Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the StealthGas Q3 2023 Results Conference Call and Webcast. This time, all participants are in listen-only mode, with no question-and-answer session. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Michael Jolliffe, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. I'm Michael Jolliffe, Chairman of the Board of Directors. And joining me on our call today is Harry Vafias, our CEO, to discuss market and company outlook, and Konstantinos Sistovaris, handling Investor Relations to discuss the financial aspects. Before we commence our presentation, I would like to remind you that we will be discussing forward-looking statements which reflect current views with respect to future events and financial performance. At this stage, if you could all take a moment to read our disclaimer on Slide 2 of this presentation. Risks are further disclosed in StealthGas filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I would also like to point out that all amounts quoted, unless otherwise clarified, are implicitly stated in U.S. dollars. Today, we released our results for the third quarter 2023, announcing the second best quarterly profit ever and best ever nine month results till today. So, let's proceed to discuss these results and update you on the company's strategy and the market in general. Turning to Slide 3, we summarize some highlights, starting with fleet and operations update. We first concluded the previously announced sale of two vessels, delivering those in early July. As discussed in the previous quarter, we still have two more vessels to deliver to buyers, and we expect these to be delivered in the first quarter of next year. During the current quarter in October, our joint venture took delivery of one newbuilding medium gas carrier, the Eco Sorcerer, that was deployed immediately on a period charter. In terms of chartering, we were very active and concluded over nine new period charters, securing over 50% of our fleet days for 2024. Most of these charters were…

Thank you, Michael, and good morning to everyone. I will discuss our financial performance for the third quarter of 2023. Let us turn to Slide 7, where we see the income statement for the third quarter and nine months of 2023 against the same periods of 2022. Even though calendar days were reduced by 19% and we had seven fewer vessels, net revenues after voyage expenses came in at $32.3 million for the quarter and $99.5 million for the nine months, an increase of 15% for the quarter and 5% for the nine months compared to last year. So, our fewer vessels generated more revenues comparatively. Total revenues were flat and had reduced voyage expenses. Operating expenses were $12.3 million for the quarter, down 13%, and flat at $40.2 million for the nine months. As previously stated, we did face inflationary pressures and had cost overruns particularly during the first quarter of this year. In the third quarter, we see a normalization of expenses that are coming down in-line with the fleet reduction. We also note, depreciation costs being reduced significantly as a result of the fleet reduction to $5.6 million and $18.1 million, respectively, for the quarter and nine months. During the third quarter, the company also recognized a non-cash gain on the sale of two vessels that were delivered in July of $4.7 million. As a result, income from operations quadrupled to $16.4 million for the quarter and increased by 60% compared to last year to $36.2 million for the nine months. Interest and finance costs were significantly reduced by 30% over the quarterly period and 12% over the nine-months period, even though rates have more than tripled during those periods. This is a result of the aggressive debt repayment the company engaged in order to control interest…

Moving on Slide 10, a brief insight on the LPG market. So far, the first nine months of the year have been very positive as far as LPG supply is concerned, with global exports estimated to have risen by 3.1%. The U.S., the world's largest exporter, continued to export record amounts, with 13% increases year-on-year, exporting 44 million tons of LPG in the first nine months of this year. In order to continue on that record streak, U.S. exporters like Energy Transfer continue to invest in future export capacity expansion projects. On the other hand, the OPEC-related oil production cuts by Saudi Arabia led to reduced volumes coming out of the Middle East, while other Middle Eastern countries have ramped up production to try and fill the gap. As far as imports, we continue to have anemic demand from petrochemical plants in Europe that operate at lower margins in general, although the onset of winter, when household demand increases, have been supportive in terms of regional trade. Import growth has been from places like India, where import rose to 1.8 million tons in October, compared to an average of 1.5 million tons this year, and particularly China, where imports have increased by 30% in the nine-months period. China's economy, despite all the problems, seems to be resilient so far and even registered a healthy 5.2% growth in the first nine months of this year. New Chinese PDH plants continue to come on stream as China wants to control its propylene production. Hence, major investments have been made for increasing the capacity. PDH capacity has increased over 4 million tons this year alone, and while not all planned projects have come on stream and half have been pushed back to next year, the macro picture points to a continuously increasing demand.…

Please look at Slide 13 where we are outlining some of the key variables that may affect our performance in the quarters ahead. We remain optimistic in the longer term for the reasons we analyzed earlier. This is a fast-changing environment with many uncertainties, mostly relating to the macroeconomic factors, while some related to China's economy and others to unseen influences like the Panama Canal delays or geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. On the other hand, what is certain in the short term is that we are entering the winter for the Northern Hemisphere and period when demand normally strengthens and we are seeing this in the market. To sum up, so far, 2023 has turned out to be a tremendous year for gas shipping overall and especially for StealthGas. So far, for the first nine months of 2023, we have reported our strongest performance on record with a basic EPS of $1.12. For the third quarter, normally would be a seasonably weak quarter, we reported net income of $15.7 million, the second best quarter on record, only surpassed by the first quarter of this year. As the market is firming, we took advantage of the momentum and entered into a number of long-period charters, some with durations as long as three years, thus securing part of our future revenues. We have thus extended the duration of our contract coverage to over 50% for 2024. Also, part of our strategy is deleveraging, and so far during this year, we have more than half the outstanding debt, repaying $151 million and greatly reducing our interest rate expenses in the process, while at the same time keeping 15 out of the 27 vessels debt-free. At the same time, we sought to expand the repurchase of shares with an additional $10 million, making it $25 million in total. We believe we are well positioned to benefit from strong markets and to continue to generate shareholder value. And even though our share price has climbed significantly over the past six months, we believe we continue to be astound, still very undervalued investment for anyone wishing to invest in our company at this time. We have now reached the end of our presentation, and we would like to thank you for joining us at our conference call today and for your interest and trust in our company. We look forward to having you with us again at our next conference call for our fourth quarter results in February. Thank you very much.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.