Good morning, dear listeners. Welcome to Klaipėdos Nafta Meeting with Investors. I'm Emilija from Nasdaq, and I'll be moderating today's event. We will start with a presentation from the management, which will be followed by the Q&A session. Please be informed that this webinar is being recorded and will be available for rewatch. As always, I encourage every one of you to share your questions in the Q&A section at the bottom of your screen, and you can submit them either anonymously or with your name throughout the event. With that said, I'm pleased to introduce today's presenters, Chief Executive Officer, Darius Šilenskis, and Chief Financial Officer, Mindaugas Kvekšas. Dear guests, please, the floor is yours, and good luck.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you, Emilija, for a good introduction as always. Today, as usually, we will start from the highlights. We'll talk about, let's say, main business messages or messages coming from our businesses from different segments. Of course, a major part of today's presentation is to present how we were performing financially during the first quarter of this year. I will start from the main highlights in our businesses. If to talk about regulated activity, it was a lot of efforts spent on, let's say, looking for opportunities to maximize even utilization of our LNG terminal in Klaipėda.
After successful open season procedure and discussions with potential market, let's say, demand or customers, we decided to start preparation of the binding open season procedure together with Lithuanian national natural gas transmission system operator, Amber Grid. Also it's one of, let's say, important messages related with our with our regulated activity, is that due to the provisions of EU Council, due to the regulation, we, let's say, in addition to all the open season procedures and procedures in accordance to our, let's say, rules, we are starting 1st of April offering our capacities, our Klaipėda LNG terminal capacities as well through GSA secondary capacity trading platform, which allows to maximize utilization even further.
Talking about our commercial LNG activities, and talking about our business development, during first quarter of 2023, probably the main message was about the selection of KN as service provider to Italian energy company, Snam, regarding FSRU terminal based in the port of Piombino. Management of this project and helping them to start properly by using our know-how and our resources. It is quite a significant event that KN has managed to sign a framework agreement with such a huge natural gas major, Korean natural gas major, which is fully integrated, starting from the upstream liquefaction and then ending up with trading to the final user.
This creates a lot of opportunities for, let's say, our global LNG business development. Talking about the financial performance, Mindaugas will present in a more detailed way, my message here is that finally we are on a significant recovery phase after all the crises and hits suffered during 2022. EBIT, group EBITDA was 17% higher comparing to the same period last year, and revenue respectively was 24% higher comparing to the Q1 of 2022. Talking about our, here is written oil terminals and presentations, in general it is petroleum biofuels and petrochemical terminals which we operate. Business performance was better in terms of EBITDA, was better by plus, even by +54%.
Talking about the avenues which I would like to highlight. We received latest or graded a new version of a Letter of Expectations from our major shareholder, Ministry of Energy, which defines clearly what are the expectations from let's say the state and from the government and from the Ministry of Energy in our activities. Also, I think selection of Šarūnė Sarrade as chairman of audit committee finalizes or completes the selection and establishment process of all our corporate bodies. Sustainability report, it's just a highlight that if investors has the time to go through it's very extensive and important document for our company. We invested a lot of efforts into that.
As always, we are providing it in our website to get aware with it. Also, Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders on 28th of April adopted and approved our audited financial statements of the company for the year, and also allocation of the profit, and as well approval of remuneration reports of the company. Now going to key business, let's say messages or main business messages, I will start from our, let's say, liquid petroleum petrochemical biofuels segment, where, let's say we managed to get even 98% higher revenues from rent of short tanks, from longer term rent of short tanks. There was few reasons for that.
Some were related with intensified transshipment of diesel for deliveries to Ukraine. Some, let's say, increase on demand to this market. Also, there was bigger demand on biofuel storage as well, even two times bigger. As well, during the Q1, we were successfully continuing, let's say our cooperation with Vilnius Heating, Vilniaus Šilumos Tinklai, which is municipality heating company. We were helping them to make some savings from the heating for the households in Vilnius. We were providing services, transshipment and storage services for the light sulfur fuel oil used as a substitute to the gas due to pricing, due to the high pricing.
Talking about our regulated LNG activities, let's say I will start from regasification numbers. As you see, we were even 145% higher comparing to the respective period during 2022. As all we know, the main reason was that after the war started, let's say a significant shift of the gas flows has been seen. Our LNG terminal has immediately become from the first day, let's say, of the threats which we facing related with the war. From the first day of those threats, our terminal became main entry point of gas to Lithuania and also, let's say, also to the region. Talking about our LNG terminal's performance in Klaipėda, we are reaching, let's say maximum safe possible utilization levels.
Now we are operating, or let's say in Q1 2023, we were operating with 81% utilization intensity. While, let's say during Q1 of 2022, it was less. Talking about the pricing, about the TTF index, definitely it was a bit, let's say, let's call it prices for the gas has stabilized during Q1. What we see now, those prices are even lower. The reasons are also quite well known. Market is quite stable and balanced because Europe managed to, let's say, to keep significant amount or sufficient amount of the gas in the storages. Also Europe managed to substitute Russian gas supplies by many initiatives, including savings, including the changes on the supply chains, et cetera.
Talking about our contribution, our terminals contribution to the Lithuania's gas market. Simply we are, we won or let's say at least major and main supply point to the gas. Market share or share of the gases which came through Klaipėda LNG terminal was 90% to Lithuania. The balance was coming through interconnectors with Poland and Latvia respectively. This number of course excludes gas transit to Kaliningrad Oblast. In here I will pass the stage to Mindaugas to present financial results.
Thank you, Darius. Now proceeding with an overview of the financial performance of the recent quarter. I feel happy to announce that continuing growth in performance is noticeable across all three business segments. The revenue for the first quarter was up by EUR 4.3 million compared to the same period in 2022. Of that EUR 1.4 million is coming from the oil terminal segment. The increase was highly impacted by almost twice the higher revenue from rent of storage tanks, as noted by Darius. While biofuels transshipment volumes remained stable in comparison to the first quarter of last year. The much stronger demand for biofuel storage services led to a nearly two times bigger revenue from biofuel segment, where ethanol was the key driver behind that.
Moreover, during the first quarter of this year, we continued to participate in the logistics chain of the fuel oil supply. This contributed to the energy security and lower heating prices in our capital city. EUR 2.5 million an improvement in revenues from our regulated LNG terminal segment, where the key factor for a jump in revenue was a significant increase in demand for regasification services in the terminal and the change in regulation, which happened only in the second quarter of 2022. Therefore, its impact is not yet visible in the comparables. The latter led to an increase in regasification tariff by nearly three times. Subsequently, because of these two conditions, revenue increased by EUR 3.6 million.
During the first quarter of 2022, the company received EUR 1.1 million as income related to the natural gas consumer's liability for previous periods after the court decision, this positively affected last year's revenue. As always, the profit from regulated business remains limited to regulated rate of return and temporary excess profits according to current regulations, shall be paid back in the future periods. About the profitability measures, the EBITDA was higher by EUR 1.4 million. Again, an improvement in the oil segment of EUR 1.1 million, demonstrating a more than 50% increase, achieved mostly by diversified growth in revenue and implemented cost efficiency measures. A minor increase in the regulated segment, mostly due to higher revenue.
The regulated segment costs increased by more than EUR 2 million, of which EUR 1.5 million is an increase in the cost of emission allowances, affected by larger regasification volumes and higher emissions, but more importantly, affected by higher prices of emission allowances. Finally, the commercial LNG segment also demonstrated profitability improvement with income from projects in Germany and Italy, making the impact on the performance in the first quarter of this year. About the net profit, the appreciation of euro against the United States dollar had a major impact on the non-adjusted net profit during the first quarter of 2023.
The total unrealized foreign exchange profit of nearly EUR 4 million, less deferred taxes was recognized this year compared to EUR 4.2 million loss during the same period in 2022. After we eliminate the unrealized currency exchange income of the regulated segment, its suggested net profit this year amounts to EUR 0.9 million. The net profit of the oil segment increased by EUR 1 million due to the already mentioned reasons. About the free cash flows, significant decrease in the working capital, particularly accounts payable, last year, and a less significant increase this year resulted in a negative change of the free cash flow of EUR 5.4 million. The recent quarter was also less intense with investment projects.
Those capital expenditure was lower by EUR 4.3 million. Adding all that up, the free cash flow was positive at EUR 2.2 million. The leverage metrics. There were no significant changes in the capital structure as in the previous quarters as well, except for the taken loan to finance reduction of the security supplement in the regulated segment. While we repaid EUR 12 million of lease liabilities, they were settled during the first quarter of 2023. However, due to appreciation of euro, the remaining balance decreased by a somewhat bigger amount of EUR 16 million as the liability is mostly denominated in United States dollar. Lastly, profitability margins have mostly improved compared to the first quarter of 2022.
Net profit margin is higher than for the same period in 2021 and 2022, indicating recovery performance after a huge decline in 2021. The return on equity and return on asset, and also the price, earnings ratio are calculated taking into account the performance over the last 12 months. The comparable figure of 2022 is affected by the big impairment loss that was recognized in the 3rd quarter of 2021. Yes. I'm happy again to cover what is a noticeably strong recovery starting from the end of 2021 and continuing onwards in 2023. That ends the overview of the financial results, and we are to the question and answer session.
Thank you very much for the presentation. Indeed, let's proceed with the Q&A session now. Before we start, I would like to remind all the attendees that you can send in your questions in the Q&A box of your screen, and you can send them anonymously too. I will read them out later. Let's begin, the first question would be as following. It consists of two parts, I will split it. As you know, governments have adopted laws that currency differences should not affect the results of companies. We would like to ask you when you will start following the dividend policy and honor the minority shareholders.
Yes. I will take the question. Thank you. Indeed, when distributing the retained earnings for 2022, we were following the government's regulation and also our dividend policy. Due to accumulated losses, no dividends were distributed for 2022. This was the decision of the general annual shareholders meeting. Thank you for question again.
Thank you very much.
sorry, Emilija.
Sorry for interruption. There was another part of the same question by-
Exactly
by Rokas Lapinskas, and it was a question.
Yes
the company strategy.
I just wanted to move to that. Right.
Thank you.
The question would be, will you present the company's new strategy?
The answer is very simple. Yes, of course, we are still working hard to finalize our new strategy and we are going to the market. I hope that we will manage to, let's say, present it in a month or within a month, approximately.
Perfect. Thank you very much. Let's proceed. What is the key success task number one and number two most important challenges for Klaipėdos Nafta company seeking higher profit during the year 2023 in your understanding? Thank you.
Well, you know, it's. I will take the question on my side, you know. It's the most complicated part of this question is to identify only two challenges because we are working in a really volatile environment. And we are exposed also to the energy crisis, which stabilized and hopefully will remain stable till the end of the year. We did a lot of measures to protect our margin, including even hedging of the gas in one of our business segments. Otherwise, of course, importance of the, let's say, all stability of the of the oil business. Why?
We have an agreement with ORLEN Lietuva, and quite a significant part of revenues are related with the macro factors such as refining crack margins, so-called. If our customers can stay on a profitable level, that means higher volumes and quantities to us as well. Anyway, as I said, there are many reasons for that. Also I think it is important for us to keep the terminal, Klaipėda LNG terminal particularly, availability stable, meaning assuring business continuity, assuring technological availability and safety. Without that, you know, we cannot be sure on a revenue, on a stable revenue and profit generation streams from regulated activities.
As I said, it's a quite round answer to quite precise question. It's quite hard to purify only one or two challenges in a, let's say, business environment where we operate.
Thank you very much. The next question is quite detailed. It includes Lithuanian language, so please, if by discussing you could translate this, please do so. In company's official website, in financial performance explanation section, we see statement for so-called SGD, so security component EUR 26.8 million per year elimination. This will not have real financial influence 'cause this amount of revenue will be compensated due to longer period. Why? By whom? Could you please explain this in real details? Have it started in accounting already?
Thank you. I will take the question. Indeed, a very good and relevant question because it's, it's sometimes quite difficult to grasp on the concept of regulation in our regulated LNG segment. Indeed, this mechanism of security supplement reduction is in place for a few years now. And it will continue until the end of 2024. By that time, we will accumulate a total amount of around EUR 134 million of so-called regulated regulated asset or an amount receivable that we will have the rights to. This...
Which means that during this period of nearly five years, up until the end of 2024, we will not get any revenues, any regulated revenues, this total amount of more than EUR 130 million. Instead, to be able to finance our operations, we are taking out the loan from Nordic Investment Bank in the same amount to be able to pay the bills and to cover the expenses of the regulated segment. However, it is envisaged in the law that after we acquire the FSRU Independence and it, we become the owner of the asset.
Starting from 2025, the regulated regulator, the National Energy Regulatory Council, will each year include in the regulated revenue an amount of EUR 6.7 million, which will allow us to repay the loan that we took. yeah. In fact, the concept of compensation of all eligible costs which are incurred while providing the regulated services will be followed. instead, while part of our expenses, the regulated expenses are not compensated now, but we will get the compensation in later years. As I said, this is already in envisaged in the law.
All right. Thank you. Let's proceed with the Q&A session. As I see, we have the last question remaining. Please, if your question hasn't been answered yet, please, send it in right now. The next question would be as following: How many shares of the company the management owns?
Emilija, I will take that question. This information is publicly available on the company's website, in on the governance part and on the management side. You can check on each of the management or member of the management how many shares they have, including the corporate bodies, members of the corporate bodies. The general message is that none of the company's managers, not me, I mean, neither executive nor non-executive, has a significant part or let's say tangible part of the company shares.
Thank you very much for your answer. We have received one more question. Klaipėdos Nafta announced EUR 8.8 million net profit for the year 2022. Why was decided to pay 0 dividends for shareholders? The company's share market price has decreased quite sharply after such decision. Thank you.
Yes. So, once again, I can answer this question by referring to our dividend policy. The decision taken not to distribute any dividends for 2022 was justified by the fact that our retained earnings were negative at the end of the year. To cover those losses, we already had to transfer some amount from the other reserves that were some years ago made for different reasons and were not used by that date, by the date of the annual general shareholders meeting.
Yes. Thank you very much. It seems that all the questions are answered. On behalf of Klaipėdos Nafta and Nasdaq, thank you everyone for joining. Just a second. All right. We have received one more question, so please bear with me. What is the current situation and put project of additional LNG import capacity?
Thank you for the question. I will take this one on me. Probably you missed, but at the very beginning of presentation, I shortly introduced the status. We ended with the open season procedure, which is like, in simple words, like market research phase. We got sufficient, let's say, non-binding demand indications from the market. Now together with TSO, with Amber Grid, we are preparing, let's say, for the binding phase. Talking about the timing, it's a bit too early to be precise with the timing. But definitely, let's say our goal is to finalize and to have any decisions before the end of 2023.
It's not maybe directly understandable why open or binding season is related with additional LNG import capacity. For us, if there is no business case simply saying we will not be going to invest into the infrastructure. FID or final investment decision very depends on the binding, let's say tender, which should happen within last quarter of 2023.
Thank you very much. What is the current situation about increasing LNG capacity?
I'm not sure whether I got the question. Maybe who was providing it can specify.
I assume that's about the LNG terminal capacity in Lithuania, the FSRU Independence capacity.
I answered that. The expansion part, I answered. We're talking about increasing probably utilization of the Klaipėda LNG terminal. Well, you know, we are operating on a maximum technological level and, of course, by not accepting any compromises related with the safety. It's in a range of 80% to up to even sometimes 90%-95% of the technological capacities.
Thank you. It seems that we are done for today. There was no specification to this question. Once again, thank you everyone for joining. Dear management, thank you for the presentation and the Q&A session. As always, the recording will be available for rewatch. Have a good day everyone and goodbye.
Thank you, Emilija, and thank you participants for the activism and for the very good questions.