Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of the first quarter 2022 results from Solstad Offshore. The presentation will be held by CFO Kjetil Ramstad and myself, Lars Peder Solstad. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session, so if you have any questions, please send them in writing, and we will answer after the presentation. This quarter has been a very busy quarter with the signing of many new contracts, and our future market view gets better for every day. It has also been a quarter with many dry dockings, mobilization between regions, and in January and February especially, bad North Sea weather giving low utilization on the spot fleet. If we look at the financial highlights, they are in line with our expectations on the revenue and EBITDA side.
Keep in mind that the first quarter last year had a substantial termination fee included, so the underlying result this year is far better than we saw last year. That being said, there is a negative impact on what I just said because of the high dry docking activity and the bad weather in part of the quarter. From early March, we saw a steep increase in activity and in revenue, and the majority of the EBITDA in the quarter came from the month of March. This trend has also continued into the second quarter. We have also experienced a very high tender activity and also a lot of contract awards, and we have signed new contracts for NOK 2.6 billion in the quarter, and that is on improving rates. That gave us a combined or gave us a firm backlog of over NOK 7 billion at quarter end.
We will have a closer look at both the backlog and the other numbers later in the presentation. Looking at our markets, the Ukraine invasion is changing the global energy picture, and the energy security and less dependency on Russian energy is on top of all agendas. It is likely that this will have impact on investments in offshore energy going forward, both on renewable energy and oil and gas. We have limited operational effect from the war situation. We don't have any vessels operating or any future contracts in Russian waters, but we have many colleagues from Ukraine, and we provide support to them as best as we can. What we also experience right now is that the supply-demand balance is getting tighter, and we see a very limited number of new vessels entering the market the coming years.
Geographically, the North Sea and Brazil are the most active areas, but also Africa, Guyana, and Australia have significant activity building up. As we see it, there will be or there might be clients that are not getting vessels this year due to lack of availability on some vessel types. This will, of course, also have a positive impact on the vessel variants. On the business update, we continue to build backlog, and this is the fourth consecutive quarter where we have a book-to-bill of more than one. As I said, we had NOK 2.6 billion of new orders signed in the first quarter, which is record high for our company. As already mentioned, the dry dock activity, etc., gave a slow start of the year, but the rates started, and we had a steep increase in activity and revenue from March and onwards.
We had 78 vessels on average in the first quarter, and they achieved a utilization of 81%, which was up from 79% a year earlier. The market continued to improve. We see especially the CSV segment is very tight, but also on large PSVs. It's a tight market at the moment, and it looks like this will continue for a while. We have not collected any new ship values per 31st March, but we will do so per 30th June. It's natural in a market that is improving that that also will give an effect on the vessel values. If we take a closer look at the fleet on the next slide, our fleet now consists of 89 vessels. That is after we divested the 36 non-strategic vessels that we announced in April.
At the end of the quarter, we had 78 operational, but we have also, or we are activating two more vessels now, or actually one of them, the PSV Normand Triumph, came to the market last week and is already on her first contract, while the CSV Normand Valiant is completing the reactivation process this week and will then start mobilizing for her long-term contract in Brazil. The divestment program I mentioned also had the effect on the debt, so it gave us a debt reduction of just shy of NOK 800 million. We have completed our divestment program, but we are also looking at potentially the sale of a few more vessels, but that is a pure commercial decision, and it will be then based on increasing ship values. That is possible to make a healthy deal of selling potentially some of the oldest vessels.
We are also continuing to invest in upgrades on our vessels in new technology in cooperation with our clients and our suppliers. That is mainly to reduce fuel consumption and to reduce emissions. Battery hybrid systems and shore power are the main investments so far, but we are also participating in several pilot projects for use of different types of fuel. We are also looking into studies on some potential systems for where we can remotely operate part of our operations. That is other initiatives we are working with right now. We see that some of our clients see it as a benefit if we can offer more than just a vessel, and we can do that through the Wind Solar Alliance, but also together with other partners. We have several ongoing operations where we have substantial revenue and also margins on additional services.
There is also, of course, a cost side of it that is reflected in our numbers. All in all, it gives us healthy margins on those additional services. We expect that we will do more of that going forward. Looking at a few examples of contracts signed during the quarter, I would like to highlight a few of them. One is we signed up a long-term contract with ConocoPhillips in Norway for three PSVs, five-year contracts each. Our client relation with Phillips goes back to 1974, so it's an extraordinarily long client relation. We are very happy with that. We also did our first contract in the Wind Solar Alliance where we did the disconnection and towing of the Ocean Farm 1 for Salmar Aker Ocean from its location to Aker Verdal. That project is already completed.
We signed a contract for the CSV Normand Clipper for installation of fiber optic networks, mainly in Asia. The contract was extended to 2026. Keeping in mind that that vessel is built in 2001, it's a nice contract for a vessel with a quite high age. Very happy with that as well. On the next couple of slides, we will have a closer look at the backlog. We have now NOK 7 billion in firm backlog per first quarter. If we include the charter options, we have close to NOK 14 billion in backlog. In an improving market, it's very likely that the options are exercised. Most of the options are priced with higher rates than we had on the firm period. We continue to sign new contracts. We had a book-to-bill of more than two in the quarter, and it's all done at improving terms.
This gives us a good foundation. It gives us predictability. Just as important, in my opinion, is also how much available capacity we have to take on more work now when the market tightens. If we look at the available days we have, and we can, for example, if we add the backlog for 2022 onto the accounts for first quarter, we have about NOK 5.3 billion booked for this year, including the optional days as mentioned. We still have nearly 4,000 available vessel days with a high earnings potential. Doing the same exercise for 2023, we have about NOK 3.5 billion in booked work for the year, but we have more than 11,000 available vessel days. They are divided between all vessel segments, and that is a very good position to be in if you ask me.
I'll hand the word over to you, Kjetil, and you have a closer look at the numbers on the next slides.
Thank you, Lars, and good morning to everyone. If we take a look at the income statement for the first quarter, we had a slow start of the year, but we ended up with a revenue of approximately NOK 1.2 billion, which is lower than what we saw in the first quarter of last year. If you adjust for the termination fee, the one-time extraordinary fee that we received last year, you can see that we are almost NOK 300 million ahead of the underlying result that we had for 2021. It's a good increase, despite a slow start, especially in January and February. Looking at the cost side, as we have also seen in the first quarter of this year, we have had dry dockings, we had a slow start, and also a considerable amount of mobilization.
In the OpEx, there is more fuel and lube cost this year than last year. As Lars mentioned as well, we have more focus on additional services this year. That is also reflected in some increased OpEx. It's important to highlight that the cost side is also under pressure with the increased activity in the market. It's important for us to really focus on the OpEx side. This gives an operating result of almost NOK 200 million compared to an adjusted 2021 first quarter of approximately NOK 45 million. It's a nice increase. On the net financing side, we see that there is a cost of approximately NOK 100 million compared to last year of NOK 350 million. The main components of this cost are interest cost and currency.
In the first quarter of this year, we had a larger currency gain than we saw last year, giving an EBITDA of NOK 208 million for the first quarter of this year compared to an adjusted result of NOK 54 million, which is a NOK 150 million increase if you exclude the termination fee. As you see at the right-hand side, it's nicely divided between the CSVs on subsea and renewables, but also some contribution from the PSV side. On the anchor handling side, as we have touched upon, it was a slow start in January and February. If we move to the balance sheet, we see on the asset side that it's quite stable. The reduction compared to last year is mainly driven by ordinary depreciation. On the current asset, it's also stable. Good to see that we have a strong and stable cash position.
Here, you also see that compared to year-end, there has been quite some activity on the regulatory dry docking side. Equity has been decreasing accordingly with the net result of last year. That is the main driver for the decrease in equity. The long-term debt is stable. As you know, we are not paying a lot of debt so far. It is mainly driven by some repayments and currency. That also applies to the short-term debt. With that, I will hand the word back to you, Lars, to conclude the presentation.
Thanks, Kjetil. If we then summarize how we see things are developing these days, we strongly believe that we are entering a multi-year period now where we will already see high activity, but it also will increase going forward in offshore energy. With offshore energy, I mean it's oil and gas, and it's renewable energy. We expect increased activity in both those segments. It also will very likely be a global thing. We will see more activity in areas where the activity has not sort of started to increase that steep yet, but it will come. We also believe that there will be a very limited number of new vessels entering the market, and that will be for several years. There's a layered fleet that is not relevant for the main markets, at least.
There are no, at least very, very few vessels for the oil and gas segment, at least under construction. There will be several years before we see that balance or we see that number of vessels increasing substantially. We see already now that the tender activity is very high in all markets, and we see that the commercial terms are improving. Based on that, we expect that the vessel utilization, the EBITDA, and also the value of the vessels will gradually improve going forward. That concludes our presentation. Now we move to Q&A. I've received a couple of questions. The first one is for you, Kjetil. That is for, it says there's a positive EBITDA, but the decrease in working capital. What are the reasons for that?
Yeah. We have, of course, the EBITDA, as you mentioned, is positive from last year. We have seen there is a decrease in the working capital. It's mainly driven by we have been able to, we have been invoicing a little bit less and have been able to reduce the working capital because it has been also paid more vendors in the last quarters.
Okay. The next questions are actually three questions in one. That is referring to, as I said, we consider selling a few more vessels on commercial decisions. Would this be active or stacked vessels? How much are prices up for these vessels in percentage versus previous quotes? It will mainly be stacked vessels. We still have a few vessels in layup. We are considering that as a commercial decision whether we're going to spend money on reactivation or we're going to sell if we get a decent price. I would say the prices are nicely up. I would say compared to a year ago, depending on the vessel, of course, depending on how long the vessel has been in layup and so on, but probably a doubling in prices on some of the vessels.
The other question was, with the subsea segment almost sold out, are you seeing subsea contractors more willing to contract vessels with long-term duration? The simple answer to that question is yes. We see that. There's a lot of interest now from subsea contractors on the CSVs for long term. Brazil, we see increased activity. Can you update on anchor handling opportunities in Brazil and potential for putting more anchor handlers units currently outside Brazil on long-term contracts in Brazil? Yeah. There are some tenders. There will be more tenders. We expect that there should be opportunities for international vessels to enter longer-term contracts in Brazil within the next 12 months or so. There's another question. What are the estimated mobilization costs of a warm stacked subsea vessel? Is it really a barrier to entry? There are not many stacked subsea vessels left.
The majority of those vessels are already working. If you have a subsea vessel that has been stacked for two, three, four years, there is a cost. Normally, the main class, you have to take the vessel through as well. Usually, depending on the size of the vessel, but you usually spend NOK 25 million, NOK 30 million to activate a vessel like that, depending on the size, of course. Can you confirm positively that you will write up ship values in Q2? No, I cannot comment on the Q2 yet. Can you comment on the possibility of a positive EBITDA earning in Q2? The answer is the same, of course. We cannot discuss the second quarter in this quarter. That was the last question. We'll then say thank you for listening in. I wish you all a nice day ahead.