Erik Aspen Fosså. Your contract coverage for 2021 for both the tanker and dry bulk has increased meaningfully since the Q3 report.
Could you give some color on the rate level fixed? Were you able to take advantage of the strong dry bulk market so far this year? On the tanker side, it's a bit more difficult to give you an estimation in terms of average, given that we are talking both for the MR and LR1 market, but it safely produces earnings well above the tanker market earnings. On the dry side, as mentioned, if you convert it to a TC5 Panamax level, it is about $13,000 per day for this year. We have increased this coverage over the latest week. We have a question from Bendik Engebretsen. Congratulations with another solid quarter despite market volatility and pandemic friction. Could you please elaborate on the new customer relationships you have established to the CLEANBU fleet? How many new counterparties are we talking about?
Could you please elaborate on why the number of days from delivery to trade for new deliveries have increased? We have, over the last quarter, increased at least two important CLEANBU customers, which are important customers in the trades and which are among the leading players in the industry. We are very pleased with this development, and we are in discussions which are positive and promising for expanding these relationships. When it comes to number of days from delivery to trade, it is an impact of the fact that we don't get the crew into China, meaning that we have employed Chinese crew to take the ship from the shipyard to Korea, where our crew is in quarantine and is ready to take over the ship.
This is far from ideal startup for a ship, meaning that we need to have weeks after the new crew comes on board to do the work that normally would have been done before delivery at the shipyard. That delays the time before the ship can start trading.
I think that was the last question.
That was the last question. You still have some seconds to send off more questions. If not, we thank you all for joining this webcast and hope to see you soon, or that you will join our next webcast the 23rd of March. Thank you.