Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Tsakos Energy Navigation Conference Call on the Fourth Quarter 2023 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Takis Arapoglou, Chairman of the Board; Dr. Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO; Mr. Paul Durham, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. George Saroglou, Chief Operating Officer of the Company. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded. And now, I will pass the floor to Mr. Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, and good morning to all of our participants. I am Nicolas Bornozis of Capital Link, Investor Relations Advisor to Tsakos Energy Navigation. This morning, the company publicly released its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2023. In case, we do not have a copy of today's earnings release, please call us at 212-661-7566 or email us at ten T-E-N @capitallink.com and we will have a copy for you e-mailed right away. Please note that parallel to today's conference call, there is also a live audio and slide webcast which can be accessed on the company's website on the front page at www.tenn.gr. The conference call will follow the presentation slides, so please, we urge you to access the presentation slides on the company's website. Please note that the slides of the webcast presentation will be available and archived on the website of the company after the conference call. Also, please note that the slides are user controlled, and that means that by clicking on the proper button, you can move to the next or to the previous slide on your own. And at this time, I would like to read the safe harbor statement. This conference call and slide presentation of the webcast contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve with risks and uncertainties, which may affect TEN's business prospects and results of operations. And with that, at this moment, I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Arapoglou, the Chairman of Tsakos Energy Navigation. Mr. Arapoglou, please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Nicolas. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. TEN continues to deliver very strong financial performance based on very positive market fundamentals and also best-in-class operational performance. At the same time, the company keeps renewing its fleet, selling all the tonnage at today's high prices and acquiring eco-friendly vessels, increasing its grid footprint. And it also reinforces its leading position as a very successful operator of specialized modern dynamically positioned tankers. All these are highly accretive acquisitions. The results of which are not included in today's results, but will definitely contribute very positively going forward, which will allow us to continue our strong growth, a strong growth that we have demonstrated quarter-after-quarter. We're also using this current positive market to increase the number of vessels on the time charter. But at the same time, we keep enough vessels to benefit from the very attractive current returns of the spot market and profit sharing arrangements, driven by the otherwise quite unfortunate geopolitical developments. In doing so, we continue to maintain a very healthy cash balance, which allows us to be flexible and capitalize on attracting acquisition opportunities as they arise. And to continue uninterruptedly to pay sizable dividends to reward our shareholders, we're proposing as a first semiannual installment $0.60. So on behalf of the Board, I wish to once again congratulate Nikos Tsakos, and his team for the excellent performance and wish them continued success going forward. So thank you for me, and over to Nikos Tsakos.

Chairman, thank you very much. And first of all, we would like to express our support to the victims and all affected by the tragic events in Delaware. And we hope that very soon things will go back to normal with a minimum loss of life. As for TEN, we concluded our 30th year, milestone with another record year and we are looking forward to continue the trend. And I think as our Chairman said, the growth that has been embedded is not yet, is not portrayed in these results, but hopefully, it will be portrayed in the remaining of 2024. Since we will be taking a significant amount, we will grow our fleet almost by 10% by the time, by the middle of the coming year. In the meantime, our fundamentals of the industry, the long-term fundamentals still look very positive. And they look positive not only because of the geopolitical events and the delays and closures in the canal. But I think long-term, we are still seeing a very small replacement of the fleet with less than 7%, and in some categories, much lesser than that, like the larger ships, the VLCCs. And on top of that, of course, you have a very aging fleet and the shadow fleet, which is close to 20% in the major in some of the major categories. So without trying to foresee the future, we are trying to, we believe that 2024 will be at least as good for us as the year, we are enjoying. So this is where we are. At this moment, it has been, I think, for us a springboard year, milestone year. We were able to renew our fleet in a very drastic. I think it is the largest growth in our history, which shows that already…

Thank you, Nikos, and thank you for the whole team. Good morning to all of you joining our earnings call today. 2023 has been a banner year for TEN. We celebrated our 30th anniversary as a public company and posted another record year, the second record year in a row after 2022. Key takeaways for TEN during the fourth quarter and 2023, we took delivery of the Company's first two dual fuel LNG powered Aframax tankers in a series of four new buildings of high spec, eco designed vessels built against long-term employment to a major oil concern. During the early part of January '24, we took delivery of the remaining two. The delivery of these four vessels marks TEN's entrance to greener vessels. We continued the sale of older first generational vessels. During 2023 TEN sold eight tankers built between 2005 and 2007. In January '24, we announced the sale of a 2005 built Suezmax tanker. The nine tankers that we sold since January 1, 2023 had an average age of 18.5 years. At the same time, we continue to grow the company and replace these first generation vessels with newbuilding orders that fit existing transportation requirements of term company clients. We announced today in the press release the signing of a newbuilding contract for one more shuttle tanker, the third newbuilding under construction against a long time charter with a major energy concern. This brings our current newbuilding order book to seven vessels. In addition, we recently announced the acquisitions of a high spec environmentally friendly 5 vessel fleet from Viken. The Viken acquisition includes two 2023-built dual fuel LNG powered LR2 Aframax tankers, one 2019 built super-eco Suezmax and two 1A ice-class scrubber-fitted Aframax tankers, built in 2018 and 2019, respectively. We took delivery of the first…

Thank you, George. Just a few remarks. TEN achieved net income in the year amounted to $300 million. And on top of this, there was a further $500 million coming from EBITDA and altogether adding to the company's considerable cash reserves. Revenue in the fourth quarter totaled $220 million while total revenues in the year amounted to almost $900 million the 3.4% increase over the prior year. Time charters generated about $540 million of which $72 million related to profit share. Total operating income in the year amounted to almost $390 million a significant increase by 53% over the previous year. Our average daily TCE for the year amounted to $37,000 on average in a market that effectively operated with almost full employment for our vessels. In the year, eight vessels undertook dry dock. In the fourth quarter, vessel operating expenses by 2% while voyage expenses decreased by 21%. Our new vessel buildings are expected to achieve their delivery date soon and vessel financing has now been mostly covered. We believe the new buildings are expected to generate strong rewards over the years. In the meantime, the company will continue as always to ensure perfect debt service. Given our cash availability, use of funds will remain for us as a priority and in this respect, we are acquiring 11 new excellent vessels and preparing plans accordingly regarding the company's future. Finally, we believe that the production cuts that hit demand in the latter part of last year were temporary and that cargo growth has already begun to swell again in the early part of this year. And that's really all I have.

Thank you, Paul. I mean, good news do not have to come in many words. Thank you very much for this. Well, I think as we have seen, it has been a very, very productive year, setting the base of the company's future. And we are looking I know that many people since we announce every year a record year believe that at some stage we have reached the peak of our profitability. We hope that this is not the case and this by setting the new ships. And I think, George, if you can put the slide on, I think of the future growth, not the one or the ship, that's the one. And we might be including a couple of new acquisitions and opportunities. Our newbuilding department here, Mr. Arapoglou, is not in his head. In this list, we are very close in securing additional very accretive transactions to the 16 vessels that are out there. But hopefully, we can announce something after the -- within April on that. And with this, we would like to open the floor for any comments or questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first questions come from the line of Climent Molins with Value Investor’s Edge.

I wanted to start by asking about your fleet positioning. You already provided some commentary on it, but over the past couple of years, you've pursued quite an aggressive plan to renew a fleet and the recent Beacon acquisition further improved the age profile. You mentioned you're working on several additional opportunities with newbuildings. And I was wondering, should we expect the size of the fleet to grow further or will the other side of the fleet be sold in conjunction with additional acquisitions?

Well, we are looking this is an ongoing growing concern as a company. However, in the strong market environment, we are looking, we have a lot of vessels approaching graduation years from the TEN academy and we will wish them they will be very profitably graduating for the rest of the fleet. I think we were able by selling the 9 vessels last year and part of this year, we added $160 million net to our cash reserve, which we have used to further grow the fleet. And I think the growth is significant, selling 9 vessels and actually replacing them with double that. So the answer is, there will be growth, but there will be also this investment of the first generation vessels.

I also wanted to ask about the Neo Energy, which supposedly came off contract in February. Could you talk a bit about the prospects for the vessel?

Well, the Neo Energy has been one of our luckiest vessels since she was built on February 7, 2007. She has always been and I think she earned up to last month one of our highest time charters for a year and a half in excess of $115,000 a day. And we believe that she will maintain to be one of our likeliest vessels and you will hear an announcement soon.

And final question from me. On the dividend side, you mentioned you expect to distribute another dividend later this year. Could you provide some commentary on the amount you expect to distribute?

Well, I think our Chairman who is responsible for the dividend. Takis?

Well, we are in the approaching the middle of the year. We felt that $0.60 represents what our performance last year and how things are looking right now. The second installment of the dividend depends on the rest of the year and we cannot really make any predictions. So, because we're not allowed. But we are confident that our performance will continue to be strong.

[Operator Instructions] I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would like to pass the call back over to management for any closing remarks.

Well, from our side, we would like to take the opportunity and thanks our shareholders for their support. The management being the main shareholder is working to achieve the results for all of us. Regardless of the geopolitical situation that we are facing, just by the fundamentals, we are seeing that the market which is under built and it's maintaining this. Less than 7% of the fleet is on order, and on top of that, an aging fleet and a shadow fleet, which we do not expect to see within the normal trading route. So we can conservatively say that we are looking for another couple of years of significant growth, and then we are placing the company to take advantage of that. From our side, we would like again to pass our support to all the victims of the Delaware tragic incident, and wish everybody happy and peaceful Easter going forward. And thank you very much.

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.