Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Dorian LPG First Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Additionally, a live audio webcast of today's conference call is available on Dorian LPG's website, which is www.dorianlpg.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ted Young, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, Mr. Young. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mickey. Good morning and thank you, everyone for joining us for our first quarter 2025 results conference call. With me today are John Hadjipateras, Chairman, President and CEO of Dorian LPG Limited; John Lycouris, Head of Energy Transition and Chief Executive Officer of Dorian LPG USA; and Tim Hansen, Chief Commercial Officer. As a reminder, this conference call webcast and a replay of this call will be available through August 8, 2024. Many of our remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations. These statements may often be identified with words such as expect, anticipate, believe, or similar indications of future expectations. Although we believe that such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot assure you that any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors as well as general economic conditions. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or should underlying assumptions or estimates prove to be incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those we expressed today. Additionally, let me refer you to our unaudited results for the period ended June 30, 2024, that were published this morning on Form 10-Q. In addition, please refer to our previous filings on Form 10-K, where you'll find risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements. Finally, you may find it useful to refer to the investor highlights slides posted this morning on our website as we make our remarks. With that, I'll turn over the call to John Hadjipateras.

Thanks, Ted, and thank you all for joining us to discuss our first quarter financial 2025. We had a strong first quarter with net income of $51.3 million. During the quarter, our offering -- equity offering materialized our significant strategic objective, further enhancing the strength of our balance sheet and positioning the company for future growth and fleet renewal. As mentioned last quarter, we have one VLGC/VLAC on order from Hanwha -- from Hanwha shipyard, and we are investing in some retrofits on ammonia -- for ammonia carriage on our existing ships. our Board declared a $1 irregular dividend, bringing the total capital return since our IPO to more than $777 million. We believe that our strong balance sheet and good debt profile enable us to pursue opportunities when we determine that the timing is appropriate. As you will hear from both Ted and Tim, margin volatility featured again during the quarter and continued in July. We believe that these swings do not reflect any significant changes in the fundamentals of supply and demand for VLGCs, rather, they define a near equilibrium where small changes can result in big price swings. Factors such as restrictions on restoration of Panama transits, weather events in the US Gulf, and there's still unresolved wars in the Middle East and the Black Sea, alternately increase or inhibit our quarterly earnings, but the underlying fundamentals point to continued growth in the trade of LPG. 56 VLGCs have been added since the beginning of 2023, increasing the fleet by roughly 16% to 394 ships today, while in 2023, global liftings were about 12% higher than in 2022. So clearly the various disruptions have been contributing to profitability. Looking ahead, we expect five ships will be delivered in 2024 and 13 at 2025, increasing the fleet by 1% and 3% respectively in each of those years before larger increases again in '26 and '27 in anticipation of potential demand for ammonia transportation. Meantime the prospects for increased production and exports from the US are favorable, as are the indicators for demand in Asia and elsewhere. These fundamental factors underpin our [Technical Difficulty] development prospects for VLGCs. As you will hear from John L., our teams are working on reducing emissions and fuel and operating costs for our fleet. We have embarked on a top-down initiative to simplify and revamp onboard safety procedures. Our fully integrated structure provides a real benefit in our pursuit of these objectives. As always, I acknowledge our dedicated seafarers and shoreside staff whose hard work and dedication make our results possible. Now I give you, Ted.

Thanks, John. My comments today will focus on our recent capital allocation events, our financial position, liquidity, and our unaudited first quarter results. At June 30, 2024, we reported $353.3 million of free cash. The significant increase from March 31 reflects the net proceeds of our equity offering and strong free cash flow to equity generated less, of course, the dividend paid during the June 30 quarter. Also, as we previously disclosed, we'll pay another $1 per shares as irregular dividend or roughly $43 million in total dividends on or about August 21, 2024, to shareholders of record as of August 8. With a debt balance at quarter end of $597.1 million, our debt-to-total book capitalization stood at 34.8%, and our net debt-to-total book capitalization at 14.2%, or even lower, if one includes our short-term government bond holdings. Our weighted average cost of debt is about 4.7%, which is actually below the current one and three months SOFR rates. Our next refinancing event is not until the end of December 2026, which is the bulk cap facility. We amortized about $13.4 million in principle per quarter or roughly $53.5 million for the current fiscal year, which we consider quite manageable and largely in line with our book depreciation. With well-structured and attractively priced debt capital, an undrawn $50 million revolver and one debt-free vessel, coupled with our strong free cash balance, we have a comfortable measure of financial flexibility. We expect our cash cost per day for the coming year to be approximately $26,000 per day, excluding capital expenditures for special surveys and upgrades. I will discuss those items in just a moment. For the discussion of our first quarter results, you may find it useful to refer to the investor highlights slides posted this morning on our website. I…

[Operator Instructions].

Operator, we can move on to Tim Hansen and pickup Ted when he gets back online.

I'm back online now.

So do we have Ted online or not?

We don't have Ted at this time.

Okay. So why don't we have Tim continue the presentation and then we'll go back to Ted when he comes back. Tim?

Hi, good day, everyone. Tim Hansen here, Chief Commercial Officer. The quarter ending in June 30, 2024, saw an improvement in the freight market compared to the quarter prior. The biggest improvement was seen in May when freight rates in the West were reminiscence of those seen in early January. April and June were relatively weaker months, characterized mostly by external factors disrupting regular market movements such as dynamic fixing windows, sudden changes to the Panama Canal waiting time, and an efficient balancing of vessels demand versus with the ship -- with the vessel supply. Despite significant swings in the market months and months, the underlying demand for VLGC shipping is firm. April is not amongst usually analyzed at first glance. The market for the months is reflective of commercial fiction decisions, which was made as early as in February and as close as a few days prior to the loading dates. The snapshot, therefore, covers more than one months of market considerations. This is explained by many market players initially anticipating a weaker than usual export demand from the US Gulf. And then on short notice, correcting our approach when it became clear that export cargoes was plentiful. Thus cargoes and similarly cans were seen fixed at levels over $30 per metric ton surpassed, and it speaks to the strength and the strong fundamentals of the VLGC market. May build on the strong fundamentals, but hit particularly higher freight levels because of a sudden but very brief period of congestion in the Panama Canal. Auction prices for transit reached levels not seen since December 2023, but the bottleneck was quickly resolved. I can to reach a certain delays in the Panama Canal giving the market a bump reflects positively on the fundamentals of the VLGC market, but we may…

I think we'll go to John first and then Ted will come back -- he's online, but we'll have him wrap up after John Lycouris. Thank you.

Thank you, John, and thank you, Tim. In continuation of our commitment to sustainability, Dorian LPG strives to improve the energy efficiency of its vessels with a focus on operational and technical performance while continuing to follow and employ technological advances and innovations as they become commercially available to the marine sector. Our scrubber vessels savings for the second quarter of 2024 amounted to $2.8 million or about $2,561 per day net of all scrubber operating expenses. Fuel differentials between high sulfur fuel oil and very low sulfur fuel oil averaged $136 per metric ton. While the differential of LPG HSFO fuel versus VLSFO, very low sulfur fuel oil, stood at about $217 per metric ton, which is quite advantageous for the dual-fuel LPG engine vessels. The total number of vessels fitted with scrubber units in our fleet is 14, and we're about to retrofit another vessel in the current calendar quarter during vessel irregular dry-docking window. The CII project initiated by the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping focuses on engaging with the aim, with the IMO for review process of the carbon intensity indicator. The objective is to propose process improvements in carbon reduction targets for the next phase, which begins in 2026. The project Group's goal is to provide clear recommendations to the IMO on necessary amendments and updates to the CII regulation for greater effectiveness in the next phase. The Center presented the project findings at the last MEPC meeting in March 2024 and anticipates preparing two papers for presentation at the next MEPC session in October, where there's hope they are agreed for revising the CII regulation ahead of its 2026 amendment window. Dorian LPG is a mission ambassador to the center and has actively contributed to this project. The new biofouling management…

Thanks, John. I'll quickly finish off my remarks with the apologies for the technical issue. We'll be sure to pay our phone bill next quarter. So very quickly, just to summarize, I believe I was cut off just talking about the Helios Pool. The pool had roughly $11 million of cash on hand at the end of the -- at the end of July, reflecting the dividend just paid. To recap, we've now paid $13.50 per share in dividends since September 2021. Again, we want to remind you that these dividends are irregular. Our market and our business is not regular. And therefore, our dividend policy is not either. Total capital returned from dividends, open-market repurchases, and our self-tender now totals $777 million gross. I'd probably like to note that the dividend payment reflected our strong earnings and cash flow generation. And at the same time, we were able to accomplish our strategic objective of raising additional equity capital to increase our financial flexibility as we look at fleet renewal and expansion. I think that underscores our Board's commitment to balancing returns to shareholders with growth in the business. Again, we remain optimistic about the prospects for our business as my colleagues have outlined. And with that, I'll turn the call back to John Hadjipateras.

Thank you, Ted, and apologies again to everyone who joined us. I hope we didn't distract too much from the very three -- I think very good presentations by my three colleagues with lots of material for you to hopefully digest. And Mickey, we're happy to take questions now if anyone has any.

[Operator Instructions]. We will take our first question from Omar Nokta with Jefferies.

Hey, guys, good morning. Just to add a handful, hopefully not too many, but just at least a couple of questions for you. John H, you talked a bit about the swings we've seen in the VLGC market, especially in July. And just kind of wanted to touch a bit on that and get a sense of what's been driving it? I know, Tim, you mentioned a variety of things. There's obviously the Panama Canal returning a bit to normally, that Hurricane Beryl in the Gulf, Middle East volumes. I guess I just wanted to ask if you could rank maybe or highlight which of these issues would you say is like the biggest -- has had the biggest impact on the market and what can you see kind of coming on the horizon that would alleviate that?

A million-dollar question. Tim, I think you are the best of us to answer that one.

Yeah, I think what the biggest factor is really the US Gulf production which in June was hampered by these delays with the chiller problems and some force majeure. So we saw less exports and because the terminus is really running very close to full capacity, once they have a problem, it takes them a long time to catch up again, so you can see they're so busy that you're still have the -- close to months after these events, you still have a backlog of three to five days in most of the terminals. Even though they're running on full capacity now, their system takes them a long time to clear the backlog of ships and then the catch-up on the exports. And then this coincided in June with, as I mentioned, the Panama Canal from the delays I described. In may suddenly coming back fully open and everybody turning their ships around and heading straight for the canal instead of the other capes. So of course, gave a number of more ships in the US Gulf available. In July, so that there was basically no overhang of ships from June into July. But the effect of what happened in June and then the Beryl and the capsize I talked in the Houston Ship Channel, of course, increased the problems. So I think we will see probably this again with the US Gulf being -- any problems hit in the US Gulf will take longer time to to catch up than what we saw last year because they're closer to capacity now. And then on the Panama Canal side, we have seen it swing heavily from -- over a few days basically from heavy congestion to fully open and, I think, longer term or coming into the winter, I think we will see the trends that we have seen there. The last few years at the Panama Canal will be heavily delayed from September, October onward throughout the winter. And then clear out early in the spring.

Okay. Thanks for that. I just wanted to say in -- the winters are good?

No, no, I'm I would just say it's ironic that in the winter we had the delays caused by a freeze and in the summer, we have delays caused by the chiller, but which is because of the heat waves and the extremes of weather are pretty impactful. Again, when you're running at close to full utilization and the export infrastructure.

Yeah, no, that's a good point. So just on that then in terms of, say, the backlog that has been hampering activity from Beryl in the Gulf Coast. Have we kind of started to work through that? Has it been improved from, say where it was, I guess, perhaps a month ago when that happened?

I mean, the terminals are fully up and running and producing, and they are back at the same export levels as they were and trying to then catch up and clear the ships that has been fixed already waiting for the late cancel. We are seeing the delays of that -- the delays, waiting for loading for the ships already booked, is coming down. So that should allow hopefully the terminals to catch up within this month and more spot to become available after that. So we expect to see then they're back on full swing now. And then that should be possible to squeeze out more hours eventually. Touch wood that everybody -- everything keeps running normal without any further incidents and problems.

Got it.

We have two more activity now for August.

Okay. Yes. So maybe we'll start to see a reversal potential. So just before you got cut off in your earlier comments, you had been -- I think you had mentioned about the bookings for the pool thus far into the quarter. And if I recall, it was roughly around 50% of available days on that basis around 30,000 or higher?

It's right. Around 30,000, yeah.

Okay. All right. And so just -- and this is like -- clearly this is beneath kindergarten math. But last quarter on the call you had mentioned, having booked a good chunk of Helio's at above 40, you end up realizing 50. With this 30,000, what kind of magnitude do you think if you were to adjust this for like an operating day basis and recognizing that you said in your comments that it's hard to figure what the actual operating days will be, but any best guess -- does that 30 become 40 or we're looking at 30, maybe becoming 33 and you kind of -- you're willing to step out of it?

It's really hard to say, Omar, I'd like to think there is some upside to that number come. I will say that the upside last quarter surprised us to the upside but it's really tricky to say. I think, you know, probably -- well, I know you're focused on trying to get a good number for the quarter. I'd say more that, Tim's comment about activity picking up, some of that may fall into this quarter and the rest of it may fall into the following quarter. So I don't have a very good answer to your question. But I'd say at least the trend line seems to be above that number. How much we realized in this quarter from an accounting perspective versus mix is a little tricky.

Understood. I appreciate that. And sorry if I'm going long in my session, but just maybe one more now. And I'll let you go. Just obviously, in terms of the equity issuance back in June, any thoughts or anything you're willing to say in terms of kind of plans with that extra $80 million or so of proceeds. It's obviously on the balance sheet, but just any anything you're willing to share on thoughts of that?

There's nothing really that we can share. There's nothing active at the moment, but we've been looking at opportunities that we believe could put money to good use, and we'll keep you appraised, if anything -- when when anything comes to fruition.

Thank you. And this will conclude our Q&A session. I'll now turn the call over to John Hadjipateras for closing remarks.

Well, thank you for coming on a summer day to listen to us and have a good rest of the summer. Bye, bye.

And this does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.