Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the StealthGas Second Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants is in listen-only mode with no question-and-answer session at the end. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Michael Jolliffe, Chairman of the Board. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. I'm Michael Jolliffe, Chairman of the Board of Directors. And joining me on our call today as usual, is our CEO, Harry Vafias to discuss the market and company outlook; and Konstantinos Sistovaris, 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. So if you could all take a moment to read our disclaimer on Slide 2 of this presentation, I'd be grateful. This is further disclosed in StealthGas filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today, we released our results of the second quarter. Three months ago, I was here announcing to you our record first quarter profits. So it is with great delight that we have managed to follow-up on that by announcing yet another record quarterly profits. So let's proceed to discuss these results and update you on the company's strategy and the market in general. Turn to Slide 3, we summarize some highlights with our fleet and operations. During the six months, we have sold two smaller vessels and got delivery of two brand-new medium gas carriers. We also sold one medium gas carrier owned through our joint venture. These have been discussed in the previous call. We did not engage in any further sale and purchase activity in the current quarter. With the market remaining firm, we were quite active on the chartering side entering into more period charters and extending contract coverage for 2025 to 55% of our fleet days. We have thus contracted revenues of over $220 million for all subsequent periods, excluding our joint venture vessels and remain focused on maintaining…

Thank you, Michael, and good morning to everyone. I will discuss our financial results that were released today. Let us turn to Slide 7, where we see a snapshot of the income statement for the second quarter and six months of 2024 against the same periods of 2023. With fewer vessels in the fleet and a corresponding reduction of 11% in fleet days for the quarter and 13% for the six month period, net revenues, the disaster voyage expenses, came in at $39.1 million for the quarter, an increase of 18% and $77.8 million for the six months, an increase of 16%, as a result of increased rates due to better market condition, reduced of hires and voyage costs reduced due to lower spot exposure. And finally, also the addition of two larger vessels in the fleet with higher earnings capacity that contributed about $12 million in revenues in the first six months. Operating expenses were $12.5 million for the quarter, down 7% and $24 million for the six months, down 14% as a result of the reduction in the fleet. Overall, expenses have been under increased pressure due to the inflation. But so far, in the first two quarters of 2024, we have managed to contain these pressures in line with the general slowing down of inflation in the economy. We also note the decrease in drydocking costs of $0.9 million for the quarter. Last year, two handysized vessels were drydocked, whereas this year it was two smaller vessels, smaller LPGs and the increase of $1.2 million G&A costs as a result of an increase in stock based compensation expenses. There were no impairments nor any gains or losses from sale of vessels during the second quarter. As a result of the increase in revenues and decrease in costs,…

Moving on Slide 10. We have a brief insight on the LPG market. LPG exports increased by strong 4.3% in '23, and we continued to see exports increasing 3.6% in the first half of this year, slightly lower than in the first quarter but still healthy. Exports from the largest LPG exporter in the world, the U.S, continued to grow unabated in the first six months of this year at 11%. And the impact of Hurricane Beryl on these exports seems to have been minimal for Q3. The issue is now becoming whether the U.S. will hit an export ceiling due to the capacity constraints. To avoid that, companies like Enterprise Product Partners, Energy Transfer and Targa are already planning capacity expansions at the U.S. terminal so that volumes can increase by over 20% by the end of '26. On the other hand, Middle East exports remain flat as long as OPEC extends its production cuts. And until those are lifted, we do not expect any meaningful change in volumes coming from the Arabian Gulf. Although increasing volumes are sent from the U.S. to Europe, LPG demand in Europe has remained relatively flat and a lot will depend on whether we'll experience the same mild winter as we did last year. To note that the one year phase in of the import ban on Russian volumes that was introduced last year comes into effect this December. This means that Russian volumes that accounted for 6% of imports in '23 will be banned. Countries such as Poland that imported LPG via rail will now have to rely more on seaborne imports. In terms of imports, the driving force of LPG demand is China and India. During the first half of this year, seaborne import volumes in China rose by 11% year-on-year…

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you. End of Q&A: