Golden Ocean Group Limited (NASDAQ:GOGL) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 16, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Ulrik Andersen - Chief Executive Officer

Peder Simonsen - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Greg Lewis - BTIG

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Q1 2023 Golden Ocean Group Limited Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to the CEO, Ulrik Andersen. Please go ahead, sir.

Ulrik Andersen

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to Golden Ocean’s quarterly release presentation. Thank you very much for tuning in. In today’s call, we follow our usual procedure. Peder Simonsen, Golden Ocean’s CFO, will talk us through the financial highlights. And hereafter, I will be discussing the market and the outlook for the company. Towards the end, I will also offer some insight into how our decarbonization journey is developing. So in the next 15 to 20 minutes, you will see that, one, despite a weak first quarter, the gradual recovery of China is on and combined with a seasonal uplift, it provides momentum for a strong freight rate environment for the rest of the year. Two, our fuel efficient fleet continues to outperform the benchmark indices significantly. And finally, three, we will show how Golden Ocean has invested in reducing emissions and reducing fuel cost while future-proofing the company.

With that, let’s take a look at the main highlights for the quarter. In Q1, we recorded an adjusted EBITDA of $55 million, which resulted in a net loss of $9 million or $0.04 per share. We achieved average net TCE rates of $13,600 per day for the Capesizes and $16,600 per day for the Panamaxes. Like the last four quarters, these earnings are well above the benchmark indices. The fleet made $4,900 per day per vessel more than the market everyday throughout the quarter. Our modern fuel-efficient fleet, fixed paying contracts and scrubbers drive the premiums.

Rate guidance. And looking at this quarter, Q2, we have so far secured $20,000 per day for 74% of our Cape days and $14,600 per day for 76% of our Panamax days. Looking ahead and into Q3, we have secured $22,300 per day for 26% of our Cape days and $19,600 per day for 38% of our Panamax days. During the quarter, we took delivery of the first of our 10 Kamsarmaxes new buildings. We will take delivery of another 5 vessels in this series before the turn of the year. In addition, we also acquired 6 new Kamsarmax vessels, 2 have already been delivered. The rest will follow before end June. We also entered into an agreement to sell our 2 oldest Capesize vessels as we continue to divest less efficient tonnage and take advantage of firm asset markets. Finally, we announced our ninth consecutive quarterly dividend. We will pay out $0.10 per share for Q1. The dividend is a reflection of our belief in the market and underlining the dividend remain a central element of our capital allocation.