[Call Started Abruptly] Bringing you through the presentation today are CEO, Anders Onarheim; Deputy CEO and Head of Strategy, Kristian Sørensen; EVP Commercial, Niels Rigault; and Interim CFO, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Development, Iver Baatvik. We are pleased to answer questions at the end of the presentation [Operator Instructions]. Before we begin, we wish to highlight the legal disclaimers shown on the current slide. This presentation held on Zoom is also recorded. I’ll now turn the call over to BW LPG CEO, Anders Onarheim.

Thank you, Lisa. And welcome to our Q2 2023 Results Presentation for the financial period ended 30th of June this year. It's been a strong first half year for BW LPG. We've been busy. On the shipping side, our expanded fleet with new pool vessels allowed us to capture value in the buoyant market at an impressive 99% utilization. Kudos to the commercial team. VLGC rates surged well above the seasonal averages for recent years. As an example, TCE rates from the Ras Tanura to Chiba trade route was twice the average to that of the same period last year. Our India business is also delivering steady returns and we are actively looking to increase our presence further in this fast growing market. We are very pleased to see that our strategy developed over the last several years, including an expanded position in the value chain and disciplined fleet renewal is starting to bear fruits. Our Product Services business is developing nicely and Kristian will give you some further details of the developments here. Also, we're extremely pleased to see sharp improvements in the uptime on running our retrofits in LPG. The fuel savings are substantial and the CO2 and other footprints drastically reduced. In this favorable market, we continue to generate substantial free cash flow and our balance sheet is rock solid. Reflecting this, we did a share buyback through a reverse book building process in June and we continue to return capital to our shareholders through attractive dividends. For the first half of 2023, we will have distributed nearly NOK20 per share. This equals to an annualized dividend yield of around 30%. Let me now move on to the highlights for the quarter on Slide 4. For the second quarter, we announced a dividend of $0.81 per share,…

Thank you, Anders, and hello to everyone listening. Let's direct our attention to Slide 6. The second quarter presented volatility but showed stronger performance than expected, making it the third best quarter in the VLGC history. This is notable since Q2 is typical seen as the weakest quarter. Freight rate experienced a dip reaching a low at $40,000 per day. However, throughout the quarter, spot freight rates displayed a sharp upward trend by the end of June. The number surpassed triple digit TCE figures on all main routes. This quarter robust performance can be attributed to two main factors: one, China's substantial purchase to boost their LPG inventories in the response to heightened demand within their petrochemical sector; two, a surge in export from the Middle East, especially from Saudi Arabia due to reduced domestic consumptions. Compared to the same timeframe in 2022, there was a 19% growth in the Middle East. In sum, 562 VLGCs were loaded worldwide in Q2, making a 5% increase from the record levels witnessed in Q1. As you look ahead, our outlook on the market remains optimistic and concerns regarding the order book are reduced. The global fleet has already received 50% of the 42 VLGC newbuildings set for delivery this year. Neither utilization nor rates have been adversely impacted thus far. Let's move to Slide 11. Our TCE performance for Q2 stood at 52,500 per available days for the entire fleet accounting for our fixed TCEs and derivatives. Our available days for this quarter were bolstered by a booming spot market where we realized an average rate of 63,900 per day, excluding waiting time and fixed positions. Considering the current unpredictable market exploded by several uncertain factors, we remain committed to safeguarding the downside at the optimal level. For the remainder of '23,…

Thank you, Kristian. Starting with the income statement. On a consolidated basis for the second quarter, we reported a net profit after tax of $78 million. This includes a $9.5 million profit from BW LPG India and a $31 million reported loss from Product Services as well as a $27 million gain from the sale of BW Odin and BW Austria. As explained by Kristian, our trading profit adjusted result ended at $112 million, which after adjusting for minorities, as we hold 52% of BW India and 85% of BW Product Services, translates into an adjusted earnings per share of $0.81 this quarter. Given our net leverage ratio at 19%, the Board has decided to declare a Q2 dividend of $0.81 per share, equating to a payout ratio of 100% of our trading profit adjusted results. Our balance sheet ended the quarter with shareholders' equity of $1,532 million. If we adjust for the $460 million excess in broker values over book values, we reached an adjusted NAV per share of NOK150. This is an uplift from book values of about $3 per share after adjusting for the minority interest in BW India. Our positive free cash flow of $195 million this quarter was derived mainly from our strong operating cash flows of $150 million and a positive CapEx inflow of $45 million. The CapEx inflow is a net from the purchase of BW Messina, selling of BW Austria and BW Odin and two drydockings in the quarter. Our return on equity and capital employed for Q2 2023 were 20% and 14% respectively. Next, we move on to some key statistics on our shipping business. Our daily OpEx came in at $8,800 per day, which is a flat development from the same quarter last year. For 2023, we expect our operating…

Thank you, Iver. I just mention that I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the stakeholders on the call, it's been a privilege to interact with all of you. As I go into my last month as CEO, I can assure you that Kristian, Niels and the team will continue to work hard to create long term value for all stakeholders. I will remain a keen shareholder in BW LPG but I also promise the team here that I will not ask difficult questions on the next earnings call. On this note, let me open the floor for questions. Back to you, Lisa.

Thank you, Anders. We will begin our Q&A session now [Operator Instructions]. We have two. The first one, Petter, please unmute and ask your question.

You talked about renewal here, Kristian, in a way which made me -- well, it's not concerned, at least curious if that means lots of newbuildings now being the aim to deploy the profits over the past quarters and probably coming quarters. Kristian Sørensen: We still believe it's -- the prices are too elevated like I mentioned. So there are no talks about newbuildings at the moment.

At the moment, okay. That was good to hear. Another question, I might be too demanding. But within our modeling, we expected actually higher rates for Q3 compared to what you guide for now. But in order to try to understand where we are, and sort of too greedy here, if you will. To what extent does the Panama Canal -- so we've heard others talk about the Panama Canal being not longer an option, meaning that the conventional voyage calculations, I suppose many of us use return a too high number as the alternative would incur longer selling days and higher fuel costs as well. So could you share something -- some more details on how you do the actual sort of post voyage calculations compared to what the market is over the past few months?

Niels, do you want to have a go on that? I mean I can just say before Niels go out. Of course, Niels, it does not get totally a range to just go out and be in the spot market the whole year. I mean, both myself and the Board, of course, we want to make sure that we have -- we take some downside protection. So that's a stated policy from a company that we do not want to be 100% exposed to the spot market. And sometimes that makes a lot of sense, sometimes we leave something on the table, but I think that's a planned strategy. But Niels, why don't you fill in.

And I don't think I'll go into detail. So we can do that on a separate call for voyage calculations. But I would say just that, yes, the market is high and one of the reason is also because of the inefficiencies. And you're right, we do see a lot of -- several or more ships using the Cape or Suez Canal. The Panama Canal has in Q2 and continued in Q3 to be a little bit sometimes a bingo. Sometimes you can go straight through, although you have to wait for a week or two. We've also seen that when the Panama Canal are opening up for auctions. The prices, some of the VLGC owners are willing to pay just to pass the Panama Canal it’s up to $2 million for one leg. So that obviously have an impact on the voyage calculations. But yes…

I don't doubt that at all. But in order to try to be more specific in our numbers now for Q3, if we assume one month of lagging, we would expect the spot market in that time period to be around $20,000 per day. But by just how far off are we if we were to compare it with what this actually done on a TCE basis then, of course, spot voyages. Kristian Sørensen: I mean I just guided that for the Q3 numbers and that's obviously including the derivative positions in our TC coverage. But I also mentioned our spot performance and that was in the mid $80,000 per day.

[Indiscernible], please go ahead.

My question was concerning the Panama Canal, which was actually just addressed by the previous question. I would like to thank Anders for being such a wonderful CEO. It was a pleasure meeting you in New York, best of luck on your future endeavors. One thing of concern I had is the US listing that you plan on doing, is there any time line or specific goal for that listing in 2024?

I think at the moment, it's -- obviously, we want to take our time and do things properly. So we haven't said anything specifically. But I mean, you can assume that we're working diligently and as quickly as we can. And so it would most likely be early 2024 that we are ready.

And we have one question from the chat from Frederik Ness. He asks, how has vessel speed development in 2023, why has it changed and what you expect for '24 and '25?

Maybe a question for me. So far in 2023, we haven't seen any big speed production. I mean, I think that the average speed for the fleet is about NOK15. But we do expect that -- and the cost of the new regulation kicking in, that's going forward, in '24 and '25, some of the -- well, I would say, 50% of the fleet would need to reduce speed in order to be compliant, but the effect as of now, we haven't seen it. So again, that's a little bit some of the bold stories for next year is that a majority of the fleets or a big chunk of the fleet need to reduce speed.

[Operator Instructions] We have another question from the chat channel. Glenn?

I think that question disappeared.

The next question is from Mattias with UBS and he asks, could you please comment on the increase of the voyage expenses quarter-on-quarter by $19 million?

Iver, can you help him with that?

I think it's mainly due to higher voyage costs and Canal costs related to the Panama Canal.

[Operator Instructions].

Okay. With that, I thank all for listening in, and I wish you all a great day.

Thank you. We have come to the end of today's presentation. Thank you for attending BW LPG's second quarter and first half 2023 financial results presentation. More information on BW LPG and BW Product Services are available at www.bwlpg.com and www.bwproductservices.com, respectively. Have a good day and good night.