Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Star Bulk Carriers Conference Call on the First Quarter 2022 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Petros Pappas, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Hamish Norton, President; Mr. Nicos Rescos, Chief Operating Officer; Mr. Simos Spyrou, and Mr. Christos Begleris, Co-Chief Financial Officers; and Charis Plakantonaki, Chief Strategy Officer of the Company. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be presentation followed by question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded. We now pass the floor to one of your speakers today, Mr. Simos Spyrou. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. I'm Simos Spyrou, Co-Chief Financial Officer of Star Bulk Carriers and I would like to welcome you to our conference call regarding our financial results for the first quarter of 2022. Before we begin, I kindly ask you to take a moment to read the Safe Harbor statement on Slide #2 of our presentation. In today's presentation, we'll go through our Q1 results, cash evolution during the quarter, a walkthrough of our dividend policy, an overview of our balance sheet, an operational update, an ESG update, and the latest industry fundamentals before opening up for questions. Let us now turn to Slide #3 of the presentation for a summary of our first quarter 2022 highlights. The company reported the strongest first quarter results in Star Bulk's history. Net income for the first quarter amounted to $170.4 million and adjusted net income of $175.6 million or $1.72 adjusted earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA was at $225.9 million for the quarter. For the first quarter, as per our existing dividend policy, we declared a dividend per share of $1.65 payable on June 16, 2022. With the graph on the bottom of the page, we want to highlight the cumulative performance over the last 12 months which illustrates the strength of the platform in a rising dry bulk market. Our last 12 months adjusted EBITDA is at $1.04 billion and adjusted net income of $831 million. At the same time, we have returned a cumulative dividend of $576 million to our shareholders. On the top right of the page, you will see our daily figures per vessel for the quarter. Our time charter equivalent rate was $27,405 per vessel per day. Our combined daily operating expenses and net cash G&A expenses per vessel per day amounted to $5,812. Therefore, our…

Thank you, Simos. Please turn to Slide 8, where we provide operational update. OpEx excluding nonrecurring expenses were $4,747 per vessel per day for Q1 2022. Net cash G&A expenses were $1,065 per less per day for the same period. Despite continued adverse coverage-related restrictions and inflationary pressures, we saw a direct impact on OpEx, the combination of our in-house management and the scale of the group enable us to sustain a very competitive cost base and maintain our position as the lowest cost operator amongst our peers. In addition, we'll continue to rate among the top 3 of our listed peers in terms of rightship rate. Slide 9 provides a quick snapshot and some guidance on our future dry dock and ballast water system expenses for the next 12 months and the relevant total off-hire days. Our expected dry dock expense for the next 12 months is estimated at $36.4 million, with a dry docking of 35 vessels with another $16 million towards our vessel upgrade CapEx. In total, we expect to have an approximate 1,200 off-hire days for the forward 12-month period. We anticipate that 98% of our fleet will be ballast water fitted by the end of Q4 2022. The above numbers are based on current estimates around dry dock and retrofit planning, vessel employment and yard capacity. On the scrubber utilization front, Star Bulk has by now surpassed 100,000 days of scrubber operating experience. High price spreads have been volatile throughout the year, and is currently hovering around $300 per ton based Singapore spot prices, where we cater for 60% of our annual fuel demand. We expect to have recouped our scrubber investment in full by the end of Q2 2022. With an estimated annualized consumption of 800,000 tons of heavy fuel oil across the fleet, and a conservative price of $150 per ton, we will be reducing our cash breakeven by $2,600 per vessel per day. With 94 of our vessels being scrubber-fitted, a continued increase in high price spread can be a significant value generator for our company. I'll now pass the floor to our Chief Strategy Officer, Charis Plakantonaki, on ESG efforts.

Thank you, Nicos. Please turn to Slide 10, where we highlight our continued efforts on ESG. Consistent with the Star Bulk decarbonization strategy to lead in the industry’s efforts to phase out greenhouse gas emissions, we have signed and announced the company’s participation in an Iron Ore Consortium, along with three of our major charterers, BHP, Rio Tinto and Oldendorff. This partnership, led by the Global Maritime Forum, will create a framework for the development of a Green Corridor for the iron ore trade between Australia and East Asia, a route that accounts for more than 22 million tons of CO2 equivalents each year, or more than 2.5% of global shipping emissions. The parties in the consortium will jointly assess the economics, infrastructure, and logistics for the supply and bunkering of green ammonia, as well as the necessary commercial agreements and first mover mechanisms to enable a viable Australia to East Asia iron ore Green Corridor. Through this work and with inputs from the wider value chain and the public sector, we aim to set the foundation and accelerate the real-world implementation of zero-emission shipping in this specific trade route, and to catalyze green corridor developments also in other parts of the world. I will now pass the floor to our CEO, Petros Pappas, for a market update and his closing remarks.

Thank you, Charis. Please turn to Slide 11 for a brief update of supply. During the first 4 months of 2022, a total of 11 million deadweight was delivered and 1.5 million deadweight was sent to demolition for a net fleet growth of 9.5 million deadweight or 3.4% year-on-year. The supply outlook is the best we have seen in the recent history of dry bulk shipping. The order book has decreased to record low 6.6% of the fleet, with just 3.5 million deadweight reported as new firm orders between January and April. Uncertainty on future propulsion along with certain shipbuilding costs have helped keep new orders under control, while the strong increase in containership orders is filling up CPR capacity. Net fleet growth is projected to drop below 2.5% in 2022 and is unlikely to exceed 2% during '23 and '24. Furthermore, increase of global steel prices has put scrap prices to multiyear highs of more than $650 per LDT and may incentify the evolution of average tonnage during seasonal downturns. We expect this to intensify after the implementation of the EEXI, CII regulations that will come into effect as of 2023. The average steaming speeds of the dry bulk fleet has decreased by 3.1% year-on-year to 11.4 knots as a result of a strong increase of bunker costs. We expect oil prices and subsequently bunker costs to remain inflated for the next few quarters amid the sanctions imposed by the Western countries to Russia and the gradual recovery of economies from the pandemic. Port congestion stands close to record high levels and around [4.3%] higher than last year due to changes in trading patterns, increased political tension, quarantines and seasonal bottlenecks. Let's now turn to Slide 12 for a brief update of demand. According to Clarksons, total dry bulk…

[Operator Instructions] As your first question. Your line is open. please go ahead.

This is Chris Robertson at Jefferies. So I was wondering if you guys could break down just on the vessel segment, the average TCE rates you've earned quarter-to-date. So I know you talked about 74.3% at the average of 29,759, but if you could go into a little bit more detail on the various segments, that would be helpful.

Chris, you mean the coverage for the first quarter or the coverage for the second quarter?

The numbers Chris are as follows: for Capes, we have covered approximately 69% at 26,750; for Panamaxes, we have covered 78% at approximately 30,000, that's Panamaxes and Kamsarmaxes; and then for Supras and Ultras, we have covered 81% at 32,000. And sorry, that was, Chris, those.

And your next question.

This is Drew Millegan, I'm with the Woodworth Fund. So I just had a question for some additional clarification. And it looks like you guys are having a -- doing very well. Congrats on that. You mentioned there's a regulation coming in that you think is going to increase the scraps going forward, come 2023. I didn't quite catch what -- do you have any more detail on what that is that you're expecting?

Hi, Drew. It's the environmental regulations that actually oblige vessels to reduce their consumption -- the consumption versus the speed. So the vessels will have to start performing better going forward and consuming less fuel oil. And there is the older vessels, some of the older vessels and especially some vessels that are from third tier yards, they may not be able to do that without reducing their speed substantially. And if the vessel reduces speed substantially, this means that supply is cut, and therefore, that's good for the market.

[Operator Instructions] No more question at this time. Please continue.

No more comments, operator. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, and this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.