Earnings Labs

FLEX LNG Ltd. (FLNG)

Q2 2020 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 19, 2020

$31.82

+1.28%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for standing by, and welcome to the Flex LNG Quarter 2 2020 Earnings Presentation. [Operator Instructions]. I must advise all that this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, 19th of August 2020. And without any further delay, I would like to hand the conference over to the first speaker of the day, Mr. Øystein Kalleklev, CEO. Please go ahead, sir. Øystein Kalleklev: Thank you, Gino, and good day and welcome, everyone, to the second quarter 2020 presentation for Flex LNG. My name is Øystein Kalleklev, and I'm the CEO of Flex LNG Management, and I will be joined today by our CFO, Harald Gurvin, and we will guide you through today's presentation. A replay of this presentation will also be available at our website, flexlng.com. So first, a disclaimer with regards, among others, forward-looking statements and completeness of detail. The full disclaimer is available in the presentation, and we recommend that the presentation is read together with the interim financial report as well as our 20-F annual report. So the highlights. The spot market for LNG shipping has stayed weak over the spring and summer due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. A general weak spot market over the summer is not really surprising and something which we also highlighted in our Q1 presentation in May as well as in our market webinar in early July. When we presented our numbers in May, we disclosed the fact that we have booked 97% of Q2 days at time charter equivalent earnings, or TCE, of close to $50,000 per day. Earnings on the remaining 3% have been on the soft side. So we are, therefore, delivering a TC of $47,000 per day, which is, however, in line with our current cash breakeven levels. Our cash…

Harald Gurvin

Analyst

Thank you, Øystein. Looking at the income statement. Revenues for the quarter came in at $25.8 million, down from $38.2 million in the previous quarter. Revenues in the quarter were affected by the fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in lower gas demand and thus impacting freight demand. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $17.4 million, down from $27.8 million in the previous quarter. The result for the quarter includes a noncash unrealized loss on interest rates of approximately $6.2 million. At quarter end, we had entered into interest rate swaps totaling $610 million at an average interest rate of approximately 1.3%, and the noncash mark-to-market loss was the result of the continued fall in long-term interest rates during the quarter. All our interest rate swaps related financing agreements, and we are not required to post any cash collateral under agreements when the mark-to-market is negative. We also recorded a noncash foreign exchange gain on cash deposits held in Norwegian kroner of 700,000 in the quarter due to strengthening of the Norwegian kroner against the U.S. dollar in the quarter. Net loss for the quarter was $6.7 million. And adjusted for the above items, the adjusted net loss was $700,000 or $0.01 per share. Then moving on to our balance sheet as per June 30. We had a solid liquidity of $116 million per quarter end, down from $120.8 million in the previous quarter. The time charter equivalent rate achieved for the quarter is around our cash breakeven rate, and the reduction in cash is primarily due to an increase in working capital of $4.3 million in the quarter. As mentioned, we do not have any restricted cash relating to our interest rate swaps, and a very limited restricted cash of $70,000 relates to mandatory deposits required…

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

Yes. Yes. Øystein Kalleklev: Yes. Okay. The Asian imports have during 2020 been fairly flat, growing about 3 million tonnes in the period January to July. At the beginning of the year, despite warm winter, imports into Asia grew pretty robust. But following the lockdowns, we have seen imports, particularly in Japan and South Korea, being on the low side. Chinese and Indian demand has, however, recovered quicker as lockdowns have eased and these countries also benefit or earned more for cheaper LNG as they have relatively less contractual obligation for imports linked to oil price. At the beginning of the year, there were also some positive sentiments around the Phase 1 trade agreement between U.S. and China, and folks were hoping for a rapprochement. U.S. exports to China actually resumed in April with 3 cargoes going to 7 cargoes in May. However, with the fallout from COVID-19 and the increased brinkmanships between Washington and Beijing seen lately, U.S. cargoes to China has tailed off again with only 3 and 2 cargoes in June and July, respectively. We also expect only 2 or 3 cargoes for August. Right now, it seems nothing will happen on the political side before November elections in the U.S. and China is now almost $40 billion behind their $200 billion commitment agreed in January according to Standard & Poor's. So we have now explored that dynamics behind the swing buyer, Europe. So let's explore the swing producer, U.S., in a bit more detail. As we highlighted in our July webinar, U.S. producers are inherently more at risk for cargo cancellations due to their cost base and their flexible offtake contracts, but customers can typically notify our cargo cancellation 60 days prior to loading by paying the fixed tolling fee. This tolling fee is typically around…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Gregory Lewis from BTIG.

Gregory Lewis

Analyst

Øystein, I guess my first question is around the dividend. Clearly, you guys have the balance sheet and where you need -- where you want it to be, you have -- financing is basically taken care of. So just kind of curious, as we think about the decision around the dividend this quarter, would you kind of characterize it as more around the uncertainties around COVID or the coronavirus? Or is it more a function of we have vessels in the spot market. And depending on how the spot market goes, that's going to impact our decision around the dividend. And while that might be the case, as the fleet gets fully delivered through the first half of next year, does that change how you think about the dividend? Øystein Kalleklev: Yes. Good question, Greg, and good to have you on the line again. Yes, I think when we decided to cut our dividend, this was back in February when we suspended the dividend, we -- of course, it was a lot of uncertainty. And I -- as you rightly point out, uncertainty was the key factor here. Of course, we have had fairly high exposure to the spot market. So in that regard, we have seen that Q2 and Q3 would be very tough quarters. That's no surprise for us. We said this already in February and repeated it a couple of times since then. So it's more about in that situation. Also, especially if you look back to March, the financial markets and credit markets were in turmoil. Surprisingly enough, we are now in August. And S&P 500 is back above the level we had prior to the COVID situation. So given both the uncertainty in terms of the financial market with our stock doing pretty folly and…

Gregory Lewis

Analyst

Okay. And then just clearly, Europe has been I guess dumping ground is not the right word, but that's where a lot of the LNG has been going just simply as there's certainly no other place to put it. As we move through the winter, how do we -- how do you kind of think that, that LNG storage in Europe, how do we think that impacts the market? Is there the potential -- you touched on JKM prices rising, is there the potential that some of that LNG could return to the market, if there are opportunities in Asia? Or is that -- once it's in that system, it doesn't -- it tends not to leave? Just kind of a little curious around that. Øystein Kalleklev: I think if you look at the market right now, of course, we have other reduction in the floating storage. And the floating storage we have had over the summer hasn't been people playing a contango or playing time spreads. It's more have been disruptions. Or actually, you have to put it somewhere else, as you mentioned, like a dumping ground. Right now, we have gone down to a more normalized level, and we expect this to start rising again because now you can actually play the time spreads where you're buying, let's say, September cargoes and selling -- sailing and then maybe floating a month and selling into a much higher November price. The -- we have had the situation where LNG prices have been very low, which have made this kind of time arbitrage difficult. It's becoming open now again. So we will expect this to have a gradual buildup. The last 2 years, we have seen around 35 ships in floating storage. We think it probably will be higher this year. And then in terms of reloads, I think that's the other big factor usually, which is very positive for shipping markets. If you're starting to get spreads between Europe and Asia, you could certainly see cargoes flowing out of Europe for reloads into Asia. With kind of Northwest European prices, as I mentioned in the presentation, going back to $3.8 while JKM is at $4.2, it's still a bit narrow that the spread to kind of make that trade walk. But it will have to be, of course, dependent on the winter. Cold winter will create more demand and then, of course, as I mentioned, the economic recovery is also playing its part there. But markets are becoming more normalized, and we see that we have a big rally in the gas prices which are also driving up the freight rates recently.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. No further questions over the phone line, please continue. Øystein Kalleklev: Okay. Since like we are -- can adjourn then for the day, thank you, everyone, again for participating in the presentation. We will be back in November with the Q3 numbers. Hopefully, the COVID focus will gradually fade away, and we are getting back to more normality. And hopefully, back in November, we will have pretty good winter market. So see you all then. Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may all disconnect. Have a good day, everyone, and stay safe. Thank you.