AB KN Energies (KNE1L) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Dear listeners, welcome to Klaipedos nafta meeting with investors. I'm Emilija from NASDAQ business, and I'll be moderating today's event. We will start with the 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 a rewatch. [Operator Instructions] With that said, I'm pleased to introduce today's presenters, Chief Executive Officer, Darius Silenskis; and Chief Financial Officer, Mindaugas Kvekšas. Dear guests, please, the floor is yours, and good luck.

Thank you, Emilija. Good morning, everybody, who is participating this white early morning on Monday, and as usually, it's a pleasure for us to have the time of all of you and to present our main highlights as well as results of financial performance for Q4 2022. So I will start from the main highlights. Can you please switch the following slide. Yes. Thank you. So I'll start from regulated activity, where probably the main or major project which we are running now is potential expansion of our LNG terminal capacity. Why it is actual? It is because of, so to say, significant changes in the market and our FSRU becoming essential part of energy security and supply of gas in the region after the war. Our major capacities are already booked for the long term, for 10 years, and we see some potential from the market and demand as well from the market to investigate possibilities to expand current Klaipeda LNG terminal regasification capacities. We do that together with gas transmission system operator on the grid. Since in case open season, which we are going to launch in spring, will end up with some commitments and agreements from the market, not only investments to our infrastructure, but also investments to the gas grid will be needed. Talking about the business news, here I would like to highlight that we have selected international experts for consulting on the development of our company's new long-term operational strategy. We are calling it new. It's not a revision. It's a creation of a new strategy. Why? Because during the last few years, company has been going through the transformation, both from the market side and both from the area where we operate. And the tender for consultants has been awarded to the global consultancy term, Simon-Kucher & Partners. Also, it's very important achievement, which happened just recently. We have signed a 10-year long contract with Lithuanian Energy Agency for storage of compulsory, so to say, fuel state reserves in our Subacius Oil Terminal. Talking about the financial performance, as you can see here, and Mindaugas will go into more details about the performance. But in general, our performance during 2022 was 30% higher, talking about EBITDA, and our revenue was growing by 26% comparing to the previous year. Also, I think it's really a big achievement that we managed to recover significantly our oil business, our oil segment, where EBITDA growth reached even 74% comparing to the previous periods. Talking about other news, I think it's important to highlight that we have finally got the last members of the committees elected. So we will have Šarunas Radavicius as an independent member of Audit Committee, and Živile Valeišiene as an independent member of Remuneration and Nomination Committee. And also, I think it is a great achievement which we would like to share with you that KN has been awarded by the Transparency Academy certificate. We were participating in this project for 2 years and it was concluded at the Transparency Celebration held at the Presidential Palace of the Republic of Lithuania, during which we got a certificate directly from the hands of Director of Special Investigation Service. Talking about the particular segments, we can switch to Slide #6. Yes. So main highlights on our oil business performance. So here, it's important to underline that we managed to increase 70% of our transhipment volumes comparing to the previous year. But on the other hand, let's say, additional services, such as storage services or tanker reservations for some blending programs and other, let's say, businesses of our customers has been growing even up to 45%. KN is already taking significant and, I would say, leading part on bitumen transhipment market, if we are taking Baltic States and Finnish Bay, Gulf of Finland. So here, we have 22% of the market share already within first year of operations. And of course, it's very important to highlight that one of the factors which helped us to reach the good performance results for our oil segment was that the transhipment of the petrochemicals was even 3x higher comparing to the year before. We can switch to LNG, please. So talking about our LNG business. It was a record year. The reasons are quite clear. From May, we were the only one entry point for natural gas since all the supply from Russia has been cut off. And that led us to the record regasification and reloading quantities, which were increasing by 96% comparing to the year before. And talking about numbers, 54 LNG carriers have arrived at the LNG terminal. And if you convert that to the amount of energy, it will be 32 terawatt hour. Talking about benchmarking. So in Europe, LNG terminals during 2022, in average has been utilized about 64% range, while our utilization rate was 72%. As I said, from May, we are operating on maximum level. Nevertheless, first 2 months of 2022 were more passive, so to say. And think about the pricing [indiscernible] year, comparing this year average was EUR 131.8 per megawatt hour versus EUR 38.57 per megawatt hour in the same period this year. And here also reason remains the same. It is the consequence of energy war posed by Russia to European. So I think it's main message from my side. I think -- one more thing to say. We don't have separate slides included here, but it's important to say that we have been awarded, as a commercial operator, one of the German LNG terminals. So we concluded the deal with Uniper for commercial operations for Wilhelmshaven terminal in the first quarter of 2024. And our responsibility is operate that commercially, consult about the legal framework, about the accounting, et cetera [indiscernible] our know-how, what we do here, to one of the German, let's say, alternatives of Russian gas supply, one of the terminals. So here, I would like to pass the word to Mindaugas and go into more details in financial performance of the group. Thank you.

Thank you, Darius. So as previously noted in our previous webinars, the key challenge brought by 2022 was the exceptionally high natural gas and electricity prices, of course, reaching the peak in the third quarter. The pressure on the company's oil segment somewhat subsided by the end of the year. The company was very successful in finding measures to amortize rising costs and demonstrated strong financial performance as seen on the screen. And the revenue for the year was up by even EUR 16 million. And of that amount, more than EUR 6 million -- EUR 6.4 million specifically came from the oil terminal segment as transhipped volumes have increased. And transhipped quantities in the company's oil terminals were affected by continuous initiatives to explore new transhipment routes, which allowed KN to become a part of the logistics chain of fuel supply to new customers in Southwest direction. Also, in 2022, KN oil terminal was in demand as oil products import hub, notably for fuel oil, which in response to all-time high gas prices, was used as alternative heating generation fuel source in Vilnius City heating infrastructure at the start of the winter season of 2022. So overall, transhipped volumes of products increased by 17%. And then, EUR 9.8 million in LNGT as regulated revenues. Key factors for the jump in revenue was a significant increase in demand for regasification services in the terminal and the change in regulation. The latter led to an increase in the regasification tariff by nearly 3x. However, since May, fixed part of regasification service fee, which was part of security supplement paid by gas consumers, has been reduced to 0. Subsequently, because of these 2 conditions, revenue increased by EUR 8.2 million. On the other hand, it is important to note that the company's profit from regulated business remains limited to the regulated rate of return. And temporary excess profits according to the current regulation shall be paid back in the future periods. And then followed by EBITDA, which is up by EUR 9.4 million in 2022, in comparison to the prior year. It was up by nearly EUR 4 million coming from the oil segment, and it was achieved by the growth in revenue and the effective management of fixed costs despite great inflationary pressure. Electricity and gas costs were higher by 1.7x, which translates to EUR 2.3 million compared to 2021. And in the regulated segment, the EBITDA is up by EUR 5.8 million, mostly due to higher revenues. The regulated segment costs increased by EUR 3.3 million. And one reason was the more than EUR 2 million increase in the cost of emission allowance, which is affected by larger regasification volumes and as a result of higher emissions, but more importantly, also affected by the higher prices of emission allowances. And another key component which contributed to higher regulated activity cost was EUR 1.9 million increase in FSRU operating expenses. And lastly, the performance of the commercial LNG segment remained at a similar level. Then the net profit -- the net result. So the depreciation of euro against the United States dollar had a major effect on the non-adjusted net loss according to IFRS. And during 2022, we incurred the total unrealized foreign exchange loss of nearly EUR 15 million, less deferred tax expenses, which compares to the EUR 18.8 million loss during the prior year. After we've eliminated the unrealized currency exchange loss of the regulated segment, its adjusted net profit amounts to EUR 6.2 million. And in 2021, we recognized, as you remember, the EUR 54 million impairment loss for the cash generating unit of Klaipeda oil terminal, which was a key factor for EUR 47.6 million net loss in the oil terminal segment. And in 2022, no additional impairment was recognized, nor was the reversal of the impairment. Although the net profit of oil terminal or terminal segment was also affected by the rising gas and electricity prices. The increase in revenue and continuing efficiency improvements allowed us to finish the year with a positive EUR 3 million result. Finally, we also measure the indicators that take into account so-called temporary regulatory differences, such as previously mentioned excess revenue in the regulated LNG terminal segment that should be paid back in the future periods. So we estimate that for 2022, the EBITDA adjusted for temporary regulatory differences would amount to EUR 36.2 million compared to EUR 28.8 million in 2021. Then the similarly adjusted net profit for 2022, having also excluded the impact of unrealized currency exchange loss, would amount to EUR 9.9 million compared to a loss of EUR 44.9 million in 2021. Then briefly about the company's free cash flow performance. The strong improvement in the group's free cash flow was to a large extent driven by the growth of EBITDA and also the strong contribution from the working capital management and the investment level was lower by EUR 4.2 million. It's also important to note that all business segments had a positive free cash flow in 2022. Notably, no significant changes in the capital structure, except for taking a loan to finance reduction of the security supplement in the regulated segment. While EUR 48 million of lease liabilities were settled during 2022, due to depreciation of euro, the remaining balance decreased only by EUR 25 million, as it is mostly denominated in the United States dollars. Some long-term contract amendments led also to an increase in our liability as well. And lastly, about the profitability and other key performance metrics. So profitability margins have improved compared to 2021. Net profit margin in 2022 was at the level of 2018 and 2020 period profitability, indicating recovering performance after a huge decline in revenue throughout 2020 and 2021. Return on equity and return on assets as well as the price earnings ratio for 2021 were affected by the significant impairment losses recognized in the third quarter of that year, while during 2022, no such losses were recognized. And then to sum up, the year 2022, despite another wave of financial shock, exhibited a speedy recovery and some of the profitability figures already came back to the levels seen in the 2018 and 2020 period. So we are looking forward to improving performance throughout 2023. And that finalizes my overview of the financials.

Thank you very much for the presentation. Now we will proceed with the Q&A. But before that, I would like to remind all the attendees that you can submit your questions in the Q&A box of your screen and you can submit them anonymously too. So let's begin. And the first question would be as following: What are your plans in regards to dividends for 2022?

Yes, thank you for the question. So, as of the moment, our financial statements for last year are being audited. And we expect to make the decision on the profit distribution afterwards. So for the moment, no decisions have been made.

Thank you for your answer. As I see that we have only received one more question. I would like to encourage all attendees to please send in your questions. So the next question would be as following: Could you please expand on what new activities and new regions you are planning to cover in the upcoming 5 years?

Thank you, Emilija. I will take that question on me. So in general, this question is subject of our strategic revision and new strategic goals definition task, and we are now on the way on identifying the answers and on checking all the assumptions and even doing financial projections and modeling to answer that. But very broadly, I can comment that, in any case, our so-called conventional business arms or legs, they will remain. So meaning LNG regional terminals, oil and petrochemical and biofuels terminals as well as our development and trade-off of our know-how globally on the operation of LNG infrastructure. So talking about the regions in terms of our global business development, global LNG business development. So I believe both regions will remain the same targeted ones as we have for now. And it is Europe, of course. In Europe, there is a lot of new opportunities and potentiality after the war in Ukraine started and all the Europe is switching to other supply sources and supply solutions of natural gas. And of course, our ambition to find our place in Southeast Asia and Australia region remains as one of the targeted regions. Also, Latin Americas, where we are already established with, let's say, our contract on operating FSRU terminal located in Port of Açu, Brazil. So that gives us some advantage, by being present in this continent, to look for the alternatives. Talking about other businesses, so far, I mean, conventional business, not the new streams and the new topics, the conventional ones. So I think, anyway, we will be active in all Baltic region and Poland, of course, as we see some potentialities to use our infrastructure, both oil, petrochemical and gas, to be a part of supply chains, new corridors, north to south corridors, including also being a part of supply chains to Ukraine or from Ukraine. So this is a short-term projection. But of course, we are really active on finding us and our place in new energy sources and new energy storage, let's say, solutions, and also looking into active role in future supply chain of captured carbon, where we have some strategic partnerships already concluded and moving quite fast with all our partners on finding a real business case in the area of carbon capture and storage. So this is a broad comment. And let's say, we will have more clear picture after the strategy preparation process will end up. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your answer. Let's move to another question. Do you estimate the Estonian-Finland LNG ships like direct competitors in gas supply chains for your business in coming years?

A very good question. I will take that as well on me. And actually, no, I think appearance of the FSRU in Finland gives more stability to all regions' natural gas supply chain. Why? Because our independence, FSRU independence, was able to match up to 50%, up to maximum maybe 60% of all consumption, if you will take Finland and Baltic states only, since we have a lot of potentiality -- after gas interconnector connected Lithuania and Poland, there is a lot of potentiality and opportunities to be important part of the gas supply also to the Polish and other, let's say, Central European or Eastern European countries, like Slovakia or Czech Republic. So I mean, yes, from one point of view, but since we were not targeting, let's say, the Northern direction so much, I think it gives more stability and we can operate together, because market is quite huge. I would like to highlight that in Poland, majority of the power generation is still by using coal. And let's say, one of the easiest ways to reduce emissions is to switch those coal power plants to the gas ones. So we are really looking into, let's say, being important part of the gas supply for energy and other needs to Poland as well.

Thank you very much for your answer. As we are waiting for more questions to come in, I would like to remind all the attendees that you are welcome to send in your questions in the Q&A box of your screen, and we will answer them live. All right. We have received one question, which is as following: What are the offshore wind opportunities?

Yes, thank you for the question. We have some agreements with major, let's say, players or potential players on trying to find our role in offshore wind farm operation and maintenance part. So I think our, let's say, opportunity is to be, let's say, a hub for operation and maintenance for the offshore wind parks located in Lithuanian Waters. And maybe not only, but we have some advantage. Why? Because our, let's say, land, which we operate in Klaipeda is closest to the port gates, giving us some competitive, let's say, advantage comparing to other alternatives. But it's still -- let's say, maturity of this project is still only studies here. So maybe it's a bit too early to comment in a more detailed way. But as we are, let's say, well located, we have presence here in Lithuania, we might be a good partner for O&M services of offshore wind parks.

Thank you very much for your answer. Maybe you have some news about extension of the terminal?

I presume question is related with expansion of the capacities of our LNG terminal. So if yes, we are now on a phase where we're meeting the customers and preparing ourselves for the binding open season procedure.

Thank you very much. Another question would be, do you see new, let's call them, negative components for your LNG business for coming years comparing 2022?

Thank you for the question, and the answer is very simple and straightforward, no. Neither in global LNG projects nor in our regional activities operating FSRU infrastructure. Only upside potential is appearing.

Thank you very much. As all the questions are answered on behalf of Klaipedos nafta and NASDAQ Vilnius, thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Dear management, thank you for the great presentation. Dear attendees, thank you for the questions. Have a good day, everyone, and goodbye.

Thank you, Emilija, and everybody, for participating. Bye.