For 2021. We are streaming live from various lockdown locations. My name is Niels. Good afternoon, good morning. Thank you for joining us for our Stolt-Nielsen's First Quarter 2021 Earnings Release. My name is Niels Stolt-Nielsen, I'm the CEO of Stolt-Nielsen Limited, and together with me, as always, is Jens Grüner-Hegge, our CFO. I'd like to remind you that you can pose questions at any time during the presentation, and you will find the question, I think, up in the right-hand side of the screen, and we will answer those questions at the end of the presentation. This presentation will also be recorded. If we then can move to next slide. The next one. The agenda, I will take you through the highlights of Stolt-Nielsen. I will take you through our ESG reporting. I will take you through each of the businesses.
Jens will take you through the financials, and then we will open up for questions. Can you go to the next slide, please? The first quarter, the seasonal weakness, but our EBITDA actually was up $20 million from the same quarter last year. We came in at a net profit of $2.5 million. The decrease of the EBITDA compared to the fourth quarter, was mainly driven by lower volumes in Stolt Tankers, slightly lower volume or utilization at our terminal division, high activities in Stolt Tank Containers, but the margins was impacted by the higher move-related expenses. Stolt Sea Farm results continues to improve. The first quarter includes December, which is the Christmas sales, and we also see that the prices continue to recover every month. We had a negative free cash flow as a result of the $74 million acquisition of the 3 CTG ships.
Available liquidity at the end of the quarter was $431 million, before we repaid the March bond of $154 million. We paid out an interim dividend of $0.25 on December 20th, with the board has also announced a final dividend, which will hopefully be approved at the upcoming AGM on April 15th. If you look at the operating revenue, slightly down, compared to previous quarter. EBITDA down $20 million, operating profit down $13.2 million, net profit at $2.5 million down from approximately $11 million. Free cash flow negative $47.6 million, that is down $106 million from previous quarter. Tangible net worth, slightly up, coming in at $1.6 billion. Next slide, please. Operational highlights by each of the business. We took delivery of the five CTG ships during the quarter, that increases our total fleet by 130,000 tons deadweight.
All these ships, all the five ships were financed between February and March at very favorable terms, which I think Jens will touch upon. We increased our tank container fleet by 2,000 tank containers. We also expanded and got online 16,000 cubic meter of additional storage capacity at our terminal in New Orleans. In Stolt Sea Farm, we've harvested our first sole at our new recirculation farm in Cervo, Spain, and the second farm of the recirculation sole farms in Portugal, we started populated with juveniles in the first quarter. The growth of biomass at both of these locations exceeds expectations and at lower cost than we originally expected. As I announced earlier this year, we are also exploring the opportunities or possibilities of doing an IPO of Stolt Sea Farm. Next slide, please.
If we take the net profit variance from the fourth quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021, we came in at a net profit of $13.4 in the fourth quarter of last year. We had an impairment in the fourth quarter in Stolthaven of $8.8. Normalized net profit would have been $22.2, but we had a lower operating profit of $19 million from Tankers, slightly lower operating profit from terminals, and lower operating profit from STC or Stolt Tank Containers of close to $6 million and slightly lower operating profit of Sea Farm of $0.3. Better performance from Stolt-Nielsen Gas, that is primarily Avenir due to the employment of the first ship, and also then the second ship subsequently came on charter.
Corporate and others of a positive $1.3 and Stolt Sea Farm, that loss from discontinued operation which we had in the fourth quarter, which we don't have this quarter, bringing the net profit for the first quarter of 2021 at $2.5 million. If we move to the next slide, please. Sustainability lies at the heart of our operations. As we committed to, we will be reporting more in detail each quarter earnings release. We set our target for each of the businesses. For Tankers, that is a reduction of at least 50% carbon intensity reduction relative to 2008 by 2030. In Stolthaven Terminals, we have primary activities to be carbon neutral by 2040, and Stolt Tank Containers of 50% energy and utilities consumed in our depots will come from renewable energy sources. 50% of that will come from renewable energy sources.
We also signed up with the Clean Cargo, a leading buyer/supplier forum for sustainability in the cargo shipping industry, and of course, focusing on our carbon footprint reduction, both by ourselves but also the supplier that we use to move our tank container. In Sea Farm, we have a target of 0% waste to landfill, and also we are targeting to reduce the fish meal and the fish oil that we use in our feed by 65% in sole and 50% in turbot. During the quarter, I'm proud to announce that we received certain awards both at Moerdijk and at Vado Depot. We achieved the highest SQAS, that's Safety and Quality Assessment for Sustainability, in Europe. That puts these terminals in the top 10% of the Europe's tank cleaning stations. Stolthaven Singapore, our terminal in Singapore, we won an award from our very important customer, Dow.
We were awarded in the terminal category. Dow makes this award each year to its leading vendors based on safety, sustainability, service, and social criteria. I'm very pleased to announce that they won that award from Dow Chemical. Stolt Tankers retained its silver sustainability rating from EcoVadis. Our sustainability performance continues to improve year-on-year, and I challenge Lukas and his team to get a gold medal next time. If we can move to next slide, please. Looking on the Stolt Tankers side, really obviously the highest emitter of greenhouse gas in our business. You can see if we compare 2019 and 2020, our carbon emission came down by 6.2%. Our emission intensity came down by 6%. Sulfur oxide, of course, because we're switching to a lower sulfur fuel, came down 77.1%. Nitrogen oxide emissions down 6.4%, and waste to landfill from our shipping business down 3.3%.
We will continue to provide these measures, these KPIs, on a quarterly basis, and they will also be posted on our website. Moving on to the next slide, please. Stolt Tankers, going more into detail. Next slide, please. The operating revenue came in at $20.6. That's down from $272 last quarter. EBITDA also down to $56 million, down from $72.6. Operating profit came in at $12.9, down from $31.9. Operating days were actually up from 5,975 up to 6,026. If we could do the operating profit variance analysis, the operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2020 was $31.9. Lower trading results, mainly driven by lower COA volume and decrease in freight rates of 0.4%, a total of combined both contract and spot during the quarter. We had slightly lower bunker cost. Higher owning expenses.
The owning expenses were up because of the reimbursement of an insurance premium reimbursement that we had in the fourth quarter, which we don't have this quarter, but also a slightly higher manning cost of $1 million for the quarter. Lower depreciation of $1.5, lower equity income from our joint ventures of $2 million, slightly higher A&G, and lower losses on the sale of assets and others of $1.2, bringing it into $12.9 for the quarter. Next slide, please. Our total bunker cost was actually down even though the bunker prices was up. That's because of our bunker clauses. We didn't have to give back the surcharge based on the reference price in our bunker clause.
The index, as you see on the right-hand side on the pretty picture, it, of course, was impacted by both the volume, but also the issues that we had in the U.S. Gulf during the quarter. Next slide, please. During the quarter, the COA coverage was 71%, and that is down from 72% in the previous quarter. The contract rates were up 0.7%. Even though the contracts that we renewed during the quarter was up at 0.3%, the contract rates that we carried, the average contract rate under the COAs was up 0.7%, while the spot rates were down 3.3% during the quarter. The cold snap that we saw, the extreme cold weather that we saw in Texas, going from plus 15 degrees down to minus 15 degrees in over a couple of days, caused a big disruption in the industry.
We estimate that the loss that we've had in the first quarter was around $1 million, and we do expect a further impact of around $4 million in the second quarter due to the delay cost by this close down of the various customers' facilities. The Suez Canal closure expected to have minimal impact in the second quarter, we estimate less than $1 million. The SNIES, as we call it, the Stolt-Nielsen Inter-European Service, the market was actually strong in the first quarter, as we saw both the freight rates and volume increasing. We have, as we announced earlier, now a joint venture as the operating company, a joint venture between Stolt and Essberger, which started operation in the 1st of January 2021. SNITS, the Stolt-Nielsen Inland Tanker Service, our COA coverage remains stable at around 85%.
The CPP, I believe it should both be CPP market and chemical spot market continuously weak, signs of improvement. The SNICS, Stolt-Nielsen Inter-Caribbean Service, the ships that trades within the Caribs, COA volumes at 94%, that's higher than usual, they were also impacted by the adverse weather that we saw in the U.S. Gulf. SNIAS, the Stolt-Nielsen Inter Asia-Pacific Service, Stolt Asia-Pacific Service, SNAPS as we call, lower results in the first quarter due to the Chinese New Year and adverse weather that we see this time of year. Also there was a closure of the Yangtze River in China for a week. Volumes improving in Asia and we expect that to continue in the second quarter.
If you look at the various reports that this is the Clarksons Platou report, you can see that we've seen increase in activity from the Middle East to Europe, the trans-Atlantic market, not a lot of movement. The challenge has really been in the U.S. Gulf to the Far East or the what we call trans-Pacific. That's where we see a weakening of the market, which we saw in the first quarter. Next slide, please. Challenging first half, improving second half. The storyline remains the same. Just again, we are positioning ourselves well. We took a delivery of the five ships that we bought, the second-hand ships that we bought. I also like to kind of remind our investors that we have gone through an extensive new building program. We took a delivery of six new buildings from Hudong in 2017 and 2018.
We also got eight new buildings from the acquisition of JO. They were also delivered in 2017, 2018. We also then took delivery of these ships, which are relatively newest, delivered in 2016 and 2017. We've had an extensive addition of new ships coming into our fleet. Stolt Tankers has been commissioned by one of our big customers, BASF, to help design and build an innovative new barge that can operate on extremely low water levels on the Rhine. We have a 15-year contract, I think, with option for additional years, to ensure that they can continue to ship their products from their manufacturing plant, even at low waters, which we are now seeing more regularly on the Rhine. The Essberger-Stolt joint venture, it began in January and will provide enhanced reliability, logistical flexibility, and significant cost saving after combining both fleets.
After a challenging start to the year, my view hasn't really changed. I believe that with the rollout of the vaccine, I wish everybody could be as good as U.K. With the rollout of the vaccine, hopefully the pandemic will soon be behind us and we will go back to normality. We expect then that the economic activity will continue to pick up. With the supply as it stands now at 3.9%, I think it's just a matter of time before we will see a strong improvement in our segment. I'm quite bullish. If you look at the stimulus, if you look at the savings that has occurred during the lockdown, if you look at the pent-up demand, I think it's just a matter of time. We are well-positioned.
With the expanded fleet that we have, I think that we are very well positioned to benefit from that market. Next slide, please. Stolthaven Terminals. The fourth quarter 2020 operating profit came in at $8, but as I said earlier, we had a one-off impairment on our terminal in Australia and also a positive impairment actually in China, brought the normalized operating profit to $ 16.8, with higher revenue in the quarter of $ 0.6, lower operating expense of $1 million. Slightly higher depreciation, slightly lower equity income, and higher A&G and others. That was primarily driven by possibly one-offs that we had in the fourth quarter, which we didn't have this quarter. Brings the operating profit up to 15.7%. Utilization is slightly down from previous quarter. If you could go to the next slide, please. You can see that the utilization is here.
Just a general comment about the terminal market.
As you know, it's a pretty steady business, long-term contracts. I think I mentioned this in the previous quarter. We are starting to see a pickup in throughput at our various terminals, always a good sign. We are also seeing a pickup in inquiries. I also said last time that because of the uncertainty of the pandemic, it takes a longer time for our customers to really commit to a long-term storage deal. We are seeing more and more inquiries, and we are seeing utilization actually picking up in Singapore, where we were down in the 50s. I think that by the end of next quarter, we will be in the high 60s, maybe even into the 70s in Singapore. Steady as she goes.
With the economic activity picking up, I think that we will see utilization, even where we have low utilization, come back to mid-90s for most of our terminals. Next slide, please. Stolt Tank Containers. This has been an extremely interesting quarter for Stolt Tank Containers. Just going through the numbers first, the operating revenue is $138.9. That's up from $130.6. EBITDA actually down, even though the operating revenue was up. EBITDA down to $18.5, down from $23.7. Operating profit, $8 million, down from $13.9. Utilization 67.7%, up to 69.7% in this quarter. If you look at the operating profit variance analysis, the fourth quarter was at $13.9. The higher transportation revenue of $8.1, higher demurrage and others of $0.2. However, it was offset by the higher move-related expenses of $9.5, higher repositioning expenses of $1.3, higher other and operating expenses of $2.7.
That 2.7 is also driven by the catch-up in maintenance and repair at our depots, lower joint venture equity income of 0.8, bringing the operating profit to $8 million for the quarter. Next slide, please. Just let me talk a little about Tank Containers because first quarter in Tank Container usually is a slow season driven by Christmas and Chinese New Year. This year, as you saw from the numbers, the shipments are up significantly and actually they've gone gangbusters. It's a huge activity in STC. The challenge has been, of course, as you read in the newspapers, the container lines are full. It's been a battle in winning space, securing space on these container vessels. Now, what is causing this enormous pickup in demand for space on the container vessels?
I think based on reading reports, and doing some reasoning, I believe in the first half of 2020, people were kind of sitting back and saving and being careful. On the second half of 2020, when the governments had secured liquidity and had subsidized people to stay at home so that they felt secure even though they were at home, the savings went up and then people started feeling safer, so they started spending. The spending was not driven towards the service sector. It was driven towards the goods sector. People were buying yoga mats and bicycle machines and rowing machines and computers and whatever you buy. That has, of course, created a huge pickup and most of these products are being produced in the Far East. That has caused a tremendous pickup in demand for the movement of containers.
At the same time, these container lines have experienced enormous congestions in all the major ports. I can explain that that is probably driven by if one shore worker is tested positive, the whole shift needs to isolate, which has then caused delays in the port. All of this pickup in demand on the container side has caused this pickup in demand for the shipments of containers. That has impacted us because we are fighting to retain space, and at the same time, they are also jacking up the price, which is understandable. The reason that even though the shipments are up, you are seeing lower EBITDA, and that is because there is a lag for us to be able to pass that additional cost on to our customers. We are doing that now and we are pushing it over as quickly as we can.
I think that we are one of the operators are good at securing space. The increased amount of shipments that we are seeing is not necessarily increased demand for the shipment in containers, but it's increased demand of shipping with Stolt because we are being able to secure space to a large extent than some of the smaller operators of tank containers. The challenge has been to be able to pass on these additional costs fast, quickly. That's what we're doing now. Basically, customers are calling, they're not to that extent anymore asking about cost. They're saying, "Can you get my product from A to B?" We're saying, "Yes, we can," and we pass on the cost. Therefore I'm not seeing any slowdown at all. We're not seeing any slowdown.
We are able to pass on the additional costs from our truckers and from the ocean freight increases that we are seeing. I think that the second and third, actually the remainder of the year, will be quite healthy for STC going forward. I'm actually very bullish with the performance of STC going forward. If we move to the next slide, please. Stolt Sea Farm. Just quickly going through the numbers. On the operating revenue up $22, came in at $22.5, that's up from $19.7. I remind you the first quarter includes the Christmas sale. EBITDA, $3 million versus $3.1 million. Operating profit, $1 million versus $1.2 million. The volume that we sold is at 2,188, and that's up from 1,903. The higher turbot volume is due to the higher volume sold during Christmas season.
Sole sales volume are also up, prices were slightly down due to the competition from the wild catch, which is seasonal. Operating expenses increased in line with higher sales volumes of Turbot compared to the prior quarter. The fair value adjustment of biomass was a gain of $1.3 million compared to a gain of $1.5 million in the prior quarter. This is a reflection of the recovery in the prices and the growth in the biomass. We had higher A&G expenses, and that is because we are putting a lot of resources into developing and expanding new markets for our products. Next slide, please. Just talk about our recirculation. We have two new recirculation plant, purpose-built recirculation plant. One in Cervo and one is in Tocha. The first one is up and running, and we are harvesting. That's the one in Cervo.
We have now a sole capacity of 1,570 tons. These are designed by ourselves, which will, I believe, shortly take the sole business, which we have spent 20 years on developing, shortly will become profitable. The harvest of the Cervo plant started in January of this year, one month ahead of schedule, with excellent average weights. After more than 12 months in operation, all KPIs are better than expected and beyond those of our best-performing sites. The Tocha site is basically identical. The first sole juveniles received in December 2020, we expect to be harvesting in October of 2021. Again, same as in Cervo, performance is ahead of what our expectations are. If you then look at the Anglet, which is partly recirculation but also flow-through, you can see that the average weight is 8% higher than expected.
The percentage of growth per week is 32%, and the feed conversion rate is extremely favorable, 21% better. We are very excited by these modules that we are commissioning. We are planning on expanding beyond the two existing ones, but then looking at growing that business, those modules, closer to the consumer going forward. Very excited. Now, just let me give you a couple comments in regard to the IPO. We announced early in the year that we are considering or doing a potential IPO of Stolt Sea Farm, and we explained that the reason for that is to make the value of Stolt Sea Farm more transparent within the Stolt-Nielsen structure.
It is not really to raise funds because this company is generating its own EBITDA and very much can finance itself, and whatever additional, if there are further investments needed, they will be supported by Stolt-Nielsen. The real purpose of this exercise is to, I felt when we compared it to other land-based or other agriculture companies, we felt that it was important to make it stand out and the underlying value more reflect easier to identify. We started a process of talking to potential cornerstone investors, and we have had positive feedback. It's important for us that we find the right investors. We don't want to have people that kind of are short-term.
This is a long-term project, and it's important for us to make certain that they understand and have the time to understand the value that we have created, both on our turbot and also be able to see the sole and the potential in sole. We are using our time to find the right cornerstone investors to join us. I think it's only fair that we are. It's important also for us too, that we get a fair price for what we have created. We will continue to work doing that. I think time really works. Time works in our favor. The longer time that goes, the better, more production data and data these new modules will provide. Of course, we try to do. We've been going through the pandemic, which is of course impacting the results.
Even though we say we have to look beyond or before the pandemic or post-pandemic, the further away we get from the pandemic and also the more we see coming out of Cervo and Tocha and Stolt Sea Farm, I think time will work in our favor. We continue. We're not really in a rush, but we will continue. I think it's more important to find quality long-term investors and that what we have created. Next slide, please. Avenir. Very excited. We really have turned a corner. The first ship was delivered in October of 2020. The second ship was delivered in March. We have now two ships on charter. The company's generating an EBITDA at favorable terms.
We have four additional ships under instructions at the SOE in the Nantong yard. They will be delivered in the second half of 2021. The Sardinia terminal will be starting commercial operation in May of this year. It's interesting, we will actually be using one of the second ship to come with the first cargo to our Sardinia terminal. The second ship will bunker from the first ship. The second ship will provide the first LNG cargo to Sardinia. We're really up and running there. We will start getting some nice revenue coming out of that business. We have loan facility of $53 million in place for the first two ships. We have financing term sheet for the remaining ships in place. That's in order.
Avenir is already providing LNG via truck to Sardinia customers, that will switch over from trucks to ships coming in, discharging into our terminal and then truck bringing it to the end user. The commercial pipeline has actually started moving. We're seeing much more activity now. We have six integrated LNG supplier projects. Two are on fast track. We don't want to be a shipping company. We want to be a supplier of LNG. We have two that are on fast track right now where we actually will source, we will ship, we will store, and we will sell LNG, which is very exciting. Also we are looking at, because of the timing of these ships that we have on order, we're looking at 10 chartering opportunities against three of the ships that we have open.
There are a lot of opportunities that are coming our way. The timing of these ships are very favorable. The chartering, even though that's not our strategy, the chartering will finance the development of the supply projects that we're working on. Avenir is expected to be cash flow positive for the first time in 2021 based on the contracts that we have already secured. I believe that completes my part. Jens, I'll give the word over to you.
Thank you very much, Niels. Good afternoon and good morning to those of you in the U.S. I would like to remind you that we have today posted the earnings release, the interim financials, as well as this presentation on the company's website, which is www.stolt-nielsen.com. As a reminder that the first quarter runs from December 1st of 2020 through February 28th of this year. Finally, for those in the U.S., our reporting is based on IFRS. Next slide, please. As Niels mentioned, the first quarter is typically our seasonally weakest quarter, particularly for tankers and tank containers. That's driven by the winter weather that we have in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as the Christmas and Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year holidays. Consistent with that, we did see a drop in results this quarter compared with the same quarter one year ago.
With operating profit before one-offs for the first quarter of 2021 of $35.9 million, and that compares with $58.1 million in the fourth quarter. Niels has gone through, talked about those in detail, so I won't go into that. If you compare it to the first quarter last year, where both quarters were equally impacted by the seasonality, it's worth noting that there is an improvement in operating profits before one-offs of $18.8 million. That's predominantly driven by the improvements in tankers, where the prior year was marred by scheduling issues and the high bunker cost. Whereas Stolt Sea Farm was impacted by the writedown of biomass because the COVID-19 pandemic had just hit the market. Moving to the interest expense, this was marginally up from the fourth quarter.
That's driven by the increase in debt related to the acquisition of the three CTG ships that we took on our balance sheet. The FX gain of $1.2 million is partly related to FX paper hedges and partly due to translation adjustments. Also, as you will see, the income tax expense increased from $0.9 million in the fourth quarter to $2.2 million in the first quarter. That's mainly reflecting the improved results in Stolt Sea Farm, as well as in terminals, due to the $12.4 million impairment that we took in the fourth quarter. Consequently, the net profit from our continuing operations came in at $2.5 million for the first quarter. That's down from the $15.6 million in the prior quarter, but it's up from a loss of $20.3 million in the first quarter of last year. A good improvement year-over-year.
EBITDA was $108 million. That was down from $128 million in the fourth quarter, up from $100 million in the first quarter last year. Note that the EBITDA that we show here is before the fair value biological assets, insurance reimbursements, and other one-time non-cash items. Next slide, please. This is a view of our balance sheet from a covenant perspective. I just want to remind you that despite the recent acquisition of the five CTG ships, which we did because of a very advantageous price, we continue to focus on reducing debt and on maintaining a strong liquidity position. We have three main financial covenants in our loan agreements. One is debt to tangible net worth, where we need to maintain at no more than 2.25, we should be below 2.25. EBITDA to interest expense should be at a minimum of 2.1 or above, preferably.
Then there's minimum tangible net worth of $600 million, where we're currently at $1.6 billion, so we're well above that. The EBITDA covenants are based on the EBITDA for the most recent four quarters, which you see in the bottom right quadrant, exceeded. If you look at the yellow line, it exceeded half a billion dollars for the first time. That's quite exciting, although it was helped somewhat by IFRS 16. If you look on the top left quadrant, you will see that we ended the quarter with gross debt at $2.58 billion. That is up from $2.50 billion, about $81 million increase and that's related to capital expenditures of $115 million during the quarter. The tangible net worth increased marginally by $2 million, so not much there other than it really reflects the net profit.
As a consequence, the debt to tangible net worth covenant increased from 1.53 in the prior quarter to 1.58, driven by the capital expenditures that we did. I will talk more about the capital expenditures in detail on the next slide. Also note that in the first quarter, we paid an interim dividend of $13.4 million, or that's $0.25 per share. If you look at the top right quadrant, you will see the EBITDA to interest expense ratio for the quarter that improved from 3.55 in the prior quarter to 3.69. As this is an EBITDA-driven covenant more than anything else, it's driven by the improvement in our EBITDA, very much because of weak first quarter 2020 dropped off and we added a stronger first quarter 2021 to that four-quarter view. Our average interest rate was 4.6% in the first quarter.
This is down from about 5.05% the same quarter a year ago. Interest rates have come down quite a bit in that same period, but we are currently fixed at about 80% of our debt and expect with the repayment of the bond that was done on March 18th to continue to see a reduction in that average interest rate. If you look at the bottom left quadrant, although it's not a covenant, the net debt to EBITDA ratio is an important measure of our debt service capability. This increased slightly from 4.68 to 4.78 due to the added debt mentioned above, but our target remains to reduce this to below four. Next slide, please. Talking about capital expenditures. As a reminder, in the fourth quarter, we spent $20 million, and that increased to $115 million this quarter, and that's driven predominantly by two things.
Of course, the CTG ships that we talked about a lot, as well as contributions to Avenir, as you will see under Stolt-Nielsen Gas of $16 million. Between those two, that's been driving the most of the increase. There is also some additional expenditures for Stolthaven Terminals, some in Stolt Sea Farm related to the new farms and also in Stolt Tank Containers relating to depots. Note, however, that the capital expenditures shown here for tankers excludes dry docking expenses. If you want to have an estimate of that, dry docking expenses are typically around just shy of $20 million, also estimated to be just below $20 million for 2021. For the full year 2021, we expect to spend a further $136 million. The increase really reflects a significant increase in terminals. This reflects expenditures that were postponed from 2020.
As you will recall, we were cutting back significantly on capital expenditures, and we're catching up on some of that now in 2020. We're also adding some new projects, including a jetty construction at Dagenham in the U.K. Next slide, please. If you look at the cash generated from operating activities was $94.4 million. That was down from $120 million, reflecting the underlying performance of the businesses. You'll also see that the line below says interest paid was down significantly from the prior quarter. That's because some of our loan agreements we pay interest every six months, others we pay quarterly. You have every other quarter, you will have a jump up in interest payments. If you go down and you see net cash generated by operating activities was therefore $72 million this year. It was slightly down from the prior quarter, $79 million.
Niels mentioned on the opening slide that our free cash flow was down about $100 million from the prior quarter. If you look at the capital expenditures line of $103.8 million, that was up from $24 million. That explains the biggest part of it. In addition, we had net investments in JVs and repayments of advances from JVs of about $13.9 million, as well as some purchase of Golar shares of $3 million. Finally, also that we had some dividend payments. That were items that were impacting or causing the drop in the free cash flow. During the quarter, we raised $65 million of debt. That's long-term financing that's secured by our Dagenham and Moerdijk terminal. We also drew down on a short-term bank loan of $20 million during the quarter, and this has subsequently been repaid.
We repaid some $30 million on long-term debt and made lease payments of $10 million. That means net cash provided by our financing activities was $31.8 million. That puts us at a net cash flow for the quarter ending up at negative $14.7 million, resulting in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter of $173 million. This comes on top of availability under our revolving credit line as of February 28th of $258 million. In total, about $431 million of available liquidity at quarter end. That was, of course, because we had subsequent to quarter end, the repayment of the bond. If you can move to the next slide, please. You will see here that bond highlighted at $154 million.
If you look at the overall maturity profile, we differentiate between what we consider regular principal payments, that's the black box. You have the bond repayments, which are the light blue ones, and then we have balloon payments, which are the gray ones. The bonds that was repaid on March 18th, the $154 million, is now settled. It leaves us with three outstanding bonds, the next one being due in September of 2022. We have about 18 months to go until that. Then we have the two bonds that we raised during 2020, maturing in 2023 and 2024. That also leaves us with only $153 million in regular principal payments for the remainder of the year. It puts us in a good position.
Subsequent to the quarter end, we also completed all the conditions precedent on a new $100 million revolving credit line that I mentioned in the previous earnings release. This is now available to us, and that comes on top of the $431 million that I mentioned. Also, as Niels pointed out, we have closed on the financing relating to the five ships that we took over. Where two of the ships have gone into NYK Stolt Tankers and been 100% financed in that joint venture on a non-recourse basis to Stolt-Nielsen. Then the three ships that we took on our own balance sheet, we have financed with $77 million, a leaseback. Very favorable terms on that one as well. Very long-term profile, so it's cash flow advantageous. With that, I would like to pass it back to you, Niels.
Thank you. I'm just trying to turn on my camera here. Okay, here we go. Key messages. The Stolt-Nielsen board has spread its commitment to sustainability, supporting enhanced ESG reporting with improved focus on tracking and reporting our KPIs. All of our businesses are well-positioned for the upturn that we expect that are coming. Stolt Tankers have taken the delivery of the secondhand ships, the five modern secondhand ships that we just bought in addition to our new building program. Stolthaven Terminals has completed an expansion program. STC's fleet has grown by 2,000, it's a very active market. Stolt Sea Farm has doubled the sole farming capacity with two new recirculation facilities in Cervo, Spain and Tocha, Portugal. As Jens showed you, our balance sheet and liquidity position is strong, and focus remains on debt reduction.
That means that we will going over to questions, and I will be reading them and publish them. The first question is from anonymous. What is the purpose with Golar investment, and is it a financial investment only? The reason behind the Golar investment is we wish to explore opportunities to apply our knowledge within logistics, in ships, terminals and containers and see if we can apply it to other segments. Being able to join Golar, and I'm sitting on the Golar board, really has put us in a position to participate in what we believe is an area where we can apply our expertise within logistics. One of the products that came also out of this is the Avenir. That is the purpose of that investment. Next question is also anonymous. Could it be an option to sell Stolt Sea Farm division outright? No.
We've been asked many times, what is this fish doing with the tankage terminals and tank containers? It's been part of the company since 1973. We have announced that we will consider separating it out, but through an IPO, and that's something that we are exploring, but it's our intention to be a part of it in the long run. If there's one business that we're involved in that has a huge growth potential, it is Stolt Sea Farm, and I think we are good owners with the right mindset of long-term thinking and value development. Next question is from James East. In tank containers, EBITDA issues have been blamed on higher transportation costs for at least seven quarters in a row. When will Stolt actually recover these higher expenses with higher rates or transportation clauses?
The way it works is that you're not able to recover the additional transportation cost on the shipments that you've had, but in your next shipment, you are able then to increase the cost. In some cases, we are also able to post the fixture, pass on additional cost. It depends on the contract that you have. I would say that there will always be a lag, and when the market is on its way up, so as long as the container lines keep on pushing the rates up, which they have been doing since the alliances were formed, and since we have seen the pickup in their market. There will always be a lag. We are passing these costs on as fast as we can. There will be a lag, of course, when it comes down again.
I think we are living under extreme circumstances in that market right now. I think we will see some sort of normality. You will already see now in the next quarter that we are able to quickly or more rapidly be able to pass on these additional costs. The reduction in the EBITDA is not only for the additional transportation cost, but it is also higher repositioning costs, which we have, because of the rapid change in demand and trading patterns we had in the last two quarters, actually had quite a high repositioning cost. Next question comes from Anders at Danske Bank. What is the reason for the mentioned low utilization at the terminal in Singapore, and why the suggested rapid improvement? The Singapore, it partly demand, partly supply. Singapore, there was quite a bit of expansion going on in the market.
There was a high supply, but also during the outbreak of the pandemic, there is also the uncertainty has caused some customers to cancel their storage contracts. Now, what we are seeing now, we have had the high utilization, and the reason why I believe in the rapid improvement is that we are already now working on deals. We have closed deals, additional business for our Singapore terminal, which will start, I think, in May. I'm quite certain that we know that the utilization will go up because of the contracts that we have won. We are also working on additional inquiries. I'm quite certain that we will see the utilization go up in Singapore. The second part of Anders's question, COA renewals.
Are we at the end of the recent positive trend of increased rates compared to the last one, or is the small increase in Q1 a one-off? As you know, we renew COAs every quarter. When the spot rates are under pressure, of course, even though the long-term trend of supply-demand is now in our favor, of course, if the spot rates are low, it has influence on the COA renewals. That's why I believe we saw a relatively low renewal increase in the first quarter. We also took on additional COA business from a strategic customer, which we wanted to secure regardless. We won large volume, which then was compromised slightly on the rate. I believe it's a one-off.
I think that as we see economic activity picking up with the stimulus, with the rollout of the vaccine, with the pent-up demand, I am quite bullish and believe that both the spot market and consequently the COA market will pick up significantly. The last, there's one further. Will you add further container beyond what we saw in this quarter? In case yes, about how many? As many of our competitors are listening in, I'm not going to tell you how many containers we're going to order or lease, but we will continue to grow. Especially with the high activity, we will continue to grow by acquiring or leasing tank containers. This one is from Lukas Daul at ABG regarding tankers. Your total volume carried were significantly down, and STJS index dropped off significantly too in the Q1.
Can you provide some more color on the drivers behind these developments? I think I mentioned it, is that the volumes carried were down in the first quarter because CoA volume was down, and there was a slow spot market. One of the reasons that CoA volumes were down is that a big part of our business is acid, phosphoric acid to India, which is used as a fertilizer. Every year, the Indians negotiate. The association are in negotiation. Volumes under those acid contracts were low, which has impacted our results. I think that we're already now starting to see a pickup in CoA volumes and nominations. I'm quite certain that this will, as I said earlier, continue as we see a market improvement. Dag Holmstad, ShippingWatch.
What are your 2021 expectations for the tank pool collaboration with Essberger Tankers, E&S Tankers with John T. Essberger in terms of earnings and revenue? It's difficult to say. It depends on how the market develops. What we can say with certainty that there are significant operational savings which we are very much focusing on delivering. On the operations savings side, we see as we go and the more we work together, and work on driving out those synergies, we will see improvements from our earnings from our SNIES fleet. How the market will develop is difficult to say, but it started off quite nicely. Next one is Jonas Schumann at Swedbank. You have now completed several initiatives to renew the tanker fleet. When do you believe you will need to engage in a new building program?
Well, a shipping company, that's the biggest investment decision that they do, and it's the toughest one. We have grown our fleet through acquisitions, through new buildings, and through second-hand acquisitions. We are very well positioned as we are. I'm not worried about the age profile of our fleet. I think that actually could be at the pace at this stage. We are well positioned for a market recovery. Of course, as an industrial shipping company, we need to continuously renew our fleet. Yes, we will always have a new building program. The time that we are spending now is to consider the various propulsion systems that we will use when we order the next series of new building. If it's now or in the future, that's really where we are focusing.
The realistic alternatives as we see it right now is the conventional engines that we are currently using, of course, with the fuel-efficient hull design and new engines, et cetera. The other alternative that is really only available right now is the dual-fuel with LNG. We are involved in methanol projects, in ammonia projects, in hydrogen projects, but it's not there yet. We are part of various study groups and are closely involved. As it stands right now, we do not have a new building order as it stands. Petter Haugen at Kepler. In March and the start of April, the chemical tanker spot rates look to have flattened out or even increased somewhat while crude and product tanker rates are still very weak. How do you expect chemical spot rates to develop in the short term? It's tough to say.
Again, remember, we are focusing on COAs, we are focusing on parcel business, the smaller end of the parcel size. On the supply-demand side there, it's in our favor and it's about time because we have had a horrible market the last, if I may say, 20 years. I think our time is coming. Short-term, it's difficult to predict. We have secured our COAs. We are fairly confident. We have this 70% contract portfolio. What we have done is that unless it's strategic or unless it's already a high-paying business, we are limiting the duration of the COAs that we're willing to commit to because we know that the market is going to improve so that for us, because we have 70% contract. It is when the market turns, yes, we have the 30% of spot capability.
We will be able to capture the market right away with that capacity, but it will take time. We renew contracts every month, every quarter. Once the market recovers, it will take time for that to be negotiated into our contract portfolio. The balance is should we change the 70-30, the ratio? Short-term, spot rates, when it comes, it will come quickly. If it's in the second quarter or the third quarter, it's difficult to say, but I feel very confident it will be coming soon. That was Petter Haugen. The last question that we have so far is from Eirik Hovi. Terminal CapEx increase. Can you elaborate a little on how much of that is maintenance CapEx put on hold last year, and how much is for new jetty, et cetera, or expansion? Jens, maybe you can help me on that one.
How much of the capital expenditure that we did in this first quarter was maintenance, and how much was expansion?
Yes. Now that we have completed the New Orleans expansion of $16 million, that really completes the expansion program that we have ongoing. Going forward, what we have is, as I mentioned, the upgrading of the jetty at one of our Dagenham facilities. It is regular maintenance and repairs, and it is also modernizing the terminals that we have, which is a continuous process. If you want to look at the full CapEx for the year, about two-thirds of that amount relates to maintenance and modernization, if you like.
We're spending a lot of resources on modernizing and automating our terminals as we have talked about earlier. Thank you very much. Unless there's anybody that will be sending in any additional questions. I can't see any. That completes our earnings presentation. Hopefully next time we'll meet in person. If not, we will see you again on the video conference. Thank you for participating in our first quarter 2021 earnings release. Thank you