Operator
Operator
Good day and welcome to the Q2 2018 Frontline Limited Earnings Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to CEO, Robert Macleod. Please go ahead.
Frontline Ltd. (FRO)
Q2 2018 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 22, 2018
$36.22
+0.25%
Same-Day
-0.92%
1 Week
+1.85%
1 Month
+4.44%
vs S&P
+2.74%
Operator
Operator
Good day and welcome to the Q2 2018 Frontline Limited Earnings Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to CEO, Robert Macleod. Please go ahead.
Robert Macleod
Management
Thank you [indiscernible]. Good morning, and good afternoon. Thank you very much for dialing in. This is Frontline’s earnings call for the second quarter of 2018. I will start by briefly going through the highlights of the quarter. Following that, Inger will run us through the financials. We will then look at Q2 earnings and I will guide you on Q3. We will then move on to the current tanker markets and outlook. We will focus on while increasingly optimistic on tanker rates going forward. The call will be concluded by taking your questions. Let’s get started and look at the Company highlights please. We recorded a net loss of $22.9 million or $0.13 per share adjusted for non-cash items in the second quarter. Our results were driven by weak spot markets. Earnings on our older leased vessels were particularly weak. For the week the spot TCE on ships less than 15 years of age was $13,200 and the ECO made at 17,000. Q3 has booked very first to our cash breakeven levels thus far with 82% of the days at $21700 on the ships under 15 years. We terminated long-term charters for three 2002 built geographies recently in a continued effort to divest of less efficient tonnage. We also invested in Submarine a leading scrubber manufacturer and we hold a 20% stake in the company. I will touch more on this later in the call. With that I will hand the call over to Inger to take us through the financials please.
Inger Klemp
Management
Thanks, Robert and good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s turn to Slide 4 and look at the financial highlights. Frontline achieved total operating revenues net of voyage expenses of $73 million in the second quarter and reports a loss of $22.9 million equivalent to $0.13 per share. The non-cash items this quarter consisted of a $0.8 million mark-to-market gain on marketable securities and gain on derivatives or $1.5 million and also a gain on the release of accrued dry docking growth of $2.1 million [Indiscernible] at time of the merger with Frontline 2012. After adjusting them for these non-cash items, we show adjusted EBITDA of $28 million and adjusted net loss of $27.7 million in the second quarter against adjusted net loss of $13.6 million in the first quarter of 2018, this is a decrease of $14 million. Let’s now look at a bit closer on the numbers in the Slide 5, income statements. The decrease due to results in the quarter of $14 million is mainly explained by a decrease in results on time charter basis of $8.2 million due to decrease in TC rates in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. We had a decrease in ship operating of $600,000, we had an increase interest expense by $2.4 million mainly due to the relation to the [indiscernible] fleet of three vessels in the first quarter. And finally we had an increase in our expenses of $5.4 million mainly due to new charters on two VLCC in the quarter. Then let’s us take a look at the balance sheet on Slide 6. Changes to the balance sheet as of end of June from March 31st, primarily related to a decrease in vessels of $74 million due to depreciation in the quarter and increase in…
Robert Macleod
Management
Thank you very much, Inger. Let’s turn to Slide 8 please and look at the Q2 performance and guidance for Q3. The spot earnings for the overall fleet in the quarter was $11,700 on the VLCCs. ECO and modern lease obviously did better as mentioned earlier. We expect 78% as $20,000 for Q3. Our Suezmax made $14,100 and 64% of Q3 have been booked at similar numbers. On the Aframax Q2 was weak at 1107 but our Q3 bookings was 67% on at 15.5 is stronger. Let’s go to Slide 9 and look at the VLCC fleet growth. The growth of crude oil tanker fleet grew substantially in 2017 and was expected to grow by 8.3% in 2018. At the start of the year, there were 57 VLCCs schedule for delivery in 2018, 24 have been delivered so far and it is also likely that some deliveries would be delayed into 2019. Scrapping has increased considerably in 2018. According to reports, 25 VLCCs have been scrapped so far and an additional 14 have been sold for scrapping. This has changed the free growth outlook completely and it now actually looks like we are heading towards negative growth in 2018. Fleet growth was heavily against us in 2016 and 2017 and this change is a very important factor. Let's move on to Slide 10 and outlook at the oil inventory cycle. There was a clear historic link between oil inventories and freight levels. In Paris where inventory builds freight increases as tanker are filled. 2016 when we enjoyed strong freight rates is a very good example of this. As we enter into 2016 this changed, inventory draws started and the freight market came off slowly. 2017 showed significant fleet growth and inventory draws and we enter the various price markets that…
Operator
Operator
Robert Macleod
Management
Okay. Thank you very much. That's good for us. So our press release and our presentation must have been extremely care and covering. So thank you very much for everyone for dialing in. I would also like to thank everyone at Frontline for their great efforts. Thanks again.