Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to today's Stolt-Nielsen Limited Presentation and Conference Call, First Quarter 2020 Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I must advise you that your conference is being recorded today on Thursday, the 16th of April, 2020. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Niels Stolt-Nielsen, CEO of Stolt-Nielsen Limited. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon. Thank you for joining us on this audio conference for our first quarter 2020 results presentation. I will be referring to a presentation which you could either download or follow from our website. You go to our website, www.stolt-nielsen.com and hit the latest presentation on the front page, you will be able to get our earnings presentation, which we will be going through. To get me on the line is Jens Grüner-Hegge, our Chief Financial Officer. You move to the second page, forward-looking statement, which I usually don't go through, but I would like to highlight the second paragraph. The following financial statements are not in accordance with IFRS as the COVID-19 pandemic is a triggering event for review of impairment, which has not yet been performed. Jens will explain why in his part of the presentation.
Moving to page three. The agenda this time will be again the Stolt-Nielsen first quarter highlights. I will take you through a COVID-19 update, really starting off with what we are seeing right now in the markets in each of the businesses, and also talking a little about the actions that we have been taking. I will go through each of the businesses and review the first quarter performance. Jens will take you through the financials, and then we will move on to the Q&As. Moving to page four. I regret to show you the loss. That's the first loss that we have had after 64 consecutive profitable quarters. The operating revenue basically flat, but the EBITDA down $99.6 million, and that's down from $116.6 million. Operating profit also down to $16.6 million, and that's down from $46.8 million in the previous quarter.
Net profit, $5.5 million in the fourth quarter down to $20.2 million loss in the first quarter. If you look at the net profit variance analysis, I will go through each of the business segments in detail later. We delivered a $5.5 million net profit in the fourth quarter of 2019, $9.9 million operating profit for Tankers, a $7.1 million higher operating profit for Stolthaven. Stolt Tank Containers, $9 million lower operating profit. Stolt Sea Farm, slightly higher, almost the same. We did a big impairment of $12 million on the biomass in the first quarter. Other incorporations of 6.8- . Higher net finance expenses, slightly higher of half a million dollars, higher FX of one and a half, and lower income tax as a result of the impairment that we did on the biomass.
A lower income tax of 6.4, bringing us to $20.2 million loss for the first quarter. Moving on to page five. I'll take you through each of the businesses. Again, this is really what we are currently seeing right now in the market, what operational things that we are seeing operation-wise, and also initiatives that we have been taking in each of the businesses to be able to endure or ride out a prolonged downturn. Just talking about the market right now in Tankers. The ships are trading with minimal operational delays. Yeah, there are new procedures in port and there are some delays, but delays are hours, not days. The spot market and the COA remains mostly stable, but some weaknesses are emerging in some markets. Overall, spot markets have been holding up. The COA nominations have been relatively healthy.
As you will later see in what we also present in the earnings release, the contracts that we renewed in the first quarter was up some 4.7%. The momentum that we saw in the fourth quarter is carrying on into the first quarter, even after the pandemic really started having its full impact. I think also that is driven by a relatively healthy MR market, which we are seeing at around $25,000 today. Right now, the markets are holding up relatively well, and it looks like that is same in March and also going into April. Operational update. The biggest challenge we have is of course, being able to change the crew aboard the ships. That's quite a big challenge, not only us, but for the whole industry where the borders are closed and airplanes are canceled, it's difficult to change crew.
However, our technical platform across the business has proven very well. We are receiving great feedback from our customers that with the systems that we have in place and even when working from home, we have really not lost any operations because of this new environment that we live in. On the saving initiatives in Tankers, and this is applied all across all of the businesses. We are looking at cutting back as much capital expenditure as possible. A&G savings. The capital expenditure on the Tanker side, we don't have any new buildings on order, so the CapEx there is primarily driven on the scrubbers. Where we have the opportunity to cancel scrubbers, we will. We have identified, sorry, they're some related, but we have identified approximately $30 million of savings from Tankers on CapEx. In the A&G savings, we've gone through hiring freeze.
We have terminated all non-essential professional fees, contract workers, temp workers, and we have kind of stopped all travel and entertainment. Of course, hiring freeze, as I said earlier. We have also gone through on OpEx, taken against all of the businesses. We have prepared a plan for a 20%, 30%, 40% downside scenario, which has been developed in each of the businesses with the associated savings initiatives. Not only A&G and CapEx, but also looking at OpEx savings under those scenarios. Moving to page six, Terminals. High utilization globally, although the throughput is slightly down. What we're seeing is high inquiries for storage of products. Of course, the throughput is down as consumption falls. Most contracts are fixed storage contracts, but some revenues, of course, link to the additional throughput.
Of the business that we're in, I mean, the Terminals business is the one that I'm not worried about. That is quite secure, at least for the next couple of years. Refined products Contango has resulted in increased demand for storage, especially for CPP, both in Europe and in Korea. Operation update. All Terminals impacted by the stay-at-home regulation able to achieve critical infrastructure approval, which allows work to continue with split work teams being implemented and identified vulnerable workers being removed from work. We have kind of gone into two shifts, so that if one shift has a case, we still have another shift that can carry on the operations. Again, operations are continuing as normal, if you can call it normal. Saving initiative. This is really where we have identified most of the CapEx savings.
I think we identified a little over $30 million of capital expenditure. The instructions have really been across the businesses to hold back on all CapEx, unless it is committed to third party or it is a regulatory requirement. For example, in Tankers, we have a lot of ballast water treatment systems, which we have to proceed with because of regulatory requirement. We have also in Tankers looked at delaying dry docking and talking to flags to see if that is possible. That is again, to conserve cash. Going back to Terminals. A&G savings through hiring freeze, termination of non-essential professional fees and contractors. Again, also here, T&E has stopped. Again, here we also have a 20%, 30%, 40% scenario plan in place if that develops. Moving in Tank Containers.
Here also we are seeing a very active market, as we will show you later, the shipments in the month of March is at record levels. Our utilization is over 71%. The markets are holding up. Interestingly, we are also seeing an increased inquiries for storage, is using the tank containers for storage. Of course, we are going out aggressively and securing as much business and long-term business as possible. Operational update. All markets still operational, but impacted by the stay-at-home regulation and restrictions locally, but all operation teams are working as usual. Our platform is really showing it's fantastic. We are getting fantastic feedback from our customers that we are not losing any business from the staying at home or working from home. Systems are working very well.
Really, I think we are doing a tremendous job in continuing to move the Tank Containers under these circumstances. Saving initiatives. Very capital-intense and light this business, and very little capital expenditure pool there. Mostly what we've been able to identify where we hold back is the development of systems. What makes Stolt Tank Containers as market leaders is how good they are at developing these fantastic systems. We haven't stopped them, but we haven't canceled them, but we have freezed them. Here also, A&G and all the other things we continue, we have implemented. OpEx savings also, we have done the exercise of a 20%, 30%, 40% scenario. If that happens in this segment, we are ready to implement it if necessary. Stolt Sea Farm on page eight. That is really the one that has been hit the hardest.
I remind you that the turbot, which is our main product, most of that is being sold to the restaurants and the hotels and the catering business. That market is no longer there. Our biggest market is Spain, Italy, and France, and that has fallen off a cliff. That's a huge challenge. We have taken the hit, we have taken and written down the biomass. The challenge has, of course, been that initially, three weeks ago, the volume has dropped dramatically. We have to continue to harvest because it's a growing biomass and we have to harvest. The first weeks, we just had to push the products out. Now, gradually, people, even though they're at home, they still want to enjoy their fish.
Now we're starting to see, again, a pickup in retail sales, and we're developing new products so it's easier for people to prepare the fish themselves. Operationally, since March 13, farm employees are split in shifts and following all protocols and preventive measures. Again, we have the shifts so that if one shift gets it, we can continue. We have a contingency plan in place for feed is being delivered, oxygen, vaccines, and logistical supports. We're also implementing slowing the biomass growth, so we have reduced the feeding. Now, of course, when you have a lower biomass, our production per unit goes up, so that's going to affect us. We're continuing, for the time being, to put out the same amount of fish.
If the market picks up, and we've taken a hit and we expect the market to be slow for the next two to three months, but when it picks up, we can quickly start feeding the fish again more and the growth in the biomass will pick up quite quickly. Saving initiatives, they have looked through everything and again, they have held back on CapEx, and the same as all the business hiring freeze, temporary layoffs. In all of the businesses, in all of the regions where we operate, we look at the support that we can get when we look at these layoff scenarios, and take the advantage of what the various governments have to offer. We are moving to page nine, the action list. In summary, we have identified the total savings from both A&G cutbacks, OpEx savings, and CapEx savings.
We have identified a total of $83 million. We also took the dramatic step of the board volunteered to take a 50% hit on their fees and the senior management, me and my direct reports, have taken a 20% cut. On the financing side, as you've seen on the front page, at the end of the first quarter, we have $519 million of available liquidity. Some of that has already been used to repay the bond that came due in April. Short-term-wise, we have, or at least for 2020, we have sufficient liquidity. Jens will take you more in detail what we have. In addition, we have done various scenarios. As I said, we have done 20%, 30%, 40%. Under the toughest scenario, and that's in the scenario in which we operate, we want to make certain that we have enough liquidity.
We have five terminals unencumbered with a potential borrowing capacity close to $200 million. We also have significant additional value in shares in joint venture terminals, which we believe we would easily or relatively easily be able to borrow in the region of $200 million. Very much the focus is on the short- term. The last three weeks we've been looking at cutting back and saving what is within our control, and then now we're working on securing additional liquidity so that we can ride out a storm. The target is, of course, to be able to have enough liquidity in place so that if the bond market is not back in March of 2021, we have that liquidity. That's what we're planning on.
We have ample headroom under all of our financial covenants, so even if we have to take an impairment in the second quarter, I think that we are within our covenants. We will be within our covenants. Again, plans being implemented for raising an additional $250 million of liquidity, which will cover the March 2021 bond payment. Moving to page 10 and 11. This now I'll go through each of the businesses', the first quarter results. The operating revenue in Tankers was up to $280 million, up from $274 million. The EBITDA was down $49.5 million, down from $53.5 million. The operating profit, unfortunately, was down to $4.7 million, and that's down from $14.6 million. Operating days at sea in the quarter was basically the same as the previous quarter.
If you look at the waterfall, the analysis, and this is an operating profit analysis, we had $14.6 million of operating profit in the previous quarter. We had lower trading results of $3.9 million. That is very much driven by the repositioning that we had to do because of the delays in the dry docking that we had as a result of the installation of the scrubbers and the ballast water. Also, the repositionings that we need to do to serve our contracts because of the Groenland incident. We have to work around that, so we have a lot of expensive ballast legs which hit us in the first quarter. We also had a transition cost going into IMO 2020. It's very difficult to get it totally right, so we have $4 million of expensive fuel that we bought, which we'll not be able to recover.
Which we burnt in the fourth quarter, which we won't be able to retrieve from our contract customers. Even though we were very successfully able to implement new bunker clause. The fuel that we bought in 2019, we have $4 million, which we won't be able to recover. Overall, the bunker costs were higher in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter. We have some higher owning expenses that's primarily driven on timing, but also higher insurance costs of $2.1 million totally. We had some higher equity in $12.9 million and others positive contribution of $2.1 million, which gave us as an operating profit of $4.7 million. I dare say that most of these differences were one-offs in Tankers. Moving to page 12.
The average price of the IFO and the very low sulfur fuel consumed was $506 per ton in the first quarter, and that's compared to IFO consumed during the fourth quarter of $384 per ton. The average price of the IFO and the VLSF fuel was $545 per ton which was purchased, compared with IFO of $401 per ton, the price of $401 per ton in the fourth quarter. The stuff that we bought in the first quarter was still quite high. Every day we will start improvement because of the cheaper fuel that we are buying and consuming now. It will take time for that to come to our bottom line. Again, the IMO transition cost us an extra $4 million, which is not recoverable from our customers. The year-to-date, the COA bunker surcharge clauses cover 67.5% of our total fuel consumption.
Unfortunately, we have a hedge in place which is out of the money, which we had 36,000 tons from April 2020 until December 2020, which, as of April 16, had a negative value of $4.2 million. Moving to page 13, you can see our STJS, Stolt Tankers Joint Service Sailed-in Time Charter Index and sensitivity. Unfortunately, we started to see a pickup, but the market has changed, or the issues that we had in the first quarter caused it to drop further. The positive news is that the COA renewals in the quarter were up 4.74%. So of the contracts that we did renew, they were up 4.74%. The order book on page 14. The order book now stands at 5.3%, which it keeps on falling. There will be some delays in deliveries because of the COVID-19.
I question if there are so many new ships going to be ordered anytime soon. As I expect that once we are out of this storm, the market will be quite strong. It's up to anybody's guess how long this will last. Moving to page 15, market outlook. I wish I could predict. We haven't seen the fall off fall yet. As I've said many times, to the team, to the organization, is that we are hoping for the best, but we are planning for the worst. Moving chemicals around the world, which is the feedstock for all manufacturing, of course, it's going to impact us. To what extent? We also have to remember that we are also carrying a lot of stuff, which is essential. Fertilizers, detergents, all the chemicals which are used for detergents. Not everything is going to be dropped off.
Of course, there is going to be an impact. I'm not going to speculate how this is going to develop. It depends on how long this lockdown is going to last. I hope it's not going to last forever. I think that the economic meltdown from the economic collapse from an extended lockdown will have bigger mortality than the virus. We have to open up. Hopefully, once all the countries have enough hospital beds and enough ventilators, that they will start gradually to open up again. Again, we are hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. You can say that what we're seeing in terminals, we are seeing a high inquiry for storage. Of course, that is products that are not being consumed.
I wonder if the chemical manufacturers, like the oil producers, they are continuing to produce because it's very expensive to close down the production entities. Instead of closing down, and if we believe it's going to be a two to three to four months slowdown, it is more economical to keep the factories going or keep the processing plants operating, just at the lower volume, but keep them running instead of closing it down. That means that they will still produce, they will still have to find storage for it. When the storage on the loading side and on the discharge side is full. When all the inventory is full, maybe then they will start looking for floating storage. That's an optimistic thought. We are seeing it in the terminal side, we're seeing on the tank container side.
Maybe we can also see it on the shipping side. Moving to terminals on page 17. The operating profit, basically the same. EBITDA slightly down, operating profit up 62%, and utilization up to 90.5%. That's up to 1%. The operating revenue was flat, where utilization increased to 90.5% due to the high utilization in New Orleans, Singapore and Australia terminals, although at lower rates. The operating expenses, excluding the one-offs of $1.3 million for insurance costs in the fourth quarter, decreased by $1.7 million, mainly due to lower cost facilities and maintenance expenses. The EBITDA decreased by $1.2 million, impacted by the lower equity income and the higher energy expenses. Operating profit increased because of prior quarter impairment of Newcastle Terminal of $5.5 million and Port Alma, Bundaberg and Wynyard as is being fully depreciated in the fourth quarter.
If you move to page 18 where we have the waterfall, the fourth quarter operating profit was $11.7 million, slightly higher operating revenue of $0.1, lower operating expenses of $0.4, lower appreciation because of the impairment within the fourth quarter in Australia. Slightly lower equity income. Higher A&G expenses, bringing the operating profit of $18.9. Moving to page 19. The markets remain strong. In the United States, we're seeing lots of inquiries. Europe, for our terminal, is full. Of course, our big terminal in Antwerp, a big part of it is CPP. Because of the Contango in the market, it's high demand for storage. The Chinese market remains weak, although storage inquiries increase due to inventory needing to be. Again, people need to store the product. We're seeing a relatively strong Korean market, too.
Brazil remains stable for petroleum, ethanol, and chemicals, although initial signs of weakness due to the ongoing lockdown due to COVID. The contract portfolio in the terminal business secures that business for at least the next two years, which gives me comfort. Tank Containers on page 21. Operating revenue is down 3%, down to $129.4 million. EBITDA is down to $16.5 million, operating profit down to $6.7 million, and utilization up to 68.5%. In the recent month, we have seen actually that going up all the way up to over 70%. If you look at the waterfall, the fourth quarter operating profit was $15.7 million, 3.1% higher transportation revenue. What we saw in Tank Containers is high levels of activity, but it was more expensive to move the products and move the tanks. That is really driven by several factors.
We have lower demurrage of $3.2, lower other revenue of $4 million. That's a $4 million that we had of one-off with our customers, one of our biggest customers in the fourth quarter. Higher fuel-related expenses relates to the IMO 2020 implementation, which we weren't able to pass through. Again, one-off, and also higher repositioning costs. That has been a challenge with the rapidly changing trade flows and the buildup of Tank Containers in China during the outbreak of the COVID-19. We saw that we had to reposition tanks, which comes at a cost. Lower operating expense of $2.4 and lower equity income of $0.6, giving an operating profit for the quarter of $6.7 million. Moving to page 22. Again, demand is firm in Tank Containers. The Asian markets remain busy and China is picking up pace.
In Europe, demand has slowed for Benelux countries, but is still strong in France for both chemicals and food grades. Demand in both North and South America remains steady, and the food grade business continues to grow. As we are drinking sitting at home, the booze that we transport, we are seeing a big pickup in activity. Continue with upwards. After quarter end, the utilization rates are slowly improving compared to the first quarter and that will reduce the record number of shipments. However, the margin continued to be under pressure, not only from competition, but also because of the additional costs associated with the movements. Stolt Sea Farm on page 24. This is really where we have taken the biggest hit, and we had an operating profit of $1.7 million in the fourth quarter.
Lower turbot sale of $0.1 million, lower sole sales of $0.9 million, slightly higher caviar sales, lower operating expenses of $1.2 million. We did take the impairment at the end of the quarter based on the prices that we saw because of the corona of $12 million. Lower fair value adjustment of $0.3 million, lower depreciation of $0.3 million, and lower A&G of $0.3 million and other $0.1 million coming in at a - $9.8 million for Stolt Sea Farm. Really taking the hit in the adjustment of our inventory value in the first quarter. Moving on to Stolt-Nielsen Gas, on page 26. I just would like to remind you that we're the first ship to be delivered. There are big delays, but the first ship that we are delivering will go to Petronas on a three-year bareboat, and we expect the delivery to be in June of 2020.
We also have a second ship which are being chartered out to Golar Power on a three-year bareboat, similar terms. The delivery for that ship is expected in 2020. We are at term sheets having agreed for the financing for the first four ships. The terminal, the HIGAS terminal, should commence operations in the fourth quarter. That is also being delayed because of the corona. Operations are expected to happen in 2020. We continue to negotiate supply agreements for customers that will be going through HIGAS, but we're also looking at additional agreement with a major industrial offtake customer in Slovenia, which has not yet been announced. That completes my part. I will give the word over to Jens, and I'll come back during the question and answers. Thank you. Jens?
Thank you, Niels. As Niels mentioned, I will provide a bit further details on the financial results as they were released today for the first quarter. Due to the uncertainty that we're facing going forward, we will not provide the normal P&L guidance on the A&G depreciation, amortization, and share of profit for JVs for the next quarter like we normally do. This is the first quarter that we're recording as per IFRS 16. That has impact on the debt level as well as assets, interest expense and EBITDA, and only a minor impact on the net profit. As we stated in our earnings release earlier today, I want to remind you that the financials reported today are not strictly as per IFRS. Under IFRS, the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic is an event that triggers an impairment review of the company's balance sheet.
The company, we have so far been unable to quantify the possible impairments of long-term assets due to the difficulties really in determining how this pandemic will evolve, and the effects it may have, both on the value of the company's assets and our ability to continue as a going concern. We will come back and perform the full impairment analysis ahead of the release of our second quarter results, which are scheduled for July 2nd. When we did the impairment analysis for the full 2019 results, we had ample headroom on most of our assets. It's a good question. The press release as issued, and this investor presentation is available on our website, as Niels mentioned, under the section of reporting presentations. Moving on to slide 29.
The operating profit before one-offs for the first quarter was $28.5 million, quite a bit down from the $52.8 million in the fourth quarter. As explained by Niels, this was really driven by the low results in Tankers, which was down $10 million, driven by scheduling issues, unrecoverable bunker costs, and higher shipowning costs. STC was $9 million lower due to lower demurrage revenue or move-related expenses, including repos and lower other revenue relating to prior quarter. Stolt Sea Farm and Stolthaven Terminals were both mostly flat when we exclude the one-offs. The major one-off this quarter was, as mentioned already, the write-down of the biomass volume, reflecting the difficult market situation that Stolt Sea Farm is facing right now following the shutdown of restaurants and hotels after the COVID-19 outbreak. Net interest expense was slightly below the guidance of $35.3 million but also slightly above the prior quarter.
We also had a small loss in FX down from a gain in the prior quarter, and income tax was down significantly due to lower results in Stolt Sea Farm, as well as in the fourth quarter, we booked a provision for uncertain tax positions in relation to the Stolt Tank Containers division. The net result, therefore, is a loss of $20.2 million for the quarter. As Niels mentioned, our first loss-making quarter since 2003. EBITDA came in at $99.6 million. Note that the EBITDA is before the fair value of biological assets, insurance reimbursements, and other one-time non-cash items. If we can move on to slide 30. As a reminder, one of our main objectives from a balance sheet perspective is to continue to focus on reducing debt while maintaining a strong liquidity position.
As we applied IFRS 16, the debt increased, and the increase related to IFRS 16 was $184 million. With that, we saw it increase to $2.58 billion, and that's up from $2.34 billion. Our liquidity position was also marginally up from the prior quarter at $519 million. If you recall, in early February, we did a bond issue of $142 million to raise cash, take the opportunity while the market was there. That was also to help us prepare for the repayment of the bond SNI06, which was repaid last week. You'll see that bond was reflected in the current maturity of debt on the balance sheet of $278 million. Tangible net worth slipped slightly from $1.6 billion to $1.58 billion.
If you combine that with the slight debt increase due to IFRS 16, you see that the debt-to-tangible-net worth ratio increased to 1.64 from 1.47 in the fourth quarter 2019. If you exclude the IFRS impact from that increase, measured on a like for like with the fourth quarter, it would have been 1.52. It's also important to note that in our bank covenants, we have the ability to continue to measure these covenants per pre-IFRS 16. It's the lower numbers that apply to us. The EBITDA to interest expense ratio for the quarter was 3.09, slightly down from 3.12, but also here you had an IFRS 16 impact, but this time in the opposite direction. The ratio would have been 2.92 without the IFRS 16 impact, and that's reflecting the lower EBITDA that we had this quarter.
The jump in net debt to EBITDA also reflected the impact of IFRS 16, as well as the slightly weaker EBITDA that we had in the quarter. Moving to slide 31, to the cash flow. Cash flow from operations was positive $60.8 million, down from $68.9 million, again, reflecting the weaker results this quarter. This was partly compensated for by the higher demurrage. The increase in cash used in investment activities predominantly reflects the cash received from our divestment of our shareholding in Avance Gas Holding. It was about $25.9 million in the prior quarter. During the first quarter, as I mentioned, we raised about $142 million in new bond proceeds. About 50 or so of this was used to retire part of the April 2020 bond, the SNI06. We retired that early.
We also had some further scheduled principal payments, making up the total of $93.2 million in debt repayments. Also note that the dividend that is referred to here was the interim dividend paid in December. Net cash for the quarter was a + $55.3 million, resulting in a cash balance at quarter end of $191.3 million. Moving on to slide 32. Here is a slightly different view from what we have shown you earlier. We want to share with you the quarterly view of our debt maturity profile. As you see, the SNI06 is the one I referred to, which was repaid last week. Our focus now is on securing our position with regards to SNI05 maturing in March of 2021. Therefore, we have taken a number of actions, as mentioned by Niels, to strengthen our position.
We continue to test the balance sheet and our cash flow in downside scenarios, and thus reforming our action plan as we go forward so that we can be prepared for whatever eventuality is thrown at us. If you go to next slide 33, you will here see the capital expenditures program and the reductions that we have so far earmarked. That's in total $62 million split between Tankers with $13, Stolthaven with $30. Stolt Sea Farm has reduced their capital expenditures by $9. Then Corporate and Other on IT projects with a further $9 million, so total of $62. If you subtract that from the remaining CapEx, you will get to just under $100 million remaining for 2020. That's mostly comprised of safety and environmental related CapEx as well as committed or close to completion projects.
If you move on to slide 34, here on top, I have summarized the initiatives already put in place amounting to cash savings of $83 million that Niels went through. As mentioned, it includes the cancellation of dividends that would have been payable in May, the reduction in board fees by 50% and the management pay by 20%, and other initiatives. We are also in the process of developing the downside plans, where we will affect significant OpEx savings should we see a negative impact on our markets. Now, importantly for our liquidity position is to highlight assets where we can take out further loans. We have been in discussions with our banks to secure liquidity for the eventuality that this will be needed in the future. I must say, we have received a fantastic support from our banks so far.
We want to secure our position early so that we're in a strong position should the market slow down. In addition to the excess of $500 million that we had at the end of the first quarter, we also sit on five unencumbered terminals that are generating good EBITDA. In addition, we have investments in joint venture terminals that are strategically positioned in hub areas, which have generated significant, and continue to generate, steady EBITDA. That provides us, in total, with further borrowing capacity of in excess of $400 million. If you look at the savings combined with the financing possibilities, we have a further in excess of $500 million in liquidity enhancing measures. That should put us in a strong position, and could also put us in a position to take advantage of opportunities that might arise at the other end of the COVID pandemic.
Moving to slide 35. It's really to give you a show of the development of various key financial metrics. Keep in mind, this now reflects the IFRS 16, whereas the covenants are actually measured against pre-IFRS 16 measures. Again, I'll leave that to you to read through. There is not much to say at this moment. A&G on slide 36 was higher this quarter due to a fourth quarter adjustment for profit sharing, and also inflationary salary increases. The increase in depreciation and amortization was mainly due to IFRS 16 being applied this quarter. Moving on to slide 37. Our share of profits in JVs was $5.1 million. That was in line with the prior quarter. The improvement in Tankers was really due to a loss taken on an asset held for sale in the fourth quarter.
Income taxes were lower due to the impairment in Stolt Sea Farm, and also a non-recurrence of a fourth quarter adjustment at STC. Moving on to slide 38. As a reminder, again, the EBITDA figures as presented here exclude any impact of IFRS fair value adjustments and impairment to Stolt Sea Farm's inventory gain or loss on sale of assets and other non-cash one-time events. Tankers' EBITDA was down due to lower results, while Terminals remained flat, although the operating margin improved. STC's EBITDA decreased due to the higher operating costs. As a result, SNL's EBITDA for the quarter decreased to $100 million from $117 million. With that, I'll hand it back to you, Niels.
Thank you, Jens. On page 39, the key messages for our presentation for 2020. As Jens showed you, over $500 million of liquidity at the end of the first quarter. We have taken aggressive and early action to reduce cash burn in all of our businesses, and we continue to work on a downside plan when the market slows down, that we're ready. We have a plan in place to trigger once we see that downside. We have unencumbered assets available for further financing, as Jens showed you. Believing that we can raise a potential additional $400 million. We have a strong and good relationship with our core banks, and we also have ample room under our bank covenants, even in the downside scenarios that we have taken.
I must say that the team, the organization, has really stepped up and understands the seriousness of the situation, are working very hard in achieving all these savings, and are very committed on keeping the operations going. Very admirable. I hope that in these types of crises, if you're able to navigate through these crises, there will be opportunities arising from it. That concludes our presentation. Operator, now we will open up for any questions that are out there.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. Once again, that is star one if you wish to ask a question. We seem to have no questions at this time. Once again, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We have one question, and it comes from Eirik Haavaldsen from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yeah. Hi. Just two questions, really. The first being, if we take a step back and look at your financial numbers now and related comments around what's happening in the market and what we're seeing, and compare that to what you're saying. It seems perhaps, to us as outsiders, that what you're doing and the focus you're having on liquidity is a little bit drastic. Can you maybe give an indication on what you are expecting in terms of volume drops, what you're seeing in the second and maybe third quarter? Both in terms of volumes, what your clients are saying, and perhaps also a little bit on the cost side, in terms of bunkers and further IMO 2020 transition costs. To us, it sounds a little bit like your world is about to fall apart, but we can't really see that from your numbers.
Well, thank you for the question. I would just start by saying is that we're hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. One half the population is sitting inside. I do expect that there's going to be a significant drop in economic activity and in global manufacturing, in global GDP. I hope I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, well, we can handle it. We would like to prepare, and we would like to be early, so that we have that necessary liquidity in place. Again, as we are saying right now, we are not seeing a significant drop. We're starting to see weaknesses in some market, but we haven't seen a dramatic drop anywhere yet, except for Stolt Sea Farm. On the logistics business, it continues.
We are preparing for it, and I think it's prudent to prepare for it so that you are ready. Our customers, nobody knows what is going to happen. The customers are very difficult to get information out of them. As I said during the presentation, what I think is happening is that they would like to continue believing that this is going to be a three, four-month lockdown, that they would like to keep production going. Even though they don't have customers for it, they produce it so that they can keep the plant going. Either they store it or they ship it at the end destination. That's what we're seeing now. Eventually, if it's an extended lockdown or a slow economy, that is going to impact the demand for transportation. I hope you're right that we are overreacting.
At least we are planning for the worst, hoping for the best. I don't expect to see any further IMO 2020. That's a transition from 2019 to 2020. It's very difficult to get the timing totally correct. I think that we won't see any further IMO 2020 issue. We will cancel as many scrubbers as possible. Again, that's primarily to preserve cash. Where the contractor or the supplier is late and we can get out of the contract, we will.
It's of course prudent. On the tank containers, it seems a little bit like the increase in volumes and activity, and actually almost had a negative effect because it did raise the cost base by more than what you got the benefits. Is that something that has continued or was that also a little bit of a one-off thing?
Your line is pretty bad. I think your question is if the one-offs or what happened in Tank Containers was, the Chinese New Year was extended, and as a result, customers kept on shipping containers into China. There was a buildup of containers in China, which caused a unbalanced supply of containers around the world, which caused us to have to reposition the tanks. Repositioning costs were quite high during the first quarter as a result of it. I think we will continue to see repositioning costs high going forward. The underlying market, the shipments were, the subsequent after the first quarter, subsequently, we've seen utilization of 71%, and we have seen a record number of shipments.
The moves are there, but the cost of doing those moves, and the work needed to get the moves done because of the cancellation of sailings by the liners, has put an additional. The margins are under pressure, not only from competition, but the cost of doing the move has gone up. I think we will continue to see that for a while. The positive thing is that for the time being, activity is high in tank containers. We are seeing signs of weakness in some markets. Again, on a positive note, we are seeing an increased demand for requests for using tank containers as storage. That's good news for us because that's a rental income for us.
I think that what we saw in the first quarter with Tank Containers was. The poor results there are primarily driven by the effects that we saw from the low sulfur fuel, the repo cost, and the repo cost was very much driven by the corona outbreak in China and also the cost associated with each of the moves because of the uncertainty and the change of trade flows.
Perfect. That's good, Stolt. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Dennis Anghelopoulos from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. First question, you guys might have answered it, but can we hopefully assume that you guys have cost pass-through for the bunkers, that there is nothing sort of outlined?
Can you repeat the question because your line was also breaking up. What was that? That one.
Can we now assume that you're 100% fuel pass-through?
Yes. The bunker clauses in our COAs, 99% of them, we have full pass-through of the increased bunker costs.
On the spot market, for some of your business, have you seen pass-through there?
Well, the pass-through in the form that the bunker prices recently have fallen and the rates have not been falling. If we are asked if we have seen an increase, we started to see an increase in the spot rates before the coronavirus. We saw a positive momentum. We were able to get both the contract rates and the spot rates up. Since then, as you've seen recently, the bunker prices have fallen dramatically, and we have not seen the same fall in spot rates. That's a positive.
just to follow up, from your tanker space, it seems that there's a lot of one-offs that are negatively impacting the tankers in Q1. When we look at the sailed-in TC index, it's falling in Q1. Can you add some color as to why that's happening? Because right now it looks like it's the weakest quarter ever on your historical time series.
Jens? Did you-
Yeah. Well, those one-offs are driving the fall as well in that spot.
As we talked about on the tanker, slide 11, the lower trading results were partly related to scheduling issues, et cetera, and that's a negative on the sailed-in revenue index. Likewise, the bunker related costs are also directly impacting that sailed-in revenue index. That's why you see that significant drop from, I think it was 0.54 last quarter down to 0.50 this quarter.
Really, in tankers, really three things happened. It was an early transition to low sulfur fuel, which was around $4 million that we weren't able to pass on. We had low utilization. That was because of the ballast legs. The ballast legs were due to the dry docking related to scrubbers, and the ballast water treatment systems. Also we had the incidents on the Groenland, which caused us to reposition ships to discharge Groenland, which again caused scheduling issues for the whole fleet. That was also around $4 million. The third part was ship owning expenses. That's more driven by timing, but also slightly higher insurance premium, and that was a total of $2.5 million. I think the majority of the drop that you see in tankers was one-offs.
We can safely assume that quarter-on-quarter it would have been approximately the same, adjusting for the one-offs.
Yes.
Thank you, gentlemen. That's all the questions I have today.
Actually, Jens, it was slightly better, wasn't it?
Yeah. Would have been probably marginally up to, but without guessing, but yes, I agree.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. As a final reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad.
Okay, everyone, thank you very much for participating in our first quarter earnings release. That completes the presentation. Thank you very much, and keep well.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.