Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc.
Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 9 Mar 2022

[Operator:]

Good day and welcome to the Overseas Shipholding Group Fourth Quarter and full-year 2021 results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sam Norton, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

[Sam Norton:]

Thank you,. Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining Dick Trueblood in this call for the presentation of our 2021 fourth quarter and full-year results. And for allowing us to provide additional commentary and insight in the current state of our business, and the opportunities, and challenges that lie ahead. To start, I would like to direct everyone to the narrative on pages two and three of the PowerPoint presentation, available on our website; regarding forward-looking statements, estimates, and other information that may be provided during the course of this call. The contents of that narrative are an important part of this presentation. And I urge everyone to read and consider them carefully. We will be offering you more than just the historical perspective on OSG today. And our presentation includes forward-looking statements, including statements about anticipated future results. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by our forward-looking statements and could be affected by a variety of risk factors, including factors beyond our control. For discussion of those factors, we refer you to our SEC filings, particularly our Form 10-K for 2021, which we anticipate being filed later today, which are available at the SECs internet site, www.sec.gov, as well as our own website, www. osg.com. Forward-looking statements in this presentation speak only as to the date of these materials, and we do not assume any obligations to update any forward-looking statements, except as may be legally required. In addition, our presentation today includes certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we define and reconcile to the most closely comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release, which is posted on our website. I think it's appropriate to start by saying that almost about today's presentation is centered on the results achieved during the final quarter of last year. The sense that many of us here share, is that 2021 already seems to be in the distant past. There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen. It's a quote attributed to many, but whose origin is unknown. What is known however, is that this phrase aptly captures what has transpired in our business, since the last time we spoke, shortly before year-end. The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the global energy markets has been profound. Yesterday, the Biden administration took steps to restrict the imported Russian crude oil and petroleum products into the United States. United Kingdom has taken similar steps. This follows on the heels of a coordinated release of strategic petroleum reserves by 30 nations, including the United States, announced on March 1st, which will begin being drawn down in early April. While formal sanctions against Russian providers of energy products by other countries have not yet been and may not be imposed, the market has nonetheless reacted more broadly and more acutely than most would have imagined only weeks ago. Self sanctioning and nearly all things Russia has had perhaps a more pronounced impact on market prices and has caused significant disruptions in normal energy flows. We do not yet know whether this pattern will persist or what the long-term impact of these developments maybe. Wherever if the past weeks taught us anything, it is that conventional wisdom in the current era of global connectivity is of minimal value. Throughout 2021 and entering into 2022, we had been anticipating and planning for a recovery in our core markets. We believe that this recovery was to be driven by a return of demand resulting from an expected normalization of mobility and consumption patterns that had existed in the United States before the COVID-19 pandemic. This narrative, at least for the moment, remains largely in place. Now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has layered on top of this story line the dimensions of disruptions in virtually all energy markets and the potential for secondary effects to append previous assumptions. Our core businesses are largely insulated from the direct impact of the events on the ground in Ukraine. It is wise to remember that international commodity markets are integrated with shipping acting as the main transmission agent, enabling arbitrage of localized price differentials. Indirect effects in our markets are thus inevitable. Some will no doubt be beneficial, generating potentially more or longer voyages or the emergence of unconventional trading patterns. Others may evoke vocabulary not featured in the United States for a decade; inflation, energy crisis, commodity shortages, and cold war, to name a few. Adjustments to our thinking and our consequential planning are thus required. As is almost always the case in the shipping business, it is the unforeseen disruptions that have the most significant impact on outcomes. The need to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and to make in-game adjustments will continue in the months ahead. Let us delve into where we might see a continuing impact of the current situation on OSG 's businesses. It is likely that Russian crude oil imports will be substituted with alternative crudes by our Delaware Bay Lightering customers. Slide 6 provides EIA data on both aggregate crude oil imports from Russia into the United States. The pie chart, showing to which refineries these imports were directed during 2021. As indicated, total imports of Russian crude oil into the U.S. have averaged as much as 500,000 barrels a day in recent years, with a notable concentration amongst PADD 1 refiners, who are our main lightering customers. A possible direct consequence of the concern about the need to replace Russian crude supplies is a decision by one of our Lightering customers to take the Overseas Long Beach on a charter for five consecutive voyages beginning in early March, with intent transport domestic crude oil to Delaware Bay in order to partially hedge their refinery against disrupted import trades. The second potential impact, observable in our markets, is the possibility the domestic refined product may be substituted for Russian and European imports. Slide seven provides a recent picture of the price advantage enjoyed by U.S. refineries versus European and Asian refineries, due to the high price of natural gas outside of the United States. Note the February natural gas price in Europe was more than $22 per million BTU higher than in the United States; a margin that is wide even further over the past week. This advantage was until recently expected to fade as we move into the summer months. However, natural gas availability in Europe is constrained by the Russian - Ukraine situation in the months ahead. This pricing advantage could work to support near-term demand for Jones Act movements of refined products into the East Coast markets. In this context, we have seen a number of voyages fixed from the U.S. Gulf Coast to the Northeast U.S. discharged locations since the middle of February, indicating that additional PADD 3 refined petroleum products is finding its way into PADD 1 locations. It is not clear if this development is a function of a reduction in Russian imports, or very low product inventories on the East Coast, or poor refining economics in Europe, emanating from very high natural gas prices. Perhaps it is a combination of all these. Nonetheless, we have fixed four clean product voyages from the U.S. Gulf to New York in the past month, none of which we have seen for the past two years. Other voyages that we have fixed recently that are a typical include a voyage transporting gasoline from Houston to Puerto Rico, and several consecutive voyages to deliver agricultural fertilizers from the U.S. Gulf to California over the next several months. All of these movements are the result of trading opportunities, not usually seen in the markets within which OSG operates and represent incremental and unusually long tonne-mile demand. As we have communicated in recent months, we consider the Jones Act markets to be in the process of progressively healing from the demand shocking posed by the rise and fall of multiple variants of COVID-19 experienced in particular in the United States over the past two years. Evidence of this evolving recovery can be seen in the fact that we have brought five of our Jones Act tankers out of lay-up in the period between September and February with all of those vessels having found work almost immediately. We are currently evaluating options to reactivate the overseas Tampa, our last remaining laid up tanker, during the second quarter, and remain hopeful, that if current trends persist, we can activate our ATB OSG 350 vision, during the second half of this year. Thanks to our energy consultants, ESI Energy, slide 8 provides some illustrations of what we mean by healing market that has over the last several months, made its way almost completely back to normalized conditions. Without considering the Russian - Ukraine impact, the fundamentals for energy transportation of domestic markets have been improving steadily during 2021. The chart's new slide point to a very positive mobility index picture, showing a sharp rebound coming out of the year end Omicron influence to drop. Rising jet fuel demand, as U.S. gets ready to travel more, as the effects of COVID fade, and low distill inventories on the East Coast, which will need to be replenished as we move into the summer. Finally, in the chart in the lower right-hand corner, ESAI concludes that the impact of the pandemic is over in terms of global oil demand. All of these developments bode well for the domestic tanker demand. Note that these charts we're prepared before the ongoing events in Ukraine. So uncertainty as to the actual future trajectory of the line graphs predicted, may be affected by the dislocations and broader economic impacts of the war there. Let's now turn to a few comments on the final accounting period of 2021. We are pleased with the operating results achieved during the fourth quarter of last year, marching into the third consecutive quarter of improved sequential time charter equivalent and EBITDA performance. Importantly, we expect this trend to extend into this year. As noted earlier, business fundamentals for our conventional Jones Act tankers continues to strengthen. We are encouraged by the steadily improving cash flows from our businesses and the improvements realized on our balance sheet resulting from the additional available operating days provided by our newly activated vessels, improved market rates, and a reliably solid contribution from our niche and Alaska Tanker Company assets. Before turning things over to Dick to provide a deeper dive into the numbers, I would like to mention a few additional important developments that occurred during the fourth quarter that should have increasingly greater visibility in the periods ahead. First, we delivered the Overseas Key West into her long-term charter with Valero to move renewable diesel from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico to California. Two more of our competitors’ vessels have been committed to that same trade in recent bonds. One more to Valero and one to Chevron. As evidenced of the rising importance of renewable diesel in the middle distillates pools around the country, Chevron recently announced its intent to acquire Renewable Energy Group, and Aerosonde announced joint venture with Neste Oil for production and distribution of a renewable diesel at their Martinez, California facility. These projects and others like them, have generated and will likely continue to generate new incremental ton mile demand for Jones Act tankers and ATBs over the next two to three years. The emerging trade for renewable diesel has important implications for the Jones Act tanker supply demand balance, given the priority that California will be afforded as the preferred destination for this fuel. To illustrate this, one tanker that is regularly involved trading from the U.S. Gulf to California generates three times the ton-mile demand, as a similar vessel operating between Texas and the East Coast of Florida. Each new contract to move renewable diesel to the West Coast will thus have a leveraged effect in tightening tanker supply available in the U.S. Gulf. New production of renewable diesel coming on stream on the West Coast will also generate new distribution demand, offering further reason to believe maritime transportation, renewable diesel will be a strong catalyst for new business opportunities in the years ahead. Second, I would like to highlight progress made in advancing the establishment of the Tankers Security Program. This project has long featured in my regular comments. We have had to be patient in working through the legislative and political obstacles prevented the funding of this program, which was authorized in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. We are now more optimistic than ever that this program will commence this year with $60 million allocated to provide stipends for 10 U.S. flag tankers. Once this program is operational, OSG's current MSP vessels, the Overseas Mick A-notes and oversees Santorini will move over to participate in the Tankers Security Program with the resulting step-up in annual stipend amounts to be received. OSG will also propose the Overseas Sun Coast to be entered into this program. Is approved the Overseas Sun Coast would be converted to a U.S. flag and demand by U.S. persons in the future, a net increase of nearly 50 seafarer jobs that we can look forward to later this year. And to source of expanded midst activity revenues. Establishing the Tankers Security Program has been one of our key long-term objectives in recent years and it is gratifying to see this project getting close to becoming a reality. Third, I would like to highlight a meaningful contribution that the Alaskan Tanker Company and our 2 newly built ATBs to our results over the past year. These new investments made in 2019/2020 contributed over 70% of OSG's net vessel operating contribution during 2021. An outcome that validates our confidence in the long-term future of OSG's businesses, and the benefit of investing in that future even during challenging times. It is frankly difficult to imagine where we would've been in 2021 had we not made these investments. Finally, I would like to draw attention to the extraordinary efforts that were made by our shore-based staff and seafarers during what was clearly one of the most challenging operational years in recent memory. We have continued to manage operations in the face of COVID, with no disruptions to service and have met our safety and environmental KPIs while maintaining operating cost discipline. It is often the case that the things that don't happen are what matter the most, but are the least recognized. Everyone who has a stake in LSG should pause and reflect of just how hard it has been to keep everything in our business moving forward without incident, and the stress that many, if not most of our employees, have been under to achieve these results. We owe them all a strong expression of our deep appreciation and gratitude for everything they do to put this company in a position to succeed financially. I will now turn the call over to Dick to provide you with further details on our fourth quarter and full-year results for 2022. Dick?

[Dick Trueblood:]

Thanks, Sam. Please turn to Slide 10. During the fourth quarter, we experienced a continuing increase in TCE revenues from the prior 2021 quarters. Q4 TCE revenues have increased 22% from 2021's first quarter, rising to $80 million. Adjusted EBITDA has also reflected a significant improvement since Q1 2021, rising from $ 6.2 million to $16.6 million in the fourth quarter. Spot market activity continued to increase in fourth quarter, along with the strengthening of rates. These trends reflect the continuing improvement in transportation demand, prompting the return to service of vessels from lay-up. The overseas Key West and Overseas Boston both completed their dry-dock periods in the fourth quarter, and began their time charters approximately halfway through the quarter. The Overseas Anacortes returned to service in December, reducing the number of vessels in lay-up to four as of December 31. Subsequently, we return two more vessels to service in January and February 2022, reducing the number of vessels remaining in lay-up to two, by the end of February. Please turn to Slide 11. Lightering volumes increased compared to the third quarter driving higher TCE revenues and better utilization levels. Revenues from our two ATB, both of which are on time charter remains stable as the two units continue to operate as contracted. in Santorini, continued to participate in the Maritime Security Program and provide services to the Government of Israel. During that quarter, we performed one GOI voyage and one voyage for the Military Sealift Command, in each case, a slight decrease from third quarter activity. We recognized an increase in rates on our non-U.S. like tanker during the quarter and TCE revenues on a net basis decreased $1.8 million. Our Alaskan tanker revenues increased slightly due to a small increase in average rates. Jones Act candy-size tanker revenues increased $4.8 million principally due to a reduction in vessels in layup, which was partially offset by the off-higher dry dock periods for the Boston and Key West. Please turn to Slide 12. This slide looks at for our Jones Act conventional tankers only activities levels from Q3, 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021. The total number of days in each quarter that our 10 Jones Act conventional tankers could be employed without any off-hire days are shown by the . Employee days represented by the orange line, declined by 260 days from the fourth quarter of 2020 for the first quarter of 2021. This was followed by stable employment levels through third quarter of 2021 with a pronounced increase in Q4 as the impact of improving demand led to the return of vessels to service. Vessel layup days.-- The goals line are the reverse image of employee days as we placed vessels in layup to minimize costs. This reduction in lay-up days has continued in Q1 of 2022 as we return to additional vessels to service. Unemployed days were relatively constant across all periods. Please turn to slide 13. Our niche businesses continue to perform consistently with a slight decline in TCE revenues from the third quarter. Again, lightering revenues increased as volumes increased in the third quarter. Our shuttle tanker revenues decreased slightly due to a brief off-hire repair period for one of the vessels. Non - Jones Act product tanker revenues decreased due to the fewer GOI voyage and MSV current lows during the quarter. Please turn to slide 14, vessel operating contribution increased $2.4 million from Q3 2021 to $19 million in the current quarter. Jones Act candy-size tankers reduced their vessel operating loss to $8.7 million from $12 million in the previous quarter. Higher demand levels, general improvement in rates all coupled with an increase in vessels available for hire, resulted in a 140 more employee days. Niche market activities declined very slightly from the third quarter as MSP activity decreased, and the shuttle activities experienced their increase in off-hire repair days. contribution increased again on volumes to higher volumes. Combined vessel operating contribution of our niche market activity's ATBs in the Alaska crude oil tankers provided the vessel operating contribution in the current quarter of $ 27.7 million compared to $28.6 million in the third quarter continuing their consistent performance. Please turn to Slide 50. Adjusted EBITDA continued to sequentially improve rising from $12.12 million in the third quarter to $16.6 million in the current quarter. Compared to the first quarter of 2021, this represents a $10.4 million increase. We believe this reflects the improving fundamentals of our business. The Jones Act conventional tanker market continues to recover, but nevertheless continues to negatively impact adjusted EBITDA. Please turn to Slide 16. Our fourth quarter net loss was $ 3.7 million, the lowest quarterly loss in 2021. As a reminder, the third quarter included a $7.9 million pre -tax loss associated with our refinancing, resulting from prepayment fees and the write-off for previously deferred financing costs. Additionally, we recognized the $1million impairment charge related to the right-of-use assets assorted -- associated with two of our airboat charter tankers. Please turn to slide 17. At December 31, 2020, we had total cash of $70 million, which included a $100 thousand of restricted cash. During 2021, we generated for $45 million of adjusted EBITDA and realized $32 million of cash proceeds from the sale of the Overseas Gulf Coast in June. We entered into a $325 million term loan and used $278 million to pay off two loans and partially pre -pay two additional loans. We incurred $6 million of loan issuance amendment in prepayment fees. Working capital used $19 million of cash. We experienced -- expanded $19 million on drydocking and improvements to our vessels. We further invested $8 million in vessel and other CapEx. Interest expense was $26 million. During the year, we repaid $33 million of debt through scheduled amortization. The result, we ended the year with $83 million of cash, including $100 thousand of restricted cash. Please turn to Slide 18. Continuing our discussion of cash and liquidity, as we mentioned on the previous slide, we got $83 million of cash on December 31, 2021. Our total debt was $450 million, representing an increase of $14 million in outstanding indebtedness since January 2020. Scheduled loan amortization in 2022 is $22.2 million. With $339 million of equity, our net debt-to-equity ratio is 1.1 times. This concludes my comments on the financial statements. I would like to turn the call back to Sam.

[Sam Norton:]

Thank you, Dick. Recent chartering activity for our vessels is a sign of the significant shifts and at the very least, short-term market sentiment. We believe observable factors continue to build momentum in our markets. OSG's fleet has been and remains well-positioned to participate in an anticipated recovery of transportation fuel demand, as well as to facilitate many of the emerging trading opportunities resulting from currently disrupted energy markets. All of our available vessel operational days have now been covered for the balance of the first quarter. As of this morning, 80% of available days during the second quarter have also now been fully fixed at improved rates. Rates obtained for recent spot voyages have exceeded $60,000 per day, and time charter period rates have been fixed in the $55,000 to $60,000 per day range. All of this activity gives us good visibility towards the results expected for the first quarter of 2022. We expect both TCE and EBITDA to increase sequentially over fourth quarter results, with TCE for the first quarter likely to exceed $90 million and adjusted EBITDA estimated to approach $25 million for the quarter. Looking further ahead, the picture is less clear. Improved fundamentals offer the prospect for new opportunities and continued gains in TCE and cash flow delivered, but risks and uncertainties remain. In particular, labor shortages in general, especially visible in our industry will pose challenges to sustaining the quality and consistency of vessel availability, as we work towards fully activating our fleet. Traders have remained reluctant to commit vessels on time charter for more than three months. Remnants of concerns of the impact of COVID continue and there are still a lot of uncertainty around what will be the longer-term impact of high commodity prices and rising inflationary pressures on broader economic activity and energy consumption patterns in particular. The conflict in Ukraine will impose conditions of broad uncertainty at all levels. Nonetheless, outside the inherent volatility of the pure commodity trades that we participate in, we see the stabilizing aspects of our niche businesses emerging even more fully as we plan for the future. Renewable diesel trades, improved prospects for increased Alaskan oil production, and the important role that ATC will play in that trade, and the prospects of fleet growth offered by the Tankers Security Program offer real and likely near-term catalysts for achieving revenue growth in these specialty markets. Higher oil prices also bode well for the long-term future of our shuttle tankers. With the prospect of better future cash flows adding to the improved liquidity position achieved for the completion of our recent refinancing, OSG is well positioned to pursue opportunities that we see emerging out of the transition towards the less carbon-intensive energy future. While we are still in the early days of determining which opportunities will prove to be the most attractive and best suited to us to use core strength, we have begun committing human and capital resources towards answering these questions and forming our long-term strategies. will now open up the call for questions, please.

[Operator:]

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. We will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. First question today comes from Ryan Vaughan with Needham. Please go ahead.

[Ryan Vaughan:]

Thank you operator. Hi, Sam, hi Dick. Good to hear from you, guys.

[Sam Norton:]

Morning.

[Ryan Vaughan:]

Morning. So first off, I say the same praises, big credit to the team for getting through 2021and then Sam especially, being able to capitalize this year and beyond, just as the market is returning and tightening up here. Sam, you touched on -- I have a few questions, but you touched on a couple of these things. One, just as far as I know, it's a fluid market that we're in today. We noticed that some of the charters that you are getting done like the Key West, happened to be done on a longer duration. Some of them are being done on a few months. Just how are you thinking about that? It seems like it's somewhat staggered. I'm sure some of it is on your side, some is on the buyer side. But just what's ideal for you? Again, just knowing that you're a big player here, things are really tightening up, appear to be recovering with COVID, as well as some of these other external factors. But just first question around, how you're thinking about the duration of time charters going forward?

[Sam Norton:]

So thanks for that, Ryan. We say in our published materials and we frequently repeat that, our core business operating strategy is to be on time charter with our key customers in the United States We consider our business services to be really part of the distribution infrastructure of our customers and we don't think the international market propensity for spot trading is really appropriate in United States given the short duration of most of the voyages in the spot, and the relatively small number of tankers that are available to be able to serve those trades. So we prefer to be on time charter and we prefer those time charters to be of longer duration because they offer greater stability for us and greater visibility to allow us to plan for growth in our business. But we also say that there are periods in the market where time charters are neither available or if they're available, available at rates that we think are manageable. And during those periods, we need to be able to take the seasons to remain in the spot market or need as we saw last year, lay-up vessels and wait for the market to recover and correct itself to allow for the emergence or re-emergence of time charter contracts at rates that we think are acceptable. We basically have transitioned through that whole cycle in the last 12 months. We had the lab shifts. We are even in the second half of last year. We did fix a couple of ships on time charter for a year or two and in certain cases, at rates that we were not really happy about, but we needed to take some defensive positioning to keep cash flow flowing. Recent -- Since the beginning of this year, a lot of that has changed. The market has tighten for reasons I've talked about. We've rates come back up into levels that we think are remunerative for the services that we provide. And we at the moment would be happy to see the contracts that we're fixing begin to see some extended duration. A year or two years at these levels that we're currently fixing at, I think would be very healthy for our business and very healthy for our customers, frankly, to give them the assurance of distribution capacity. As I noted in my comments, there's still a reluctance in the market to try and go for that kind of duration. Recent charter fixtures that we've done have basically been in the 2 to 3 months range. We have seen a little bit of longer activity. The longest fixture that we've seen in the last 3, 4 months has been a year by one of our competitors. So the trading desks of our customers seems still to be reluctant to make the kind of commitments that we think would be indicative of a truly healthy market for us. But the progression has been positive. We've gone from lots of ships in the spot market to one-month time charters to two - month time charters, to three-month time charters, and we're hopeful that as we progress through the rest of this year that we'll start to see some links in the duration the charters that we can pay.

[Ryan Vaughan:]

Great. That's helpful. And then it was great to hear that you're working on Tampa, as well as the 350. Can you just talk about what some of the variables are in the use for Tampa, all things go well 2Q and the back half for the vision. Just what are the driving variables to make that happen?

[Sam Norton:]

The two principal constraints that we face right now in getting vessels activated are not market-related. We think the business is there in the market, but we still face certain obstacles in terms of getting equipment back on the water. The first is frankly something that everybody is dealing with these days, which are supply chain logistics. For the Tampa specifically, we have a ballast water treatment system that we have to install. We purchased that equipment from Europe. We have seen significant delays in container shipping out of Europe. We just recently are finishing up the dry-dock on Overseas Houston on the unit that we installed, the ballast treatment system that we installed on the Overseas Houston was delayed by 10 weeks coming out of Europe. We are seeing similar delays in the equipment that we ordered for the Tampa. So at this time, we can't put the vessel into dry dock until probably the end of May. And it's a little bit tight as to whether or not the ballast water treatment system that we ordered is going to get there in time to be able to afford us to get that dry dock completed by within the second quarter of this year. The other thing that is really notable is labor shortages in our business are right now acute. We have officer issues; particularly junior officers and we have unlicensed crew members; both of those pools and employees have been severely impacted by COVID. The schools for the unlicensed officers during much of the COVID period were closed down, so the normal sort of graduates of those schools that would've been coming into the market over the last 18 months are not available. And you still have your sort of normal level of retirees and people that are going out of the market, so that's created a lot of tightness in the labor market. Also, the other shipping markets that are outside of the tanker market, including most notably the container market, their businesses have been booming, so the demand for labor there has been significant as well; that's really crimped our access to immediate availability of seafarers to put on our shifts. We've seen that through the activation of the ships that we brought out in January, February, and March of this year, and there was, frankly, a heroic effort by our staffs -- our shore-based staff to be able to go out and recruit and hire the people to put those ships back in service, and we're really grateful for the work that they've done doing in that. But those labor shortages will continue, and could have an impact on the timing of bringing those ships out of its lay-up.

[Ryan Vaughan:]

Okay. Let me just sneak in one more if that's okay. The commentary on 1-Q was that -- sounds great, especially the 90 and 25 heading in the right direction for sure. And getting back . Before all this started -- this COVID started, I know you guys were looking to be probably $ 35 million on EBITDA per quarter. Just maybe just totally understanding that there's still quite a, quite a few factors in the market in shorter spot voyages that you're doing right now. But the biggest variable and I need to tell you guys is necessarily it's just that Jones Act segment on the contribution side, it was negative $ 44 million in 2021. I don't mean to rub salt in the wound necessarily, but really more to highlight what that segment can do this year. Certainly it seems positive with if you had 5, 6, 7 vessels idle last year, that's down to one right now. But just any kind of broad strokes just to help us out, what we should be looking for and thinking about for that one segment that set another way if it was zero, your business looks significantly different last year versus what you reported. But just any helpful idea what to be thinking about for 2022, thank you.

[Sam Norton:]

The commentary that we gave at the end of last year about rationale for why we elected not to renew three of the tankers that we have on -- third at least from ATC, I think, is applicable to be repeated. As you have said, the conventional tanker market is very volatile, and it's susceptible to swings and changes in the underlying demand and to exogenous shocks and other factors that are totally beyond our control. I'd like to think that things -- as I said in my comments, we had the narrative of an improving tanker market and getting back to normal. Well, that was our script for this year. I think that's still the same. And so, I think that we remain pretty optimistic that that's going to play out over the balance of this year. But everything has changed in the last couple of weeks, and I think we're still on a stage of trying to understand what all those -- all of the implications of the energy shifts that emerge out of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, how that's going to impact our market. In one sense, the dislocation of energy movements is probably positive for the tanker markets globally, as the markets adjust to changing supply patterns. But the flip side of that is if inflation and high commodity prices trigger recession, that could have an offsetting or potentially asymmetrical impact on consumer confidence, and the other factors that go into general demand for transportation fuels. So I think that's the narrative that's reflected in our customer's reluctance to try and go beyond a month or two.in terms of their commitments for ships. And I think we still need to see that play out. Again, our basic game plan for this year is pretty positive ones. We think when you look at the overall inventory levels, you look at the refining utilization rates that are coming up, you add on top of that, but likely probability of increased air travel and increased jet fuel, which has been the principal missing part of the consumption barrel over the last 6 to 8 months. General COVID, post - COVID demand, explosion from people that just pent-up demand they want to get out and do stuff. All of that we saw was setting up pretty well for a good 2022. I think we still believe that that's the base case, but recent activities in Europe have increased uncertainty in recent weeks. I think that's the best way to think about it. Just to help you answer your question, we have now all of our tankers are out and operating except for the Tampa. We're pretty confident that Tampa will join that operating fleet by the end of the second quarter. Rates right now are close to $60,000 a day. If you take 10 shifts times $60,000 a day, and if you can achieve that over the balance of the year, that's a pretty good outcome. The question is, how much downtime may we take because of uncertain demand? And how successful we will be as we roll through the conclusions of current contracts that we have on the books? How successful will we be in redeploying those ships at equal or better rates as we move through the balance of the year, and that just you have to wait and see.

[Ben Nolan:]

Thank you for that, makes sense and I have one more but I'll see if Jay or anybody else has any questions, thanks.

[Operator:]

As a reminder, if you have a question, . The next question comes from Ben Nolan with Stifel, please go ahead.

[Ben Nolan:]

Hey, Sam. I thought I'd I follow up on a quick question. Actually, you were just talking about it. $60 thousand a day. That's a pretty good number. Two things there -- is that -- I assume that's the spot market. I'm curious if there is a big delta between that, and were you able to contract that? And how do we frame that from -- let's say where we started the year, where in the last two plus months, where have we come from to that 60 thousand number?

[Sam Norton:]

Remember the Jones Act? I know you're usually covering the international market where there's probably 50 fixtures a day.

[Ben Nolan:]

Yeah.

[Sam Norton:]

Black markets. A fixed -- period fixtures happen one or two a month or a lot, and sometimes you go months without any

[Ben Nolan:]

Right.

[Sam Norton:]

So take that as a caveat. At the end of last year, there was a one-year period fixture that was done in the low 50s by one of our competitors. He fixed the vessel. So call that November-December, low 50s for 12 months. In January, later January, early February, let's call it. Then other fixtures that was done in the mid fifties. And what we've seen in recent weeks or this past 10 days, not 12 months, although I think the rate -- the asking rate out there for 12 months is probably the same, but we've seen fixtures for 3 to 4 months time charter at $60 thousand a day. Spot rates are approaching $70 thousand a day, and they were -- in November, October of last year, they were probably low fifties.

[Ben Nolan:]

Yes. That's a good move. Sort of along the -- well, it correlated obviously. You talked about having all, I guess the Tampa up and running. Any sense of where utilization is across the entire fleet beyond your own vessels, how close are we to every ship or ATB being in service and operating?

[Sam Norton:]

Pretty close. Tankers -- again, if you look at tankers, the only tanker that is not currently working is the Tampa. And as I said, there's business for her today, we just can't get her out because of the constraints of labor and supply chain logistics. On the barge side, I think you are aware there was a company called Bouchard that went through bankruptcy liquidation in the second-half of last year, some of those assets have been put back to work, some of them still are not working. So there's a little bit of overhang on the barge side, at least theoretical overhang that those barges could come back to service, and there may be one or two other barges that I'm not specifically aware of that are still kind of not fully utilized. But if the general universe of Jones Act, ATBs and tankers or ATBs greater than a hound 50 thousand barrels, that's kind of the defined market by people that look at our markets. The number of ships is about 87, 88 vessels in total. I would say, certainly, 85 -- 84, 85 of those vessels are currently working. That's a pretty good number.

[Ben Nolan:]

Great. Well, that's great color and good news. So thanks. I appreciate them.

[Operator:]

The next question is a follow-up from Ryan Vaughan with Needham. Please go ahead.

[Ryan Vaughan:]

Thank you, Operator. Yeah. So just one more from me for Sam and Dick as we're thinking about 2022 and clearly are EBITDA trajectory is substantially better than what we were looking at last year. Maybe for Dick in particular, how are you thinking about swinging now to cash, to generating free cash? Obviously, I think you've made it pretty clear you want to delever the balance sheet. Where do you start there? Is it just widespread with the and then targeting specific loans in particular, but any sort of update when you expect to officially swing over to that free cash flow positive? And is it to accumulate more cash or is it, let's go down -- let's really started to pay down the debt that we have. Thanks.

[Sam Norton:]

I think we should -- given the performance that we're seeing now in the first quarter, I would expect that free cash flow after -- before CapEx will be positive. And I think that again on the current trajectory will continue through the year. Obviously, to bring the Tampa back into service, we are going to spend several millions of dollars to take through dry-dock and ballast water treatment system, although some of that comes back to us. So there will be some of those costs,

[Dick Trueblood:]

but this is not a particularly intensive year from a ship-oriented capital requirements, so I would expect that will be cash flow positive. Probably after CapEx as we start to get into the third quarter and then we can look at what do we do with it, what are the best opportunities to pay it back. I mean, it will certainly obviously payback to 22 plus million dollars of scheduled amortization. We'll look at opportunities that are out there and look at the economics of what we want to prepay anything, keep in mind, obviously most of these launch ever prepayment penalties in place and some costs that would be associated with reducing the indebtedness in advance of the normal amortization curve. But we'll look at what the economics are and what are the other alternatives for using some cash.

[Sam Norton:]

I think Ryan, I can add a little bit of color to that. I think you're correct that deleveraging the business is certainly part of our game plan and something that we look at. It's not every day we look at pretty regularly, but we don't turn away from looking at growth opportunities. And the Jones Act market is small. Opportunities in U.S. flag market while expanding because of Tankers Security Program they're also not great. But there are little things that we see from time-to-time that we think afford us an ability to invest more capital in areas that are not as commoditized as our conventional tanker business. And then offer the kind of stability of niche returns that we see in our seven Tanker ATC Lightering business that we keep our eyes open for. And there's still some consolidation that's going on in the industry. So we may see one or two assets that come up that would look interesting there. So I said in my remarks, you look at the capital investments that we made in 2019 to 2020, those were not easy decisions to make at the time. We bought ATC literally as COVID came down on top of us. And I think the we got some financing rates at the last minute to be able to pull that off. And they ATBs that we built, they were built -- this isn't to build those were done at a time when the market was not as strong as it is, at least looking today. And the new building that we built that we positioned for the thank you security program. All those things contributed meaningfully in 2021. And I think given us some scope for an increased niche market revenues as we go forward. So although the Jones Act, U.S. Flag opportunities to invest capital in growth assets is not maybe as readily available in the international markets, it's still an important part of our game plan and something that we look forward to having some surplus cash to be able to think about in the future.

[Ryan Vaughan:]

Okay. So just along those lines and since you mentioned, you have several different segments and definitely getting the ATC done was huge and especially at the time that you did, you have the ATPs, you have the niche businesses, you have the Jones Act, you do have a lot for $600 million company today. Are there -- would you ever think about investing more heavily in one or two or three of those and maybe letting one of the other ones go just to be a little bit more concentrated, or do you like being just diversified again, it's a $600 million business today spread out between your call four or 5, 6 different assets?

[Dick Trueblood:]

I'm not certainly have a lot of choice in the matter are pretty small. I think the answer to that question we've given in the decisions that we've taken in the last couple of years. Right. We pivoted away from ATBs towards tankers and we've pivoted away from an overly heavy concentration in the commodity side of our tankers towards businesses that are more niche businesses that afford us a greater stability in what we do. I don't think there's a scenario in which we exit the tanker or ATB market not withstanding its volatility, because it's important part of our business and it's a cyclical business. You want to have some exposure, I think to the tightening markets as we start to see now, because that can provide you with some outsized returns for at least three periods when those type conditions exist. I think the mix of stability provided by our niche businesses and the upside possibilities that are afforded to us by our conventional tanker and ATB businesses right now, that's a pretty good mix to have. And if we see opportunities to add to that mix of assets, I think we'd give first priority to more niche type businesses, but we wouldn't exclude commodity type assets or more commodity like assets, if the opportunities presented themselves.

[Ryan Vaughan:]

Great well thank you for all the questions appreciate it John.

[Operator:]

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Sam Norton for any closing remarks.

[Sam Norton:]

Thank you, Betsy. Thanks again to everyone for participating on today's call. I read in the New York Times today a piece about the 50th anniversary of the screening of the Godfather, which is pretty amazing. It's Al Pacino's making commentary on the Godfather. But one of the things that was in there was a recollection of the greatest lines of the movie, and Dick and I both recall that our favorite line in the movie was, "leave the gun, take the cannoli. " So how you call it that as we go off for cannoli lunch in celebration of The Godfather, and look forward to speaking to you again next quarter as our business continues to improve . Have a good day, everyone.

[Operator:]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.