Thank you, and welcome to this fourth quarter 2023 results presentation for Prosafe. My name is Terje Askvig, for those of you who don't know me. I joined Prosafe as the CEO on first of November last year. So, fairly new into the game, but very excited to have joined Prosafe. I think, I've had sort of the first three months been really exciting, and I think we have a great company with a very interesting and promising market and future ahead. So today, we'll go through the numbers. I'll take the market and operations, and Reese will sort of guide us through the numbers when it comes to that. So the highlights for the first quarter is, first, so some good news.
It's been a fairly quiet quarter, to be open about that. I mean, but we have some good news. We received declaration of four months extension on the Concordia in the U.S. Gulf. So that means that is now working until November. They have another two months options, and we are in discussion to also sort of extend the options, but that is not done. There is a discussion, but be mindful that the special survey, the SPS for Concordia, is due in March 2025. The supply and demand dynamics, I'll come back to here, but sort of overall, we feel it's a very favorable supply demand dynamics, both in the North Sea and in market in general, going into 2025.
2024 is quiet, so, you know, there are some activities, but, of course, every day that passes, the likelihood of gaining significant work in 2024 is diminishing. So what we see for the North Sea, both in Norway and U.K., is that the operators, they are planning further campaigns. There was one tender that we announced, was out earlier, and we are no longer in discussion there. I mean, we came to a point where we feel there are better opportunity, and then especially, especially for the Safe Boreas in other markets. So that's, that is where we are on that first opportunity. We also see demand for in Brazil increasing, and I'll come back to that later. Operationally, I think we had a good quarter.
So we had a good safety performance on all vessels. Utilization, 50%. And we did the SPS on the Safe Eurus in the quarter, and that was, you know, basically more or less on budget and on time. There is some discussion on the timing element with the Petrobras there, but it's one of the projects that has been successfully executed by the company, so we are very happy about that. Financial, Reese will come back to, but, I mean, there is no doubt that 2023 is or was a disappointing year for Prosafe. And, you know, we raised some capital from our shareholders, very sort of appreciative of that. So that means that our cash position at the year-end is basically $75 million.
As we said before, that cash position will take us into 2025. I'll come back to that a little bit later as well. We then looking more closely at the market. So we say that, you know, the, the accommodation market is late cyclical, and we try to guide you a little bit why we say that. I mean, clearly, the work we do is maintenance and is hookups, so that, that is late cyclical work, and it's work that, that operators, you know, if, if the market is, is good, and the oil price is, you know, let's say about $50, they do the maintenance. The, the, the hookup work, of course, that's more planned. But if you, if you then compare that to the growth...
So there is, you know, the late cyclicality, okay, as you see on the, on the left-hand side here. The dip we had in 2023, I think just to take that, when you look at sort of the utilization we had in the past year, the reason for the dip, I think we misread sort of the effects of the U.K. windfall tax. We didn't understand that, you know, the U.K. operators did not have any demand in 2023. Actually, that's the first year ever that no accommodation rigs have been working in the U.K. sector. So that's, I think that's, in a way, our bad. That was something we misread, going into 2023.
On the right-hand side, we just also try to illustrate this when you compare our market to jackups. As you can see, it is trailing, and our market has gone up, you know, 70%+ , while the jackups are over, you know, up 160%. So we see also, you know, we'll come back to where we are in the cycle, but we see also that this is sort of underlying the late cyclicality of our business. This you've seen before, it's sort of where we perceive the current market to be. So in Brazil, the latest data point we have is, you know, above $120,000 per day. Of course, that's on a 365-day basis.
In North Sea, the market is, you know, just over $200,000. That's, that's the latest data points we have. That would equate to an EBITDA, I think about $30 million per year, if you fix those at those levels, today, just to give you an idea. Then we have looked into, again, you know, to give you some further data points also when it comes to, you know, the, the improvement of the market. If we looked at the backlog, you can see that has increased significantly. This is on the 13 high-end, you know, high-spec vessels, just to be clear on that. This is the backlog on those 13 vessels in the overall market. Brazil, obviously, is driving a large part of this.
As likewise, the backlog, both in terms of months and in terms of U.S. dollars, have increased significantly, and also sort of how far ahead we are fixing or the market is fixing the vessels. So I think, you know, this is sort of underpinning our view on the market, that we are in a promising and increasing market. This is also a well-known graph. You see here on the right-hand side, this is what Petrobras is saying, their demand for FPSOs, what that is going forward. Brazil today produces approximately 3 million barrels per day. Their goal is to increase that to 5 million barrels per day in 2030, and that's also then. You know, the effect here is the 20 additional FPSOs going into that market.
When you talk to operators operating both in Brazil and in Norway or in the North Sea, they say that the corrosion in Brazil, due to the humidity, the warm weather, is 3–5x as high as it is in the North Sea. That's why Petrobras has a rolling system, where every three year they do maintenance with a flotel or a accommodation vessel on each of their FPSOs. So we see that the demand, we have sort of what we see as the identified demand, and we also assume that that will increase going forward. So if you look at sort of our market, you can slice and dice it many ways. But, you know, one way of looking at it, it is about 23 units.
Then you include the mono hulls, you include the jackups, you know, that, that's sort of the wider market we are competing with. And of those 23 units, today, 10 units will be operating in Brazil, and that's gonna increase. But, you know, it is a significant, over 50% of the accommodation vessels are or will be operating in Brazil. So one could look upon that as really like a base load in this market. This is a longer contract, is working 365, and that's and is now absorbing over 50% of the market. Going then over to more sort of the details of the. This is the North Sea.
As you can see here, we think that we are in a very favorable position in the North Sea going forward, both in Norway and in the U.K. Currently, there are two tenders out. We think that there will be more business coming into both Norway and U.K. for 2025, that is, and also beyond, 2026. So there is some pent-up demand due to lack of maintenance in the previous years in U.K. and Norway. So we think that the market dynamics definitely is in our favor here. And as you can see, there is not much available capacity in the high-end side of things. So this, we see that really sort of it should give room for increased rates.
That's our expectation, and that's what we are hoping for going forward. Again, just to give you some... Put this a little bit into the historical context. Here, we have sort of shown the rigs or the units that we can compare. So we've taken out sort of the outliers, the Scandinavia, and, you know, so this is on a comparable basis, what the EBITDA per vessel has been historically. And as you can see, this is sort of you can see the earnings capacity. So on average, Over this period, including the last four, five very weak years, you know, the earnings on average has been $29 million on a vessel, EBITDA per vessel. So that sort of gives an indication of the earning capacity in the market.
We also looked at, you know, a new building today. Realistically, what will a new building cost, delivered, say, in Brazil, with mobilization and, you know, sparing up and everything? Rough estimate is $350 million. In order to justify that investment, you need over $200,000 per day or an EBITDA of $50 million per year. So that sort of I think is a very long way from new buildings, let me put it that way. So, I think, from that perspective, that gives us some indication about what the earnings capacity is in our market. And again, 2023, obviously very disappointing for the company.
I think, not to make excuses, but it's, it's really one of the reasons is that we, we misread the U.K. windfall tax. We thought, you know, going into the year, we, we thought that the market would pick up and then the demand was simply not there, so we ended up with a lot, lot of, idle vessels. Here, just to give an idea about the earnings capacity. On the, on the left-hand side there, the first column is really, you know, what would we have made if all the vessels were fixed in the current market? So today, we would have made an EBITDA of $125 million per year on that basis. Clearly, we have the backlog, we have vessels that are not fixed.
Again, just to illustrate what the earnings capacity would have been with the current market. We looked at the peak, and then we said, "Okay, we do have two new buildings, options on two new buildings in China. What happens if the market improves? We have a growth case, we put the Scandinavia into work." And so then the earnings capacity of that market in the company, market- to- market, based on those rates, would be $275 million per year. So there is significant earnings capacity, and that's important to have in mind when we look at the net current debt, which is $345 million. So when the market comes back in a more normalized situation, we do have earnings capacity to cover the outstanding debt. Yeah.
Again, just some other more high-level thoughts about how our market is priced versus new buildings compared to other segments of the market. In my book, very simplistically, you know, we have two sophisticated rigs that can go in Norway. They will cost, as I said, about $350 million per year. Two of those, that's $700 million. You have the two other new buildings, you know, let's say that they are a little bit less, $250 million. So those four rigs in total, new- building price today is $1.2 billion. Add in, you know, $100 million for the three remaining rigs.
So the sort of market value, new building parity for our sort of fleet today is, give or take $1.3 billion. And that compared to the EV today of $450 million, you are basically at 35%, how we are priced compared to what new building parity would be. So it's gonna be a while until there are contracted new vessels in our segment. But also, there is, you know, a significant potential here on value uplift and earnings uplift. Moving on to operations. As I alluded to initially, Safe Notos and Safe Zephyrus had 100% utilization in the quarter. The Safe Concordia was in the U.S. Gulf. And as I said, we had additional options declared.
The Safe Eurus had an SPS in the quarter, more or less on time, on budget, so we are happy with that project. And then the Safe Scandinavia is laid up in Norway. It's cold stacked, and while the Safe Boreas and Safe Caledonia are laid up, but warm- stacked in Norway and the U.K. So that's the capacity coming in, into the market. Quickly on the backlog. You see here our backlog, we haven't, you know, we have not fixed any vessels in 2023, so the backlog is therefore, depleting. We are very optimistic for 2025, going into 2025, but this is more of a status situation on the backlog. And this is the fleet, how we are employed.
So as you know, we have four vessels available for 2025, and that's what makes us very excited. We think that the supply-demand dynamics, the Safe Zephyrus is in Brazil. It's ongoing until the first quarter of 2025. That can be prolonged in Brazil, or we can move it back to the North Sea. That's the vessel that is compliant with NCS, so that can go in Norway. So there's a lot of opportunities for Zephyrus. Of course, there is a mobilization issue here if we do take it back, but this is fairly sort of a binary calculation, what makes sense for us. So we will optimize the Safe Zephyrus. The Eurus and the Notos are going onto Petrobras, unfortunately, at lower rates.
There's a history for that, if you know, but that was back in the refinancing. Those vessels were fixed. You know, they are what they are. We just have to live with it, but you know, that's potential going forward here. And we have the Concordia. She's due for dry docking, as I said, or SPS rather, in March next year. So that's something we are dealing with. And then we have the Boreas and the Caledonia that is available today. So if you have a, you know, a good position into an increasing market going forward. So with that, Reese, maybe you can take us through the numbers? Hmm.
Very good. Thank you, Terje. Reese McNeel, the CFO at Prosafe. Been with Prosafe about a year and a half now. And thank you for dialing into this call and listening to us. On the financial side, running through this briefly, obviously, the quarter was impacted by the Eurus SPS. The Eurus was off-hire from the fifteenth of November. So that had a negative impact, I think, on our both on the top line and that flowing through then onto the bottom line. We also had a slight impact from a crane issue on Concordia, where we were at a slightly lower day rate through a significant portion of the quarter, and incurred, obviously, some additional costs associated with that.
We're happy that both Eurus and Eurus is fully back on hire, and Concordia has also now had the crane fixed and is back on full hire. So a slight impact from those two in the quarter, which leads to a slightly lower EBITDA if you're looking sort of, you know, comparable quarter-on-quarter versus the year. Looking at the income statement, a couple of things to point out here. One, which I would like to highlight, is the mobilization. Obviously, we incurred substantial mobilizations during 2023. We took the Zephyrus from the North Sea down to Brazil, and we also took the Concordia up to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
From an accounting perspective, these costs are amortized over the life of the project, but the cash is out today, so that is actually a somewhat, a little bit of a negative impact that we will see carrying over into 2024. But it will not have a cash impact as such. Looking at this, at sort of the lines a bit below EBITDA, if we talk about interest, I think we all know the interest rate environment has gone up. Under our current financing agreement, we are unhedged. So we have been impacted, of course, during the year by those increasing rate levels. On a more positive note, on the tax side, we successfully resolved a tax case in the U.K., which we're very happy about, a tax case which had been going on for many years.
And we were able to release that provision and de-risk the balance sheet in that respect. As Terje has said, I think, you know, none of us are super happy about the 2023 results. I think utilization was a bit lower than we thought, and we had slightly higher costs on the mobilization. I think that's something that the whole industry has seen, is that costs have been higher in doing these CapEx and mobilizations. But we're very happy that those are behind us, and we have now, going into the coming quarter, we have all four of the vessels fully working. But on the balance sheet, probably the biggest thing to highlight is working capital and the cash balance.
Cash balance of $75 million, as Terje said, that we strongly believe that gives us a good buffer well into 2025. Supported heavily by the equity raise we did in the quarter, $35 million private placement, and the subsequent offering, so very good shareholder support there. Net working capital was also positive. My expectation, I will say, coming into the year, was that we'd actually have a bit of a draw, but it turned out the timing of the SPS on Eurus coming late in the end of the year, that we have a larger balance and accounts payable going over the year.
So I think a lot of that is actually timing rather than a consistent decrease in sort of working capital need, but still a positive impact for us going into the year-end. On the cash side, again, the loss was offset largely by the working capital, largely by the increase in payables. Did have some CapEx in the quarter, again, mostly driven by the Eurus SPS, and of course, the interest, and again, the very positive support which we received from our shareholders in the quarter. So with those comments on the financials, I'll hand it back to Terje to wrap it up.
Thank you, Reese. Yeah, so in summary, I mean, as I said, it's a good performance, safety-wise and otherwise, for the quarter. 2023 has been a challenging year, but we are sort of very optimistic going into 2025. I think 2024 is gonna be a little bit a year in between. And both sort of the North Sea and Brazil is underlying that. So we really think that we are on upward trend, both in terms of rates and utilization going forward. So I think I leave it at that, and if there are any questions, we can take those. Reese, you have it-
We haven't received any questions from the online audience, so if there's any questions in the room, please feel free.
If not... Yeah, please.
You said two tenders in the North Sea. Yeah, you said two tenders in the North Sea. Does that include the one you now said you're no longer being a part of?
That's correct.
Okay.
Yeah.
Can you say anything if the last one is U.K. or Norway, or?
Well, I think we'll leave it at the North Sea for now. You know, I think that's... So, yeah.
Okay, thanks.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Just one second. I did get a couple questions through here now. I will read them out for everyone's benefit. Can you provide any details on Prosafe's day rate and where you think the tender in the North Sea, which you've discussed, will land? I think that's not something that we are going to comment specifically on specific day rates.
No, but what we can say is that we think that for our sake, we can, you know, there's higher earning potential elsewhere. Let me put it that way.
Concordia, can you comment on the long-term outlook for Concordia beyond 2024? Do you see future work requirements in the Gulf of Mexico? Where do you expect Concordia to go after her current project?
The Concordia is a little bit of a special project because she's coming off for SPS. You know, as we have alluded to in the appendix, there is a significant, you know, that's gonna cost some money. So we need to look closely at Concordia, whether, you know, what we do with her after the SPS. But there is no doubt that that's a vessel that is, you know... She is competing in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Africa, that kind of market. It's not a vessel that will go back to the North Sea. That's unlikely.
One further question here regarding the tender in the North Sea. Can we give any flavor on what happened and rates or specifications?
I think on rates, we will not comment on. On what happened is basically we came to a point where you know, as I said, we think we can make more money on other business than on that tender. Simple as that.
Yeah. I think that was it from the online audience, so-
Yeah. If there are no more questions, then thank you very much, all, for showing up and also for the online audience who are listening in. Look forward to see you next quarter.