Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Ahmed Hazem from EFG Hermes Research. I'd like to welcome you all today on Nakilat's first quarter 2023 results conference call. With us on the line today is Mr. Hani Abuaker, CFO of Nakilat, Mr. Fotios Zeritis, Head of Investor Relations & ESG Reporting, and Mr. Waheed Siddiqi, Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. I'd like to start off by congratulating Nakilat on their solid set of results. Without further delay, hand over the call to Fotios. Fotios, please go ahead.
Thank you, Ahmed. Good afternoon and welcome to Nakilat's 1st quarter of 2023 results conference call. For your convenience, the transcript of this call and presentation is available on the company's investor relations section of our website. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and media or press is not allowed to attend this IR conference call. Many of our remarks contain forward-looking statements and for factors that cause actual results to differ materially from this forward-looking statements, please refer to slide two from the investor relations presentation. In addition, some of our remarks contain non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of this is included in the note of this presentation. Waheed Siddiqi, Nakilat's Financial Planning and Reporting Manager, will begin today's call with a brief discussion of the group's earning results. After, I will give you an overview of the LNG shipping market.
Finally, Nakilat CFO Hani Abuaker will walk you through the company's business outlook. Then we'll be happy to address any questions. Now, I would like to hand it over to Mr. Waheed Siddiqi, Nakilat's Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. Waheed, please go ahead.
Thank you, Fotios. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Nakilat's first quarter 2023 results conference call. Our CFO, Hani Abuaker, our Head of Investor Relations and ESG Reporting, Fotios Zeritis, and I will be your guides for today's presentation. Our sincere gratitude goes out to our seafarers and shore-based staff for their dedication and continued efforts to bring clean energy to the world without any delay. Moving to the Q1 2023 achievements, Nakilat has embarked on another exciting quarter. Our resilient business model has allowed us to stem the tide of high interest rates and inflation. Turning to slide seven of the presentation, I'm pleased to announce that Nakilat reported a profit of QAR 396 million or QAR 0.07 per share. This represents an increase of 3.6% year-over-year compared to the first quarter of 2022.
Nakilat has healthy and stable operational cash flows as evidenced by our Q1 2023 EBITDA, which stands at QAR 904 million, an increase of 5.2% year-on-year with a current ratio of 1.94. With a resilient business model and a focus on growth, Nakilat is well-positioned to continue creating a sustainable added value for its shareholders. This is further evidenced by a 13.8% return on equity. Even in an environment where there are unprecedented rate hikes, Nakilat has been able to navigate these conditions and remain profitable and cash positive. Furthermore, we saw a good performance coming from our LNG and shipyard joint ventures.
In addition, Nakilat has strategically used its cash reserves to generate interest income from deposits, which partially compensates for the higher finance charges. I will now hand it back to Fotios, who will provide you with an overview of the LNG shipping market. Go ahead, Fotios. Thank you.
Thank you, Waheed. Hello, everyone. I would like to give you a brief update on the LNG shipping market now. Global LNG shipping markets in 2022 were characterized by significant volatility, mainly driven by geopolitical developments and incremental LNG demand by European Union. Energy security concerns took precedence over climate change mitigation goals, with policymakers focusing on meeting the energy needs of their people and the countries heading to solve the energy trilemma of achieving security, affordability, and sustainability. According to Gas Exporting Countries Forum, global LNG imports expanded by 6% or 20 million tons, which reached 399 million tons in 2022. It's driven by a surge in LNG imports in Europe, which offset a decline in LNG imports in Asia.
Specifically, Europe's LNG imports surged by 62%, almost 49 million tons, which is a record high due to lower Russian pipeline gas imports. Please turn to the slide 12 of our presentation. According to Clarksons, the average spot charter rates in the first quarter of 2023 for modern two-stroke tonnage was approximately 100 million tons per day, $74,000 per day for the DFDEs, and $46,000 per day for Steams. Clarksons assess the average 2023 for one year LNG shipping charter rates at $215,000 per day for mega X-DFs, $158,000 per day for DFDEs, and $70,000 per day for Steams, which is a very helpful benchmark when a owner discuss term charter opportunities.
On the page 13 of our presentation, you can see the global LNG fleet that has 606 vessels in operation in 2022 and another 279 LNG vessels on the order book until 2026 as per Clarkson. This implies an increase of 46% of the total LNG fleet in terms of number of the conventional LNG vessel as of the first quarter of 2023. The policy agenda of most of the countries will continue to be driven mainly by measures to ensure the security of energy supply, especially with incremental global LNG demand and the measure to reduce carbon emissions. As a result of all of this, the long-term fundamentals for LNG market are very healthy and will continue to boost the LNG shipping requirements of future.
Now, I would like to hand it over to Mr. Hani Abuaker , our CFO, to give you an insight into Nakilat's business outlook. Hani, please go ahead.
Thanks, Fotios. First of all, I am pleased to say that we have had a good start to 2023 in spite of unprecedented high interest rate environment, tightening monetary policy and geopolitical uncertainty. Nakilat managed to navigate smoothly through this volatility with a minimal impact on our financial performance. Our financial performance for the first quarter is a testament to our resilient business model that we've talked about before and its ability to weather a high interest rate and inflation. We continuously delivered our balance sheet annually with an approximately 70% of our loan hedged at the group level. There is a limited exposure to further increase in interest rate on the company.
In addition, we have a sizable cash reserves that allow us to take advantage of the current environment by realizing steady earnings to mitigate the increase in interest rate costs. A sound strategy and prudent management decision have contributed to our strong financial performance. Moreover, it's worth mentioning that we have already started to observe more activity in our shipyard segment. Nakilat solid foundation and free cash flow allow the company to take advantage of attractive global business opportunity should they arise, and we continue to provide a sustainable return to our shareholders. Now, I will shortly discuss Nakilat business outlook for the year 2023.
We are in a world again, that facing challenges, macro level and, however, we expect to see another successful year for Nakilat with continued effort to maximize the utilization of our entire fleet, optimize our expenses and mitigate interest rate exposure. The process of dry dock of our Nakilat fleet has commenced and our shipyard segment is expected to continue to benefit from this. It goes without saying one more time that we continuously see screening the global LNG shipping market to identify attractive business opportunities for long term benefit to our shareholders. With that, I will ask the operator to open the floor for questions and answers. Please go ahead.
Of course. If you would like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you choose to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. We'll pause for just a moment. Our first question today goes to Santosh Gupta of Drewry Maritime Financial Research. Santosh, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Nakilat team. Based on the 2022 annual report, I think QFAB has been awarded some topsides contracts and tower platforms, also subsea structures. Can you please suggest, in case you can, the contract value and also when are these things expected to be delivered? Thank you.
Santosh, I not fully understand your question. Can you repeat for what contracts you are talking about? I did not hear very well.
Okay, okay. I think there is something wrong. Actually, in the annual report, it's mentioned that Qatar Fabrication Company, it has been awarded contract for topsides, four topsides, then two sensor tower platforms, and then there are five subsea structures. I wanted to understand if you can please share the contract value for this and also when are these structures expected to be delivered?
Okay, I will take this one. We are talking about our fabrication joint venture that we have with McDermott which is Qatar Fabrication.
Right. Yes.
Yes, absolutely.
Right. Yes.
We don't disclose commercial numbers honestly, because of the sensitivity of particularly that currently that it's in, it's at the start-up phase, and there's a lot of tendering is going on for Qatar Fabrication Company. We don't usually disclose the top line number for this entity. However, you should expect to see some sort of good numbers coming from Qatar Fabrication Company in the next three quarters as some of these projects starts to be materialized. On an annual basis based on the capacity of the venture. Yes, over the next three quarters, you should start to expect to see some of the numbers coming in. Hopefully, they will contribute to a better performance, financial performance for the company.
As we just said right now, you should expect over the next three quarters that the results for these, you know, for the results on these ventures of, you know, what we call it burning that man-hours is expected to happen over the next three quarters. Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to Nafez Al Abbas of Ajeej Capital. Nafez, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you gentlemen for the call and congrats on the results. My question is, under the current cost of a new build and current existing rate in the market, what would you expect a reasonable IRR a new build will generate under the current daily or let's say under a reasonable long-term charter?
What we've been seeing, that the daily rate has reflected the elevated increase in cost of the ship. We should really expect that the level of IRR should be stable compared to what it used to be before or within that range.
okay.
So, so usually-
All right.
That's what even some of the, you know, owners that even had vessels like was built on speculation or they are open with capacity because they were rolling into a new contract, we have seen that their vessels has been secured at an elevated charter hire to compensate for that cost increase.
Mm.
This is how the dynamic of the market.
I see.
At least what we have seen. Okay?
Would that be lower teens or let's say to the mid teens or higher a little bit? I mean, just a rough estimate, I mean.
Honestly, I would say it is similar to what it used to be before. I think if you had a vessel that was built three years ago, and it's like a fairly brand new vessels that was built three years ago, and it's now open in the market, and you were able to secure it for something to medium term to long term, that will give you a high teens number. If you are about, just as you just rightly said, the prices has gone up, about to build a new one, you should be something about the, what we always talk about the levered IRR between 11% and 14%. It depends.
I just wanna make sure I give you the right answer because I don't wanna really tell you it is 11-14, but if you have a vessel that is only.
No, no, I understand. Totally.
Yes. I exactly what we have seen is the rate has started to compensate for the higher prices that builds into the economics. You should always expect something between 11 and 14 IRR. Yes.
Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment. We have a question from [guess] of The Commercial Bank. [guess], please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Thanks for a wonderful set of results. I think it has reflected in the share park, market today. My question is upon your depreciation rate. I mean, overall, it has been an average rate of, you know, around 220. In first quarter, we saw it quite at dip of around QAR 200 million. I mean, I can understand on the dry docking has, you know, been finished and you're going for a new season. Can we expect the same range rate for the next three quarters?
Sorry. Your question was if we can expect to see the same rate over the next three quarters?
Yeah. Depreciation, yeah. QAR 100.
Yeah. As you rightly said, we've entered into a new dry dock cycle. There will be some fluctuation in the amount of depreciation because vessels don't complete their dry docks, you know, in a couple of days, they take time, and then for all the costs to be captured. Just the sheer volume of vessels will see us and our depreciation over the three quarters. In our last call, we had mentioned that we're looking to streamline and further better define how we record our depreciation so that we don't see fluctuations as, you know, one would be expected. You can see some fluctuations over the coming quarters, but we're going to try and streamline that because not all vessels are going in at the same time.
Okay. Okay. Fluctuation could be there, but overall, you could be standing on the same side of, you know, 200, right? That's what you're saying.
Yes. It should be around the 200 numbers.
Yes.
You know?
Yes. Our plan is to streamline around that. Yes.
Me too.
Okay. One more question, sir. I mean, regarding your, you know, interest dividend profit which you've got, I mean, which has been going up quite steadily. It's good to know that, I mean, it's supporting your overall, you know, profit. I wanted to understand this logic in terms of given the fact that you do have a huge amount of, you know, debt. Of course, it has come down, but don't you foresee that given the current trend in which, you know, interest rates, you mentioned unleveraged, certain debt portion is also there. I mean, don't you think that it's better to, you know, adjust it against the debt, your cash, can...
the bank balances, minimum cash and bank balance which you can keep and the other things you can, you know, adjust it against the borrowing, so that overall ROE could improve further? Thank you.
Yeah, sure. I'll take. This is part of our capital allocation strategy that we have here at the company. You have to understand, on an annual basis, whatever profit we generate, we pay down the debt, which is almost we pay down QAR 1 billion on our only wholly owned vessels annually. The other part we pay dividend, and the other part is we are building up some strong cash position for potential future growth over the next, you know, five to 10 years. Definitely we look at all these kind of cash balances that we or cash that we are generating on an annual basis and making sure we optimize our capital allocation for the resources that we have.
Yes, we're looking about, you know, potentially for our future growth, so we need to have some sort of cash available for us to secure potential growth. That's how we look at it. The reason why we have this cash is available is for potential future growth once they materialize. We'll always review our capital allocation policy or at least strategy on an annual basis. I hope, that's answer your question.
Thanks. Thanks a lot. One last question on your, you know, revenues on your jointly owned vessels. Suppose you look at it historically in 2022, you know, you have started on a good note. Second half was much better off in terms of revenue for jointly owned vessels. First quarter we have seen a slight decline. I mean, you did mention about, you know, rates. I just wanted to have on this your view, what is the color that you see in the going forward the next two to three quarters? I mean, anything else which you'd like to share on this? Thank you.
This line includes the jointly owned ventures, which is the LNG, LPG, and also the shipyard ventures. I would expect that on the LNG and the LPG, and the LNG should be more or less the same, very close to this quarter. For the LPG, it depends on the Baltic rate. We had a good quarter this quarter compared to last quarter last year. Also, from income, as we said, they should exactly actually showed a better results as they're having more potential capacity or business coming or workloads coming in due to Nakilat fleet of that's going through the dry dock.
I just said earlier, as per Santosh, questions at the beginning of the call, Qatar Fabrication, they have signed up last year a couple of contracts, and we should really see more of these numbers coming up over the next three quarters. I would be inclined towards that it should be same and maybe to the upside, I would say you should expect almost the same results over the next three quarters, if not better.
Okay. One last question in terms of during the presentation, you did mention about the rates for the different, you know, unit types. Can we just have an idea about again, I mean, because I could not hear it properly, for all your, you know, different rate team and other ones who are attending for 2023.
Fotios can recap very quickly.
Hello, good afternoon. First of all, you have to understand that in 2022, it was a kind of volatile market because it was very high demand of Europe, and we see a very high skyrocket charter rates. Currently, 2023, we can see a normalization of the market. It's close to the historical levels average, 2023. As you understand, because we expect up to 2030, massive supply of LNG to come in the market, you see that LNG shipping requirements will come mainly in the market, the ships will be in demand, and we expect a very healthy and balanced market in the following years. 2023 is a more normalized year in compared to 2022.
I hope I answered your question.
Okay. Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to Digvijay Singh of Fiera Capital (UK) Limited. Digvijay, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Sure. Thank you for the opportunity. A couple of questions. First, in terms of the, annual maintenance coming up, and considering the contracts with the ownership here, could you give some idea of what the cash commitments under these look like? The second question on the related matter is that if you look at your balance sheet.
The recent capacity of the balance sheet, how many Q-Max size vessels can you effectively, you know, enter into a contract? What is the maximum capacity in this recent balance sheet since you've mentioned about, you know, potential long-term opportunities?
If just I can clarify. The second question is about the capacity and the balance sheets for long-term growth. That's right. The first one, was it about?
Yes. How many Q-Max can you actually put in?
Sorry?
yes. It relates to the number of Q-Max that you can effectively put on leases. This first question is related to the cash and you consider, you know, the new train that is coming up in the contract related to that. one, is there a significant cash commitment involved as well, upfront cash commitment in those contracts?
You mean the cash investment? Am I right? Sorry because, it's not
Yeah.
quite clear.
Yeah.
Okay. Well, again, we've talked about this one repeatedly before in the past. Currently, as you look at our balance sheet, we have almost close to $1.2 billion or around QAR 4 billion or QAR 4.2 billion. That should allow us, you know, to utilize that cash in case a business opportunity comes or materialize in the near future over the near and medium future over the next five to 10 years. Also, as we repeatedly said, Nakilat has no problem in case that needed to raise more debt or even if there's a chance of, you know, more cash is needed.
As part of our capital allocation that we review on an annual basis, we're de-leveraging, paying off QAR 1 billion on our existing fleet, paying dividends. We have different means for the company, you know, to increase the equity portion of building new vessels. I think QAR 4 billion or $1 billion or $1.2 billion is enough for a sizable number of vessels, you know, which is maybe around 20-25. We don't see an issue currently from us for the potential future growth.
And even if we have to leverage the strength in our balance sheet with having such a long-term contract that's still having 10 years to come in, for us to enjoy a return and a cash flow, we can also do some sort of engineering to extract a lot of that value to in order for us, you know, to secure more vessels if needed. Currently, with the levels that we have, we should be fine for our at least short and medium-term growth.
Sure. The other thing is that, you know, the interest rates have been a very different environment over the last 17 or two years. Is the pricing structure, not just for you but for the whole industry, likely to change or your IRR targets likely to change considering the rate environment today or not in my position?
Okay. If you think the interest rates will have... Definitely, if you look at the interest rate today, it's very elevated. However, you have to understand, you know, the LNG business is a long-term business, so almost everybody do their economics based on 15 years. They don't take the lowest parts of the cycle or the highest parts of the cycle in their interest rate cost calculation. We look at what was historically the average. When we talk about historically, we don't talk about the last 10 years, we think about more about 20 years. We say if something is around 3%, 3.5%, then you build your economics based on that.
And this is how you would expect, because I'm sure there's gonna be come times where interest rate, you know, potentially might go down in two, three, four, five, six years or whatever it is, and then you can really improve your levered IRR significantly. We don't build our economics on based on a very highly elevated rate or very low. We build it on based on the historically rate, and that's where we generate our rate of return and when we are building our economics.
Sure. One last question from my end is that if we consider, the industry and the fact that, you know, pretty much most of the shipyards are, to my knowledge, effectively utilized all the way until 2026, do you see any spare capacity in the system at all for, new ships to come through, or it's all being pretty much taken care of?
Sorry, I wasn't able to hear the question. If you can speak slowly because the voice is not coming very clear. Maybe you're talking from a phone or something. What's the questions about?
Sure. My question is that, from what I hear, it seems like pretty much most of the shipyards that do pretty well in these ships are taken up all the way to 2026. Is that in line with your understanding of the industry too, or you think there is still capacity in the shipyards new large contracts could go to or could be placed in the near term over the next two to four years, that could be delivered in the next two to three years?
I think I will ask for just to elaborate more.
Yes.
-about
Yes, yes. You, regarding your question, if I understand very well because it's, you know, the line is not good. I understand the question is about the kind of tightness of LNG shipyard capacity to build vessels up to 2006, if I understand correct. Please note that, you know, now, right now, because actually many LNG shipowners, they see the huge demand of LNG shipping until 2020, 2030, many LNG shipowners place order. Because of that actually, we have seen that shipyards, either they do investments to expand their capacity, either we have seen new LNG shipping shipyards to come to the market. For example, we have seen in China, a new shipyards from China comes and actually start to build LNG shipping vessels.
Yes, we can say, let's say that maybe it's a little bit tight until 2025, 202 6. The capacity currently, but this is not something a firm number because we see new players in shipyard industry to come to build vessels, and we see actually big shipyards to do investment to expand the capacity. We don't see like a major issue to expand the global shipping fleet to meet the demand for new LNG demand which is coming from the world. I hope I answered your question.
Yeah, that's excellent. Thank you very much for this. Much appreciated. That's all from me.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question goes to Mr. Stefan Böttcher of Fiera Capital. Mr. Stefan, please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much. I was just hoping to follow up on Vijay's questions here in terms of the potential large vessel order from QE for the North Field expansion project. I was just wondering if, is there any reason why there have been delays? And is there not a risk that if these orders are not being awarded, that effectively the whole project would get delayed? Maybe you could just explain a little bit what the, if you like, the sensitivities are in terms of placing the orders in order to, if you like, getting the project starting on time. Hello?
Okay. I think I will take this question. First of all, thank you for the question, but as you have seen many quarter calls that we have, Nakilat is not the project owner of North Field expansion, Qatar expansion. Qatar Energy and Qatar Gas are the owner of this project and handle any matters on this issue. We cannot comment anything related of the timeline of the project on any commercial or technical details on that. What we can say in terms of shipping is that Qatar Energy already has announced the first batch of Time Charter Parties for the shipping part, and now they are in the process to continue this process to secure LNG shipping.
All the other things is project owners, QatarEnergy, and we let them to comment on that, and we see from the news whatever is available as well. I hope I answered your question.
Well, to some extent, but in fairness of course, if you are ultimately bidding for a number of vessels, whether 20 or 30 or 40, surely it is this whole project requires both sides being involved. You can't just agree within a couple of days. This needs a lot of preparation. I just wonder from your point of view, sort of like when would you expect to submitting, if you like, your tender bid? I'm really asking it from your side rather than from the other side.
Just to let you know that, generally speaking, you have to think kind of backwards, meaning, in order, for example, to build a vessel, you need approximately two to three years, as construction in order to be delivered in full on the water, in order to lift the first cargo.
Mm.
What you can do is to think it kind of let's say back calculation to see when any project around the world is willing to, let's say, lift the first cargos, and to understand when the shipping is required based on the timeline. You can do kind of back calculation to understand, to estimate any project around the world when the shipping requirement is needed.
Yeah. No, that's exactly what I was looking for. And obviously you have the insight. This project is due to start producing, when roughly? What is, if you like, the plan, i.e., when would these vessels be required?
As per the sites and the websites we have seen around, it's up to 2007. They will have from 2025, 2027, 2028 to produce the LNG production that they have. This is something that you can find on public available information.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. No, no change, but it seems like it's going to come closer, yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. We'll pause for just a moment. Thank you. It appears we have no further questions. I'll now hand back to Hani for any closing comments.
Well, I would like to thank you all for taking the time today to participate in our conference call. We're always committed to providing a world-class investor relation coverage and also to improve for all our investment community. We have an open channel, and please feel free to reach out to our IR team, Fotios and Waheed. The question and answer has been incredibly informative. I can say that. We value your interest in the company, and hopefully we share this with our senior management and our CEO to take it into consideration. With that, thank you very much. And if you celebrate Eid Mubarak for you.
Thank you, everyone. Have a great day.