Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Navigator Holdings Conference Call for the First Quarter 2025 Financial Results. On today's call we have Mads Peter Zacho, Chief Executive Officer; Gary Chapman, Chief Financial Officer; Oeyvind Lindeman, Chief Commercial Officer; and myself, Randy Giveans, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Development in North America. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. As we conduct today's presentation, we'll be making various forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, the future expectations, plans and prospects from both a financial and operational perspective and are based on management assumptions, forecasts and expectations as of today's date, May 15, 2025. Actual results may differ significantly from our forward-looking information and financial forecast. Additional information about these factors and assumptions are included in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I now pass the floor to Mads Peter Zacho, the company's Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Mads.

Thank you so much. Good morning, good afternoon, and thank you for joining this Navigator Gas earnings call for Q1 2025. As a start, I'll just review the key data from our Q1 '25 performance, and then I'll go over the outlook for the rest of the year. After that, Gary, Oeyvind and Randy will discuss our results in more detail. In the first quarter, we again generated more revenues, up 13% compared to same period last year. This was a new record quarterly revenue, and it was driven by both high utilization and higher rates. Income from our joint venture terminal was down significantly. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was $73 million, in line with both same period of 2024 and also Q4. The balance sheet is strong with a robust cash position even after investments into three second-hand vessels and further investments -- installments paid into the MGC newbuildings. With the recent $40 million bond tap and the $300 million refinancing proceeds, the cash balance will be substantially stronger this second quarter. I'd like to add that the $300 million refinancing was signed as planned in the middle of the most volatile trade environment that we've seen in decades. And this is at the lowest margins ever for Navigator and also, I think, showing the rock-solid support and trust that we have from our banking partners. The return of capital continued in Q1 with both the $0.05 fixed dividend and a share buyback up to, in combination 25% of net income. We're also pleased to announce another share repurchase authorization in the amount of an additional $50 million, enhancing shareholder returns, earnings per share and return on equity. Commercially, we pushed TCE rate back up higher and secured average Q1 TCE rates of $30,475. This is 8% higher than…

Thank you, Mads. Welcome, everybody. As Mads alluded to, we've been really busy in the last few months for all kinds of reasons. Our first quarter 2025 financials show yet another strong result, maintaining our trend over many quarters now, showing the quality and diversity of our business, not least as a result of our flexible fleet, resilient charter rates and utilization and our operational efficiency and cost controls. This all comes through in the numbers on Slide 6, where we see TCE jump above $30,000 per day. This leads on to a record high quarterly net operating revenue of $151 million, adjusted EBITDA of $72.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. Utilization was up 92.4%, up 3.1% compared to first quarter 2024. And the average time charter equivalent rate of $30,476 per day is -- in this first quarter is the highest rate achieved by Navigator in almost a decade. You'll see that voyage expenses have increased substantially, partially as a result of our increased fleet size, but primarily as these are pass-through costs to our customers, there being a corresponding increase in operating revenues. Vessel operating expenses were somewhat up compared to the first quarter of 2024 at $47 million, with the increase primarily driven by the timing of maintenance costs incurred during the three months ended March 31, 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. Depreciation is slightly up compared to previous quarters due to our now increased fleet and our general and admin costs of $8.1 million in the first quarter, whilst up year-on-year, is down compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Our unrealized movements on non-designated derivative instruments resulted in a loss in this quarter of $2.3 million, this being related to movements in the fair value of our long-term interest rate…

Thank you, Gary, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I'll spend the next few minutes walking you through the freight markets, our utilization trends and the recent impact of tariffs. I'll also touch on the latest ethylene arbitrage and wrap up with a quick view on vessel supply. So let's start with the market. If you turn to Page 13, you'll see the latest time charter assessments across the gas carrier segments. The story here is stability. Rates for our core segments, ethylene and semi-refrigerated vessels, which cover 88% of our fleet, have held firm. That's reassuring, especially given the recent backdrop of tariffs, trade uncertainties and most people pushing the pause button. Now on to utilization. On Page 14, it shows the makeup of our earnings base across petrochemicals, LPG and ammonia as well as fleet utilization. We came in strong in the first quarter with utilization of 92.4%, but things took a sharp turn in April. On 10th of April, China imposed tariffs up to 125% on a range of U.S. energy products, including ethane, ethylene and LPG. That made the trade between the two countries completely uneconomical. We had three handysize ethane cargoes to China canceled and 0 new inquiries follow during this time. And we weren't alone, the industry saw widespread disruptions and cancellations. But right after Easter, China quietly dropped the ethane tariffs back down to 1%. Immediately activity came back. We concluded two ethane fixtures overnight, and that's how quickly tariffs can swing the markets. With tariffs down and sentiment improving, utilization is now recovering, and we expect a more normalized trading pattern from May onwards. Our forward cover helps smooth things out. As of today, 41% of our ship days over the next 12 months are fixed at an average rate of $31,040…

Thank you, Oeyvind. So following up on several announcements we made in recent months, we want to provide some additional details and updates on our recent developments. Starting on Slide 19. We're pleased to announce our return of capital for the first quarter of 2025. But before we get to that, I want to highlight that during the first quarter, we repurchased more than 136,000 common shares in the open market totaling $1.9 million for an average price of $14.17 per share. Now looking ahead, in line with our return of capital policy and the illustrative table below, we're returning 25% of net income or a total of $6.8 million to shareholders during the second quarter. The Board has declared a cash dividend of $0.05 per share payable on June 17 to all shareholders of record as of May 29, equating to a quarterly cash dividend payment of $3.5 million. Additionally, with NVGS shares trading well below estimated NAV of around $27 a share, we will use the variable portion of the return of capital policy for share buybacks. As such, we expect to repurchase $3.3 million of common shares between now and quarter end, such that the dividend and share repurchases together equal 25% of net income, again, $6.8 million in total this quarter. As seen over the past few years, returning capital to shareholders will remain a primary focus for us going forward. And that's not all for capital returns. Just wait, there's more. Now looking at Slide 20. Included in our earnings release yesterday afternoon, we announced the Board's authorization for a new share repurchase program of up to $50 million of NVGS common stock, most likely to be implemented via open market purchases. To be clear, this new share repurchase authorization is in addition to our…

Thanks a lot, Randy. Yes, in summary, I guess, that we can conclude here that Navigator Gas got off to a robust start to 2025. I probably should add here that the past month has added quite a few sleepless nights and probably also some gray hairs. But I think in Q1, we delivered another solid quarter with strong operating cash flows. And we have in front of us a Q2 that maybe started a little bit shaky, but has now returned to almost normal, there I say so. We've built resilience by refinancing well ahead of maturity at lower margins and better terms. And this is why we, despite less overall visibility than usual, and continue to pay quarterly cash dividends and add another substantial share buyback program at $50 million. This buyback program will significantly enhance the shareholder returns, our EPS and our return on equity. We remain confident about the demand fundamentals of the business. Continued growth in U.S. natural gas liquids production and the significant build-out in U.S. export infrastructure over the next four years will support exports and thereby transport demand. Near term we expect the terminal throughput for Q2 to be materially higher than Q1 and with a widening ethylene arbitrage. The vessel supply picture remains attractive with a small handysize order book and an aging global fleet. So thanks a lot for listening. And now I'll hand it back to you, Randy, and we'll go to Q&A.

Thank you, Mads. Operator, we'll now open the line for some Q&A. [Operator Instructions] So first question, your line should be open.

Hi, Randy. Thank you. Thanks for the update, guys. A couple of questions from my end. I think, Oeyvind, you spent a good amount of time talking about the market in April and how things have improved thus far in May as the tariffs have gotten removed or lowered. Just wanted to ask when the China U.S., say, trade got to a bit of a standstill, as you highlighted, what ended up happening elsewhere? Did you see any cargo opportunities to send to other areas in the Far East or was it just a complete lull in the market?

No. I mean, LPG is quite -- it's a deep market. It's a big market, and it's quite fungible, meaning that we can find other outlets. So positively for Navigator in that situation, so no LPG from U.S. to China. So what does China do? They buy from other sources. So we actually did some trades that we haven't done before, LPG on a handysize from Middle East to China. So usually, those ships are too small for such a long deep sea voyage on LPG, it's more for the VLGCs, but did happen. And that is a sort of a blip -- a positive blip if you see it that way. But LPG generally caused inefficiencies. So ships are waiting fully laden, deviating, different trades going to new places. And generally, that was a positive for the market generally for LPG. Ethane stopped until China announced that no, it's exempt from import duties, i.e., only 1% going from 126% to 1%. So that's clearly helpful. So those two things had an impact.

Okay. Thank you. And then just in terms of how we saw things in the first quarter, it seems that your realized rate stayed fairly strong, even as you were highlighting the arbitrage to move cargo, kind of favored going the short-haul route to Europe instead of the Far East. Is that a bit of -- would you say that's a delayed reaction maybe that we will see some of that into the second quarter where we'll see the softer rate? Because obviously, 30,000 is still quite strong in spite of that shorter half?

I think when there was no [indiscernible] smaller volumes of ethylene going through the terminal in the first quarter and rates were kept high. And now you're facing a situation whereby -- and there's more volumes. So that's a positive if you're thinking about the second quarter. More supply, that's more volumes that needs to move on the same amount of ships. First quarter, most of it went Transatlantic to Europe, so on ethane and ethylene. Shorter voyages, but now we're seeing also voyages going to Indonesia and other places or longer. So yes, we are optimistic.

Okay. And one final one, and I'll turn it over. Maybe to you, Gary, you've got the new credit facility in place now that refinances this year's maturity. You paid for the terminal expansion with your cash resources. And on the last call you mentioned that you're aiming to put some debt in place on the terminal now that it's completed. You've got the small balance left on that original loan for the pre-expansion part of the terminal. What are you thinking right now in terms of putting some debt on the project now? Any sense of timing or amount?

Yeah. I think what we can say is it's not imminent. I don't think it's top of our list. I think it's something that we've been looking at for a while, and I think there are various different things we can look at. Obviously, for Navigator, it's not ships. So it's something a little bit different for us to finance. And I think with the contractual situation from the flex train there, we've been waiting for that situation, which is coming along nicely. But because we've not been in a rush, I think we've been prioritizing our more expensive bank debt and our other facilities and getting that out of the way first. But it's certainly still on our list. But in terms of priority and timing, yes, it's probably not right at the top of the list. I think we've got other things that we can go for first.

Okay. Thanks, Gary. Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

All right. Next question. Your line should be open.

Hi. Just starting off on the buyback program. How do you think about deploying the new buyback program? And is there a mechanism for how you determine the amount of buybacks in any given quarter?

Yeah. Thanks for that, Charles. So in terms of scale, looking back over the last couple of years, we bought back around $55 or so million each year. In 2022, we announced the program, the first $50 million share buyback program and implemented it pretty soon thereafter. So certainly planning on putting this one to good use as well. In terms of the scale, there are certain parameters and volume limitations that you can buy back on any given day and kind of an open market share repurchase program. So obviously, we have to stay in line with those. But that said, again, we're going to do the $3.3 million for sure in terms of share buybacks based on the return of capital policy and the incremental one we plan on utilizing here in the near term as well. So a lot of variables will determine the exact timing and scale of that, but it is something we plan on implementing in the near term.

Understood. And just a second question, has volatility that you've seen in the market recently changed how you're approaching the chartering strategy?

Charles, you mentioned we put in a note, which we haven't done before in terms of our percentage cover over the next 12 months and the average rate of that. That certainly helped in April. I think that 41% is probably a little bit low. So we're looking to nudge it up a few percentage points. So it's something we look at. And of course, you are influenced by what's happening around you. But on a long-term we generally are just shy of 50% on cover because we really -- petrochemicals generally is spot driven. So -- and we believe in the market is coming back now. And then, of course, it's beneficial to have some spot open ships.

Understood. Thanks for the time.

Thanks, Charles. I believe that is it in terms of Q&A. So I'll turn it back to Mads for one final goodbye.

Good. Thanks for staying with us and listening into our Q1 results. I think you can see that this is better-than-expected Q1. It was a quite robust result that we demonstrated here with good cash returns. And of course, that cash return then is translated into returning cash to shareholders. So we are pleased to see that even in a time when things have been very dynamic around us that we can finance our vessels with strong support from our banks, and we can also generate excess liquidity so we can launch another share buyback. We've seen that as being a very good instrument in the past to returning shares or capital to shareholders, and this is one that we'll keep prioritizing. So stay tuned, and thank you so much for listening in.

Wait one more second. It looks like we have a late addition to the Q&A. Climent, there he is. Your line is open.

Hi, team. Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to delve a bit further into the TCE increase quarter-over-quarter. Was the bulk of the uplift attributable to solid performance on the spot market or was it mostly due to vessels on time charters being rolled at higher rates?

You're muted Oeyvind.

Yeah, hopefully. Mostly on the time charter market, Climent. The spot market was getting a little bit choppy leading into April. So generally attributed to time charter, which proves the point that also customers are viewing 2025 as being quite tight or tighter on ships. So that's just a reflection of that.

Right. That's helpful. And this one is more on the modeling side, but should we expect the co-pay payments on the Ethylene Export Terminall to provide a tailwind to the JV's contribution in the second quarter?

Yes. I guess -- go ahead, Mads.

No, no. That will certainly be the case. The deficiency payments tend to vary from contract to contract. So it depends on which the customer is, but typically, they will fall into the following quarter portion of it. So yes, you'll see a benefit or a positive impact from it.

That’s helpful. Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions.

Absolutely. Thanks for joining. All right. With that, we're out of time. Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you all in August.