Good afternoon, good morning, and welcome to the video conference presentation of the fourth quarter results of Stolt Nielsen Limited, which we are streaming live, from our lockdown locations. My name is Nils Stolt Nielsen. I'm the CEO of, Stolt Nielsen, and I'm joined by our CFO, Jens Grunhege. And today also, we are joined by Jordi Trias, who is the President of Stolt Sea Farm. Thank you all for taking the time to join us for our quarterly earnings update.
I'd like to remind you that you can post questions at any time during the presentation by typing them into the Q and A window, which should appear on the right side of your screen. And this video conference will be recorded. All questions will be answered till the end of this presentation. Now then let's move on to the next slide, please. Next.
The agenda. I will go through the Stolt Nielsen Limited highlights for the fourth quarter. I'll talk about ESG. Then I'll go through each of the businesses. This time, Stolt Sea Farm will be presented by Jordi.
Jens will take you through the financials, and then I will read the questions that if any questions have been posted, and hopefully also try to answer them. Next slide, please. We had a stable quarter. I will talk about the fourth quarter but also the full year. The net profit from continuing operation came in at CHF 16,000,000.
We saw an increase in activity in installed tankers from the regional fleet, but lower volumes in the deep sea, the larger ships. We saw slightly lower utilization in installed terminals. Stolthaven margins were impacted by higher move related expenses. We saw a steady continued improvement in Stolthaven as prices continue to recover. Consistent strong cash flow, the annual run rate now is over $300,000,000 Financing for the acquisition of the CTG ships that we announced this summer is expected to be finalized within the February.
And at the end of the year, we have approximately EUR $486,000,000 of liquidity. The EBITDA, just to talk about the full year, the EBITDA came in around EUR $490,000,000. That is up from EUR $440,000,000 in 2019. So quite pleased with the underlying strong EBITDA coming out of the businesses even under the special circumstances that 2020 has been. The net profit from the year is at 25,400,000,000.0 that's up from €19,000,000 last year.
The net debt at the end of the year was around slightly over €2,300,000,000 and that is down from €2,400,000,000 last year. And the operating cash flow for the year, that is cash flow after maintenance CapEx and interest came in at $356,000,000 Next slide, please. So if we take the net profit variance between the third quarter and the fourth quarter, we came in at CHF 29,200,000.0 in the third quarter. We saw a slightly higher operating profit from Stolt Tankers but a lower operating profit of CHF 14,800,000.0 from Stolthaven terminals. The big main part of that is the impairment of our two terminal of the Australia terminal and a reversal of an impairment of a joint venture loan coming in at a net impairment for the quarter in Stolthaven terminals of EUR 8,800,000.0.
But EUR 6,000,000 were lower operating profit. Again, that comes from lower utilization. Stolt Tank Containers, lower operating profit of EUR 3,600,000.0, Stolt Sea Farm, lower operating profit of EUR 2,700,000.0 and Corporate and Others is EUR 7,400,000.0. That is higher loss of in saltation gas of EUR €2,800,000 caused by the positioning of the first ship that is now on charter. And we had a higher loss of 4,600,000.0 in Corporate and Others.
That is offset by lower net finance expense of $3,000,000 lower non OpEx and FX losses of $3,100,000 lower income tax for the quarter of $3,700,000 and still see from the higher loss from discontinued operation, bringing the final for the quarter to $13,400,000 Next slide, please. So ESG, our commitment to sustainability lies at the heart of our operations. It always has, but, we have not been good enough at reporting what we do. So we have committed ourselves at becoming better at reporting what we are doing and what we are achieving. We have set clear targets for each of the businesses.
In tankers, a reduction at least 50 of carbon intensity relative to the 2008 level by 02/1930. In Stolthaven Terminal, primary activity to be CO2 neutral by 02/1940. Stolt tank containers, 50% of energy and utilities consumed in our depots will come from renewable energy sources, reduce our carbon footprint with our logistic partners by 40% by actively targeting and working with like minded suppliers and install Sea Farm Zero Waste to landfill, taking recycling and energy recovery as the option for the long term reduction of fishmeal and fish oil in our growing feed 65% reduction for sole and 50% reduction for turbot. Now these are the targets that we have set. And as I stated, we've always had such targets, but we haven't reported up on them.
So now we will clearly report it in our annual report and also on our website, and we will also, on a consistent basis, show you our progress towards these targets. Next slide, please. Safety is our priority. It has to be our priority. We will not be able to achieve our strategy in each of our businesses if we cannot operate in a safe way towards our employees, towards the products that we carry and towards the environment.
So also here, you will continue to see these reports, both in our annual reports and in our quarterly statements and on our websites. I just want to point out that the on the left hand, the total recoverable case frequency, the TRCF installed tank containers, nothing really happened. It's just that we are partly due to improved accuracy of the reporting as the business focused on capturing more minor severe incidents. Next slide, please. Going over to Stolt Tankers.
Next slide, please. The fourth quarter twenty twenty versus the third quarter, we came in with an operating revenue of 2 and 72,200,000.0. That is up from EUR 2 and 66,300,000.0. The EBITDA came in at CHF 76,200,000.0, that is up from CHF 71,400,000.0 operating profit, 31,900,000.0, up from CHF 28,100,000.0 and slightly lower operating days coming in at five thousand nine hundred and seventy five operating days and that is down from six thousand one hundred and eighteen. We saw steady improvement in the trading results, driven by the improvements in the regional trade and also a fantastic job by Lucas and his team in a cost saving initiative implemented in 2020.
Deep sea freight revenue was down 5.8% as volume decreased by 8.9, while rates were up by 3.1%. The rate increases were primarily driven by our contract rates, which I will talk about later. Utilization was down slightly down by 6.7%. Higher bunker cost and hedging costs. The average COA rates renewals during the fourth quarter were up by 6.1%.
So the average of the contracts that we did renew in the fourth quarter were up 6.1%. And that was also a nice achievement taking into consideration that the spot market was quite weak during the quarter. Lower manning costs by 3.1% as costs related to crew changes decreased due to the easing of COVID-nineteen restrictions. N and G expenses were up by 3.1% as we eased back on the cost cutting initiatives that we did earlier in 2020 and started to recruit and replace employees employees, sorry. Next slide, please.
The bunker cost increased in the fourth quarter. We do not have any paper hedges anymore. They are all used up. But 96.8% of our COAs had a bunker clause. So we are since our contract coverage is at around 70% and all of our most of our contracts have a bunker clause, we are 70% hedged through our COAs.
And you saw that after a nice recovery in the first and the second quarter in the index, it took a slight dip in the fourth quarter. Next slide, please. As I stated, COA coverage is at 72% for the fourth quarter, and that is up from 70% in the third quarter. The contract rates that we renewed, excluding bunker surcharges, was up 6.1%, while spot freight rates were down slightly during the quarter. And that spot rate decline in the quarter was also very much driven by the pressure that we see from the MR market.
Stolt Nielsen into European service. The market improved significantly during the quarter, both in volumes and in freight rates. CO8 renewals were up 1.5%. We also announced, as you might know, that we have done a joint venture with that fleet with JTSberger, which is now called E and S Tankers, which became effective on the first subsequently on the January 1. So just want to signal to the market that this joint venture, the majority owner in that joint venture is Esperger, but we felt that this is the right for the industry and the right move for that market.
Stolt makes an inland tanker services that harness our self propelled barges on the Rhine River, pretty steady business. COA coverage stable around 85%, but we saw a weak spot market in the fourth quarter. Stolt Nielsen Integrated Bean Service, SNCs as we call it, COA volumes are stable at 80%. Spot market was weak for the quarter. And SNAP, stock mix in Asia Pacific services, improved results in the fourth quarter driven by higher COA and spot volumes in Australia.
EENSA. Demand in Asia is well, slowing down in the fourth quarter. We expect and we're starting to see that there's an improvement in the first quarter of this year. You can see that the spot rates that are reported by Clarkson Plateau came down in the fourth quarter. Are also, subsequently to the fourth quarter, have seen a challenging December month.
However, we are expecting and we are starting to see some pickup in the early part of this year. Next slide, please. So as I think we wrote in the earnings release, we expect the first quarter to be challenging, and we do not expect a significant recovery in the until the middle of the year or towards the third quarter. New chemical production capacity for export in The Middle East will drive tonnage demand. The biofuel markets continue to advance driven by the shipping industry's initiative to embrace alternative fuels, a key area of growth on the deep sea trade lanes.
China and India remain key to deadweight demand growth, while Europe is becoming a net importer. On the supply side, and this is where the optimism come once we get out of this pandemic and hopefully towards the second half of this year, once the vaccine has been distributed, we do expect that the global GDP will recover And as a result, global trade will continue. And with an order book of the fleet that we compare ourselves to of 4.3%, I think that the supply demand balance is in our favor. So I expect very little improvement on the demand side will drive a nice recovery in our sector. The core chemical deep sea fleet growth will drop significantly from 2021 onwards.
Uncertain around the fuel and propulsion systems makes it risky to invest in new ships, and that's a question all ship owners that have to order new ships are asking themselves. And I think that there might be further delays in making that decision. So hopefully, won't be a large volume of new orders coming to our sector in the short term. A weak MR market increases risk of swing tonnage entering the edible oils market, But I also believe that the MR market order book is also relatively favorable for the ship owners. Moving on then to the next slide.
Look at Stolthaven Terminals. Next slide. On the fourth quarter versus the third quarter, we saw the operating revenue coming in at CHF 57,300,000.0, that's down from CHF 59,800,000.0, EBITDA coming in at CHF 31,800,000.0 compared to CHF 36,400,000.0. The operating profit only at EUR 8,000,000 compared to EUR 22,700,000.0 in the previous quarter and utilization dropped from EUR 93,700,000.0 down to EUR 90,500,000.0. The main reason for the drop in the operating performance, if you exclude the one offs, is driven by lower utilization in certain areas.
That lower utilization due to the commercial sensitivity, we don't wanna really specify which terminal we're talking about here. But just to talk I think that due to the COVID and the uncertainty created by COVID, we we are pursuing, you know, quite a few opportunities where the utilization is low, and there are quite a few, know, inquiries. But due to the uncertainty, the customers are taking longer time to to make a decision. So, we see that the demand is there, but it's just it's taking longer time for them to make a commitment. We had higher operating expenses as a result of higher facility cost.
We announced that we did a $12,400,000 impairment of our goodwill on the Australia terminal. And the JV equity income was marginally down from the prior quarter. We also did a reversal of an impairment on the joint venture loan of $3,600,000 So going from an operating profit of $22.7 we come in at an operating profit in the fourth quarter of 8,000,000 but very much also then driven by the impairment of the Australia terminal. Next slide, please. Our U.
S. Terminals remain stable with utilization above 95% and higher volume throughput and higher throughput volumes. Our Santos terminal lowered throughput but utilization stable at 95%. European terminals had a higher throughput and showed stable performance with utilization around 98%. Australia had a lower performance due to lower throughput, but utilization stable at 83%.
New Zealand performance improved as a result of the lower facility cost and utilization stable at 100%. Next slide, please. Market. Most recent outlook of the major chemical companies and from leading chemical associations continue to support an ongoing improvement in the chemical industry. And from the reports that we received, everything is coming in at between 3% to 5% growth for 2021.
If you look at the regions, the chemical in The United States, we fell by 1.3% in 2020, but expect a rebound to around 5% in 'twenty one. And the Chinese market has recovered and the production is above pre COVID levels. The Korean market remains stable for chemicals. Southeast Asia is lagging in recovery. The Singapore overall chemical output fell recently as a result of power export orders and maintenance shutdown.
The European market remains steady for chemicals although new capacity creating pressure on the market. Chemical output in The EU 27 dropped by 4.4% until September to date. The petroleum market, especially for transportation fuel, remains below the pre COVID-nineteen levels. And in Brazil, the chemical market shows signs of recovery with expectation of growth in 2021 compared to the significant drop in demand that we saw in 2020. Next slide, please.
Stolt Tank Containers. The operating revenue came in at CHF 130,600,000.0, that's up from CHF 125,400,000.0. EBITDA came in at CHF 23,700,000.0, down from CHF 26.7 Operating profit at 13.9%, and that's down from 17.5%. Utilization up, coming in at 67.7%, and that is up from 65.4. The shipments for the quarter were up at above 33,000, and that's up from 30,461 in the previous quarter.
So the activity was a very busy quarter. Transportation revenue was up $7,800,000 driven by higher shipments and higher average rates. However, ocean freights was up with higher shipments and bunker surcharges. Trucking costs increased due to higher volume and shipment mix. We had higher repositioning costs, shipment cost due to higher volume of shipments and higher long haul repositioning cost.
What really happened in the quarter is that high activity, but as you probably read in the newspaper, the container lines are extremely busy. They still come up with blank sailings and they also bump you so that you go you know, you get pushed off one ship and put on the next one. So there's there's more work and there's more cost in for each of the shipments. And also, there's more repositioning because of the rapid change and quick changes that we see in trade fills. So the operating profit for the 2020 was EUR 17,500,000.0.
So we had EUR 7,800,000.0 higher transportation revenue, driven EUR $05,000,000 by higher rates and EUR 7,300,000.0 of higher shipments. But we had lower demurrage and other revenue of $2,700,000 and, as I said, a higher move expenses driven by these difficult and work heavy workload to be able to secure space and on on on container lines and on trucks. So we had a $7,600,000 higher move related expenses, Higher repositioning expenses of EUR 1,800,000.0 and higher other operating expenses in the AG of 1,400,000.0. As you might remember, we did some dramatic cuts for 2020 to preserve cash. But as the market has recovered or didn't fall as much as we prepared for, we have now started recruiting and especially taking into consideration the higher number of shipments.
We had $2,000,000 of high rate joint venture equity income, making the operating profit for the quarter of $13,900,000 in Stolt Tank Containers. Next slide, please. So we are already now seeing high activity, a lot of activity in SDC. High shipment volume is expected both in the first and second quarter, but continued risk of outbreaks creates uncertainty. So it's very difficult to predict.
But again, once the pandemic hopefully is behind us, we do expect a continued increase in demand for the shipment in tank containers. Activity in market is high and extremely competitive margins under pressure with rising ocean freight costs and tight market conditions in all major regions. High demand in North America, seasonal slowdown in South America. In Europe, shipments from all markets remain strong. China remains very busy with high inventories adding pressure on margins.
Demand in Southeast Asia has improved. India market has recorded had record volume due to the rise of import and increased export in food and chemical trades. The Middle East demand has risen in both UAE and South Saudi Arabia. Volumes is very strong and ship capacity is an issue. Food grade demand was seasonally weak in December, but activity has rebounded.
Ocean freight cost is expected to rise and continue to rise in 2021 as carriers' control capacity and space allocation will which will negatively impact margins as we work to pass them on to the customers. So most of those ocean freights and trucking rates are passed on to the customers, but there is the lag in recovery. Next slide, please. Jordi, I give the word for you to you.
Thank you very much, Nils. Good afternoon, good morning. I'll have the pleasure to guide you through this specific section on CFAN. Let's start with fourth quarter results. And the operating revenue for the quarter was $19,700,000 down from $22,400,000 previous quarter.
EBITDA was $3,100,000 down from $5,200,000 and operating profit was $1,200,000 down from $3,900,000 on the previous quarter. As to volumes sold, we sold in previous quarter 1,900 metric tons, Turboten sold together, down from 2,425 metric tons on the previous quarter. Most of those are most of the decreases are in turbot, and it's caused by, first, the seasonality effect because we have larger sales in the summer period than in fourth quarter usually, but also the second wave of COVID that's been hitting our markets quite strongly. Nevertheless, we were able to increase prices in q from Q3 to Q4 in Turbot, And we are expecting that Q1 twenty twenty one, we will see an increase in in sales and volume sold in Turbot. Usually, the Christmas campaign is a is a one for sales, and that usually impacts first quarter positively.
You see also that we had higher A and G expenses in the period because we reactivated some marketing investments. We also when it came to an end, the salary cuts that we did during Q3 And this is partially offset by a lower depreciation due to the lower volumes sold. Okay? So let me now share with you what we do at Stolzefan, what's our core business and our growth ambitions ambitions going further. So next slide, please.
Let's start with some general information. We at Sea Farm are the global pioneers and innovators in land based agricultural flatfish. We've been farming in land based for more than thirty years now and with recirculation technology for more than twenty years today. It is our company's purpose to ensure that future generations continue to enjoy wonderful seafood. And Turquoise and Toll are wonderful seafood indeed.
You know well, these are flat fish. They're 100% land based farm, and they are continuously consistently selling in the market at higher average prices than most of the farms fishes today. Next slide, please. Stolt Sea Farm is a company that has been, creating value for decades and is very well positioned to continue doing so. It is a proven business from both the biological side and the financial side, so we have a long track record of delivering sustainable results.
We've created a market leadership on the two species, turbot and sold sole, which again are sold at a higher average prices than most species in the market. And this leadership, we have obtained through the technological capabilities that we have developed through those thirty plus years in in in operating land based farms. Mostly and significantly through the exceptional broodstock, but also thanks to the proprietary flow through and recirculation farms that we own and operate. Also, of course, thanks to the leading competence of our team and the fact that we have a shareholder that has a long term orientation. We see a very significant growth potential for the business going forward.
You will see it a bit later based upon the recirculation technology and the capacity to expand soil farming with it, but also very strong seafood demand and megatrends and obviously the strong way of farming responsibly and sustainably. So we'll see that now. Next, please. This is an overview of where we are today, so you get to know us a bit better. We own and operate 14 farms and two hatcheries, all of them land based in five different countries.
As you see on the right charts, most of the total production is happening today in Spain and Portugal, and we have another farm in in Norway. And in the case of Seoul, the production is already more widespread geographically, and and that's the idea to continue doing that thanks to the recirculation technology we have developed. Speaking about geographical diversity, you see that we sell to more than 30 countries today with big part of of those sales happening in what we call Southern European markets, are more natural, let's say, markets for thermal. That's Spain and Italy mostly. But it is the new market, we call it new markets or Northern European markets, North America, Scandinavian markets.
Those are the ones growing faster. And as you see, we have around 408 employees today with with us. So next slide, please. That was an overview of where we are, and this is an overview of leadership position in the market. So on the left, you can see how both Shoal and Turbot have been consistently selling at higher average prices than most of the farm species in the market.
And on a continuous growing trend in recent years and a very positive one, of course, 20 hit our average prices down because a lot of our sales are happening in what we call the food service or choreca channels or restaurants and hotels. We are now seeing already a recovering trend. But, of course, yeah, there was this decrease in 2020. And on the right, you can see that besides selling on high end part of the seafood industry, we have a strong leadership position on the two species we found. So in the case of Turbot, in 02/2019, we finished the year with 71 market share.
That's including our own production and the trading operation that we have. In the case of Seoul, we finished 2019 with a share of 41%. Today, the two new recirculation farms that we just started harvesting from, we are going to be seeing by the 2021 a higher average sorry, market share of probably 60%. Next slide, please. And I've been talking about recirculation.
I would like to introduce you to the module. That's how we call it. It's our new recirculation form for SOL. It's a it's it's a proprietary design. It's the fruit of twenty years of expertise in recirculation and in the soul species.
We have designed internally a very we call it optimized model because it occupies a small piece of land. It's very robust in terms of biological safety. We have implemented a specific technology for that of our own design with optimized energy consumption. Again, it occupies a small piece of land. One of the beauties of this module is that you can basically replicate it and install it almost anywhere in the world, very close to consumer market, for example, but also in areas where, I don't know, there's difficulties of land availability or water availability as well.
This particular one you see in the picture is the one that we have in Spain. We started harvesting already in January. It's already harvesting predominantly. We have a second one operating. It's in the the one in Spain is installed in an industrial area, by the way.
The second one in Portugal, which is installed or built in an environmentally protected area. Already introduced juveniles in December and will be harvesting probably by the end of the year. Now another good thing of this module is the economics. Okay? I'm sharing here with you that the CapEx, so the investment for one of these modules is roughly €10,000,000 and the return we're expecting on EBITDA is €2,500,000 per year, more or less.
We are expecting probably to be exceeding this return. So it is not only a very good solution to expand soul farming globally, but it's also profitable. Please. So with that, with the modular, is a reality that's already happening, I would like to share with you what's our growth aspirations, our growth plan. And you see that from 02/2019, where we finished with roughly 9,000 tons sold.
By next year 2022, we will be doubling already our sales or production of solar, thanks to these two recirculation modules that I showed you. And it is our intention that by 2025, that's what we call the near term growth aspiration. We'll be again doubling the production for SOL and within our existing facilities already, so with implementation of more of these modules. And we will be adding some 20% to 25% more own production of turbot to reach roughly 10,000 tonnes produced by us by Stor Sea Farm. The long term aspiration is to reach beyond 23,000 tonnes, And you see that most of the growth is coming from Sol because that's the biggest potential that we see in terms of growth in the coming years.
So what's the key drivers for this growth? For Telmode, we're going to be rolling out our proven flow through technology. And in the case of SOLE, as I mentioned, we will be rolling out this recirculation technology that we've been investing on. And after years of R and D and investing roughly €75,000,000 in development of the sole species, including CapEx, we are ready to expand and accelerate growth with it. On the two species, we will be building a wide network of sites.
That's what we call internally the multi site strategy, which allows us to reduce biological risks, but also to be spread geographically and be closer to markets. And the near time growth is on pre identified or already owned land. So with this, I hope I've been able to share with you that we have built throughout the decades a very robust and profitable business with Turbot that has the potential to double its size. And in the case of Sol, a more significant growth potential ahead of us that we will be capturing through the tracer collision technology. So thank you very much.
And now back to you, Nielsen, I guess.
Yes. Thank you. Just before I start talking about salt, nickel, and gas, I would just like to comment upon we announced earlier in January that we are exploring the opportunities of doing an IPO of Stolt Sea Farm. The purpose of the IPO is make the value of Stolt Sea Farm more transparent to the market. Under the current structure, with tankers terminals and tank containers, they kind of fit together, same customers, same products, same markets in which we operate.
But the fish business, we've always been criticized for having it under this structure. I we have earlier stated that that we're not interested in just separating out just to get a higher share price, not at this time because, you know, we have spent twenty years in developing the sole. The turbot has been profitable all along. It's been financing and development of sole. And now that we have cracked the code and we are just about to launch with the technology, the proven technology that we have developed, this phenomenal, fantastic growth that we see, the opportunities that we see both for turbot and for Sol.
But since the market the interest in the market for this type of operation, and if I compare the other companies that operate in the land based recirculation, I felt that it was time for us even though, you know, we haven't gotten the full production and the full EBITDA out of the sole investment yet. But we have, as Jordi showed you, we have the plan to do so. We have decided then to explore the opportunities to do an IPO of Solsea Farm. We have had early look meetings. There's a lot of interest, but the final decision hasn't been made.
But that's something that we will be considering in the future. Then if we move to the LNG. Next slide, please. So this is Avenir. The first ship was now delivered to Petronas and is on a time charter for three years, generating a nice positive cash to the company.
The second ship will be delivered towards the February, early March, and is also on a three year bareboat charter to Haigou Energy. The loan facility of £53,000,000 in place for the first two ships, the drawdown of each tranche on delivery. As we announced earlier, we had four additional ships to be delivered, two seven thousand five hundred and to 20,000 tonnes. There are a lot of interest for these ships. The last remaining ships will be delivered towards the middle and second half of this year.
We at current as we stand, we don't have any firm commitments, but a lot of out of demand for those positions. The Sardinia Terminal that we have built, we expect commissioning in March 2021 with commercial operations starting in May. Next slide, please. That's over to you, Jens. Thank you.
Thank you very
much, Nils, and good afternoon to those in Europe, and good morning to those of you who are in The United States. As normal, I will review the financials and also go through a few key balance sheet items. But I also want to remind you that we have today posted on our website at www.stoltnielsen.com under Investors and Reports and Presentations. We posted the earnings release from this morning. We have posted the interim financials as well as this presentation.
I also want to remind you that our fiscal year starts December 1 every year and ends November 30. And also something to be aware of when you compare the 2020 numbers with 2019 is that the 2020 numbers are based on IFRS 16, while the twenty nineteen volumes still follow the old methodology. If we could go to the next oh, that's good. Thank you. Looking at the operating profit before one offs for the fourth quarter was 58,200,000.0, and that was down from a relatively strong third quarter where we're at 72,600,000.0.
And this reduction we've gone through, Niels has gone through already to a great extent, it reflects a higher operating cost and lower utilization at Stolthaven terminals, higher move related expenses at STC, not fully compensated for in the revenue that we due to the lag effect, and a slight reduction in turbo sales as is normal in the fourth quarter. So on a positive night note, tankers has continued to experience rising freight rates despite somewhat lower volumes and with the regional trades in particular showing good improvements. The main one offs this quarter relates to the net $8,800,000 impairments at Stolthaven terminals. That's the 12,400,000 Stolthaven one offs, less the 3,600,000.0 impairment reversal of a JV loan. So after this impairment, we feel we have cleaned up the Stolthaven balance sheet quite well and that we are in a good position going forward.
Operating profits before the one offs for the full year of 2020 was $1.98, 198,000,000. That was slightly up from 185,000,000 in 2019. Going down on the quarter, net interest expense for the quarter was down, reflecting the earlier partial repayment of the bond S and I o seven, which matures in March, and also related debt issuance cost write offs. FX cost was insignificant this quarter, but you will note that the income tax is down to 900,000, and that's a decrease of about 3,700,000, and that mainly reflects the decrease that we've seen in the performance of terminals, tank containers, and the Sea Farm divisions. And consequently, we ended up with a net profit from continuous operations at, 15.6, million with an EBITDA, for the quarter of 128,000,000, which puts the full year EBITDA, as Nils mentioned, at $490,000,000.
That is up from $441,000,000 in the prior quarter, but there is an IFRS 16 impact to consider in that adjustment. And also for the full year, our net profit ended at €25,400,000 Next slide, please. Covenant, this is a view of the balance sheet from a covenant perspective. And you will see that our we have three main financial covenants in our loan agreements. It's the debt to tangible net worth, which is shown in the top left quadrant.
It is the EBITDA to interest expense, which is shown in the top right quadrant, we and also have a covenant that requires a minimum tangible net worth of $600,000,000,000, which we're well above. If you look at the top left, you will see that we ended the debt with a debt to tangible net worth of 1.53 to one, and that is driven by the debt of $2,500,000,000 down $37,000,000 from the prior quarter, and an improvement in the tangible net worth reflecting the underlying profitability. If you look at top right, the EBITDA to interest expense continues to improve, very much driven by the improvement in EBITDA. And we ended the fourth quarter at 3.55, up from 3.41. Not strictly a covenant, but important to track nonetheless is the net debt to EBITDA on the bottom left quadrant.
And you will see here there's been a steady improvement since it peaked at the 2020 and ended the quarter at 4.68. Our goal here is still to get this to below four:one, but you can see what is driving the improvement on the bottom right quadrant where you can see the EBITDA development, where the recent three quarters improvement in EBITDA have helped strengthen our performance under these covenants. Next slide, please. Capital expenditures for 2020 were 137,000,000, of which 20,000,000 was during the fourth quarter of twenty twenty. This was primarily reflecting about 12,600,000.0 spent on terminal CapEx, with the balance split between tankers, tank containers and Stolt Sea Farm.
You should also keep in mind, as it says in the highlights box to the right, that Stolt Tankers CapEx excludes drydocking, which is capitalized separately. And in 2020, we spent $22,000,000 on drydockings. Subsequent to year end, we started taking delivery of the CTG ships, and you will see an increase in tankers' CapEx, and that reflects the delivery of those five ships in the first quarter of twenty twenty one. The first ship entered our service on January 4, and subsequent ships will now be delivered sort of by the mid of mid of March is the expectation. The good thing about these ships is, yes, it does increase our our capital expenditures, and we will take on debt to finance them, and we are pretty close to completing that financing, but also that these ships will be cash positive from day one when we take the delivery.
The 2021 terminals CapEx, that reflects capital spending that was postponed from 2020 into the future. This was part of, as you might recall, our COVID pandemic response when we back in March pushed forward expenditures, preserved cash as much as we can, and shored up on liquidity. Also, one to note is on Stolt Nielsen Gas. We have 21,000,000 in 2021, and that reflects our further commitment for, equity injection into Avenir LNG. So with that, 2021, it looks like we will be spending about 211,000,000, and that's up from $137,000,000 in 2020.
If you can go to the next slide, please. Cash flow and liquidity. Nils has already touched on that, and I would like to emphasize it. We generated in the fourth quarter, we generated $121,000,000 from operating activities in cash flow. And if you take away the interest paid of 41,000,000, and typically, fourth quarter is a relatively intense quarter when it comes to interest payments, and you see interest payments were up by about 20,000,000 from the prior quarter, you end up with net cash produced by operating activities after interest of about $80,000,000.
In comparison, we used about $20,000,000 in investing activities, and that left us with $59,000,000 after both capital expenditures and interest to pay down debt and to also pay dividends. And this strong cash flow generating capability is also reflected in the full year 2020 and I would say even in 2019, which were two non strong years by any means, yet we have shown that we have a very strong capacity to generate cash flow after interest, after capital expenditures, so that we can continue with our focus on reducing debts and putting the company in a stronger position going forward. Next slide, please. This is our debt maturity profile. We have talked about the SNI five, which is maturing in March, and we have raised the cash and are ready to pay that off in full on maturity date.
And that leaves us really with only regular principal payments for the balance of 2021. Our next significant repayment is the bond that matures in 2022, a $175,000,000. That doesn't mature until September, so there's ample time to deal with that. Our intention is to maintain a presence in the bond market, so we will keep an eye on how that develops, But there's no pressing factors on of maturities. The 138,000,000 relates to two, say, leasebacks done with tank containers as security, and our intention is to continue to roll that forward once that matures.
What we have done so far since the end of the quarter is that we have closed on a $65,000,000 secured loan secured by our Moerdijk and Daggen terminal and on a $100,000,000 revolving credit facility. Our expectation is that we'll draw on the $65,000,000 facility probably within the next few weeks, and then the revolving credit facility will keep in reserve. Also, we are close to completing the financing as mentioned on the five CTG ships, two of which will join our joint venture with NYK called NST NYK Stolt Tankers, and three that we will take onto our balance sheet. From a cash perspective, these will be fully financed, 100%, at quite attractive terms. So with that, I would like to hand it back to you, Nimbus.
Thank you, Jens. Key messages to take away, we wanna become more transparent in what we do when it comes to ESG. As I said, you will see this in our annual report, and you will see also on our website in a consistent manner. Stolt Sea Farm, we are considering doing an IPO to visualize underlying and making the underlying value in stolt base more transparent. Stalt tankers, we also have an ambition of doing an IPO of stalt tankers, and preparations are ongoing, but we need to wait for the right market conditions.
As Jens has shown you, the balance sheet is strengthening. Debt covenants continue to improve. We have a growing positive free cash flow and we are optimistic for the medium to long term. We can always try to speculate when this pandemic is gonna come back sorry, it's gonna be past us, but I'm quite certain it will be. And and we are very well positioned for in each of our businesses for a global economic recovery.
That brings us to the end of the presentation. And now I will be reading out the questions that has been submitted. And the first one is from Danske Bank on this. Can you elaborate how much of your somebody. I'm sorry, but somebody changed it there.
You can publish it.
I can look at published. Can you elaborate how much of your contract portfolio, approximately in percentage, that was renewed in the fourth quarter in Stolt Tankers? The fourth quarter and the first quarter are the most busy quarters, around 35% in each of those two quarters are renewed. So whoever did it, don't change or publish it after I've read it, okay? Peter Haugin from Kepler asks how much of your COA volume that did expire was renewed this quarter.
Did you win any new contract? What is the average duration of the new contract? So I'm not going to state specifically how many contracts we let go and how many we won, but we increased, as you saw from the contract coverage, we increased our contract coverage slightly. Again, the we did also win new contracts, so we were net positive for the quarter. What is the average duration of the new contract?
So this is a good question. Because we expect or we are seeing a raise a rising market, we the contract that we did renew were all one year contracts. And if there if it is a multiple year contract, they are you know, the caps have been increased, you know, not 5% anymore, but more than you know, more more like 20% increases. But most of the contract, because we do expect this strengthening market, were renewed for one year. On the Jansen Bank, on the tank container side, are you able to fully recover past through the increased shipment expenses, both land and sea?
Yes, we are, but it it lags. Bendik Ingebredsson, could management comment on what aims what it aims to use the proceeds? Can you stop, Ellie? I'll I'll take care of it. You don't have to publish them.
I'll take care of it. Sorry about that. Just a sec. Could management comment on what it aims to use the proceeds on from a potential IPO at Stolt Sea Farm? Jordi, if you can answer that.
Yes. So not with a lot of detail, but the main intention, obviously, is to take the necessary steps to roll out the, what we call, the near term growth plan. And you've seen that some some of the things happening in the near term happened within our already owned or leased land. So so that's going to be a faster rollout, but we will take necessary steps to prepare for the rest of the near term growth in terms of acquiring for other land, for example, but not much more in detail. Thank you.
Thank you. Then the next one, Jens Hillers from H and P Capital Advisors. On Avenir, can you please provide some color on the charter rates you expect to be for the delivered vessels? I do not want to comment upon that, but there is I don't want to give specific numbers, but there's quite a bit of demand for these positions. So they are well timed and well positioned, so I do expect attractive returns on those ships.
And then the same question or from the same person. Can you please elaborate on the path to a potential IPO for the Avenir business? Yes. I could say that Avenir, our ambition is not to be a shipping company, but to develop is to become a supplier of LNG, of small scale LNG to remote customer or stranded customers, as we call And we are in the process of commissioning the first terminal. We will then source it, ship it, store it and distribute it and also sell the gas.
And that, as you probably understand, takes time. So I feel that we need to come have a little more contracted business or or have a slightly bigger company before we consider an IPO. But in in the long run, it is our ambitions to do an IPO of SEAFARM. But timing wise, it's too early to say. Then, Jordan, there's another one for Sea Farm.
Can you provide potential annual EBITDA when sole and turbine production capacity is full, fully operational at mid cycle prices? That's something you'll elaborate on, Joli?
Well, again, not with detail on the figures. Obviously, we cannot provide at this stage. But what I can mention is that the sources for EBITDA growth are going to come from, well, first volume growth from the growth plan, then the positive evolution we're seeing in average prices and then going forward with that and and and sustaining those average prices high. And finally, yes, with the rollout of the sole farming in the circulation relevant savings in production costs and therefore much better results. But that's as far as we can go at this moment.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. I would also say that in the presentation, you can see what the EBITDA from each of the modules are. And I'd just say it's a conservative estimate or based it's based on the growth that we're seeing today on these modules. So and you can see from the growth plan that he presented, you can also calculate the potential EBITDA both for the turbid and the salt from the information that we had provided. You can make assumptions.
Then it is Lukas Dahl at ABG. You made a bit of a U-turn on dividend, declaring €0.25 in late twenty twenty. Given your market outlook, what is your thought on this subject for 2021? Well, it is our job to provide a return to the shareholders. So I feel, know,
as you
know, we cut back the we we canceled after announcing a final dividend for 2019. We held back or we canceled it because we want to preserve cash because of the uncertainty or, you know, we stated that we want to plan for the worst but hope for the best. And we did it. We took a lot of action, as you know, and we did a lot of cost saving and we raised enough liquidity. End of the year, it turned out, as you can see, profitable.
So we felt that it was the right thing to declare '25 interest for an interim dividend for 2020. Going forward, if we continue to see a recovery in the market, needless to we will pay go back to normal dividend. Historically, normal dividend has been around But we will manage our balance sheet conservatively and making certain that we have a strong balance sheet and a strong liquidity position. For Tankers, you write about a weakening spot market, yet your COA rate renewals was up.
Is it a result of a low starting point or the COA market being somewhat decoupled from the spot market? I would say, yes. Most of our large customer, they do their business with COAs. They can't really operate in the spot market. So there is kind of a slight decoupling between the spot market and the COA market.
And I think our customers that are dependent upon having a steady supply steady, reliable service, they want to they see how the market conditions are. They see supply situation. So they understand that most likely, understand that the market is on its way to strengthen. And therefore, we are able, even though the spot market has been low in the third sorry, in the fourth quarter, we were able to get a higher COA rates. And I think that will continue going forward.
Now also the COA rates have been low because we have had a horrible shipping market for the last, I daresay, last twenty years. So it's it's a long way until we get to the right level. It's not right to say it's been bad for twenty years, but overall, the return in shipping over the last fifteen, twenty years has not been sustainable. So it's a long recovery. But with the current supply situation, I think that we will get there.
So I think we will continue to see an increase in COA rates. And that's also why we're only willing to fix for one year. For containers, high activity is negatively affecting the margin. Do you consider to prioritize profitability versus growth? Or is that difficult?
Well, I think that the tank container market has changed. It is changing. It was a young industry where, I would say, relatively healthy margins, it's become more and more competitors, more and more operators. So it's become more competitive. So we have to the margins will come down, but we need to be and this is what we see.
We we the the demand for the transportation of products in tank containers continues to grow. It still is cannibalizing from from from drums or taking away from drums. It's cannibalizing from tankers. It's become a very efficient way of of shipping products and very competitive way of shipping products. So the the demand for the service is growing but under more more competition.
So the the the trick, again, is to have the right platform. It is to be able to calculate your pricing correctly so that you don't you minimize empty repositionings, and we have that platform. So I think it's going to be a low margin business but with more shipments. So hopefully, overall, higher profitability. What amount of debt are you planning to raise against the five new vessels?
I think Jens addressed that on the Japanese ships, we were at we were able to obtain 100% financing or close to 100% financing. And on the two on the on the sorry. On the two Japanese joint venture ships, 100% financing. On the three ships, it was, what, 80% financing? Yes?
95% financing.
95%. Yeah. Sorry. What is the reason for buying more Golar LNG shares? It's because we believe in the company at an attractive price.
And, subsequently, the share price has appreciated from what the issue was priced at. That was Lucas D'Ault. And then we go to the last one we have. Jens, if you can take that one, can you indicate level drydocking costs for 2021 for tankers?
Without going into specifics, it's if you think of us spending around $20,000,000 on drydockings in a given year, that's good measurement to use when you do your analysis.
That completes all of the questions. Thank you very much for participating over Teams. It's a new world, and we operate. Unfortunately, we have to continue to do these Teams presentation. But hopefully, in the not too distant future, we can go back to regular face to face meetings and also these presentations that we usually do in Austria.
Thank you very much for participating, and that completes our fourth quarter earnings release. Thank you.