Earnings Sentiment

Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.

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Sentiment Distribution

   

Earnings Call Transcript Word Cloud

     

Bullish Statements during Earnings call

Statement
We have had very good markets, '21, '22, '23
So with good numbers, healthy financial position, we are declaring a quarterly dividend, $0.75, bringing it up to $3.125 [ph] for the year and that should give a yield of, yes, it's probably 12%, now
So I think that's a pretty good result for us, given the lean organization we have in terms of reporting on all these measures
That's a strong testament to our onshore technical and operations team and also for our crew members on board, keeping the propeller running
So we think we are well positioned, minimum 50 years of charter backlog
And with prices coming down to these levels, we see strong growth in India
With strong results, our very healthy backlog which I will cover shortly, we are pleased to once again pay out a dividend of $0.75 per share for the quarter
So very sound, stable business and last slide here before giving it over to Knut is, with this business, we have generated substantial returns
And then as usual, we will have a seasonal peak once we are getting into, I would say, August, September typically then you see we do think that we are well positioned with Constellation, doing docking in Q2 and being ready in the market once it's ready for take-off later in the year
And rest of world, you see very strong growth in Q4 driven, as I said, by these low prices
And -- but with two winters in a row with fairly mild weather, the Europe has been able to fill up its inventories
As mentioned, strong growth from U.S
So we have a stable business backed by a lot of first-class backlog and we are generating substantial cash flow
Revenues, we guided approximately $170 million and I'm pleased to say we beat that by $1.371 million [ph] and then we guided the last measure was adjusted EBITDA of $290 million to $295 million
And now with the price of LNG being competitive, we expect China to grow quite healthy also in 2024
So it's -- the 280% [ph] is a bit less but still a very good return
We guided at approximately $80,000 for the full year, delivered slightly better in Q4
So we do think we will find good opportunities to recontract of tonnage once it come open at better rates
And as I've covered in the past, we are a very shareholder-oriented company where we do think that all these earnings belongs to shareholders and we are paying this out regularly on a quarterly basis, this quarter, we are paying out $0.75, slightly higher than the adjusted earnings, given the fact that we have our various sound financial position with $411 million of cash, no upcoming maturities, a lot of backlog and very limited CapEx liabilities since we have no ships under construction and CapEx liabilities are limited to dry dockings
So we have a lot of headroom ahead of us and this is a very supportive financing position to be in the support of the business and our business case
Japan import on the weak side, China is up but we do see some of these other countries as mentioned but not only India, Thailand, very strong growth last year
So this has driven up cape Routing which, of course, is good for the ton mileage and absorption [ph] of shipping capacity
So the Baltic LNG is a good source
So we do still think we have a very good kind of net asset value, protecting all assets and also backed by the charter backlog I mentioned
We're happy to have a 2-year extension of Resolute to '27, adding further backlog to our fleet
And actually in longer term, it's better to have a more sound price of the product
The makers of these systems are saying that the second generation is a lot better
So we'll see how the Russians are managing to sell these cargoes, the experience from the crude markets, both oil and products seems to be the Russians are very good at finding loopholes and finding customers who are willing to buy this cargo
So I think it's a good time to be invested in Flex
actually grew 27% in Q4 and up 13% for the year, flat for Australia and Qatar the two other major exporters
       

Bearish Statements during earnings call

Statement
Demand in '22 was down 12%
Also [indiscernible] with fairly muted export capacity being implemented and there are some uncertainty about Arctic LNG 2
And given the inefficiency of the ships, given the poor environmental profile of the ships
So as I mentioned on last slide, Europe has had a huge demand destruction on the gas side, driven by these high prices
So we have the seasonal softness
And we -- I have to say, we missed action
So that has also created some issues
We will have a bit softer market in terms of volumes hitting in the market compared to ships for '24, '25
On the import side, as I mentioned, China bouncing back 16%, still a bit below the levels we've seen in 2021 prior to the COVID restriction
We have seen LNG prices migrating down to more normal levels
It's not about water, it's about war and Houthi rebels attacking the maritime traffic
And lagging on the energy sector
Stock market here in Oslo is down today, our stock has recovered a bit, down 5.5%, driven a bit by the sentiment around Equinox Capital Markets Day, where they cut our dividend and Equinox is down 5%, 6% today
We had a bit of a dip in Q2 last year but that was mainly driven by the fact that we carried out talking of three ships in Q2 last year
Given Europe's desperate need to get access to LNG which has reduced the distance being sailed
We are a bit in the softer market now which is no surprise
Ship price today have fallen a bit from $265 million to $262 million
However, it's unfortunate that we have this situation
That sounds like something negative
But Japan is firing up the Nukes and also the coal power plants, they built, I believe, 40 of those since Tokushima; so we do see that Japan demand has been on the soft side
   

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