Okay. Good afternoon. Good morning. Thank you very much for joining us on this video conference presentation for our fourth quarter results for Stolt-Nielsen, which we are streaming live from London. My name is Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen. I'm the CEO of Stolt-Nielsen. I'm here together with Jens F. Grüner-Hegge, our CFO. Together with me from Rotterdam is our President of Stolt Tankers, Lucas Vos. Again, thank you for joining this quarterly call. I'd like to remind you that you can pose questions at any time during the presentation by typing them into the question and answer window, which should appear on the right side of your screen. This video conference will be recorded. All questions will be answered at the end of the presentation. With that, let's move on to our agenda.
As always, I will take you through the highlights of Stolt-Nielsen. Lucas will go through Stolt Tankers, and then I'll go through terminals, containers, and Sea Farm, and also gas. Jens will take you through the financials, and then we will move to the read off the questions and try to answer them. If we then move to the fourth slide, the highlights for the quarter. Positive, mostly in the green. The operating revenue up to $593, that's up from $580.9. Mostly driven by the fantastic earnings that we have seen coming out of STC. Operating profit was down from $79 to $77.
Primarily driven by the $10 million impairment that we took in the terminals, our terminal in Newcastle. Free cash flow is down from $106.4 million to $66.2 million because of increased working capital and increased receivables, which is kind of underlying positive because we're doing more business in STC. EBITDA up $162.9 million, that's up from $147.8 million. Again, primarily driven by Tankers. Net profit came in for the quarter of $35 million, that's up from $33.5 million in the previous quarter.
Our debt level is continuing to reduce, but this ratio, net debt to EBITDA, is at 4.29, and that is a combination of increasing EBITDA and the steady decline in our debt level. At the end of the quarter, we also have $434 million available of liquidity, which Jens will take you through later. Taking you through just quickly the net profit analysis from the third quarter of 2021 to the fourth quarter of 2021. We saw a slightly lower operating profit from Stolt Tankers. There's not a lot of big movements there. The market remains the same. Lucas will talk about that later, but it was driven by slightly lower volume and slightly lower freight rates.
In Stolthaven Terminals, the operating profit was down by $1.4 million, lower throughput. However, we had higher utilization. Lower throughput, lower results in lower wharfage, which then resulted in a slightly lower $1.4 million operating profit. STC, talk about that later, but we actually had lower shipments in the fourth quarter than the previous quarter, but we had higher margins and higher demurrage. Stolt Sea Farm lower operating profit, that is lower volume, and a lower positive fair value adjusted for the quarter. You know, still profitable, but lower volumes because of seasonality. I remind you our quarter ends at the end of November. Christmas sales is in December, so we had lower volume, but also a lower positive fair value adjusted for the quarter.
Stolthaven Terminals improved operating profit, primarily driven by sale of land that we have had in Canada, but also more of the ships are coming online or being delivered and generating earnings. We had a lower accrual for profit sharing because I think we had overaccrued in the third quarter, so a lower accrual for profit sharing in the fourth quarter by $2.2 million. Lower corporate costs. Then we had the $10 million impairment in Stolthaven Terminals. Lower losses on FX and other operating expenses of $1 million, and also lower income tax for the quarter of $3 million compared to the previous quarter, bringing our quarterly result to a $35 million net profit.
We go to the next slide, move it over to Lucas.
Yeah. Thank you, Nils. When we look at Stolt Tankers in isolation, I think the quarter has been slightly disappointing, primarily driven by the fact that we had lower contract volumes and a weak spot market. The lower contract volumes very much driven by a strong US economy, but I'll come back to that one later. The weak spot market is still a reflection that a lot of the MR segment is in the chemical trade. Overall, lower results. Our utilization, therefore, is also down with 3.4%.
I would also have to say it's we have also increased our fleet if you look year on year to be well-positioned for the upturn that we expect to happen in 2022. We're well-positioned, but utilization for this quarter was down. If you look at the operating days, slightly down to around 7,000. For your information, for comparison, this time last year it was around 6,000. We've added net a lot of operating days to be well prepared for the up cycle. Lower net bunker costs because we're benefiting from the surcharge revenue in that respect, so that is good. And then there are a lot of one-offs in this slide deck. On this slide, I mean.
We have the capital distribution of the Den Norske Krigsforsikring, which is the insurance premium paid throughout 2010 through 2019, of which that has now been redistributed to the equity holders and $12.5 million is our share, so that counts positively. What counts negatively is that we have decided to dispose of the Stolt Groenland and have an agreement with our insurer on that issue. It means that we taking a loss of $30 million into these quarter numbers. In these numbers are also the sale of the Stolt Celia and the Stolt Spruce, two of our ships, which again clouds sort of the overall numbers. It's a one-off, but it does cloud the overall numbers.
I think the last point to mention on this is, of course, we've had a lot of impact from COVID again on in 2021, and specifically also in this quarter. If you look for the year, we carry around $7 million of COVID-related costs, which hopefully in 2022 we won't have to carry anymore. If we go to the next slide, on the bunker side, you can see that we are dealing with very high bunker prices. It has again risen from $496 in the third quarter to $530 in the fourth quarter. However, you see that our net bunker costs have overall gone down slightly. That is because we get a lot of it back from our customers, but it's also a reflection of that we consume a lot less.
We have this internal restructuring program where we can show that year-on-year we have a 10% reduction of our bunker consumption, which is good, but doesn't necessarily come back in these numbers because of the high bunker price. If we look at our SEER index, you can see that that's still on a downward trend, although we have seen a little uptick in December and January. But it's still very much a reflection that the overall rate levels is very much impacted by the MR market in our market. So our overall SEER has been around 18,400, which is maybe not where we want to be, but you can also see that our average deadweight is going down.
It's because some of those bigger vessels are going out, and you see a reflection of the fact that we have the J19s now in our fleet from Tufton, which we took you through, I think it was during the last call, and it takes our average size down. If I look at the current markets, that would be on the next slide. As I mentioned already, that will be the next slide, Sergey. Yes, thank you. There is of course a strong US economy, which means that a lot of the chemical production is used internally instead of being exported. So the US exports, they have been rather low. We see it coming back right now, and particularly imports from Europe, from India, and South America.
That's a good sign. The return markets from Asia are very strong to Europe and U.S., and Europe has become overall chemical importer, and we see that coming back in these numbers. The big unknown still is clearly the oil demand, which is dampened by the resurgence of the Omicron variant, but as it is less serious, we hope it's going to go away, but it does mean that still a lot of our MR ships are in our market. If I look at the regional services, I'm very happy with what is happening right now in the markets. Our intra-European setup together with Essberger at the joint venture E&S Tankers is performing quite well.
We have around $2 million of synergy savings between the two companies, which is higher than we expected, and is also a sign that further consolidation in that market would be a good thing. If I look at the Rhine product that we have, the inland tanker service, very strong clean product demand, and that is also a good indication that our own market is going well. Asia Pacific congestion, particularly in China, made higher spot rates, which we benefited from. Also there we are quite happy. We may not have seen the desired improvement on the deep-sea side, but we definitely saw them already in the regional markets. Looking forward, that would be the next slide. I feel we're very well positioned to capitalize on the underlying market drivers.
They are very positive. If we look at the chemical trade, it's developing positive around 6% growth. It's driven by the recovery from COVID, but there's also new industrial capacity coming on stream. There is a change in the flows, particularly with China becoming more independent, but overall underlying growth very good. The supply side may be even better. The picture is already in our favor for quite a long time. I think what is a remarkable difference right now is that the order book is sort of closed, if you want, for 2024 and 2025. The yards are full and they are not full with chemical tankers necessarily, but with other ships. The supply side will remain in our favor for quite a long time.
The last one shows you that the market that we really depend on on the oil side shows that the inventories are at record low these days, so we also expect that product to move again. It of course will depend on an increase of the output, which for the time being is sort of not coming along. We see the Brent right now above $90, and it hasn't been there for over seven years, so that's quite something. The other issue clearly that we're monitoring closely is the geopolitical situation around Ukraine, which might have a negative impact again on the oil production. Overall, still very confident about the market as it is right now.
With our increased fleet, you will also see that going forward we will have a lower contract ratio. It's also driven by the fact that we want to be more exposed to the stock market to benefit from the upcycle when it will take place. Last but not least, let me say something around our sustainability efforts. There we are quite on track. We are 29% more efficient right now than we were in 2008. The target is to be 50% more efficient when we come to 2030. We have a 21% more to go. We have plans in hand to achieve the majority of that. For the other part, clearly we depend on the breakthrough R&D, basically on future propulsion.
That's not necessarily where my concern lies. My concern lies more on the supply chain. If we have the future fuel, will it also be available in the outer ports that we tend to get to? Will we come to a fair distribution of the additional costs that this will lead to in our industry? Overall, very happy with the progress that we've made, and we're showing that Stolt-Nielsen is leading also when it comes to sustainability. That's what I had, Niels. Back to you. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Lucas. Going over to Stolthaven Terminals. Again, this is an operating profit variance between this third quarter and the fourth quarter. Okay. You can see the big impact here is of course, the impairment we did. Lower revenue of $800,000. That is, you know, our utilization went up, but it was offset by lower throughput, lower wharfage, primarily driven by terminals in Australia, in Singapore, and some in Lingang in China. Not dramatic changes, but a slight slowdown in the last quarter on throughput there. The other ones are stable. Actually, some of them increased. Slightly better operating expenses. We have the impairment in Australia.
The Australian investment has become, you know, didn't develop as we expected. We really bought this, the company down there to develop the Newcastle. The thinking, the strategy was of course, that Australia is closing down more and more refineries. There's gonna be need for a bigger and bigger import of these refined products. Newcastle is very well located in regard to the mining industry and also Sydney, closer to the market than the other terminals or the other ports. That hasn't developed according to plan. We're still working on it, but we found it prudent to take a $10 million impairment on that investment. Slightly lower depreciation from previous quarter. Equity income, slightly lower and slightly higher A&G, bringing it back the operating profit for the quarter of $8.4 million.
I think you will just go back next quarter back to normal performance from the terminal division. The markets remains healthy in the US Gulf. High utilization throughput in both New Orleans and Houston. However, the throughput reduction, I didn't mention it earlier, but the throughput reduction also came from the softness of the chemical and petroleum market in Brazil, which then lower utilization and throughput in Santos. The utilization of the European terminals are stable as the amount of chemicals remain steady. Asia terminals have been impacted by the slowdown of the chemical market in China, and that is partly due to China's constraints and restrictions on energy use that we have, we've all read about. Merger and acquisition activity remains high with numbers of international transactions.
The latest that we read about was in the mid-teens as a multiple of EBITDA. There's strong demand for chemical storage investments. Moving then over to Stolt Tank Containers. You know, clearly the star of the show. The operating profit for the third quarter was $24.7. We had higher transportation revenue was up by $10.3, driven by an 18.4% increase in transportation rates and rising ocean costs, partially offset by the decrease in shipment of 8.7%. Demand remains. We had higher demurrage and other revenues of $6.8 compared to the previous quarter, offset by higher depot-related expenses. We had low repositioning and slightly higher operating expenses in A&G of $3.1, bringing the quarterly results fourth quarter to $36.4.
Demand remains strong. We expect both the demand to remain strong in the foreseeable future. It's very much driven, of course, by what we're seeing in the container line industry. We really don't see this market going to change for the next couple of years. If you look at the, you know, the shipment development per quarter, shipment development annualized, the yellow on the top right side, we're up at 140,000 shipments for 2021. You can also see under the historical development of the revenue per shipment and transportation cost per shipment, the yellow being the transportation cost per shipment and the blue being revenue per shipment.
We're nicely been able to get the revenue per shipment up, and the transportation cost per shipment has, you know, not gone up as fast as the revenue. That, of course, impacts, as you see, the results from the Stolt Tank Containers. Quite bullish for this segment. Very pleased with how we were able to secure space on the container lines. Team did a tremendous job in securing space.
The key is, you know, with the huge demand on the container lines for us being able to, as a logistics service provider, to go to our customers and say, "Well, okay, we can move your product." The discussion really didn't go on, you know, what's the cost of moving this product? Can you secure space? We had space, so that's really well done, and I think we will continue to see good earnings coming out of it. The demand, of course, has also increased. That, I think, may also continue. I think the customers are now a bit worried.
They'd like to have a little bit of inventory because of the uncertainty on the logistical side, on the logistics chain. We're seeing quite significant demurrage income coming. Our customers using our tank containers for a longer time, and of course, that is then reflected in the higher demurrage income for us. Demurrage income from us. Moving to Stolt Sea Farm. The fourth quarter, as you know, our fourth quarter ends just before the Christmas sale. It is traditionally a slower month. We had lower turbot sales because we reduced our harvest, and also lower sole sales in preparation for the Christmas sale. You sell lower volumes of turbot. On sole, we had lower operating expense as a result of lower volume being harvested.
A&G approximately the same, and then you had a lower positive fair value adjustment of $3.3 for the quarter. Operating profit went from $12.8 down to $11.3. Nothing has changed in the market. The demand for the product is seasonal, but the prices have been holding up. We talked about this earlier. The growth plan that we have for Stolt Sea Farm. We have, you know, a well-established turbot organization. They continue to lead as the largest producer of turbot. We have utilized the proven flow-through technology. Relatively steady business, very favorable market conditions for that. Sole rollout, we have spent 20 years in developing, 75 million years in developing the sole technology, land-based recirculation sole technology.
We have, as we said earlier, we have two purpose-built land-based recirculating RAS farms, which are now really starting to show significant improvement in the EBIT cost per kilo. We were able to achieve a 31% reduction in 2021, and we expect to achieve a total of 43% reduction by 2022. Our target is to get to 50%. We're seeing that the design is working very well, where we are able to increase the growth, which is phenomenal, and we're managing the farm so that, you know, in all farms, you manage risk, you manage disease, and we have it really working out well.
Of course, once those modules prove themselves as they're now doing, we will then start to add additional module next to the existing farms, but also look at expanding in the future. We have quite an ambitious growth plan for sole for the next 15 or 20-35 plan we call it. A total volume ambition of 11,400 tons. We have, you know, steps, and we're making investments today of for the juvenile production, broodstock, investments stock to meet this plan going forward. This is, these are not only words, these are actions being taken to prepare us for or be in a position to develop this growth plan. Moving to Stolt-Nielsen Gas. As you know, we have two investments in LNG.
One is Golar, and the other one is the development of Avenir. We have then, as you know, we co-contracted six ships and we built one LNG terminal. The final vessel of the six is scheduled to be delivered in the second quarter of 2022, sorry. A fully funded investment program. We have three ships on time charter, and we are building up the volume in our Sardinia terminal. Three ships on time charter. One is to Shell. Shell just lifted subjects just before Christmas, I think, or just in the new year. We have currently one ship to New Fortress and one to PETRONAS.
We have two ships that have been delivered, the two 7,500. One will be in the Med, serving the Mediterranean market, and the other one will be in Northwest Europe, serving the bunkering in Baltic. We are then, of course, trying to develop the Sardinia terminal. It's up and running. We are selling LNG, but of course, with the LNG prices where they are today, it makes the job more difficult to get. The long-term prospects are still there. Customers are still interested, but just making the conversion from diesel or heavy fuel oil over to LNG when the LNG prices are where they are is a bit of a challenge. But the long-term trends hasn't changed.
The outlook for this market hasn't changed. As I said, we ordered six ships, four 47.5 and two 20,000. We sold one of the 20,000. A bit opportunistic. It also gives us access to the bunkering market in cooperation with the buyers. We will develop the bunkering market in China, but we sold one of these ships with a significant gain. The company is well-funded to develop the strategy as stated. That completes my part for the time being, and then I'll give the floor to Jens to go through the financials. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Nils. Just want to remind you all of a few things. Our fiscal year, as Nils mentioned, runs from December first through November thirtieth. Also, we have today posted with the Oslo Stock Exchange the press release with the earnings, the interim, and the interim financials. Also on our website, www.stolt-nielsen.com, we have posted both the press release, the interims, as well as this presentation, so you can find them there. In addition, we have today also posted a video that looks at 2021 in review, and talks also a little bit about the future. I encourage you all to go and have a look at that.
Niels and Lucas have covered the fourth quarter financials in great detail. I will spend a little bit more time on the annual financials. If you look at the top line, you see the revenue has gone up quite substantially since fiscal year 2020 by over $200 million. This is driven predominantly by STC with the success year that they have had, having improved their revenue by $142 million. This is, of course, driven, as Niels mentioned, by this tightening of the liner market and higher trucking costs, which are predominantly passed through to their customers. Shipments were up 8.4% over the year, also supporting that revenue line.
Tankers had 2,000 more operating days in 2020 following the acquisition of the CTG ships, and that helped to increase their annual revenue by just over $50 million. Last, Stolt Sea Farm had a tremendous turnaround from 2020 and saw an increase of $30 million, driven by a 6.5% growth in turbot volume and an 82% growth in sole volume following the new farms coming online. Moving down, you will see that we have impairment of assets this year of $10 million. As Nils mentioned, that's the Australasia impairment. Last year, we had the $12.4 million, where we impaired goodwill also in Australasia. Further down, you have the administrative and general expenses, which are quite substantially up from last year, about $32-$33 million.
As you will recall, during 2020, the company was preserving cash, and we cut expenses. We delayed, we had a hiring freeze. Travel was scaled back significantly. Whereas this year, we've seen a catch-up in a lot of those expenses. Also, with the improved results of the company this year, there's an increase in the profit sharing and in the long-term incentive plan. That has also been increasing the A&G cost. There's some increase around professional fees due to initiatives that we've been working on during 2021, and also related to the IPO efforts at the beginning of the year that we did around Stolt Sea Farm.
Finally, there's about $5.5 million impact from FX, increasing our cost. Further down you see net interest expense, flat quarter-on-quarter, but actually, about $11 million dollars down year-on-year. This reflects predominantly the reduction in debt, but also the lower interest rates that we have seen. Although you will see later, they are starting now to turn around a little bit. Also worth mentioning is the income tax impact, which hasn't changed much quarter-on-quarter, but the income tax expense is up from $8.3 million to $24.4 million from last year. This is driven by Stolt Sea Farm's fantastic turnaround during the year. It is also driven by provisions that were taken at STC.
There also has been a tax rate increase in the U.K. as well as Netherlands, which has impacted our tax expense. For the year, that brings us down to $78.8 million, and looking at continuing operations only, up from $39.2 million. As you will see there is a $13.8 million loss from discontinued operations in 2020 that was related to the sale of the caviar business back in 2020. Now there's a lot of one-offs, so I just want to give you a feel for what is the underlying performance trend of the company by taking out the one-offs.
You see the bottom line here shows the net profit line as reported, both for fiscal year 2020 and 2021, as well as the last two quarters and the same quarter in 2020. In between, you have the one-offs, with the positive DNK capital distribution being offset by Australian payment and the loss on the Groenland. We did have a positive gain on sale of assets. Taking those away, we would have had a higher net profit of $38.7 million this quarter. That compares with a similarly adjusted net profit prior quarter of $30.6 million. There's a good improvement that we've seen in the run rate of the net profit quarter-on-quarter, and also from last year, same quarter last year.
From an annual basis, last year, most of the one-offs were negatively impacting net profit. Taking them out, we would have ended at $51.3 million. Still, we are at $79.2 million, so quite a substantial increase this year. This really excludes any improvement in the biggest business, which is tankers, which has held steady. A good underlying performance in our businesses. Moving over to capital expenditures, you'll see overall year-on-year, 2021 is at around $190 million, and we're expecting 2022 to be pretty much at the same level. Last year when we were cutting expenses and preserving cash, we ended up at around $140 million.
We did see some catch up this year, which we'll carry on into next year. For Stolt Tankers specifically, in the first quarter, we acquired the CTG ships, and that's the bulk of the $100 million spent in 2021, with the rest really being related to ballast water treatment systems. Dry docking is not included here, and that typical run rate is about $18 million-$20 million for dry docking annually. Stolthaven Terminals is mostly M&R. In 2022, you'll also see more catch up on M&R as well as a jetty construction at our Dagenham terminal, which will spill over into 2023. For tank containers this year, it was mostly depot work that we were doing.
Next year we will see delivery of about 1,000 new tank containers coming to the fleet as well as further depot work. The $21 million for Stolt-Nielsen Gas was the last part of our committed equity contribution into Avenir LNG. That concludes the capitalization of Avenir LNG at this phase. Finally, in corporate and other, this really relates to our systems and our ongoing digitalization of the businesses, and we'll see that increase next year. Moving over to cash flow. Looking at the cash flow generated by the operating activities, Nils already mentioned that the reduction in that cash flow was driven by increased working capital. We did see our receivables go up during the fourth quarter.
Emphasizing what Nils said, that is really positive and that was increased activities, and where naturally receivables have been building up. I do expect that this will show a bit of a reversal in the next quarter as we start collecting on those receivables, as we collect on the Grundon insurance settlement and as we collect on the DNK capital distribution. Moving down, you will see that we had capital expenditures of $28.5 million during the quarter. For the year we spent $190 million. This actually excludes the joint venture equity injections, but does include the dry docking. We're doing what we can to confuse you here.
It's on the line under. You have our actual cash investments, net of into joint ventures, net of dividends that we have received from the joint ventures. For the year and for the quarter. So that gave us from investment activities. You see, it hasn't been a lot of cash going out in the last quarters, but for the year, we were at $180 million. On the financing side, we have been busy reducing our debt levels, so not much new financing that has been taken on.
Instead, we have paid down quite a bit, and you will see that when I come back to the balance sheet a little bit later, that we have a good reduction in our debt levels, year-over-year, a little bit less when you look at quarter-over-quarter. That means we ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of $124 million. If you then look at the graph to the bottom right, you will see that we also, in addition, had about $310 million available liquidity under our various credit lines. For total liquidity of $434 million at the end of the fourth quarter.
Looking at a balance sheet in a graph format, if you look at the top left graph, you will see our debt to tangible net worth. This is actually one of our bank covenants and in our financing covenants, it should be below 2.25 to one. On the top, you will see we ended the quarter at 1.44 to one, so there's been a good improvement there since it peaked in the second quarter. That's after we had bought the CTG ships and taken on debt to acquire them. Since then, we've made good progress on reducing our gross debt.
The tangible net worth has remained mostly stable, but I should add that we have, of course, paid dividends out, and there's been some adjustments to other comprehensive income, which has impacted the tangible net worth. On the annual basis, we see that during this year, from the end of 2020, we were at $2.5 billion in debt. We saw a peak at the end of the second quarter, $2.6 billion, and we ended the year at $2.4 billion, so with a good reduction. If you can jump to the bottom right quadrant, here we have a picture of our EBITDA development starting with the fourth quarter of 2019. You can see here, there's been a positive trend line.
You will note that for the last four quarters, we ended up with $538 million in EBITDA, so just over half a billion dollars in EBITDA. You will also see that there is a clear seasonality where the first quarter every year tends to be the lowest EBITDA, so I would expect that we might see some reduction as we go into the first quarter due to seasonality. We are on a good positive trend due to the improvement in SDC, Stolt Sea Farm, and hopefully in the not too distant future, also in tankers. That improvement in EBITDA, if you go to the top right quadrant, drives, and the bottom left quadrant, that drives our two EBITDA-driven covenants.
EBITDA to interest expense improved to 4.24, so that's quite a significant improvement, much due to the EBITDA improvement. The net debt to EBITDA, which isn't a covenant, but is a measure of our leverage relative to cash flow generation, had a significant reduction down to 4.29 from 4.7. That's helped us improve the strength of the balance sheet. Moving to our debt maturity profile. You will see that on this, the gray boxes are upcoming bond maturities, and the bond we're focusing on now is the $175 million bond maturing in the third quarter in September of 2022, so actually the fourth quarter.
The financings that we're working on at the moment to deal with these maturities is one, we're working on a sustainability-linked loan facility, a revolving credit line, and combined with a term loan which will replace our existing revolving credit line. It's nice to see that we come as far on our ESG measurements so that we can actually make this sustainability-linked. Also in addition to that, we are working on refinancing our Japanese operating leases that are secured by tank containers. That's the $77 million that you see in the second quarter and the $61 million in the fourth quarter. Our expectation is that between those two efforts, we will cover the refinancing needs for the group, at least as far as 2022 goes.
We expect to have these done by the end of February pretty much and drawn at a later stage when needed, but that should take care of our refinancing needs. It allows us the benefit of watching the bond market and go in and doing refinancings in the bond market at an opportune time as and when that would be needed. The graph at the bottom right has our average interest expense as well as our average cost of debt. It has been on a declining trend. We are seeing interest rates going up. Currently we are about 84% fixed. With the maturing of the bond in September and the two JOLCOs, we will see that fixed percentage drop.
We are watching this and making sure that we minimize any impact from rising interest rates on the income statement. With that, I would like to pass it on back to Niels.
Thank you, Jens. I just have one slide talking about the chemical tanker market. The headline says, "When will the chemical tanker market provide a sustainable return?" This market hasn't given a sustainable return the last 20 years. For us, it's been 5% the last 20 years return on capital employed. The last 10 years it's been 3%. It is not sustainable. Now, on the demand side, there's nothing wrong with the demand side. Demand is driven by global GDP, and global trade, as we know, is a multiplier of global GDP. So the demand side is not the issue here. It's pretty damn steady actually. Consistent growth. But there are kind of fundamental challenges in the chemical tanker market.
We see that when we have a strong market, you know, we beat our breasts and are very happy if we can reach $30,000 a day. $30,000 a day on a ship that cost $70 million is nothing, kind of. Because we've been beaten down for such a long time, you know, historically that's what we've been able to achieve. Those cycles, up cycles don't last that long, and then, you know, we order too many ships and then, you know, we go into a down period again. Now I have to say that through these contracts, the down period is not as dramatic as in other segments. If you look at the dry bulk or the LNG or the MRs or the container, not the container ship.
You see that when the market collapses there, they go down to $2,000 a day. We don't go down to $2,000. We think the lowest we went down to is around $17,000 a day. Okay, there's a good side is that it's more steady. The downside is not as bad, but the upside is not high enough. And then we know that the market is gonna come in the next couple years, you know, not next couple. It's gonna come. The order book is low, so that's good. Maybe this next time around it will be maybe, you know, three years or because that's the time it would take today to order new ships and the order book is very low.
I think we will have a relatively good market the next three years. Then we know that when the market strengthens, guess what? You know, we will continue to order new ships and then we will go into a new cycle again. We have the swing tonnage, the MRs that are really affecting our market. That's really what's holding the market down now is because there's no jet fuel or the MR market is low. They come in, and I think it was in 2021, there was a record amount of chemicals being moved in these MR tanker. Now think about it, 70% of what we carry, the MR tankers cannot carry. The MR tanker market is impacting our market, you know. That's another thought.
Then you have the emissions, but that's you know the ESG and the emissions, and that's a good driver, but that's everybody's focus. All industries are faced with that. The challenge that we have in our segment is that, okay, so on the revenue side, you know, it's the market that decides, but on the cost side, we, it's within our control. I don't think the MR market will come into our segment. The only way for us to be able to make this business sustainable is to create economies of scale. You know, there's too many small operators out there. You can see it on top right-hand side. The number of operators.
Now this is above, I think, above 17,000 stainless steel and coated, but suitable to compete in our market. It's highly fragmented. The bottom side, I think we got it from somewhere, but you know how the container lines consolidated. The only way we can, I think that we can create a sustainable business here, knowing that the MR market will come in and out and knowing that, you know, there will be ships being ordered, is to become a more efficient industry. We need to create better economies of scale. I believe, you know, to improve our flexibility, you know, the service to our customers and the efficiency will give us a high return. I, you know, the purpose of our IPO, our balance sheet as you see, is strong.
We haven't ordered ships for a while. Our debt level is rapidly coming down. We need to further consolidate this industry. We need to build this economy of scale so that we can have a lower cost, more efficiency, and it will provide better flexibility and service to our customers. Living in an industry and operating industry and just sitting waiting for the market to improve is not the solution. Because we know that the market improve, we know then that others will, you know, continue to speculate and order too many ships. We need to become you know, and this is what Lucas and Stolt Tankers are doing, you know, really working on digitalization, you know, things that are within our control. The purpose of the IPO is to make Stolt Tankers a standalone clean chemical tanker company.
Then we will use both shares and cash to see if there are acquisition or consolidation opportunities. I'm more and more convinced if I look at what is happening in the container lines, that this is the way forward, to create economies of scale. What are we doing about it? Well, we are trying in every direction to see if there are consolidation opportunities. You know, our balance sheet has come down. We made a conscious decision not to order ships in the fall. As being an industrial shipping company, we always have to order ships. Well, we said, "No, no, we're not gonna order any more ships now for the time being." We have, you know, we bought Jo, we bought CTG ships, we had our own new buildings, and we have actually expanded and grown our fleet.
Now the market, you know, needs to prove itself, and then I wanna, you know, build up a reserve so that we can pursue these opportunities. Yeah, I hope the industry is listening. Okay. Move to the next slide, page 31. Again, key messages, takeaways. The highest operating profit since 2015, and if I'm not wrong, the EBITDA passed $500 million for the first time. And that's without fair value adjustment and without one-offs, it passed, so that's an achievement. Fantastic performance by SDC, Sea Farm, and steady performance in Stolthaven even though we had to do the impairment. The chemical tanker market remains soft, but the fundamentals, we are well positioned for the market recovery. Yes, we continue to focus on cash flow generation to reduce our debt.
As you see, I showed you that our debt level is coming down. Our capital commitments are limited going forward. We will continue to provide a return to our shareholders. Over the last 20 years, we have given $1.1 billion to our shareholders. Our share price haven't been too sexy, but our dividend at least, we have given something, a steady return of cash to our shareholders. Improving balance sheet strengths and, you know, with the improved balance sheet, it gives us investment opportunities in all of our businesses. I'm, you know, overall quite optimistic for Stolthaven in all of our businesses. It's just a matter of time. I mean, this result was without contribution or significant contribution for Stolt Tankers.
I'm convinced that Stolt Tankers will also start firing on all cylinders. If we can fire all at the same time, I think that we could get some good years ahead of us. That completes our presentation. How am I going to see the questions? Shall I go again?
I think we escaped.
Yeah. Why don't you bring it up on the screen? Then I can see.
I could meantime take some Stolt Tankers questions, which I have in front of me, Niels, if you want.
Yeah, please.
Yeah.
Good idea.
The Stolt Tankers questions are primarily around our contract coverage and some questions around the numbers, where traditionally we have always been around the 70% contract coverage. In 2021, it has gone to around 66%, and there has been some conscious walking away of contracts in that respect. We think in 2022, we will be around the 60% number. We definitely become more exposed to the spot market and therefore benefiting hopefully from that increase. It's always a balancing act. Some trade lanes, you will never get to a lower contract ratio because it's just a contract trade.
We feel quite confident that with this type of level that we gain from the momentum that is going to take place. There was one other question around the contract increases. What we've seen in 2021 was around a 5% increase, and we see similar numbers coming through for 2022 with one notable distinction, and that is that we are also shortening our contract periods. Normally we gave option years away, and now we're not doing that, again, to make sure that we are able to benefit from increases in the coming year. I think that was basically the questions around tankers. There were three or four questions which I think I sort of captured in one go, Nils.
Thank you. I have one question. Is terminal generally low return on equity industry? It seems like it. It is quite a capital intensive industry, so there's huge investment, and it takes a long time to then build up. You have a huge upfront investment, and then it takes a long time to generate and build up the cash flows. But the return on the terminal industry should be, I think, in the double digit over the long run. Then you have what percentage of tank. Okay. Lucas, you talked about the tankers in the spot rate. Are there expansion plans for Avenir LNG? In that case, how? Avenir, we ordered six ships, we sold one of them. Three of them are on charter.
Two of them are going to be in the spot market or be servicing our own supply contracts that we have secured. The expansion plan will most likely be in the form of building additional supply points through building terminals and then going forward. We're looking at various project. We have no intention at this time to order any more ships, but we are looking at additional terminal in the same kind of formula or same kind of the same way as we've done in Sardinia. I have Anders Karlsen asking on the tank containers. I was wondering what kind of cost increase you have seen in terms of shipping, and whether you have entered into contracts securing the rates for a period. Comments around this would be appreciated.
The cost over both in 2020 and 2021, I can come back to you on exactly what the container lines have, and the trucking, but you know, we're talking about doubling and tripling in some cases. I remind you, that is then passed on to the customer, but with a lag, because we have commitments towards our customers. Those rates are then on a quarterly basis reviewed with our customers. That's why it's a lag, both on the way up and also on the way down. We have secured space, but not rates. That's what we did very well in 2021, securing space, and that's an ongoing challenge in these extremely competitive times.
The key here is then to secure enough space. Further, demurrage revenues up sharply in containers. Is this driven by customers using containers for storage or pure logistical delays? Both, but I think it's usually an indicator that with the delays, the unpredictable, you know, delays that we see both on the ships, caused by, you know, them waiting three to four weeks to discharge or load, and then also delays because of limited trucking availability, the customers have built up or needs to build up a kind of a buffer, so that their production doesn't end. That's why I see. I think it takes a while for them, or they use the containers as storage.
Are you seeing any problems in relocating containers, and is this likely to drive cost? Yeah. We do empty repositionings, and you know it's as an equal challenge in securing space for empty containers as it is with full. But we have seen basically during the last year you know such a huge demand in each market. We always try to reduce the empty repositionings. But yes it is a challenge to secure space even though they're empty. Have high rates for container shipments led to volumes going back to tankers? We have seen several cases where our container customers have we have solved their problem by shipping it in our ships.
This is something that we're working on, you know, providing our customers this flexibility that we solve their logistical challenges. Have we seen a big trend? No, we haven't. We have seen a lot of inquiries, but you have to remember, if they wanna switch back to ships, they also need to secure storage, and storage is limited availability in the spot market. It's a kind of a long-term decision for the customers to switch from containers to back to ships. We go to. Can you please comment on your plans for refinancing beyond the $450 million loan agreement? I think.
Yeah. The 450 loan agreement covers every financing of the liquidity tool, the revolving credit line, as well as the term loan that we have with China Exim that is secured by the five ships that were built in China. We combine those two, creating that $450 million facility. We have about $138 million in the Japanese operating leases maturing, as mentioned earlier. We're looking to put in place a new facility on top of those, which is now almost agreed on all main terms. That will be probably around $220-$225 million, refinancing.
Between those two, there is no immediate need, keeping in mind that it is expensive to sit with cash on the balance sheet. What we do want to look at down the road, particularly since this $450 million facility is sustainability-linked, is also to, in the future, be able and to issue sustainability-linked bonds, once that we see that the next refinancing in the bond market is likely to happen. But I would expect that that wouldn't happen until much later in the year, if at all this year.
The ambitious decarbonization target in Stolt Tankers, should we expect a refinancing of the $175 million bond due in September to take the form of a sustainable linked bond? I think you answered that.
I answered that.
Congratulations on the results. Do you see container shipping picking up in the near term, or is it dependent upon overall congestion level? Furthermore, how do you see margin for Stolt Tank Containers developing near term? The first quarter is always a slow quarter. You have Christmas, and you also have Chinese New Year, so there is a slowdown. As you saw, even though the shipments were down, the margins levels were up. We were able to maintain the margin and also the results due to the margins. We are seeing a bit of a pickup already now. I expect that the first quarter and that this market to continue. How do you see margin for Stolt Tankers then developing in the near term?
I think that at this level we should be pretty happy. Of course, we continue to see if we can do more shipments, so holding back is not really the margin, but it's more being able to secure enough more space on the container ship. That's the, you know, that's the challenge. Fourth question from me, if I may. Tankers, how is the SEER report looking for 2020 compared to 2021? I think you already answered that. What was the outcome of the renegotiation towards the year-end, 2021? Lucas?
Yeah. I also answered that one already. That was negotiations going sort of 5% up in 2021, and we're looking at similar numbers for 2022. I did not answer the follow-up, which was regarding the EU carbon emission tax from 2023. Are we able to put that into our contracts right now? I did mention last time that it has quite considerable impact on our cost levels. We see the price for carbon only going up. Where we stand is we have put it into our contracts that it is a point of negotiation when we come to it.
However, again, on this, we look at an industry-wide approach as well, because it's not only our segment, but clearly it's across the whole shipping segment where we need to make sure that we get to a proper split of the costs of decarbonization. It's, let's say, preliminary in our contract, but we are seeking an industry-wide solution.
There's also a question from the same person regarding containers. How impacted by port congestion are container EBITDA and utilization? Well, the reason that we're seeing such a strong market is of course the container. The container lines are experiencing significant port congestion. The ships are waiting three to four weeks to discharge or to load. That means, of course, a lot more tanks are being held up. So there's, you know, not only a shortage of space on the ships, but also a shortage of containers available. That has put pressure. You know, lower shipments but at higher margins because of the lack of both space on the ships and on the containers. To give you exactly what EBITDA impact and utilization impact just driven by port congestion is difficult to say.
This market is driven by a healthy demand, but it's very much driven by the congestion costs or the strong container line market. Stolt Sea Farm last two quarters have been sold. How should we think about Stolt Sea Farm in 2022? Now, I think that the underlying principles are the same. There is a growing demand for fish. You know, I heard all that story before. What we have seen is that after the lockdown, there are less fishing vessels in the ocean. A lot of them went bankrupt. So there's a bigger demand. There's less wild catch of fish coming from the oceans, and that has caused a greater demand.
That's part of the reason why we've seen the price pick up, and I don't think that's going to change. The biggest impact we have really seen is the lockdown of restaurants, which has caused the restaurants which we serve to not buying our fish. But we are now seeing more and more opening or more and more opening of the economies, opening, you know, reduction of the COVID regulations and more and more restaurants opening up. I don't think that we will go back to where we were in the form of lockdown. I'm quite bullish for 2022 and you know, a continued growth in the sole— on the sole side of the business.
I am bullish, and I would say that, of course, there might be quarters where we have to, or weeks where we have to adjust our price, and that will have a fair value adjustment, and that's, you know, a big impact, but that will come up again. Overall, I'm quite bullish that this market will continue for Stolt Sea Farm. We're also very much focusing on expanding the market for our products, which hasn't really been our priority in previous years. Are you worried that some quality might be lost on the way to transitioning work from local offices to a new team formed by new hires at the Manila office? Okay, I think this is an internal message. No, I'm not.
I'm very convinced that the organization and the shared service center that we're building up in Manila will do an outstanding job in whatever positions that we decide to move to Manila. Actually, I think we will have even more focus on creating these shared services, not only necessarily in Manila, but also in other locations. Any update on timeline for IPO-ing the tanker division, Sea Farm? Well, we've talked about this many times now. The tanker we will do. We're ready. We have done the preparation now for a very long time, and we are ready, but we need to have a better momentum in that market to market. We need to show the earnings to the market before we can attempt an IPO.
Stolt Sea Farm's IPO is put on the shelf. That's not a strategic decision. That is something that we don't have any plans of doing in the foreseeable future. We went into the market last year to check. You know, it's the same old story. We saw the pricing of land-based recirculation companies in the market. Some of the pricings were just phenomenal. Some of the companies out there had actually higher market cap than all of Stolt-Nielsen. We felt it was our responsibility to kind of make the value of Stolt Sea Farm more transparent. We went and checked the market, but we didn't achieve good enough feedback or interest, so we decided that, you know, Stolt Sea Farm generates its own cash flow.
We can leverage that cash flow and build and do that 2035 growth plan without having to raise any equity or separating out. For the time being, that is on the shelf. Dear sir, lots of compliments for SDC and especially VM for having secured the needed space this year. Okay, these are internal messages. Total SG&A expenses went up by $30 million year-on-year. Part of this was due to employee profit-sharing. What percentage of the $30 million does this entail? The SG&A, remember, the SG&A compared to 2020 and 2021, it was an exceptional year in 2020. We went into kind of lockdown mode. We went into an emergency mode in the pandemic. We cut costs, we stopped hiring, we stopped consulting.
We really, really cut down to the bone in preparation for the unknown, you know, the consequences may be of the pandemic. The pickup that you see in 2021 is really a catch-up of the hires that we have to do to run the business. If you look at the $30 million, what percentage of that is attributable to the profit sharing? I would say around 20% of that $30 million. That, I believe, completes all the questions. If there's no further questions, that completes our fourth quarter earnings presentation. Thank you for participating, and we'll see each other again, hopefully, maybe one day in person during the first quarter earnings release, which is scheduled to be in
End March, early April.
End March, early April. Thank you very much for participating.