Odfjell-b Shs Stock

Good morning to all of you, and welcome to Odfjell's presentation of our second quarter results. We will follow an agenda, which should be well known to all of you. I will take you through the highlights, and then my colleague, Terje Ivasten, will present our financial performance. And finally, I will conclude this presentation with an operational review, market update and the prospects going forward. So if we then turn to the highlights, we start with safety. We have seen a very volatile environment this quarter, but I'm still very satisfied to report that our strong safety performance continued throughout the quarter.

I'm equally happy to say that our 4 Odfjell vessels that were trapped inside the Middle East Gulf have all safely left the region -- and this is due to a fantastic cooperation between the people on board our ships and also onshore on different locations. We are presently not considering to send vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. If we then turn to our financial performance, we delivered time charter earnings of USD 195 million. This is up from USD 167 million in the previous quarter. Our average time charter earnings per day was $29,486 million. This is also up from $27,232 in the first quarter. And this reflects the strong spot market that we have observed during the quarter. Our EBIT was $69 million. This compares to $46 million. The net result contribution from Odfjell Terminals was 1.8%, which compares to 2.3% in the previous quarter.

And summarized, this concludes a net result of USD 54 million in the second quarter compared to USD 32 million in the previous quarter. If we adjust for one-off items, the net result was USD 56 million compared to USD 26 million in the first quarter. Other important items of our carbon intensity, the so-called AER was 6.9% in the second quarter, and this is down from 7.0% in the previous quarter. We delivered this result despite the obvious inefficiencies that we observed in the Middle East region. We also took delivery of 2 newbuildings on long-term charter during the quarter. And at the same time, we sold 1 vessel for sustainable recycling.

On top of that, we signed an agreement to purchase 4 super-segregators to be constructed at the Kitanihon shipyard in Japan. And finally, yesterday, the Board approved a dividend of $0.52 per share based on our adjusted first half results. And by that, I give the word to Terje Iversen, who will take you through our financial performance. Thank you .

Thank you, Harald, and good morning to all of you. I will, as usual, start with the income statement for this quarter. As mentioned from Harald, time charter earnings this quarter ended at USD 195 million, a significant increase from the first quarter with USD 167 million. Looking behind the figures, of course, we were helped by higher spot rates, especially in the start of the quarter, which contributed to higher time shot earnings per day. We also had an increase in commercial revenue days with 6,409 days, an increase of 295 days primarily due to delivery of 2 new vessels this quarter and also 3 vessels that would deliver through the first quarter.

We also had a slight decline in off-hire days, also then increasing available days this quarter. Included in the net time charter earnings, we have also included USD 5.3 million which is a customer settlement following a favorable outcome of a recent arbitration that, of course, that helped the total time charter earnings this quarter. Time charter expenses ended at USD 14.4 million compared to USD 15.2 million in the first quarter. Operating expenses, we saw a slight increase to USD 54.6 million mainly due to new vessels joining the fleet this quarter. While we saw the G&A reduced this quarter from USD 20.3 billion to USD 18.2 million, mainly due to seasonal effects in the second quarter.

After operating income, other operating income, not shown at this table at USD 1.4 million. We delivered an EBITDA of USD 111.3 million compared to USD 81 million in the first quarter. That also includes net results from our joint ventures with USD 2.2 million compared to USD 2.8 million included in that figure is not result from our terminals with USD 1.8 million compared to USD 2.3 million billion in the first quarter. Decline is related to a smaller impairment being done at 1 of the terminals in this quarter.

Depreciation and amortization increased somewhat to USD 41.7 million, mostly related to more vessels on our balance sheet. And after a small capital loss this quarter, related to a resale of a contract -- new building contracts for vessels being built in China of USD 0.9 million. We delivered EBIT of USD 69 million compared to USD 46 million in the first quarter. Net interest expenses declined somewhat to USD 13.8 million compared to USD 14.3 million in the first quarter, also helped by interest income this quarter related to the customer settlement that I mentioned in time charter earnings with USD 1.4 million then contributing to net interest expenses going down this quarter.

After other financial items and taxes, we then delivered a net result of USD 53.5 million compared to USD 32.1 million in the first quarter, leading to earnings per share of USD 0.68 compared to USD 0.41 in the first quarter. If you adjust for nonrecurring items, we delivered a result of USD 56 million. That is then related to the impairment I mentioned and also the capital loss and the finance improving the results of USD 56 million compared to adjusted result of USD 26 million in the first quarter.

Time charter earnings per day strengthened this quarter at the same time, we saw a lower cash breakeven. Our time charter earnings per day ended at USD 29,486 compared to USD 27,232 in the previous quarter. Main driver, of course, the stronger spot markets, especially as we saw in the start of the quarter. And this also worth mentioning that this time charter earnings per day excludes the customer settlement that I mentioned on the previous slide.

Cash break-even declined to USD 21,804 compared to USD 22,984 in the first quarter, bringing the 12 months rolling average to USD 22,165. Decrease was driven by added revenue days from the 5 newbuildings that were delivered during the first half and also less off-hire days in the second quarter. Going forward, we expect average cash break-even d for this year to be around USD 22,000 per day. And also Mirsmentioning, our P&L breakeven was around USD 22,281 compared to very much the same figure in the previous quarter.

Looking at the balance sheet, we saw some changes on the ships and newbuilding contracts. As mentioned, we sold 1 new building under construction. We also sold 1 vessel for recycling. On the other hand, we also paid predelivery installments for newbuildings, 40,000 being built of USD 35 million in April. And we also took delivery of the 2 vessels on long-term time charters. than increasing the total value of ships and newbuilding contracts this quarter. The right-of-use assets then also increased from USD 285.7 million to USD 321 million this quarter. While we saw investments in associate joint ventures declined somewhat from USD 182.8 billion to USD 180.9 million this quarter.

Main effect was related to that we took out dividend from the terminals of USD 3 million this quarter. Cash and cash equivalents ended at USD 165 million while including available drawing facilities, we had USD 385 million in available liquidity end of second quarter. Also worth mentioning that we paid the newbuilding Bow Pluto that we to deliver off in July with cash, and that will later including an existing loan facility. On the equity, we saw that equity increased by USD 46 million, in line with the comprehensive income we booked this quarter, leading to equity percentage end of second quarter of 46%, very much in line with previous quarter.

On the debt side, we saw that other current assets increased, and that was primarily due to the fact that we have more expensive bunker on our vessels and also increase in other inventories during this quarter being also impacted by new vessels being added to our fleet. Cash flow this quarter, we ended with a very strong operating cash flow of USD 81 million, increase of USD 30.9 million compared to first quarter, and of course, that is mainly related to higher earnings this quarter. On the investment side, we sold the new building under construction in China, and we also sold 1 vessel for recycling. In total, that gave us cash of USD 33.2 million.

On the other hand, we invested in 4 newbuilding vessels with USD 35 million and also had some expense to dry docking and other projects. So in total, we are then left with net cash flow for investing activities of USD 19.5 million this quarter compared to USD 21.7 million in the first quarter. Not much going on the debt side when it comes to refinancing on new facilities, only ordinary repayments, leading to net cash flow from financing activities of negative USD 27.2 million. And in total, we then saw an increase in net cash and cash equivalents this quarter of USD 33.9 million.

Looking at the last 10, 11 quarters, we see that we are delivering a quite strong quarter with USD 80.6 million in operating cash flow, up from USD 49.7 million in previous quarter, relates to higher term charter earnings, as mentioned. Net cash flow from investment was negative USD 20 million due to the installments and in newbuildings. And on the other hand, we also had the proceeds from the sale of ships during this quarter. And net cash flow -- free cash flow, then ended at USD 80 million minus USD 20 million is USD 61 million this quarter, up from USD 28 million in the previous quarter.

Looking at the 12 months rolling free cash flow, we are at USD 49.7 million. And if we adjust that for repayments related to right-of-use assets, we reached USD 37 million compared to USD 35 million in the previous quarter. On the debt side, not that much going on when it comes to maturing facilities the next quarters, not before in the fourth quarter '27. Looking at the total debt end of second quarter, we have around USD 738 million in interest-bearing debt. We expect a slight increase year-end due to the level of Bow Pluto that will be financed by the new tranche that will be drawn upon these days.

And then we expect a small decline going forward based on existing profiles, and they will be maturing loan going forward. Not included in this slide is the financing of the 4 newbuildings, the 40,000 new dwt vessels being delivered from first quarter '27 until second quarter 2029. So that will increase this estimated numbers. On the projected debt, right of use assets, that is USD 321 million end of second quarter. That will increase end of this year, around USD 400 million, mainly due to delivery of 3 -- 4 newbuildings that we deliver on time charter throughout the second half. And then we also will see an increase in right-of-use asset debt in '27 and '28 due to the newbuildings being delivered on long-term time charters to open.

When it comes to newbuildings, the 4 newbuildings, we are in process, and we are evaluating alternative day stays, and we expect that financing to be finalized within end of this year. CapEx and time charter commitments. Total -- in total, we have time charter CapEx commitments at USD 289 million end of for the total for the pure newbuildings and including Bow Pluto, which then was paid in July with USD 35.4 million. So then we are left with the 40,000 newbuildings being scheduled to be leveled from first quarter '27 to second quarter '29.

On long-term time charters, we are signaling that we are having a lot of commitments when it comes to newbuildings being delivered from second half '26 until 2029. If we summarize a total time charter hire for all these vessels. We are close to USD 970 million on our balance sheet, that means that we will add around USD 500 million in new assets from the second half '26 to end of 2029. However, I come further into that, but these vessels that we have on time charter that are going to build on our own newbuildings accounts for around 13% of the current order book in our core segment.

Then I will leave a word to you again, Harald.

Thank you very much, Terje. And by that, I will continue with an operational review. We start with the volumes. And as you can see on the left-hand side of side, we have relatively stable volumes quarter-on-quarter. We lifted 3.2 million tonnes of cargo during the second quarter, which is the same as we did in the first quarter. However, if you look at the quarters reported in 2025, you see that the volumes are down from previous levels. And that is, of course, the effect of the Middle East Gulf situation. The split between spot and contract volumes were relatively stable also during this quarter, and we are reporting a contract coverage of 46%, which is up 1% compared to last quarter. .

If we then turn to the markets in general, the Coxon chemical tanker spot index reported an increase of 24% during quarter. while the Odfix index is up 9.8%. It's important once again to notice here that Clarkson is reporting the difference between rates at the end of the first quarter and compare these with the rates at the end of the second quarter. the Odfix index is reporting average earnings during the quarter. So those 2 graphs are not entirely comparable.

If you look at the volumes, we see that there is a slight decrease on specialty and commodity chemicals. But this is, to a large extent, outweighed by an increase on vegoils and biofuels. During the second quarter, 19% of the volumes that we lifted were bag oils and biofuels. In the second quarter, this figure was 12%. And and this compares to an average of 8% in 2025. So we clearly see that, that has been a big influx of vegoils and biofuels during the first half. And I must say I'm satisfied by my organization's ability to change operation modes in line with changing market conditions. CPP was stable at approximately 4% of our total volumes.

Now to sustainability. We reported an AER of 6.9%, which is down from 7.0% in the previous quarter. And it's important to notice that we deliver those strong figures. Despite the fact that we see significant inefficiencies in and around the Middle East Gulf. Going forward, we will add more and more super eco vessels, and that will have a positive impact on our AER performance in the future.

And finally, we are watching carefully the buildup of the El Nino in the Pacific Ocean. We do believe that this will have an impact on transit through the Panama Canal. It will likely have an impact on energy prices from November onwards. And we are also curious about the effects that it will have on the crop yields and by that, production of veg oils and biofuels.

Turning to our terminals. The headline here is stable performance despite significant volatility in the global markets. Our average commercial occupancy rate increased to 96%. That's up from 94% in the previous quarter. Crude put was up 6%, and the number of handling was relatively stable. Our consolidated EBITDA for the terminals was USD.7 million, and this compares to USD 10.6 million for the previous quarter. We have previously disclosed a shareholder dispute at our terminals in the U.S. and this dispute was referred to the court, and we are satisfied to see that the judge ruled in favor of audio on all the accounts handled in the court.

Going to the market situation. The storage demand in the U.S. is relatively soft. This is due to the world geopolitical situation. And we see the same tendency in Asia, where there are direct and indirect headwinds due to the shortfall or disappearance of Middle East volumes. We expect this situation to continue as long as the situation is as it is in the Middle East. We have previously reported 2 important expansion projects, 1 in -- at our terminal in Atwerp where we are building 18 duplex stainless steel tanks with a total capacity of 36,000 cubic meters. This project is on schedule, it's on budget, and we expect the tanks to be on screen by the first quarter of next year.

We are also building out in -- at our terminal in Ulsan. Here, we are building 88,000 cubic meters of Cabot steel tanks. This project is on time and below budget and we expect the tank to be on stream towards the end of this year.

Then to the market update and prospects going forward. We see that there are being reported strong earnings from the other tanker segments, both for VLCC and for the AMA earnings and this situation has obviously an effect on chemical tanker freight rates. So we did see a sharp increase in rates at the start of the quarter, particularly West North U.S. but also East out U.S. West of U.S., this increase has been tailing off towards the end of the quarter, but the rates are still at very robust levels. We also saw some tailing off of rates east of U.S. towards the end of the quarter. And of course, this area was characterized by a surplus of tonnage due to the disappearance of the 2 Middle East trades.

And naturally rates have not been reported for those 2 trades since the outbreak of the bar in the region. And then to the volumes and swing tonnage situation I think the most interesting takeaway from this graph is the shortfall of volumes during the past 3 months where we see that volumes are lower than what we have seen in the previous months and quarters, and the shortfall is approximately 6% of the total volumes. We're also satisfied to see that swing tonnage is being maintained at very low levels.

And then to the order book, the order book today stands at 20% of the sailing fleet. Odfjell has 13% of that order book. And that is, at the end of the second quarter, we had 20 vessels on order. Since then, 1 vessel has been delivered, meaning that today, we have 19 vessels on order of which 17 are being built in Japan. The biggest treat increase will be seen in the medium stainless steel segment, where we see more modest increases in the super segregate segment, which is Odfjell's core segment.

Going forward, we expect -- we have seen the total volumes decline during the second quarter, and we've also seen that there has been an increase in volumes out of the U.S. and Asia. But these increases have not been enough to totally compensate for the lost Middle East volumes. The uncertainties in these figures relates to what is related to production increases and where -- what is related to drawing on feedstock inventories. So that is 1 uncertainty when it comes to the chemical tanker markets going forward. The economic growth figures are relatively stable, but there are signs of increased inflation, which again can have an impact on interest rates.

And finally, we clearly see that the inefficiencies in the Middle East have a significant impact on the ton-mile production, which is the main reason why we have seen freight rate increases, both east and west of Suva. On the supply side, we do see that there will be vessel delivered over the rest of this year to next year, and that will, of course, have an impact on the freight rates. At the same time, we see that we are building up a rather significant book of recycling candidates, which will provide a buffer for the vessel deliveries in the coming years.

When it comes to swing tonnage, we expect that the other tanker segments will continue to maintain the present rate levels, and that will prevent the influx of swing tonnage into the chemical tanker business. So going forward, we expect the volumes to be more or less in line with what we've seen in the second quarter. We don't observe any important changes in the world GDP growth. we expect the geopolitical situation to continue throughout the third quarter. And here, I would like to add that the situation that we are facing today with unrest in the Middle East, we have seen increased unrest in the Black Sea. We have seen increased volatility in the Red Sea. We've seen a tech in the eastern part of the Mediterranean. And finally, we've also seen increased activity on the coastal Somalia. And I think this is the first time that we see increased volatility in all these areas at the same time.

On the supply side, I've mentioned the increase in the total selling fleet and I also touched upon the modest influx of swing tonnage. So to summarize this short presentation, Odfjell reported a net result of USD 54 million. This compares to USD 32 million in the previous quarter. For Odfjell Tankers, we saw an increase in average time charter earnings per day, and we also saw an increase in total time charter earnings during the quarter. We reported an increase in commercial days, and we also had a relatively low activity on the dry-docking side.

Odfjell Terminals, stability is the key word. EBITDA and net Result was very stable quarter-on-quarter. But the volatile geopolitical situation has an impact on storage markets. both directly and indirectly, and we expect this to continue throughout the third quarter. Going forward, we have seen that the spot markets have softened, but the rates are still at very attractive levels. chemical tanker fleet will continue to grow, and the swing tonnage will remain low.

So all in all, we do believe that this will continue to support the present rates. But there might be a potential downside with respect to vessel deliveries and the potential uncertainties related to diminishing inventories around the world. So for the next quarter, we expect underlying net result in -- to be lower and closer to the levels reported in the first quarter. And by that, we have concluded our presentation, and we are now open to answer any questions that you might have.

We have received quite a few questions during the presentation. So I will ask per usual, read them chronologically. And I think some are of the same topic. So maybe we will try to bundle a little bit together here. Starting with the first one here. This goes to you, Harald. If Asia and the U.S. were unable to compensate for lost Middle East Gulf volumes, why did freight rates spike? And why are they still elevated? Do you expect rates to soften for the remainder of 2026?

Yes. If we start with the volumes, I said that the total volumes transported by chemical tankers was down approximately 6%. At the same time, we do know that the Middle East is delivering some 15% to 20% of the total production of the world. And that means that when those 15% to 20% disappear from the market, but the total decrease is only 6%. That means that volumes are increasing in other regions of the world. So we have seen first and foremost, an increase in compensation for the volumes that have been -- that have disappeared. .

And those -- that compensation is now being transported over much longer distances meaning that the total ton mine production during this quarter has been higher than what we have seen in the previous quarter. And that again explains why the freight rates are going up. So this is to a very large extent, ton mile driven.

Next 1 is to you, Terje Iversen. It's quite a specific question, but -- and I think you touched upon it during your presentation, but just for any confusion, I think this is relevant. In your tankers report, you show an EBITDA of USD 116.8 million. But after adding elements, this is in fact USD 115.5 million. What is the difference?

As I mentioned during the presentation is that we had other operating income of USD 1.4 million this quarter, which is included in the EBITDA, but not specifically shown in the P&L that we showed on the screen. If you look into the detailed P&L and also the notes you will further details related to that.

Yes. I think there are a few questions here and this I think goes back to you, Harald, it's relating the current market and our outlook and also the fact that we are taking delivery of vessels for second half 2026, and of course, for the coming years. So -- maybe if you could just elaborate a little bit on our -- how we see sort of taking new vessels into a potentially somewhat softer market and a little bit around that development.

I can do that. We have been taking vessels into our fleet for more than a year already. All those vessels have been planned into our schedule. They go immediately into production and they are making money from day one. So I'm not for a second concerned about the vessels that will come into our fleet in the coming quarters. And yes, we have a plan for every 1 of them.

And secondly, we also have some buffer with existing vessels that either do for recycling or where the time charter agreement is expiring. So we have plenty of opportunities to balance our fleet. But I think the main message is that for more than a year, we've been taking those vessels into our fleet, we have been making money on them, and we will continue to do so also for those 19 vessels that are due to power fleet.

Next question is a bit specific on products here. And if I may, I believe I have some of the figures that he's asking for here. So -- but the question is, I read that sulfuric asset volumes are declining due to export bans.

I assume that refers to China. Given our large steel fleet, would that have a big impact on us. It is correct that asset volumes out of China have declined. At the same time, we see that our total asset volumes. First off, we have a diversified mix of products that we carry. So we will never see that 1 particular product will impact us in a significant way. But I believe our volume of assets was around 8% to 10% before the crisis, and this has actually been quite stable for us even after the export ban from China. So yes.

The next question is to you, Terje, and it's -- you touched upon it in your presentation, but the question is if you could elaborate a little bit more on the planned timing of when you will secure financing for the owned newbuildings on order.

Sure. I must say that we started to look into alternatives right after we placed the newbuilding orders a couple of months back. We have been working on alternatives said we are quite advanced in our discussions with alternative structures. And I must say that we are very happy to see a large interest out there to finance us and offer us competitive financing. So I'm quite optimistic that we are during this fall going to conclude financing at least for a couple of these vessels.

And we may wait a bit because some of these vessels are delivered in '28 and '29 in and to avoid paying commitment fees and being stuck with that for a couple of years. We may conclude only a couple of notes before end of the year and wait with the 2 last ones. But that is -- remains to be seen. But as I said, we are seeing great interest, and we expect to land a very good competitive financing for these vessels.

Great. Thanks. Next 1 is back to the Middle East situation. And again, you did touch upon this in your presentation, Harald, but as the Middle East Gulf remains shut, which markets do we have some sort of advantage in can we pivot to?

Odfjell is luckily present in all the important global markets in the world. And the advantage of that is seen in the situation that we are in now. We have the capacity to change our vessels around. So the shortfall of Middle East means that we are moving our vessels in to other trades and also other products. And I think -- this is best showcased with 90% of total volumes that I mentioned for vegoils and biofuels. This is just an example of how we are utilizing our fleet to maximize earnings.

Next 1 is regarding COAs and the question is -- how has your COA rate renewal evolved in 2026 so far. And there is also another question is how do you see your rate as a relative share of volumes going forward?

When it comes to the renewal rates, I don't have the exact figures, but we do see a moderate increase when we are renewing the contracts. It has -- I also have to add that the second quarter was not a particularly active month when it comes to contract renewals. So -- it remains to be seen how this will develop throughout the year. I'm equally happy to see that we continue to attract new contracts. We had several contracts being added to our portfolio during this quarter. And that is, I would say, a very positive sign.

And then second part of the question was.

How do we see the development of contract volumes versus portfolio?

Of course, the main reason why we see a reduced contract share during the 2 last quarters is the absence of Middle East volumes. So all the contract volumes from that region have disappeared. And they are being replaced by spot volumes in other markets. And that is the reason why we see a decline on the contract side. The most important takeaway here is that we are able to turn around and we are able to attract spot volumes to compensate for what's disappearing.

Going forward, unfortunately, I think there is no immediate sign of a resolution to the situation in the Middle East. So I think we will continue to see this type of situation also in the coming quarters.

And then the final question that we have received is regarding the Panama Canal. And the question is the Panama canal yesterday announced a cutely trusts effective in September. In '23, '24, when slots were last cut, chemical tanker rates improved significantly. How do you view the potential implications for your segment?

There are not -- chemical tankers are not kind of the major ship type in the Panama Canal. But of course, those vessels that are bringing chemicals from the U.S. to far East typically utilize the panacea. The last time that we saw a decline in Panama Canal transits than most of the chemical tankers were rerouted and sailing East works around Africa and then that way to Asia. .

My first observation is that it seems that the Panama Canal is much better prepared this year than what they were the last time that they had a drought in Panama. So they have taken action at an earlier stage. They have, on 2 occasions, reduced the maximum draft. And now they are making new efforts to reduce the effects of a potential El Nino effect in Panama. So I think they will this time, we will see a more controlled development in the situation in -- of the situation in Panama, but still there will be effects for chemical tankers simply because chemical tankers are not prioritized ship type when it comes to transit through the canal -- they prioritize above all the gas tankers. And secondly, the container vessels.

Thank you. That was the final question that we have received today.

Okay. Then I thank all of you for listening in. I thank those of you who have sent in questions for very interesting questions. I wish you a nice day ahead and also a nice weekend when that time comes. Thank you for attending.

Okay. Good morning to all of you. A warm welcome to our annual and traditional Capital Markets Day. Before I start, I just want to say a few words about the situation for Odfjell in the Middle East. As many of you have seen, we have 4 vessels on the inside. Three of those vessels are so-called time charter vessels. They are hired in from Japanese shipowners and one of the vessels is fully owned by Odfjell.

First of all, I want to say that they are all safe and sound on both those 4 vessels. And our focus over the past 80 days have been to maintain the endurance of those vessels. And first and foremost, that means that we have focused on the mental endurance to contribute to maintaining the atmosphere and the morale on board the ships and also the leadership on board those vessels.

And secondly, we also need, kind of, operational endurance. So focus has also been on stocking the vessels up with provisions to make sure that they have enough food for whatever could happen and also to make sure that they have enough fuel to do whatever we would like them to do. And I must say that I'm impressed by the mentality on board, by the leadership on board and also by the fact that after more than 80 days, they are still in a position where they make rational and good decisions.

So we are, I would say, well prepared to handle the situation as long as it takes before the Strait is opened. As many of you have seen over the past 1 or 2 days, there has been some positive signals from one of the parties in the conflict, but the other party is not that optimistic about the reopening. So we are just taking the situation as it is and trying to make the best out of it. And at the same time, we also try to assist our customers inside the strait because many of them are in an even worse position than we are.

But we will come back to the Middle East in some of the presentations that are coming after me. I will just give you a brief introduction, and then Terje will take you through our financial performance. Bjørn Hammer, who is Chief Commercial Officer, will update you on Odfjell Tankers. We will have a short break. And then Nils Jørgen Selvik will summarize the shipping part and also serve as an introduction to the terminal update.

So we hope to conclude this within slightly more than 2 hours, and then we will have a milling session outside afterwards. So that is the program for today. And then if you really want to understand the Odfjell strategy, the present Odfjell strategy, then you have -- I think you have to look at the last decade. In 2016, we did a major reorganization. We laid off 1/3 of the shore staff. The office in Bergen was reduced with 40%. And the reason for that was simply that we had too much debt in a very challenging market.

Since then, we have gradually focused on deep sea shipping. So what you see today is an Odfjell that is 100% focused on deep sea transportation of liquid chemicals. And that means that we have exited the gas venture. We have exited regional transportation in Europe, and we have exited regional transportation in Asia. On top of that, we have also sold off the so-called one-off vessels. So today, we have a homogeneous fleet, mainly stainless steel and every vessel that is in our portfolio serves a purpose.

So the purpose today is to capture the short term, makes the best out of any opportunity that can arise, but at the same time, keeping in mind that there are, at some point, tough times ahead, and we have to make sure that we also position ourselves for the next downturn. So, de-risk the long term. And that gives us 3 basic principles. We do not compromise on safety, safety procedures and safety work. I would say that, that goes through any operation that we are conducting, and we do not tolerate any deviation from our safety procedures.

Secondly, we say that transportation -- deep sea transportation and storage of chemicals. That's our core business. That's the only thing that we focus on. And we have world-class ambitions in everything we do, meaning that if we cannot win, we do not compete. And that is the rationale for exiting those areas where we saw that there are competitors who are definitely better than us. So let's focus on what we are really, really good at.

2025 was another busy year for us to conduct our purpose. We today have 2,300 colleagues. And then on top of that, you can add another 1,000 serving on board our time charter vessels. So in total, we are providing food on the table for more than 3,000 persons. To perform our task, we have more than 70 vessels in our fleet today, and we also operate 4 terminals that Harald will introduce you to later on.

Last year, we, first and foremost, had no severe incidents or accidents. We are also proud that we established the world's first operational green corridor. I'll come back to that later on. We introduced the first deep suction sails on deep sea vessels. We established a joint venture with the Nissen Group of Companies. That is a relationship that has been ongoing for approximately 1 decade. But last year, we formalized that cooperation.

And finally, we continue to develop our terminals. We continue to build out new tank pits. Last year, we inaugurated 2 tank pits. And this year, we will inaugurate one tank pit in Antwerp. And we are also finally building out the so-called E5 area, land area in Ulsan. So there are plenty of exciting activities going on also on the terminal side, although that section sometimes gets less attention than what it really deserves.

If we then shift to the markets, to the supply side. It's estimated that over the next approximately 4 years, we will see a relatively modest growth of 3.4%. But I think the major takeaway from this slide is that the world is 100% fully dependent on the services that we provide. It is not possible to imagine a world without liquid chemicals. These chemicals go into every industrialized process that you can possibly think of.

And I think we will see some interesting effects of this dependency due to the conflict in the Middle East, where right now, 50% of the feedstock for the world's fertilizer industry has been shut off. I think in Norway, we will not see the consequences this year simply because the Norwegian farmers had already ordered their fertilizer for 2026 when the war broke out, but it will be interesting to see what happens next year.

For other countries, which are ordering fertilizer at a later stage, they are already struggling with access and they are struggling with prices. And then you can add on methanol, where 1/3 of the world's methanol is trapped inside. 1/3 of some of the glycols that the world is dependent on are also trapped inside. Helium, which is a byproduct from the gas production, is also -- 1/3 is trapped inside. So I think we will see an interesting test on the world's dependency on many of those chemicals that we rely so much on.

So although we project a modest growth, it's still an area that is set for growth going forward. That on the supply side, my colleagues will touch more upon this going forward. But we will see here that there is a relatively significant increase in the Middle East -- middle -- the medium-sized stainless steel segment this year, we expect a growth of 8%, which is quite significant. And then it will gradually slow down until 2030. In the large stainless steel segment, the story is quite different.

Here, we basically see a flat development and the increase of 2.7% this year is mainly due to Odfjell's order book. So the growth in the super-segregators segment is basically due to Odfjell's order book. And this is the core of Odfjell's activity. We have a 40% share of the so-called super-segregators segment, meaning the world's biggest and most advanced chemical tankers. So although we have an order book of slightly more than 20%, we are not too worried about that order book.

And then to sustainability. We have been focusing on reducing our so-called AER, the carbon intensity for all the way since 2007, 2008. In the beginning, we focused mainly on operational measures, meaning those measures that we could implement relatively cheaply, I would say. And that is, for instance, hull cleaning, that is weather routing, all those measures that contribute to reducing the fuel consumption.

And then we have also done a lot when it comes to the technical measures where we have introduced the suction sails. We have developed new and more advanced propellers for ships. We have -- we have installed, I think, more than 200 various energy-saving devices on board of our fleet. And what we realized some 6 to 12 months ago was that we have performed most of the financially sound improvements when it comes to operational and technical matters. So if we wanted to reduce our carbon intensity further, we had to establish a third leg, which in our books today is the utilization of biofuel.

And that is the reason why we established this green corridor between Brazil and Europe. There are today, I think, more than 100 initiatives where companies are trying to establish green corridors around the world. The initiative that I think has come furthest is a ferry company between Sweden and Finland, where they are trying to utilize biogas. And we put on some additional power to make sure that we would beat them before they managed to establish their corridor. So today, we have an up and running corridor between Rio Grande in Brazil and Rotterdam.

It's not totally green. I have to say that. It's as green as it can get. It's based on B24, meaning that it's 24% biofuel blended into the fuel. But that is the greenest product that you can today get in Brazil. And we are determined to make it even greener, but then we say that then the ports will have to contribute by making the port rotations more efficient and also the customers have to contribute, not necessarily by paying up, but simply by giving us more cargo.

So you have not seen the end of this story yet. And then plenty of people ask me what do you do about AI? A couple of words about that. We've had an AI strategy in Odfjell for the past 2 years. We started to focus on the people or colleagues to give them access to AI and also to train them in utilizing AI. When we are utilizing AI in Odfjell, we are using -- we are not using the Internet, we are using internal data. So we also realized that to maximize the output from the use of AI, we also needed to restructure our data.

So today, we are halfway in that data restructuring. That project is on time and it's on budget, and we expect to finalize this restructuring by the end of next year -- today -- sorry, mid next year. Today, we have restructured all the operational data, meaning ship management and Odfjell Tankers. And then the support functions, IT, finance, HR and so on will follow suit.

So we started with the people. And then today, the focus is on a department level where we see whether we can develop agents or solutions that will support not only the single employee, but each department. We have implemented the first agents already. And the next step will be to see whether we -- how we can utilize AI on a corporate level. And then I also have to say that we cannot -- so far, we cannot identify any cost savings, and we cannot identify any revenue increases. But what we have identified is that we are improving our decision-making.

So we are making more information available at an earlier stage, and we are enabling our colleagues to make better decisions. And then I'm convinced that gradually, we will also see cost savings, and we will also see it on the top line. But we have a strong focus on AI, and I'm very satisfied with the way this is developing.

And then finally, to the world and the geopolitical situation. On the left-hand side here, we have listed those elements or those factors that are relatively independent of the world situation. It's basically -- it's basic supply and demand factors, maybe with the exception of the shadow fleet, which I think we have to realize is here to stay, at least in some parts of the world.

On the right-hand side, we have listed all those factors that are dependent on or consequences of the geopolitical situations, and we've tried to group them in 3. The first group is those economic weapons or threats of economic sanctions, which is something that we have to live with, I think, for the foreseeable future. We will see more regional requirements and restrictions. And then we've -- I think over the past few years, we've also seen that the world's chokepoints have become increasingly important.

The Red Sea has been more or less closed for the past few years. Now we see the same happening in the Strait of Hormuz, and it will also be interesting to see what happens to the Panama Canal if this El Nino effect really becomes as strong as some people believe it will. And finally, we have plenty of other consequences of these factors relating to more congestion because when all the cargo is going from fewer ports, then there will be more vessels calling those ports.

And also, we see -- we've seen that the bunker price has doubled since the outbreak of the war, and we also see that insurance costs and other costs are fluctuating. But all in all, I would say that when these things happen, there seems to be a flight to safety and security among our customers, which is generally a benefit for the large and well-run operators. So all these factors does not necessarily have a negative influence on our operations. So that was my brief introduction, and then I give the word to you, Terje.

Thank you, Harald, and good morning to all of you. I will start by looking at our financial performance and some financial KPIs, the last 15 years, actually. This is showing from 2011 until 2025. And as you can see, we have delivered quite a solid increase in the EBITDA from our tanker business and from the terminals in total the last 5 years.

While we were delivering around -- in the range of USD 100 million to USD 200 million in EBITDA from 2011 until 2020, we have delivered in excess of USD 400 million in EBITDA annually since 2021. We have also seen that the return on capital employed has increased. While we have delivered a return on invested capital since actually we were listing the company back in the '80s of around 9% annually. We delivered a 5-year average return on capital employed of 13.5% and delivered 20.1% return on equity in the last 5 years.

We have also used the situation to increase -- improve our equity ratio quite substantially. While we were around 26% equity share in 2020, last time when we completed the fleet renewal program with the Hudong vessels and the CTG vessels, we have improved the equity ratio to 49% end of 2025. Also loan-to-value, we had a loan-to-value at a peak of 65% in 2020, and we are now around 44% for our fleet, which gives us ample room and solidity and also room to grow our business going forward.

Cash breakeven has been quite stable throughout this period, while we have seen a small increase in the cash breakeven in the last few years due to the cost inflation that we have seen. We have strengthened our balance sheet, as mentioned. We have also delivered solid dividend in the last few years. We have reduced our debt with USD 470 million since the height in 2020. And in parallel, we have, since we reinstated our dividend policy beginning of 2022, delivered USD 390 million in dividend to our shareholders. And that equals around 42% of the current market cap of the share.

Also improved the net interest-bearing debt above EBITDA. We are around 2.5 now compared to well above 5.5, if you look further back in the time series. And going forward, we expect that to be -- continue to be around the same level based on the annualization of the earnings we delivered in first quarter 2026 and based on the fleet growth that we are expecting in the coming years.

And the dividend policy is to pay 50% of the net results 2x a year, and we expect to continue with that policy going forward based on the situation today. We see a solid access to capital in the market at competitive and improving terms. We show here that we have a bank debt of around USD 600 million end of first quarter, which is 29% of our capital structure, increasing from 21% back in 2018. In that time, we had much more financial leases on our balance sheet.

And we have kind of turned around from financial leases, which is a more expensive financing and replaced that with bank debt in the last couple of years, offering lower leverage, but lower margin and much more competitive terms than financing our activity in the financial lease structures.

So that has decreased the financial lease to USD 56 million end of first quarter, which is only 3% of the capital structure compared to 21% back in 2018. And we only have a few Japanese lessors in our portfolio per end of first quarter. Also, the bond market, we are still in the bond market, around USD 100 million outstanding, but it's only 5% of our total capital structure compared to 13% back in 2018.

Right-of-use assets debt or IFRS16 debt is around USD 300 million in the first quarter, 15% of our total capital structure compared to 12% back in 2018. And that is also given that we have increased the number of time charter vessels, but we also used the opportunity to buy back a few of the time charter vessels throughout the couple of last years and turn that into bank debt instead of right-of-use assets debt.

Equity, as I mentioned, we are at close to 50% equity share and total equity is close to USD 1 billion end of first quarter '26. We are still below -- looking at the share price below book values. On the other side, we see a growing number of shareholders, but of course, share liquidity is still a focus area for Odfjell. This is showing the bank debt has developed or the total debt in the company has developed and expected going forward. We have around USD 1.5 billion in -- we had that end of 2020 in external debt for our company, which is now around NOK 1 billion end of first quarter.

And we see the same as I mentioned here, that the financial lease is decreasing quite substantially, while the bank debt part is increasing slightly. And we still have a substantial part of our debt within operational lease or right-of-use assets debt. If we look into the future, based on the newbuildings that we are taking into our fleet, both the time charter vessels and the owned vessels, we expect bank debt to increase to USD 1.357 billion end of second quarter 2029, and we have this last vessel delivered to Odfjell.

We have reduced the financial lease debt, as mentioned. We expect an increase, of course, then the operational lease debt going forward based on the 17 new vessels that we are going to take delivery of. But we've also seen that our average cost of capital has been reduced from average 3.18% back in 2020 to 1.95% end of first quarter. Also mentioning that our existing time charter fleets account for around 20% of our revenue days and also 20% of the time charter earnings and net results for the last 4 quarters.

So we are getting a substantial return out of the time charter vessels that we have in our fleet today. We have 5 newbuildings on order. One has been financed in the bank market already, while the 4 that we ordered last time, we haven't financed in the market yet. But for this illustration, we have assumed that we will obtain bank financing to secure the financing for those 4 vessels.

This is more an illustration on how the bank or the debt structure has developed since March 2020. And here, we see the same that we have still a substantial part of operational leases. Financial leases has decreased substantially, while we are seeing an increase in the bank debt and expect that to slightly continue to increase. But on the other side, we will see a quite strong or high increase in the operational lease debt on our balance sheet based on the time charter vessels that we are taking delivery of going forward.

Cash breakeven has been on our agenda for several years, of course. We have -- we are showing here what is the total cash breakeven per last 12 months ending first quarter. that is USD 22,650. If you break that down to owned vessels or bareboat chartered vessels and time charter vessels, we see that time charter vessels has a cash breakeven of USD 21,172. We have then included allocated G&A, just for illustration purposes of USD 3,202, while USD 17,970 is the average time charter rates that we are paying for the existing time charter fleet.

Looking forward, including the 17 new time charter vessels to be entered into our fleet, the average time charter rates to be paid is around USD 21,000 per day. For the owned vessels and the bareboat charter vessels, the time charter or the cash breakeven is USD 23,132. And of course, OpEx is a large part of that with USD 9,659, while the finance element is USD 7,112 (sic) [ USD 7,812 ] .

And looking into the OpEx, we, of course -- crew is a large part, 55%, while technical provision and ship generalist remain a main part of the total OpEx for our vessels. On the finance part, we see that installments is around 60% of the cost or the cash breakeven finance cost, while margin is only 17%, substantially decreased compared to what we showed a couple of years back.

Looking further into the cash breakeven, this is showing how it has developed since 2019. We then have a cash breakeven of USD 21,981, increasing to USD 22,507 based on the forecast for 2026. We have seen a stable development in cash breakeven last year, and we forecast a slightly decrease due to the time the new 10 vessels to enter into our fleet in 2026. So we have more vessels to spread the cost over than we had before 2026.

Longer term, breakeven remains above 2019 level as we have seen some cost inflation for OpEx and also slightly for G&A. And we have refinanced many of our vessels the last couple of years. As I said, we have replaced financial leases with bank debt to a large extent. And we have improved or reduced the cash element of the financing cost with around USD 830 per day in 2025 compared to 2019.

Looking further back, we actually we see that we have reduced our cash breakeven compared to where we were in 2012, where we were close to USD 27,000 per days, we have actually improved that figure with 16% compared to that time. But that was before we had a company turnaround that Harald mentioned, and we substantially reduced our cost, both for G&A and also for our OpEx and for our total capital structure.

This is more illustration what we can expect of free cash flow going forward based on different rate scenarios. As you can see here, we are pointing that last 12 months, we had average time charter earnings per day of USD 28,400. That gives us a free cash flow to equity of USD 134 million. And we look at -- if you look at EBITDA less interest expenses and IFRS16 capital repayments, that figure was USD 266 million. This is also shown a sensitivity that if we increase or assume that the time charter rate increased with USD 1,000 per day, the cash -- free cash flow from our existing business will increase with USD 24 million per year.

And we also here illustrated what will the new vessels that are coming into our fleet, time charter vessels contribute based on the same time charter scenarios. So if you look at a scenario with USD 29,000 per day in time charter, that will equal free cash flow of USD 148 million based on the existing fleet. And if we assume that the time charter, the new time charter vessels are delivering the same time charter earnings per day, that will take the free cash flow to USD 181 million based on that scenario.

We are also building a solid investment capacity for future growth for our company. This is showing both the time charter vessels that we have secured already. It's also including the newbuilding program with the 5 vessels and how that will impact our liquidity and equity for the company. And as you see, the liquidity impact of the time charter vessels will be quite limited, while it will take 6% of the equity percentage when all these are activated and capitalized on our balance sheet.

The newbuild program will require some more liquidity, USD 94 million and will reduce our equity percentage when all delivered with 5%. And here we are illustrating potential investments. Those are not planned, but we are just indicating what could be done and how that would impact our equity and liquidity. And we have illustrated a potential acquisition of 4 vessels, secondhand vessels for USD 50 million per vessel and loan-to-value of 65%. And we also illustrated a potential terminal investment of USD 200 million and we expect that would impact our liquidity and equity.

And if you look at compared to where we are today, March '26, we are at 46%. That is after we paid the dividend from last half '25, we are at 46% equity share. Looking at the planned and decided investments that will reduce our equity share with around 11%. If we also include the potential investments, that will reduce our equity percentage with further 9%.

But if we assume then that we -- until all these vessels are delivered, we are going to deliver the same time charter earnings that we delivered in first quarter this year, that will lead to an increase in the equity percentage of 10%, also including continued dividend at 50% of the net result being paid to our shareholders.

And then we will be well within our target equity range between 30% and 40% based on such a scenario. So we are showing that we have ample capacity to further growth and a quite solid balance sheet based on actually the investment that we have decided, and we could potentially do more than we have done already.

Here, we have updated our estimated NAV based on various assumptions and external indications. We are showing the book values end of first quarter '25, it says maybe it's '26, I would assume. Then we have book values of USD 1.471 billion. And we have looked into external broker estimates year-end 2025, conservatively adjusted those down with 10% and we then reached an excess value for our fleet with USD 322 million based on the broker indications. And we've also done, of course, internal valuations and that more than support these values based on how we are looking at the future and estimated revenue forecast for our vessels.

We also have the time charter vessels that we currently have on the water. If we compare what the time charter rates we are paying with what we have to pay in today's market, chartering the same vessels, we assume that we will have a conservative value for the time charter fleet of around USD 90 million. And the terminal business, if we are looking at more multiple approach on the terminals using a rather conservative multiple compared to what we see in the market, we could add on USD 250 million in excess values above the book values for our terminals.

Then we reach a value-adjusted long-term asset value of USD 2.133 billion. And based on the current exchange rates for U.S. dollar and Norwegian kroner, we then reach a price share -- value adjusted price value of NOK 189 per share, well above current market value per share and also above the book value that we have on our balance sheet. This is showing how we have performed as a company or share since last 12 months. We are comparing here with -- there are not that many companies to compare with, but we are comparing with chemical tanker operator and a few product tanker companies.

And we see that we have since first quarter of 2021, our share price has increased with 319%, which is 33% in average per year. And if you include the dividend that we have paid in the same period, we have a total return of 502%, which gives a compounded average growth rate of 43%, which is in the higher level when we are comparing to these peers within the product tanker and the chemical tanker segment.

As I said, we are still below what we would like to. We see that the analysts, most of them have a hold recommendation currently. But on the positive side, we see an increase -- continued increase in the number of shareholders in the company.

To summarize, we have utilized the strong markets in recent years to strengthen our balance sheet and also delivering substantial or solid returns to our shareholders. We have successfully optimized our debt structure, and we have access to a wide variety of funding sources and quite a competitive cost of capital in today's market. We're also renewing and growing our fleet through a balanced approach, combining the newbuildings for our own account, 5 vessels with the capital growth through the additional time charter vessels that we are going to get delivered in the coming years.

And also our balance sheet supports future time charter commitments and our CapEx program and also underpinning, as I also illustrated, increased dividend capacity under the current market conditions. Equal -- last word, equal treatment of our shareholders remains a priority, and we continue to favor dividends over share buybacks. Then I'll leave the word to Bjørn.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Bjørn Hammer, and I'm the Chief Commercial Officer in Odfjell. And I'm responsible for Odfjell Tankers, which is our commercial and operational platform, which covers everything we do on freight and commercial operations as well as what we do on the asset side when it comes to sale and purchase, newbuildings, time charters and so on.

Over the next 20 minutes or so, I will take you through our commercial strategy and our market position and also why we think that Odfjell Tankers is very well positioned to both navigate the very complex environment we see today as well as growing into the future.

Odfjell Tankers is a preferred operator in the deep sea transportation of specialty cargoes. We operate today a fleet of 72 tankers with a total deadweight capacity of 2.5 million tonnes. We carry approximately 13.4 million tonnes every year across 2,500 nearly port calls and almost -- we do almost 9,000 individual cargo operations annually.

Our strategic strengths are very clear. We have a modern and fuel-efficient fleet, out of which is mostly stainless steel. We have a global presence across all major deep sea chemical trade routes, and we have a proven capability in managing very high complex cargo operation. And this makes us a trusted partner to the leading chemical companies, and we have today about 60 different contracts, which makes up for about half of our annual volumes.

This slide demonstrates the Odfjell trading model and the global reach of our operation. Every year, we start out by allocating all the available ship days in our fleet to the various trade lane based on the commitments we have under our contracts to provide sailings. That can vary from typically 1 to 2 sailings and in some cases, even up to 3 monthly sailings under these contracts.

And in return, our customers are obligated to provide cargoes for these sailings. Some of the tradings that we operate in, they have a very natural flow of more specialty chemicals, and they, therefore, require a more dedicated contract service. And these are trades that typically originate from the U.S. Gulf, and we define those as our front hauls.

And in the majority of the trades that we operate, there is a significant imbalance in between the cargoes going on the front hauls and the cargoes going on the backhauls. Taking, for example, the transatlantic trade that we do, if we go from U.S. Gulf to Europe, we will have -- we will be nearly 100% contracted -- while as we're coming back again to the U.S. Gulf, we will be almost fully spot exposed and we'll need to tap into spot market and even the CPP markets.

And if we look at the trade that we do from the U.S. Gulf down to South America, we send 3 ships a month down that way also with almost all contract-based cargoes, and we need to base those voyages coming back up again solely on the spot market. The COA voyages, they are very complex. We combine a lot of different contracts on one keel. We load very -- a lot of different parcels that have different cargo proprietories. They will need a lot of focus on various berths that we call in the U.S. Gulf. And in the most extreme circumstances, we will bring 40 different products on one keel loaded from 10 different berths in the U.S. Gulf and to an equal number of berths coming down the East Coast of South America divided over 5 ports.

So optimizing each and every COA voyage is, of course, extremely important to limit as much as we can the time spent in port but also minimize the cost that we will incur. And equally important is obviously also to find the right program in bringing these ships as quickly as we can back into position and into the front hauls.

But the fact of the matter is that even though we have about 50% contract coverage, almost all the available ship days in our fleet are allocated to provide for these various contract trades. And of course, to have this contract portfolio and have it as robust and as diversified as possible is a key part of our strategy. We consistently, as I said, maintain a contract coverage of about 50% in a broad range of contracts. The number is 60 -- and -- but these are all contracts that we have built up over decades.

They may only be 1 to 2 years in length, but a lot of the contracts that we have are contracts that we've had for more than 10 years. If you look at the total customer base, it's also quite wide, including both COA and spot. We cater for more than 200 contracts annually and with only -- the 10% top customers represent less than 40% of the total volumes, which also limits our concentration risk quite substantially.

And it's equally important with our product diversification, we carry more than 400 different products every year. Our customer base, as you see down to the left corner here, it includes practically all global chemical producers as well as traders and distributors. And many of these customers are on the Fortune 500 list. So this is truly a significant portfolio that is built for resilience.

And this resilience is also very evident if we look at our TCE performance. Our current TCE performance as of first quarter this year sits at just over USD 27,000 a day, and that's giving us a free cash flow of nearly USD 5,000 a day compared to the cash breakeven that Terje was just talking about. And since the start of the market upturn, we have managed to improve our contract terms significantly. And although it's quite evident that the markets are down from the very peaks we saw in the mid of 2024, we have now established a floor that is approximately 40% above pre-cycle earnings.

And if we look at the more recent market development, we have seen a quite significant firming in spot rates even adjusted for increases in bunker prices in trades, particularly those that either originates or ends west of Suez. And with that, the immediate market sentiment is, therefore, quite positive.

And if we look into more detail on what the effects the Middle East conflict has on our market, of course, the Iranian military has effectively blocked and trapped all the tankers currently inside the Hormuz and really halting the cargo flows. As Harald was mentioning, it's now choking and holding in about 17% of the global supply of chemicals worldwide, and that's based on 2025 numbers, as you can see on the chart to the very right.

And all of those customers who've been depending on the volumes coming out of the Middle East, they have been forced to find alternative supply from different locations around the world, which has both pushed the freight cost, but also the freight rates we see for those trades. And there are also other knock-off effects. We're seeing that, and it's already been mentioned that a substantial part of the chemical feedstocks are also coming out of the Middle East. That is both naphtha as seen here, but also sulfur, which is an important part of the fertilizer production.

And the effects of the naphtha shutdown towards the Asian refineries is that we've seen some force majeures declared already. So of course, in the near term, this has had a quite positive effect on earnings and on freight rates. However, in the more long run, we will see a -- it will probably have a negative effect on volumes, not that it necessarily translate into lower freight because there will still be a disruptive picture where cargoes need to be traveling longer distances from alternative supply points.

And of course, it's very hard to predict when the Hormuz will reopen, but it's even harder to predict the long-term effects that it will have. Of course, since the original attack from -- under the Operation Epic Fury when Israel and U.S. attacked Iran, there has been a lot of different signals in the market. There has been ceasefire announcements. There has been port blockades. There's been a escort operation and a lot of things that has caused a lot of instability in the region. And I think that will lead a lot of people to avoid bringing supply chain back again into the Hormuz.

And it's also quite evident as we see a lot of industry experts coming with various statements. We have seen the Dow CEO saying that they estimate 275 days from a potential opening until their supply chain will turn back to normal. And also Saudi Aramco CEO has warned that it may take until 2027 for the situation to normalize. And of course, we're also seeing that on a more structural note, the U.S. has gained a lot of market share in different product categories such as naphtha, methanol and lubricants. And these changes will probably last a lot longer than the conflict itself.

We are nevertheless well positioned to both capture positive effects from this near-term disruption, but we're also actively mitigating the medium-term demand risk that might come, and we're doing that through the commercial platform that we have and the flexibility that's within it. And as we see here, our COA coverage normally ranges from about 45% to 70% maximum with an average of about 58%. When markets are strong, we typically deploy more capacity in the spot market, and we can see how the share of spot volumes carried by Odfjell has increased quite a lot from April '25 up until April '26. That's a 75% increase in spot volumes.

And we're also very dynamic when it comes to our product mix. We shift into those categories that provides the best returns, and we maximize that by prioritizing those products. And a very good example of that is ethylene glycol that Harald was also mentioning earlier. This is from -- relating more to the U.S.-China trade tensions. And as those intensified, we pivoted volumes around the U.S. Gulf to India trade. And that's -- as you can see, the volumes there has increased quite a lot, and we have captured really meaningful earnings by shifting capacity into that trade. And this sort of adaptability is really a core of our commercial strength.

If we move on to talk about our fleet, as Harald has mentioned already, during the last years, we've done a transition in our fleet to really have a strategic focus on deep sea market. And today, we have a very streamlined fleet with vessels that only suit for that category. We only have ships that are in the size of 20,000 deadweight up to 55,000 deadweight. The number of the vessels in the fleet is 72, but we also have 22 ships on order, which includes both our own newbuildings, but also ships that we will take on long-term time charter arrangements. And we also hold about 40% of the total super-segregator fleet, which is our most important category.

So the super-segregators are the ships between 30,000 deadweight up to 55,000 deadweight -- 50,000 deadweight with 52 tanks. We also have a fleet of 7 tankers that are in the large stainless steel segments, typically 33,000 deadweight ships with 16 tanks. We also have a fleet of 28 medium stainless steel ships with another 7 on order. And we also have a small fleet of coated MRs with another 2 vessels on order.

Our fleet has also been very actively transformed when it comes to the age profile of the ships. We -- since the 2025 fleet, we have about 70 ships on order. In 2026, we will take delivery of another 10 ships -- we've taken 2, so another 8 is coming. In 2027, there will be 9. And in 2028, another three. In 2029, two, that can bring the high case scenario of our fleet up to 94 vessels. At the same time, we have the flexibility to either redeliver some of the ships and also potential sale of older assets that gives us the flexibility to somewhere between 94 and 82 vessels.

Since 2022, we've done 13 additions to the fleet, and we have, at the same time, either sold or recycled 12 ships that has not been the right fit either because of age or because of size and other factors. And that brings us to a total average of the fleet, which is right where we wanted to be in around 35,000 deadweight tonne. And the average fleet age has gone from 12.9 to 10.6. And as we take delivery of more newbuildings going forward, it will further improve.

I think one of those things that really separates us from our competition is that laser focus that we have on the deep sea chemicals and our ability to continuously develop and have good access to investment opportunities within that segment and that are a good strategic fit for Odfjell. And one of our most recent significant achievement is the very competitive pricing that we have managed to obtain for our new series of super-segregators.

Obviously, the newbuildings market has moved a lot since last time Odfjell were taking delivery of newbuildings back in early -- sorry, late 2019, early 2020. The Clarksons Index indicates an increase in prices -- newbuilding prices of 50%, whereas the newbuildings that we have ordered is only 16% up from the order we did back then.

That is, of course, done because of our relationships that we have with both Japanese owners as well as Japanese shipyards and not at least the very favorable yen-U.S. dollar exchange rate. And for Odfjell, we have really focused our efforts when it comes to newbuilding and sourcing of new vessels in Japan. That is partly because of quality reasons, partly because of security in delivery times, but also to some extent, for geopolitical risk management.

Sustainability is not a compliance exercise for Odfjell. It is a genuine strategic priority and a source of competitive advantage. And we continue our path towards net zero shipping. So far, as you've heard many times before, we have made significant installments in our existing fleet. We have invested USD 40 million in -- across 140 different energy saving devices. Our latest focus now on innovation when it comes to improving emission of vessels is 2 projects that we would like to highlight here.

One is the installation and adoption of what's called Gate rudder, which is a new rudder design that improves water flow to the propeller and also reduces the drag. And we're also following the success of the installation of the sails on our Bow Olympus, we have decided to install sails on a significant part of our newbuildings that are coming.

And to that extent, the Bow Erikson is definitely the most tangible expression of such investments. She is the first tanker -- chemical tanker that will be installed with these systems, both Gate rudder and with sales. The combination of these investments and installments will reduce bunker consumption somewhere between 19% and 23%, which gives us a possible annual saving up to $1 million per vessel.

These ships are, of course, our super-segregator replacement. They are 40,000 deadweight tonne, and they have 28 tanks and are installed in addition to the Gate rudder system, the 4 sails as you see on this picture. And in addition to this first Bow Erikson that we took delivery of back in March, we have another 7 of those on order, 4 of which will be owned by Odfjell and the remaining 4 will be on long-term time charters with purchase options.

So to summarize, Odfjell, we maintain a leading position in the chemical tanker market with 72 vessels on the water, a global presence and deep customer relationship and the world's largest -- with the world's largest chemical companies. Our contract portfolio, it's robust, it's diversified and providing stable commercial floor across all market conditions. We have a flexible platform, and we do adjust our spot exposure. We adjust our product mix and trade -- as trade focus rapidly move.

Our fleet is modern, and it's strategically aligned and with a 22-vessel-strong order book, clear focus on the deep sea tanker segment and our decarbonization program, it positions us well for the regulatory and the commercial environment that is coming ahead. So with that, I think we will take a break and then...

[Break]

The chemical tanker segment is specialized and industrialized in nature, but it is also linked to the other larger tanker segments. Most all of the products that we transport, the chemicals are predominantly derived from oil and gas feedstock, and I will come back to some considerations on feedstock. The vessel characteristics, we see that a chemical tanker is obviously focused on carrying chemicals, but it can also do and do from time to time CPP cargoes or clean petroleum products. Our neighboring segment, the product tankers, they, of course, are focused on the CPP trade, and they do also quite a bit of veg oil trade. And we also see them from time to time doing crude as an opportunistic play, but maybe more common, we see them swing into chemical segment and carry certain chemicals, but they cannot carry all chemicals. And chemicals are often transported in smaller lot sizes than are ideal for a larger product tanker to carry, but we certainly see a correlation and swing between those 2 segments.

Looking at the earnings volatility, and these are average annual earnings. We see that the chemical tanker segment as represented by Odfjell here, has a much lower volatility than the larger tanker segments. This, in turn, relates to our industrial nature and our high level of contracts of affreightment, as Bjørn already discussed. If we then move over to the production side for the chemical industry, we see that we have some clear chemical production hubs and chemical product exporting regions. North America and Middle East are the 2 largest ones today, and they have been so for quite a while. And this production and export capacity is built on their domestic oil and gas industry, giving them a comparative advantage over most other regions.

Europe, on the other hand, has been on a structural decline for quite some years and accelerated certainly over the last 4 to 5 years with the increase in energy costs and also regulatory challenges compared to competing regions. These figures here are maybe understating Europe a little bit because these are export figures and do not sort of represent their total production capability. So Europe do still have a large and significant petrochemical industry, but a lot of the products are transported intra-regionally or intra-Europe and goes to further downstream production and products.

Production is forecasted to grow with about 2% per annum over the next 4 to 5 years. Not all of that production capacity will result in liquid chemicals transported on a vessel, but certainly a significant share of it. If we then move on to the feedstock side of the chemical industry. I will not go through this in full detail, but I just want to highlight a few characteristics about feedstocks. As I mentioned, the feedstocks to produce chemicals are generally derived from oil and gas. And we usually split it into a gas-based petrochemical route or an oil-based petrochemical route. The gas-based routes will usually produce a high level of -- from natural gas, you will get methane-rich gas, which often will become carried on an LNG tanker. But you also get for further petrochemical industry, you get the ethane gas. This is steam cracked into ethylene, still a gas, which in turn is made into a variety of liquid chemicals that we carry on Odfjell tankers. However, the product range from ethylene are less varied than what we see from the oil-based petrochemical route. The main feedstock from the crude oil route is naphtha, -- and from naphtha, you can get almost the full spector of petrochemical products and a higher variety as such.

If we then turn back to the production hubs, as I started with 2 slides ago, we see that North America and the Middle East have clear feedstock advantage in terms of their availability. Both these regions could have feedstock from the whole sector, as mentioned on the previous slide, but a lot of the naphtha and LPG and crude oil is good for exporting. It's being exported to other regions, while ethane is very difficult to transport due to its extreme low boiling point. And as such, it is used into further petrochemical value chain and production of products. Europe, as mentioned, does not have a feedstock advantage. They do have quite a bit of naphtha from the European refinery industry. But of course, prices are high and not really competitive with other regions today. As Bjørn already touched upon, the Asian production capacities are, to a high degree, dependent on naphtha. This naphtha in turn is usually imported from the Middle East region or at least a high degree of it. And of course, today, they are trying to source from other regions. We know that some countries have quite substantial strategic inventories, but these are being rapidly drawn down. So this will have an impact on volumes coming out of the Asian region for the time ahead of us.

China, of course, is an interesting case because it does not have a feedstock advantage per se. It imports a lot of the feedstock it uses, although it does use quite a bit of coal, Chinese coal for petrochemical industry as well. But they have made a strategic choice to build up their production capacity and the strategic goal to become self-sufficient. But we do see that for the time being, there is a clear oversupply on production from China and also a bit of softness in the economic development, resulting in quite substantial volumes being exported out of China, even though they also import quite substantial volumes. So China, we see significant flows both coming in and out.

If we then move on to the Odfjell mix, so to speak, Bjørn touched upon this already, but I will just highlight that we are very dedicated towards the chemical side of the chemical tanker segment, meaning we carry more than -- or more than 80% of the volumes that we carry within a given year are chemicals. That's a higher share than what you will see in the overall chemical tanker segment. This is, of course, because we are focused on the industrial side, on the chemical producers and on their contracts of affreightments. And the core of the chemicals we carry are specialty chems, and they account for around 40% to 50% of the volume that we carried over the last 12 months. These are often in smaller lot sizes characterized by a high degree of contract coverage and often require stainless steel capacity to be transported. So we see little or no competition from swing tonnage on these type of chemicals.

On the commodity chemicals on the other side, they are easier to carry. They are transported in larger lot sizes and has a higher degree of spot cargoes. And this is also where we see some competition from product tankers. And then we do also carry vegetable oils and CPP, but they sort of make up the remaining 20% of the picture. If we then move on to the rates, and these are here illustrated by the Clarksons Spot Chemical Index. We see that over the last 4 years or so, the market has been driven to a large degree by geopolitical events, which in turn have resulted in supply shocks or really increased sailing distance and increased inefficiencies. So the market was improving from around 2021 based on fundamentals. And then it certainly accelerated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, resulting in significantly increase in sailing distances and also, of course, more directly for the product tanker segment, in turn, removing the swing tonnage from the chemical tanker segment.

Then we had a period of sort of market readjustment, but this was also a period of a lot of talk around Chinese or softness in Chinese growth and economy, and we saw sort of rates coming back down before they had another ramp-up due to the Houthis' attack on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the subsequent rerouting out of that area, again, driving up distance and inefficiency in the market. And then, of course, lately, with the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran, we saw jump -- very significant jump in rates. But please bear in mind that these are gross rates. So a significant part of this jump is driven merely by the fact that fuel costs have increased substantially. But if you take rates on a TC level or account for the increase in fuel costs, then there is still a significant increase in rates in the current market, in particularly west of Suez.

Looking a bit on the demand side going forward, we see that -- and we have seen this that chemical volumes are closely correlated to general economic development, global economic development, GDP growth. We see in particularly as emerging economies are becoming mature, we see a significant increase in the demand for chemicals, while the maturing economies have a more stable development. Although there has been downward revisions on expected GDP growth going forward, we still see that most forecasts are for positive growth in the coming years and positive growth in all key regions. This graph on the left-hand side here is -- it looks a bit volatile perhaps for being a chemical tanker market, but it is showing the marginal changes on volumes, on ton mile and then compared to change in GDP growth. So if we had had a longer time series here, which we have had in previous presentations, you would have certainly seen how ton mile has been a key driver for -- or sorry, increased sailing distance has been a key driver for the increase in ton mile. Going forward, we expect a more modest growth, as Harald touched upon, around 1% a year in volume growth. And we do not expect that distance can increase significantly from current levels, but we still see some growth on the distance as well.

Please note that these forecast numbers are from before the current situation and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. So looking at more updated and I'm sorry, there's a bit of text here, but jumping down here. We have seen that estimates for 2026 are that volumes will see some decline due to the situation in the Middle East. We see around estimates of around 4% decline on volumes, but only a 2% decline on ton-mile. So this, in turn, as Bjørn also talked about, has to do with the alternative sourcing of products from other regions, in particularly the U.S. that has a dampening effect. And then depending on how long this will go on, we do expect that volumes will grow at a modest rate again from maybe towards the end of the year or early 2027. But there will also be disruptions from the Middle East situations for a long time. And we will perhaps see some increased volatility due to that in terms of when it reopens, volumes that will be transported out.

Then there will be a question about the capability of the region to turn back on production to full levels. But we anticipate some sort of catch-up effect in the beginning maybe and then perhaps some longer-term disruptions to the production capacity. And then the question mark becomes what is the demand effect. So to sum up, we believe that the fundamentals are expected to support a balanced development. We do acknowledge that forecasted growth is quite modest, and we do expect a net fleet growth in the coming 2 to 3 years. But we also believe there is some added potential for recycling in the chemical tanker fleet depending on how the market develops. And -- looking at the swing tonnage, it is currently at a historically low level. We expect that to remain the case for the time being.

But of course, should the product tankers see a downturn, there is a risk to swing coming back into our segment. I think to -- if you look at this figure of around 2.5%, if you account for the fact that a lot of chemical tanker operators such as ourselves also have MRs in our fleet, the actual sort of swing tonnage is closer to 0, and we also see some increased CPP volumes on chemical tankers in the current situation. So we believe it is a fairly balanced outlook. There are some key risks for sure, the Middle East being the top one and of course, how that will play on secondary effects in terms of increased inflation, potential effects on downstream demand. But we also see that this situation creates some opportunities for a global operator such as Odfjell. And with that, I would give the word on to Adrian, who will talk about terminals.

So good morning. My name is Adrian Lenning, and I'm the Managing Director for Odfjell Terminals. -- now after Bjørn has taken us through tankers and Nils through the market outlook, I'll spend the next few slides talking a bit about what we are focused on and where we're headed as a terminal platform within Odfjell. And for those of you who were here last year, you'll probably see that the focus remains fairly unchanged, and that is because we see that the model is working, and we intend to continue building and scaling on that. Today, we have a platform that consists of 4 terminals globally. We have Houston and Charleston in the U.S. We have OTK in Ulsan, Korea and Noord Natie Odfjell terminals in Antwerp, Belgium. Together, these represent approximately 1.3 million cubic meters of storage capacity. And for us as Odfjell, it generated approximately USD 44 million of EBITDA in 2025. That is from the underlying terminals.

And I say one common denominator for these 3 -- or these 4 terminals is that they're all local leaders in their respective geographical markets. These are, I'd say, super segregators on land. These are high-spec terminals and high-quality organizations that allow us to handle some of the most challenging products and the most demanding -- serve the most demanding customers that are out there. And also common for all 4 assets is that we see a clear potential to continue to develop and grow the assets and drive value creation. Odfjell Terminals is a core infrastructure business, and it has all the attributes that come with that. We're an essential part of -- and a very integrated part of our customers' supply chains. We have long-dated assets with high barriers to entry, strong stickiness with our customers and in terms of pricing. And that gives us very good visibility on future cash flows and on distribution capacity. And through our contract structures, we have a very effective hedge against inflation. And these are scarce assets that are very difficult to combine.

That's all good and nice, but why should a company like Odfjell be dedicating resources and capital to this? That's mainly because we think we are the absolute best owners for these assets. We understand the customers. We understand the products. We understand the operational challenges and the safety standards that are required to run these assets as good as possible. And that allows us to be an active, well-informed industrial owner, focused on long-term sustainable value creation. And when it comes to how we manage our assets, there is a very clear division today between what our local management teams do and what we do as a headquarter organization. So the local teams out at each location, those are the heroes who run the business from day to day. Those are the operators. And we are -- as an owner, we're focused on helping the teams set strategic direction and ensure that we have drive and focus on those initiatives that matters most for performance improvement.

And we set for each of our terminals, we set multiyear performance improvement plans and work methodically to execute on those. We identify the levers and pull the levers that we see have the most impact, and we're starting to see very strong results from that. That goes across commercial optimization, operational improvements and expansions. And together, that's -- it's a simple but very powerful toolbox. And while I would love to do this on a bigger scale with more assets in our portfolio, what we've seen over the last years is that the absolute most interesting and attractive projects that we can execute on are the expansions that we do within our own footprint. Since 2018, we have built out 8 new tank pits. That's approximately 190,000 cubic meters of storage capacity. And we're currently adding 2 more, totaling another 130,000 cubes of capacity. And these are all projects that have investment returns in the high teens to the mid-20s with a very controlled risk profile. Either we build them out with customer contracts underpinned or with very clear customer demand.

And all projects have been locally funded, delivered on budget and on time. This is just one as a case study to show how we work. This is Noord Natie, where since 2018, we've grown EBITDA by approximately 95% through expansions and operational improvements. That is, as I said, approximately 10% CAGR year-on-year for the last 7 years. And that's by building and improving consistently year-on-year. And again, all self-funded and while also distributing dividends up to us at Odfjell. And this has been achieved through very practical hands-on work by our local team with a bit of support from us. Another example is in Korea, OTK, where you also see the very clear result of how we work with our assets. Historically, that's an asset that we've struggled with from -- for about a decade until '22, '23, we had close to 0 growth and deteriorating margins. But over the last 3, 4 years, we've worked very actively with the local management team in Ulsan, and we're now starting to see a very significant change.

In 2023, we launched what we have called the full potential plan for OTK. And the ambition was to see if we could find a path to double the value of the company over a 5-year period. And we're currently very well on track there, and I'm quite confident that we'll overdeliver on those initial ambitions. In 2025, we were -- we delivered an EBITDA that was approximately 50% up from 2022. And we launched 2 new major projects at the terminal, one expansion project called E5 and a new infrastructure improvement project where we're adding additional jetty capacity to the terminal. And when you layer disciplined M&A on top of that, then you have a very powerful toolbox. So in that respect, I think OTK is probably the best result of what we're trying to do with this portfolio and what I hope we can do with more assets in the future.

So if we zoom out a bit and look at the portfolio as a whole, you see the combination of commercial optimization, operational performance improvement and expansions has grown EBITDA by approximately 85% since 2018. And if you look at the run rate EBITDA, including the projects that we will be bringing on stream by the end of the year 2026, then we're looking at a doubling of EBITDA compared to 2018. All this looks fairly obvious and almost simple. But my clear view is that this is only possible because we are Odfjell and we're able to use the Odfjell platform to work with these assets. So to summarize, what we have today is a terminal platform that is built around local leaders in key chemical hubs. These are high-quality infrastructure assets, long life, resilient, difficult to replicate and with potential to grow further. And together with our local teams, we've improved performance, expanded capacity and created value step by step.

Since 2018, that has translated into significant capacity growth and around 85% EBITDA growth. And while we're still much smaller than the tanker business, we're starting to build a fundament that represents a fairly tangible underlying value for Odfjell and Odfjell share. And we believe there's more to do, more to build, both through organic growth, but also selectively through strategic opportunities where we see that Odfjell can be the best owner of those assets. And with that, I'll give the word back to Harald.

Okay, thanks a lot to all of you. We have now come to the fun part. We will have a brief Q&A moderated by Ole Stenhagen. So I invite all of our speakers to the floor. I guess you have some questions for us. And then, of course, the audience is also free to ask questions.

Thank you. I think the key is that the audience has questions. So I'm going to kick it off then. I have 2 practical Hormuz questions. I'm thinking about the Red Sea, there's been opening, almost opening, kind of opening, some people will go through, some won't. What will it look like when Hormuz is open? How do we even know?

I think that's a very good question. I think last year, we had a slide -- I had a slide at least that says that we didn't foresee the Red Sea to open anytime soon. And that was proven right. And I agree with you, there were some owners starting to sell through that has now obviously died down. And our focus now is [harvesting] initially has been to get these ships out. I think it will take a lot of time. Even if these ships were able to sail out tomorrow, it will take a lot of thought to put into actually some ships back in again into the Hormuz. We've been so focused on getting these out. And I think that the condition and the state of the refining business in Saudi Arabia and in the Emirates and in Kuwait, where we will load a lot of volumes is still also very unknown. And even when we talk to some of our key clients there, the information we have is very, very uncertain. So I think it will take a long time, as we said, until this is turning back to a normalized situation where we will go in and load significant volumes in the Middle East.

And that sort of tags on to my next question. I think you're a little bit careful because you're -- I mean, you're on top of storage, you're on top of transportation. And you've just shown us that a cargo that I can't even say the name of ships to the U.S. and the world is supplied. And what I think is happening certainly across the oil and refinery refined product space is that People are drawing inventories. There is demand destruction. There's new trade patterns, but there's a lot of inventory draw. So even if things start to normalize, there will be a very long time where everything is in the wrong place and where people want to rebuild inventories. So I think even if in theory, it opens tomorrow, everything is hunky dory inside, we're still looking at a year or something where trades will be very, very unusual.

Yes, I absolutely agree with that. And we're already seeing signs of that, that customers that we know have been dependent on Middle East volumes are now thinking that even if there is peace, what will that peace look like for how long will it last? I'm not going to take the risk on having my supply chain so tied up on the Middle East volumes. I will start buying from other parts of the world. And we've seen some of the Korean refiners that has been left out of the market in places of the world now are regaining market share, selling Korean materials into the U.S. that we haven't seen also in a long time. So there will be more permanent shifts. And you don't buy just a spot volume. You will probably need to secure a longer supply term contract, maybe for 12, maybe for 24 months, which also indicates that these ships will not just be able to switch around very rapidly.

Sorry, Adrian touched his eyes, I thought he was going to come with some really, really deep insight on that. Yes. So I'm sort of seeing a big question mark and then a long period of turbulence and then a reshuffling of how people want to do things even if we see people forgetting. And then the challenge comes that you've got contracts, you spoke about your U.S. Gulf front haul. Your whole thing is built up around your contracts and then you optimize utilization by getting on the cargoes. And so this is going to be very hard for you.

It is a very -- it's a hard exercise to do. And of course, it requires us to have a very good and strong long dialogue with our customers that will -- we've been in contact with them. We've had commitments out of the Middle East, which obviously we very quickly agree that we cannot load there. And then we shifted our capacity to where we know our customers can move better volumes. And I think Odfjell, we've been very strong in the U.S. It's been our most important market for a long time. And that is very important nowadays when we see that the ones that are really benefiting from this are U.S. manufacturers and also our asset base are the larger tankers, which is more suited for the American market. So we are very well positioned to actually shift and then support these customers.

[indiscernible]. A question to Adrian. Given the energy crisis in Asia, have you started seeing some government either taking strategic decisions to increase storage capacity in the region or actually globally?

Yes. As in our segment, we haven't seen anything direct. But I think the energy security, not only in Asia, but all over is absolutely back on the agenda. What we see very concretely right now is what was mentioned earlier that suddenly, we need to start our customers and the government starts tapping into strategic reserves. We have a key supplier into the region that had 5 weeks ago, they had 4 weeks left of supply of feedstock. Production is still ongoing, but that is strategic supply that is now being tapped. And it's clear that once we come out of this, both governments and I think also producers and all through the value chain will want to have more buffer.

It was great to see you take out an NAV calculation value. And it was nice to see the high number. But one thing I wonder about is your charter in tonnage. It seems to me that one thing is that, yes, you've got added value in having relatively cheap charters. Then you had some purchase options. It's hard to know exactly how they'll play out, but they're probably below today's market. So there's some more value there. But then on the breakeven on those chartered-in vessels, I think what I find so great about those charters is that 5, 7 years and you can say, no, no, we don't want to go on with the ship or you can say, yes, we'd like to continue. And that whole flexibility that you're getting by a financial lease, it's your ship, you're going to have it until the end, you're just financing it for a while. With these ships, you're really getting a lot of optionality. And how do you think about playing that? Will you -- do you think you'll be playing it? Or do you think these are essentially higher purchases that you'll end up with the ship? So how do you think about it as a group?

I think if you look back what we have done in the last couple of years, we have used purchase options at several locations. And I think we have got kind of bought vessel back below -- quite below the market. I think we have indicated in our presentation that we have bought back vessels around USD 30 million, USD 40 million below market, and there will be certainly opportunities based on the portfolio we have at current as well. But we are not putting any value on that in this NAV calculation because it's some years ahead of us and to kind of discount that now and indicate any value of the purchase options we have currently, it's a bit early. So let's see when we are getting there, what kind of values that are hidden in the portfolio.

From 72 to almost 90 ships. 94, almost more than. What is the right size?

Fleet-wise?

Yes. I know it's all the ships in the world, but except for that, what...

It's a good question. We've had the 100 ship target before. It's not an absolute target as such. But the point has been that we have a platform that can handle more ships than what we currently have. It's been a shift, as I said, from tonnage types that didn't fit where we want to be strategically. Then we -- the fleet shrunk somewhat. We are at 72 ships now that are fully purposed to the strategy. And the ships that we are adding now is also suiting towards that strategy. We think that the 94 ships that we've shown here is certainly something that we, as an organization, very easily can handle and without actually having to expand anything in our organization, well, at least very little.

So it's a very good target for us. And as we've also shown, there is some cushion and flexibility and to the point about being able to redeliver ships if we don't want to extend, of course, we need to see what the market looks like. But the way we see the access we have to customers and the business that we have been presented, we are very comfortable that this 94 ships in the coming 3 years is a very good target for Odfjell. And it regains a market share that we've had historically. So it's a good target for us.

So the $3,200 of G&A is going to come down then? More ships.

Yes. And I think we also indicated that in our forecasted cash breakeven going forward that we will get the benefit out of the platform we have. We are adding new vessels, new selling days, but we are not adding any G&A costs to secure those revenues.

No. I can just elaborate a little bit. When it comes to these purchase options, I think last year, we exercised 7, I think, purchase options. And you have to remember that those vessels were contracts that we entered into around 2016. And then it took a year or 2 to build the vessels and then the options matured in last year, meaning that those were contracts that we entered into at the very lowest part of the cycle. So those purchase options were extremely favorable, and we were just catching in on all of them. When it comes to the future, when purchase options that will expire something early -- sometime early 2030, it's too early to say whether that will be in the money or not. But what we do know is that by having all those purchase options, we have kind of given us leeway on the technology shift. So should something happen when it comes to the green transition and future fuels, future engine types and so on, we have the liberty to simply hand back the vessels and say thank you very much. So part of the reason is, of course, that this gives us plenty of flexibility when it comes to adapting to the technology change within shipping.

Which is a perfect segue to that fantastic graph where you show Clarksons Newbuilding Index up by 50% and you're doing 16% up. And -- so compliments for the relationship that you developed in Japan with Nissin, with the trading houses, with the yards, everything. But comparing those ships, is it fair, Hudong versus Kitanihon? Is it a straightforward comparison?

It's never a straight easy comparison. Of course, the Hudong have some qualities in which was right at the time, and they are slightly larger ships, but the price that we have obtained for the newbuilding includes all of these technology advantages as you saw, both the gate rudder system as well as the wind propulsion system. So it's a relatively fair comparison, I will say, granted that the ships are slightly smaller, but more technology advanced. So yes.

And then I have one -- this was a very efficient presentation. You kept it rolling. So there was one thing I saw on one slide that I wondered about. You said you invested $40 million in gadgets to improve economies. I think I saw a different number earlier, not in this but last year. And I'm thinking that $40 million is not very much since 2014 because you've done so much. And you could have put up a number saying what kind of savings have we made because those numbers...

Yes, we have shown that previously.

I remember $120 million or something on the savings side, but I'm not sure that I believe in the $40 million.

I think it all depends on the oil price or the fuel price, whether those investments are in the money or not. But as you say, we have invested slightly -- somewhere between USD 40 million and USD 50 million on energy saving devices. The most -- the biggest project and maybe the project that we are most proud of is the Propeller project, where we rebuilt the gears and designed new propellers for our 19 biggest super segregators. And that project alone saved us reduced the fuel consumption with more than 20% -- and that project had a down payment period of 2.5 years, and that is more or less the average of the projects that we have run, meaning that the return on -- the average return on all those energy saving projects today is approximately 50% per year. So we are saving around USD 20-plus million in fuel because of these investments.

And it doesn't come into the cash breakeven number because it's before time charter equivalent. If it did, that would have been a significant cut in where you are. And since you're actually contracting dollars per ton, it would be nice to see all this put together because you've made giant strides.

The challenge is that we've done all the low-hanging fruit. So when we are looking at projects today, we don't see 2.5 year down payment. It's more. But of course, again, it's very fuel price dependent. So today, with an average fuel price of maybe USD 800, those energy saving devices are basically printing money.

One question. When you say disciplined M&A, Adrian, what kind of opportunities are there? And when you say disciplined, that means that there are quite a few opportunities, but there's only a small subset you'd like to look at. Can you talk more about the thinking there?

Yes. So I think there is some 8,000 terminal assets globally. And we have distilled that down to a very, very small list of assets that could potentially make sense. But so far, we have seen that what makes most sense for us is just to continue doing what we do on our existing portfolio. When we restructured this back in 2018, we had a lot to prove. We had some years of not so good performance. So our focus has really been to kind of try to over-deliver on those investments that we've made over the last years, and we're holding any M&A opportunity to that same standard. And in today's market, it's -- that is not easy. But there are potentially opportunities where we are the natural and best buyer and where price isn't necessarily the only criteria, and those are possibly the opportunities that we would act on.

Because you're not speaking enough about how -- what a big turnaround it was from a huge number of terminals that didn't make money to a smaller number that is actually making money and improving results, which is a nice story to tell. you're telling where you are, but you could actually take a little bit of sunshine from the turnaround still.

Yes. No, it's -- we were about approximately 3x the size we are today. So some of that is a result of good work, and then we've had some -- we've had the help of good markets during the last few years as well.

Very[indiscernible] today. I enjoy talking about this. I'm fine.

We too.

So I once asked one of your then colleagues, is there synergies between terminals and tankers? And he said, I'm convinced there is. I don't know how to measure it, but there must be. What is the house view today about the interaction between terminals and tankers? Is there synergy -- is there room to do better? Is AI the answer to open it?

When it comes to commercial synergies, on the terminal side and on the shipping side, there are different decision-makers. And there is also different duration of the contracts. So finding commercial synergies is, I would say, extremely difficult. But then on the operational side and on the business intelligence side, there are clearly high potential for synergies, simply on improving the interaction between terminal and ship and also when it comes to getting access to information about cargo flow.

So on the commercial side, there are indirect synergies. There are clear operational synergies, but there are no direct commercial synergies. There are -- I would say that customers would likely anticipate price reductions to accept a logistics solution that is maybe not optimal for them because the starting point is that every customer has developed a concept that is optimal for them. So when we come and say that you have to change, then it's optimal for us, but not necessarily for the customer. And then they said, okay, if we are going to adjust the chain of logistics, then we accept the price to go down -- so there are obvious challenges when it comes to this cross-selling point.

Anyone who's working in the bank knows that you can have a meeting with the bank without getting a new credit card. So those cross-sales are very hard. But what are the levers to pull on business intelligence and operationally? Is it incentives? Or is it something that happens on its own? Or do you have forums for it? Or how do you do it?

We have developed platforms internally to make sure that there are regular meetings, there are regular systems for information exchange and so on. So that is well taken care of.

You mentioned Panama and we talk about geopolitics and Panama may be a problem this year. But you use the old canal if you go through? Or how important is Panama for the chemical tanker trade?

We have a lot of sailings through Panama. So it's obviously a very important transit for us. We have both our trades going back and forth to Asia from the U.S. Gulf and also the trade that we do to West Coast South America is very important. And we've seen even last year -- the year before last, there was also a significant choke in the Panama Canal that has big effects on rates and of course, on the bidding of going through the Panama Canal and even the old Panama Canal gets congested. And so it is important, and we've seen that it has quite significant effects on the market if ships line up outside Panama Canal, yes.

So there's another possible problem?

Yes. Yes.

It's going to throw you off the schedule.

I think Panama has learned from the previous disruption a couple of years ago, where we also saw that there was too little water in the lakes, so they had to reduce number of vessels going through the Panama Canal. So right now, there is more water inside the lakes than there has ever been. So they are preparing for a future scenario of drought. And then if El Nino should start this summer or autumn, I think we will first see the effects next year. So we don't foresee any drought disruptions this year. But what we see right now is longer waiting times because of those vessels not being able to trade out of the Middle East, they are trading out of the U.S. and the shortest way to the Far East is through the Panama Canal. And therefore, there are more vessels sailing through there than there used to be.

One question to the market slide. It's been kind of stable with you and Stolt being the big ones and then someone nibbling, but there's not really been any new competitors. I with all this turbulence, with all these -- are somebody else trying to get in? Are people trying to use J19s or J25s or something to steal more of your cargo? Or is it a stable competitive landscape? It's the same people for every contract been there for 30 years, know who they are?

I can -- so I think it's been a shift to go. You now have 3 very clearly largest operators with Stolt and with MOL and ourselves. And a lot -- there's been a lot of consolidations if you look at from where the market was 10-plus years ago. What we have seen is there's a lot of new entrants that have bought Chinese-made 25,000 tonnes, which is sort of the replacement of the old J19 is now a C-25. I think a lot of those ships are now up for resale. They're trying to -- and I think there's a good chance that those ships will be consolidated. And of course, they were ordered at the time when the market was quite different. And as we tried to explain earlier also that that the -- of course, the market has improved, and we saw also the chart where you've seen that the rates go up quite significantly.

But a lot of these operators are involving themselves around trades from the Middle East and to China. And with that market almost disappearing, it's very hard for them to trade. So I think there's a good chance that although there is an anticipated deconsolidation through new entrants with this Chinese tonnage, a lot of it will be absorbed on the back of lacking these trading opportunities going forward.

And just to add to that with C-25s, they naturally belong, as you say, in the Middle East, Asian regional trade. And it's also hard for them to shift to the Atlantic Basin or to the U.S. Gulf because they are -- a lot of them are Chinese owned and then you bear the risk of U.S. port fees, of course. So if anything, we've seen a shift from Chinese operators away from U.S. Gulf into Middle East, Asia and then.

Exactly. And to add to that, of course, 25,000 tonnes is actually too small of a ship to trade between U.S. Gulf and Asia. And that's -- hence, our strength in the American market has been around the larger tankers that we have. You saw the average size of OTL fleet is now 35,000 deadweight tonnes, which is much more suited to the trade that we do in and out of the U.S., which is the benefit in the current situation.

I looked at this medium size, you had the biggest order book there. And my thought was exactly around this. Is that replacement of J19s, which were below 20? So when you really look at where they're going to be deployed, the order book isn't so big after all that it's ships are getting a little bit bigger, you're replacing the J19 with the J25. Is that why it's so big? Is that a hypothesis?

That is certainly a big part of the explanation, yes.

But could you use those J25 ships if you got them?

We can use J25. I mean it is our biggest single tonnage segment today is the 25,000 tonnage. And the way we trade is that they, of course, our strength is in the big tankers, but we see all the spillover effects and we take advantage of the positions that we have with the larger tankers in the 25, 000 segments. So it's a very important segment also for Odfjell. And we've grown that position, but we make sure that, that growth is piggybacked on the bigger ships and the customer relationships we have through those vessels.

Anyone?

Just a comment on -- you said that we have a big order book. The big is a relative word.

The biggest among the 3. So, 9% still relatively big, it was bigger than the other...

For simplicity, let's say that we have 75 vessels. And let's say that average lifetime of these ships is 25 years. That means that every year, we have to build 3 vessels simply to maintain the number of vessels. And then if we also want to maintain our market share and the market is growing, let's say that we add 1 vessel simply to maintain market share. That's 4 vessels per year. And then if we want to also provide a slight growth of our market share, that's 5 vessels per year. And today, over 4 years, we are building 22 vessels. So it's more or less what we need to show strength and maintain our position in this market.

I agree. My comment was to the slide that the 9% of the medium versus the other 3 sizes. But yes, that's a very good point. And I think looking at the order book or the deliveries, that's a perspective that's easy to lose. I think most of us thought, oh, that was a lot of dividends being invested in new ships, and there's another story to it. Are there any final comments that -- are you guys going to come with some final comments? No. Anyone here who wants to have a final say, Harald?

I think what I just said was a..

That was super. In order to be in there and fight, we need equipment, absolutely. Thank you.

Thanks to all of you.

Good morning to everyone, and welcome to this presentation of Odfjell's first quarter results. We are living in unpredictable times. And in that context, it's reassuring to know that the agenda for this presentation is very predictable. I will take you through the highlights. My colleague, Terje Iversen, our CFO, will take you through our financial performance. And then I will conclude this presentation with an operational review and a market update and prospects for the coming quarter.

Then turning to the highlights. We once again delivered a strong safety performance in the first quarter, but in a much more challenging environment. We have 4 vessels inside the Strait of Hormuz, 1 vessel that we own and 3 vessels that are time-chartered. I'm very happy to inform you that all crews are safe. I'm impressed by the leadership that we observe on those 4 vessels. I'm impressed by the crew's ability to maintain the morale and atmosphere on board. And it also impresses me that they are still able to make rational considerations and decisions despite a very challenging situation.

Our time charter earnings ended at $167 million, and that compares to $168 million in the fourth quarter. I have to add that these numbers are not totally comparable due to some changes in our pool distribution, and Terje will explain that more in detail when I give the word to him. Our time charter earnings per day ended at $27,232, and this compares to $27,978 in the fourth quarter. The weaker results reflects, of course, the situation in the Middle East Gulf, but also fewer commercial days and higher costs during the quarter.

Our EBIT was USD 46 million, and this compares to $53 million in the fourth quarter. The net result contribution from Odfjell Terminals was $2.3 million, and this compares to $1.8 million in the previous quarter. The total net result for Odfjell SE was USD 32 million in the first quarter compared to USD 38 million in the previous quarter. Adjusted for one-off items, the net result was $26 million compared to $38 million in the previous quarter.

After the quarter end, Odfjell signed contracts to purchase four 40,000 deadweight tonne super-segregators from the Kitanihon shipyard in Japan. The total amount of this investment is USD 290 million. And we also, during the quarter, took delivery of 3 time charter vessels.

Our carbon intensity, the AER, was 7.0 in the first quarter, and this compares to 6.8 in the previous quarter. This is partly due to seasonal effects. It's partly due to the situation with standstill in the Middle East Gulf, and it's partly also due to an increased number of dry docking days in the quarter.

That summarizes my highlights. And by that, I give the word to CFO, Terje Iversen.

Thank you, Harald, and good morning and good afternoon to all of you. I will, as usual, start with the income statement for this quarter. As Harald told you, we delivered a time charter earnings this quarter of USD 167 million. To understand that figure, which is then very much in line with the fourth quarter last year, we also have to consider that we did some changes in our pool structure at the end of last year.

Previously, we had 3 vessels in a pool, and we had pool distributions that was netted from the time charter earnings. These pools -- this pool has been restructured. So these 3 vessels are now on a flexible or a variable time charter arrangement, meaning that pool distributions has been moved down and included in time charter expenses. That also explains why time charter expenses is increasing this quarter from USD 7.4 million in the fourth quarter to USD 15.2 million in the first quarter.

Also looking behind the figures in the fourth quarter, we saw that -- with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, we saw a slight decline in total volumes and also a shift from contract volumes to spot volumes as our trade in the Middle East has a high level of contracts. We also saw a slight decline in commercial revenue days to 6,114, a decrease of 148 days due to less calendar days and also higher dry docking activity this quarter.

As I told you, time charter expenses increased to $15.2 million, while operating expenses increased from $50.2 million to $53.4 million. Reason for that being that we had more one-off technical expenses this quarter and also that we added 3 time charter vessels to our fleet in the first quarter.

Share of net result from associates and joint ventures went from $1.8 million to $2.8 million this quarter. Increase in Odfjell Terminals contribution, which was USD 2.3 million compared to USD 1.8 million in the fourth quarter. And we also saw a positive contribution from the new joint venture, Odfjell Hakata Maritime of USD 0.5 million in the first quarter.

G&A ended at USD 20.3 million compared to USD 23.5 million. The decline is mostly related to the fact that the G&A expenses was higher than normal in the preceding quarter. So we are now at a more normalized level looking at the G&A in the first quarter.

Then we delivered an EBITDA of USD 81 million compared to USD 88.9 million in the fourth quarter. Depreciation, USD 40.1 million, up from USD 36.3 million. And also here, the reason is more or less that the fourth quarter in '25 was a bit normal -- lower than normal, and we are now at a more normalized level also when it comes to depreciation and amortizations going forward.

We had a capital gain this quarter related to sale of 2 barges from our Brazilian subsidiary, USD 4.8 million, and that led us to an EBIT of USD 45.6 million compared to USD 52.6 million in the fourth quarter. Net expenses, USD 14.3 million. And after other financial items, taxes, we then delivered a net result of USD 32 million, a decrease of USD 6 million from the fourth quarter. And if you adjust for nonrecurring items, we delivered a net result of USD 26 million in the first quarter. And the net result of USD 32 million equals an earnings per share of $0.41 this quarter compared to $0.48 in the fourth quarter.

Looking at the time charter earnings compared to the cash breakeven, we saw that our time charter earnings per day this quarter ended at $27,232, down from $27,978 in the previous quarter, even though it's quite a good headroom comparing with our cash breakeven, which in the first quarter was $22,984 compared to $21,817 in the fourth quarter, which is bringing the 12 months rolling average to USD 22,662.

Increase in cash breakeven this quarter was mainly then driven by higher dry docking activity and also slightly fewer commercial revenue days this quarter. Going forward, we expect the cash breakeven to be average $22,200 per day through 2026.

Continuing the balance sheet. In this first quarter, we acquired one vessel that previously was a right-of-use asset, which was Bow Hercules. That explains why ships and newbuilding contracts increased this quarter. And also that we took delivery of 3 new time charter vessels, explaining why right-of-use assets increased from USD 227 million to USD 285.7 million this quarter.

Cash and cash equivalents decreased to USD 131 million, while total liquidity available increased to USD 358 million when we're including available drawing facilities. During the quarter, we established a new revolving credit facility, which increased available drawing facilities by USD 65 million this quarter. We drew USD 30 million in new debt under an existing revolving credit facility as a preparation for installment payments for the newbuildings that we have ordered in this -- after end of the quarter. And as you know, we paid USD 40 million in dividend also through the first quarter.

Other current assets increased somewhat this quarter, mainly due to the fact that we have classified USD 80 million assets held for sale by the end of this quarter, and we also saw an increase in current receivables of USD 17 million this quarter. Total equity decreased by USD 9 million, mainly, of course, then driven by USD 40 million in dividends being paid, and we are now at equity percentage of 46% compared to 49%, end of fourth quarter last year.

Noncurrent interest-bearing debt increased as the new bank facility was established during this quarter. We also refinanced 2 existing bank facilities. And as mentioned, we drew USD 30 million as new debt, end of March this year -- this quarter.

Looking at the cash flow. Operating cash flow ended at USD 50 million, first quarter, a decrease of USD 24.3 million compared to fourth quarter, mainly reflecting an increase in working capital of USD 15 million and also lower earnings this quarter.

Looking at net cash flow from investing activities, we then got the proceeds from the sale of the barges from our Brazilian subsidiary, USD 4.7 million. And we also included here in the USD 25.4 million investment in noncurrent assets. Included in that is predelivery installments for two 26,000 deadweight tonnes newbuildings, which we paid this quarter.

New interest-bearing debt, as I said, we have been quite active on debt side during this quarter. So we have added a new interest-bearing debt of USD 145 million, but at the same time, we have repaid USD 103 million of current or existing loan facilities. And we have also repaid USD 47.7 million in debt related to lease of debt right-of-use assets, but that is also actually a payment that has been kind of refinancing of the Bow Hercules, which we acquired in this quarter.

Looking at the cash flow on a more long-term basis. We saw, as I mentioned, operating cash flow ended at USD 49.7 million, down from USD 74 million in the previous quarter, driven by the increase in working capital mainly and lower earnings. Cash flow from investment was USD 21.7 million compared to -- where USD 14.7 million related to the predelivery installments, and we ended with a free cash flow this quarter of USD 28 million, down from USD 67.6 million in the previous quarter, which also was a very strong quarter, I must add.

Looking at the rolling cash flow on a quarterly basis, we are then at USD 48 million. And if we adjust that for debt repayments related to right-of-use assets, it reached USD 34.8 million.

Looking at the debt side, as you can see, we have limited debt maturities in the coming quarters and the coming years. So that is under control. We have not included here the debt we expect to draw or secure for the newbuildings -- the 4 newbuildings. So looking at the projected interest-bearing debt there, which currently stands at USD 751 million, that is not included. And also going forward, we -- based on this, we will be around USD 680 million in year-end 2027. That is not including financing of the newbuildings. If we assume 70% leverage, we are talking about maybe then adding around USD 200 million in external financing related to the newbuildings.

And looking at the projected debt related to right-of-use assets, we are at USD 283 million at end of this quarter. And we expect, of course, that to increase based on 17 new time charter vessels being delivered to Odfjell in the coming years and that we expect it to peak around 2027 at USD 587 million in total debt related to these time charter vessels.

CapEx and time charter commitments. As I mentioned, Bow Hercules was acquired early first quarter, and we have now completed all the purchase options that we had for operational leased vessels, and this was financed through the new bank facility. And in April, we included here, in this overview, what the expected total payments for these 4 newbuildings. So we have summarized the existing commitments that we have on our balance sheet already, including these new ones, we are at USD 324.6 million in future CapEx commitments for new vessels into our fleet.

On time charter vessels to be delivered, as mentioned, we have 17 vessels that are going to be delivered from the second quarter '26 to 2029. And if we summarize nominal time charter hire for all these vessels, we are just above USD 1 billion in time charter commitments in total. After that, we will, of course, then capitalize on our balance sheet, the bareboat element of these time charters, which then is calculated to be around USD 533 million as new right-of-use assets and also then debt related to new right-of-use assets.

Then I will leave the word to Harald again.

Thank you, Terje. I will then continue with an operational review. And we start with our volumes. In the first quarter, we transported 3.2 million tonnes of cargo, and that compares to 3.4 million tonnes in the fourth quarter. We saw a decline in the contract volumes that share went down from 57% to 45%, and that's mainly due to shortfall of Middle East cargoes.

It's -- we also saw a strong increase in spot volumes during the period. And in addition to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, we also saw slightly fewer commercial revenue days, which also contributed to the reduced volumes. We have renewed approximately 20% of our contract portfolio. And here, we have seen a modest reduction in average rates.

If we then look at the graph at the bottom left side of the page, we will see that we had an all-time high for spot volumes with 1.8 million tonnes. That's the highest reported figure for the past 2 years. And also, if you compare this first quarter with the first quarters of '25 and '24, you will notice that the volumes are relatively stable compared to same quarters on previous years.

Earnings, the spot -- the ODFIX Index was down with 1.8% during the quarter. And at the same time, we saw an increase in the Clarksons Chemical Tanker Spot Index of 1.7%. When you compare those 2 graphs, it's very important to notice that the ODFIX Index is comparing average rates throughout the quarter with average rates in the previous quarter. The Clarksons Chemical Tanker Spot Index is presenting the rates at the last day of the last quarter with the rates at the last day of this quarter. So those 2 graphs are not totally comparable, but of course, they show similar trends.

If we are looking at the 4 cargo groups, specialty chemicals, here, we saw a decline in volumes, and that's mainly due to a decline in specialty glycols, and I will revert to that matter later in this presentation.

On commodity chemicals, we saw stable total volumes, but we did see a decrease in commodity chemicals under contract compared to what we did on the spot side, meaning that the spot fixtures basically compensated for the shortfall on the contract side.

We saw an uptick on -- a slight uptick on vegoils and biofuels. Here, we doubled the volumes from 6% to 12%. The increase was mainly due to increases in soybean oil and FAME and FAME is just a fancy word for biodiesel. And on the clean product side, we saw very stable volumes around 4% of the total.

Then turning to sustainability. As mentioned, we saw a slight uptick in the average AER from 6.8 to 7.0. This is partly due to seasonal effects. It's partly due to the effects from the conflict in the Middle East Gulf, and it's partly due to an increased number of dry docking activity. We believe that this uptick is temporary, and we still anticipate that for the full year, we will see an improvement of our carbon intensity -- average carbon intensity.

As mentioned, we have signed contracts for 4 newbuildings from Kitanihon Shipyard in Japan. Those 4 vessels will be owned, and they are all equipped with sails. They are equipped with gate rudders, and they are equipped with all kinds of sophisticated energy efficiency devices, meaning that when those vessels are being delivered, they will contribute positively to our carbon intensity record.

And then to our terminals, the headline here is stable performance. We saw an average occupancy rate of 94% in the fourth quarter, and that's slightly down from 96% in the previous quarter. And that reduction is mainly due to effects of the Middle East -- of the conflict in the Middle East Gulf.

Consolidated EBITDA in the first quarter was $10.6 million. That compares to $7.9 million. Some of you may remember that the previous quarter was impacted by nonrecurring items at the holding level. And when we adjust for those nonrecurring items, the EBITDA was very stable quarter-on-quarter. The consolidated net result for the first quarter from terminals was $1.8 million, and this compares to a loss of $1.0 million in the previous quarter. Going forward, we expect stable performance on the terminal side.

And finally, I would mention our 2 expansion projects. One is at the Noord Natie terminal in Antwerp, where we are building out Tankpit - S, which is 18 duplex stainless steel tanks with a capacity of 36,000 cubic meters, and that tankpit will be operational sometime during the first quarter of next year.

In addition to that, we are also building 88,000 cubic meters of carbon steel capacity at our terminal in Ulsan, the E5 project. And we expect this tankpit to be -- or this project to be in operation from the end of this year.

And then to the market update and prospects going forward. We all know that we have seen a positive momentum in -- both in VLCCs and on the product tanker side for some time. And finally, we see that this effect is also spilling over to the chemical tanker segment.

The graph on the right-hand side shows the differences in freight rates from end of last quarter to end of the first quarter. Here, we see a significant uptick West of Suez and particularly for the U.S. Gulf export trades. The average quarter-on-quarter changes, which is measuring average rates this quarter with previous quarter, here, we also see that there is a significant positive momentum. We also see a positive momentum East of Suez, but not to the same extent that we see West of Suez. But also here, we see that rates are moving in the right direction.

And then to the swing tonnage. Last year, we thought that we were -- last quarter, we thought that we were reporting the absolute bottom when it comes to swing tonnage swinging into chemical tanker segments. But we've seen a further decrease of that segment this quarter. And now we are seeing that MRs -- coated MRs that traditionally has only done chemicals, they are now swinging into -- or have been swinging into the product tanker segment. So a positive development in this situation.

Order book, there are not much changes to the order book since last quarter. The biggest change is our own order of 4 vessels at Kitanihon. 21% of the sailing fleet is today on order. The biggest impact will be seen in the medium stainless steel segment, where we, this year, anticipate that the capacity in this segment will increase with 8.4%. And that, then this will gradually tail off with an increase of 5.5% in '27 and 1.4% in '28. The large stainless steel and super-segregator segment is, I would say, very stable with only modest increases over the coming years.

The graph at the bottom right side displays the sum of medium stainless steel, large stainless steel and also the coated MRs with chemical tanker capacity. So the 3 slides are not totally comparable. The bottom slide is also including some additional tonnage.

And then a few words about the situation in the Middle East Gulf. As we all know, approximately 20% of the world's access to energy has been shut off by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But this deficit is not evenly spread around the world.

If we look at Asia's dependency on chemicals from the Middle East Gulf, we see that South Asia rely on -- almost 30% of their imports come from Middle East Gulf. For Northeast Asia, 26% of their imports come from the Middle East Gulf. And Southeast Asia has a relatively modest share of 16% and even more modest in Europe, where only 11% of the chemicals being imported has their origin from the Middle East Gulf.

If we then look at Asia in total, we see that 60% of the crude imports stem from Middle East Gulf, 30% of LNG imports, 50% of LPG imports and 60% of naphtha imports. And one of the specialty types of naphtha is what we all know as jet fuel. So this is the reason why we are discussing shortfall of jet fuel in certain areas of the world.

If we look at the different products that are being produced, helium -- 30% of the helium stems from the Middle East Gulf. That helium is very important for the production of semiconductors. Polypropylene ether, 70% of that product stems from the Middle East Gulf, and this is a vital component for the production of electronic components. Sulfur, 45%. This is important for the mining industry. It's vital in the production of batteries. And it's also a feedstock for phosphoric acid, which again is an important ingredient for fertilizers. Urea is even more dramatic. 50% of the world production stems from the Middle East Gulf, and that is a vital component of the fertilizer production.

Ethylene glycol, some of -- all of us use it for windshield washing, but there are also plenty of sophisticated types of glycol, which -- where we see that 53% of that glycol is today shut off from the world markets. And finally, methanol, 1/3 of the world's methanol comes from the Middle East Gulf. And this methanol is utilized in basically all kinds of industrialized processes.

So there is a significant shortfall of products that are vital to the world production and world economy. And that shortfall is, as I said, not evenly distributed around the world.

When it comes to normalization of this shortfall, I think no one really knows the condition of each of those production plants. So we don't know the -- how long it will take to repair those plants that have been damaged. And we also do not know how long time it will take to reach normal production on each plant. But careful estimates indicate that we have to assume that somewhere between 6 and 18 months will be required to go back to normal supplies from the Middle East Gulf.

And then to summarize our market outlook, when it comes to seaborne chemical export, we anticipate to see a decline in the second quarter. And this is basically due to availability and it's due to the cost of those products that are available. We also expect that we will continue to see disruptions due to the Middle East Gulf. We do see that charters are scrambling tonnage. They are securing tonnage simply to have production -- transportation capacity for their own products, particularly out of the U.S. Gulf but also in the rest of Europe -- of the Atlantic region.

We do anticipate that the strong performance both in the VLCC segment and in the product tanker segment will encourage swing tonnage owner to remain in the CPP segments.

On the newbuilding side, we've seen that we expect increased capacity, particularly in the medium stainless steel segment. And we've also seen that more and more vessels are overaged compared to what we normally think is the usual life expectancy. However, during the first month of the second quarter, we have seen a slight uptick in recycling activity also for chemical tankers.

The global economic growth, the world GDP has been revised slightly downwards and the best case scenario now is around 3.1% and the worst-case scenario is around 2%.

And then finally, we would also like to mention the likelihood of an El Nino weather event from this summer, which potentially can affect the markets in the second half of 2026. So we do anticipate a slight shortfall in chemical and vegoil demand. We do expect that we will see increased focus on the major production hubs, which today are the U.S. Gulf and, to some extent, China, if the products produced in China are not utilized domestically. We might see increased production in smaller areas like Europe and Brazil, provided that they have the capacity to increase production. And we do expect that we will continue to see a general effect of inefficiencies and disruptions also in the second quarter.

We've touched upon the newbuilding deliveries. Here, we will see increased capacity. We've touched upon vessel recycling, where we will see a slight uptick in activity. And we have touched upon swing tonnage where we anticipate to see low levels also in this quarter.

And then to summarize this presentation, we delivered a net result of $32 million. This compares to $38 million in the previous quarter. From Odfjell Tankers, we saw a slight reduction in time charter earnings per day, but also in total time charter earnings. And this reduction was partly due to fewer calendar days, fewer commercial days and partly also due to the situation in the Middle East.

Stable activity on Odfjell Terminals, stable underlying EBITDA development, and we continue to expand our terminals on budget and on schedule. The outlook, we expect to see continued significant market disruptions also in the fourth quarter. We will continue to see absence of volumes from the Middle East Gulf, and we will continue to see swing tonnage keeping out of our trades.

To summarize this presentation and our guiding for the second quarter, we have seen April performing better than the average of the first 3 months. We have seen May -- here, we anticipate that the performance will be better than April. And we anticipate that June will perform more or less in line with May, meaning that we expect our results to be higher in the second quarter as long as we don't see any unexpected effects in -- towards the end of this quarter.

So this concludes our presentation, and we will now have the usual Q&A. So then I invite Nils and Terje to join us.

Thank you, Harald. We have received some questions. And I think we will just start at the top and go through them. Let's see here. So the first one is about the Hormuz strait. And how does the Hormuz disruption alter our overall trading strategy? Are we repositioning our ships more to the West of Suez?

Our trading strategy is to be present in all markets. And I think this conflict is a good example of why it's important to be present in all markets by that we are not dependent on one single market alone. So yes, we are, of course, rerouting all the vessels that should have been in the Middle East Gulf. They are being rerouted to new markets. So the answer to that is yes. But we also have to take into consideration that we are in the deep sea market. It takes time to get the vessels into new positions.

Yes. Thank you. The next one is also on the current situation in Middle East Gulf. When and how are we planning to bring the 4 ships stuck in the Gulf back?

I cannot answer the one element of that question. But what I can say is that we need solid guarantees from Iran that they will not attack our vessels when they are sailing through the Strait of Hormuz. And when we receive those guarantees or statements, then we have to consult our advisers. And if we all agree that this is trustworthy, then we will sail out every vessel.

The next question is regarding COA renewals. And it's from Jostein at DNB Carnegie. COA renewal terms have declined for some quarters. Is the current situation leaving potential for new COAs at improved terms? Or are customers reluctant to commit longer term at higher rates in anticipation of the situation being resolved shortly?

I would say that, that is a big question. But the simple answer is yes. I think many charters have seen that to have some kind of contract coverage in the portfolio makes sense. So this will have a positive impact on the charters' thinking when it comes to securing long-term transportation of the products. I think it will also affect the sourcing of those products in a longer-term perspective. I think maybe some of those being dependent on these products might realize that they've been too dependent on one market.

So I think we will see a more positive attitude towards contracts in general. And I think we will also see some changes in the way the customers behave when it comes to from where they are sourcing their products. So all in all, this is not bad when it comes to contracts in general.

Thank you. Next question. In the presentation, you described products coming out of the Middle East Gulf -- and this is just more specific here. What specific products were we exporting from the Gulf to Asia before the conflict?

I do not have all those products in detail. But as I said in the presentation, a large share of those products were various types of glycols.

And then there is a question here from [ Haakon Larsen ]. What is our AI strategy within the company? Are we expecting significant cost reductions due to operational improvements?

Well, a bit [ populistic explained ]. In anticipation of a clear solution to the future of fuel, our strategy is to reduce our consumption of fossil fuel as much as possible. And the thinking is simply that the less fuel we are using, the more money we save. And that will also go for the future green fuel that we will be using that the ones that use the least of this anticipated more expensive fuel will be winners in the future. So our strategy right now is laser-focused on bringing our average AER as low as possible.

Having said that, we have done that for 15 years now. We have improved our carbon intensity with more than 50%. And there is a limit for how low you can actually reach and at the same time, making good financial considerations around those investments. And that is basically the reason why we have now started to look further into, for example, biofuel, where we see that, that might be a future solution for deep sea shipping when it comes to the future green fuel.

Yes. Thank you. I think that was the last question that we have received today.

Okay. Then I thank all of you for attending. I look forward to seeing you again in August when we present our second quarter results and then hopefully, in a world that is better shaped than what we experience today. So thank you very much for attending.

Okay. Good morning again, everyone. First and foremost, I apologize for this delay, which is due to some technical issues here at the Continental Hotel in Oslo.

We are today presenting our fourth quarter results and the preliminary full year results in front of a live audience here in Oslo. And I'm very pleased to welcome our loyal shareholders, the banks, we have the analysts here, and also the journalists. A hearty welcome to all of you.

The presentation today follows a traditional agenda. I will take you quickly through the highlights, and then my colleague, Terje Iversen, will take you through our financial performance, and I will summarize this presentation with an operational review and also a market update and our prospects for the future.

Then turning to the highlights. We are once again very happy that we delivered a quarter where we had no serious incidents in our fleet. We delivered time charter earnings of USD 168 million, and this compares to USD 173 million in the previous quarter. Time charter earnings per day were down less than 1%. We produced USD 27,978 in the fourth quarter, and this compares to USD 28,174 in the third quarter.

The EBIT was USD 53 million, this compares to USD 59 million, and the net result contribution from Odfjell Terminals was USD 1.8 million versus USD 2.6 million in the previous quarter. We had a net result of USD 38 million. This compares to USD 43 million in the previous quarter. And adjusted for one-off items, we had USD 38 million versus USD 42 million.

We also, during the quarter, launched the world's first operational green corridor between Brazil and Europe. This corridor is self-funded, and we did it to accelerate the implementation of biofuel in deep sea shipping. I will come back to that later in my presentation.

We also concluded contracts for 2 more super-segregators. They will be delivered in '28 and '29. And finally, the Board approved a dividend of USD 0.48 -- USD 0.50 -- USD 0.48 per share on our net adjusted result for the second half of '25.

If we look at the year in total, we had a financial result of USD 155 million. And the total dividends for the year is USD 0.98, which then amounts to USD 78 million.

In total, during the year, we ordered 4 newbuildings on time charter. And we also launched in the last quarter of last year, then we formalized the cooperation with our Japanese tonnage providers. And now we, in total, have 22 newbuildings on order, of which 10 will be delivered in 2026. I will also come back to that later in my presentation.

The AER was 6.8% through the year, and that is a 4.2% improvement compared to 2024. The outlook, we expect a slight reduction in our net result -- underlying net result compared to the fourth quarter.

And by that, I give the word to Terje, who will take you through our financial performance. Thank you.

Thank you, Harald, and good morning to all of you. I will, as usual, start with the income statement for this quarter.

As Harald mentioned, we delivered a time charter earnings of USD 168 million this quarter, which is 3% down compared to the third quarter. Looking behind the figures, we saw that the time charter rate per day was quite unchanged compared to the third quarter and also the freight rate per tonne was quite at the same level as in the third quarter. So actually, the reduction in time charter earnings had mainly to do with fewer commercial days in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter.

On time charter expenses, that ended at USD 7.4 million, slightly down compared to the third quarter, while we saw that operating expenses ended at USD 50.2 million, very stable compared to previous quarter. While share of net result from associates and joint ventures ended at USD 1.8 million compared to USD 2.6 million.

G&A increased somewhat from USD 20 million to USD 23.5 million. That is -- a few reasons for that. One is that we had the high activity this quarter with also higher legal expenses. We also had some year-end adjustment of provisions for short-term incentive programs for the employees, and we also had some adjustment on pension costs this quarter, leading to somewhat higher G&A this quarter compared to what you should expect in the normal quarter.

That leads to an EBITDA of USD 88.9 million. Depreciation, USD 36.3 million, slightly down compared to third quarter. Main reason being that we sold one vessel in the end of last year and also that we had some tax credits from some dry-docking activities in Brazil that we took advantage of in the fourth quarter that reduced our depreciation in that quarter.

That leaves an EBIT of USD 52.6 million compared to USD 59 million. Net interest expenses decreased to USD 13.9 million compared to USD 15.5 million. Main reason being that we have is slightly a reduction in our debt. We have better margins on our loan and also a lower SOFR this quarter than in the previous quarters.

Then other financial items and taxes, we are then delivering a net result of USD 38 million, which is down USD 5 million compared to last quarter. And also adjusting for non-recurring items being very limited, we ended then with a net result also adjusted at USD 38 million in the fourth quarter.

Looking at time charter earnings compared to the cash breakeven, we see that time charter earnings per day ended at around USD 28,000 this quarter, slightly down from the previous quarter, as mentioned. Looking at cash breakeven in the fourth quarter, we ended at USD 21,817 compared to just about USD 22,000 in the third quarter. And looking at the 12 months rolling average, we are then close to USD 23,000 in cash breakeven.

Decrease this quarter, mainly driven by lower dry-docking activity than in the previous quarter and also slightly lower interest expenses.

So we have a difference between the time charter earnings and the cash breakeven around USD 5,000 per day. And looking at our time charter fleet that also corresponds very much to the same figure, looking at the 2025 figures. And looking at the same long-term time charter vessels, the total in 2025, we delivered a net result for these vessels around USD 28 million in 2025. Going forward, we expect slight improvement in the cash breakeven to be around USD 22,200 in average for 2026.

The balance sheet, not that much to report on. We saw a slight decrease in total values, ships and newbuilding contracts due to the sale of Bow Cedar and, of course, also depreciations.

It's also worth noticing that we are increasing the investments in associates and joint ventures for USD 173 million to USD 183 million, main reason being the new joint venture, Odfjell Hakata Maritime and also the working capital that we are injecting into that joint venture or have been injected during the quarter.

Cash and cash equivalents increased somewhat to USD 149 million, end of 2025. And if we include undrawn loan facilities, we have available cash of around USD 344 million end of 2025.

Equity increased with USD 36 million being the comprehensive income for the quarter, and we are close to USD 1 billion in book equity. And compared to a total asset of around USD 2 billion, we are then close to 50% book equity per end of 2025.

On the debt side, we are continuing to reduce our debt, and we did an extraordinary debt repayment of USD 30 million in the fourth quarter.

Cash flow. We had quite strong cash flow, I would say, this quarter, ending at USD 74 million, up compared to the third quarter. Main reason being that we have stable working capital this quarter, while we had an increase of the working capital in the third quarter that impacted the operational cash flow.

Cash flow from investing activities ended at negative USD 6.4 million, positive, of course, impacted by the sale of Bow Cedar with USD 9.8 million and positively impacting the cash flow from investing activities in the quarter.

On the financing side, we are continuing to reduce debt, as mentioned, and we did this extraordinary debt repayment, leading to negative cash flow from financing of USD 54.9 million in the quarter. And in total, we are then ending with USD 12.7 million in positive cash flow -- change in cash during this fourth quarter.

Looking at the more long-term development on the free cash flow, free cash flow being the cash that is available for debt service and equity. We see that we continue to deliver a quite strong free cash flow and this quarter ended with a free cash flow of USD 68 million compared to USD 42 million in the third quarter.

And again, of course, positively impacted by the sale of this vessel and also negative impacted by the joint venture working capital that we injected in this quarter. And looking at the 12 months rolling free cash flow, we are around USD 58.2 million. And if you adjust for debt repayments related to right-of-use of assets, we are around USD 45.6 million in the fourth quarter.

This is a bit busy slide. I will take you through it. Looking at the charts at the top, this is showing the scheduled repayments of interest-bearing debt per end of 2025. As you can see, we have some debt repayments in the first quarter 2026. That has been taken care of already with a new financing facility that we are drawing on these days.

So except for that, we have very limited debt repayments in excess of ordinary installments during the coming years until end of 2026, where we have -- 2027, we have a small balloon that we, of course, will be capable of taking care of.

Then on the middle of this, we have a chart showing the expected development of interest-bearing debt. As you can see, we are around USD 709 million interest-bearing debt end of fourth quarter. We expect a slight increase in that figure during 2026 based on taking delivery of one newbuilding and also Bow Hercules.

So we are drawing new debt on these vessels. And then, of course, we are also including ordinary repayments installments here. But also then looking further into the future, we expect interest-bearing debt to continue to decline into '27 and '28.

Then on the bottom here, we have included what is expected or projected booked debt related to right-of-use assets. As we have talked about, we have around 20 vessels that are going to be delivered on long-term time charters in the coming years. And here we are projecting what will -- how will the balance sheet look when these are being delivered to the company.

So end of 2025, we had USD 226 million in so-called debts related to right-of-use assets. When we are taking 9 new vessels into our operations in 2026, that amount will increase to around USD 384 million and increase further to USD 587 million then in year-end 2027 before it's stabilizing. Then we have taken delivery of all the new 20 vessels on new long-term time charters and the debt or the kind of the capital element of that commitment have then been included in this forecast.

This is summarizing the CapEx going forward and the time charter commitments. We have talked about Bow Hercules already has been taken into our books end of start of this year. We acquired that vessel with cash, but it will be then financed with a new bank facility that we are drawing on these days.

We have 2 other newbuildings on order that will be delivered in '26 and '27, summarizing to USD 82.3 million. And except for that, we have done these new time charter vessels that are going to be delivered in the coming years. And here, we are showing at the bottom this chart or this table, showing what are the time charter commitments that we have on our -- we will take into account on our balance sheet going forward and also what will be the nominal time charter rates to be paid under these time charters.

So if we summarize the time charters to be paid for these 20 vessels, we are at around USD 1.1 billion for these -- for the next 7-8 years in total for these 20 vessels that has not been delivered yet. On our balance sheet, this will be booked as right-of-use assets, and we will then include USD 237 million in 2026 as new right-of-use assets, and that will summarize in total for these vessels to 625 during the next 2 years. As we have mentioned a few times before, these vessels, these 20 vessels, that accounts for 40% of the current order book in our core segment.

Then I'll leave the word to you again, Harald.

Thank you. Then I will continue with an operational review. And I think the big headline here is a stable development. We have stable volumes, and we also have stable contract coverage. The slight reduction that we see in the fourth quarter is simply a consequence of 139 fewer commercial days. But all in all, I would say, a very stable development.

If we look at time charter earnings, as mentioned, we are also seeing stable development in our Odfix index, and that is not -- it's not totally comparable to the Clarksons index because the Odfix index is showing a quarterly average, while the Clarksons index is showing the difference between the first day of the month and the last -- of the quarter and the last day of the quarter. So the 4.2% increase that we see in the Clarksons index is reflecting the uptick that we saw towards the end of the quarter.

When we look at the volumes, we see a slight increase in specialty chemicals, which is kind of the bread and butter for our activities. That's where we want to be, and that's the most sophisticated and difficult chemicals to carry. We saw a small increase in those volumes. We saw stable commodity volumes. Those are the easy chemicals, large volumes and relatively easy to carry.

And then in our book, we saw a slight decrease when it comes to the Vegoils, which is less demanding cargoes to carry. And we had a stable development when it comes to CPP. CPP in Odfjell is typically utilized for repositioning of our ships, and it's also utilized for handling waiting time for vessels that are waiting to be implemented in the new trade. So all in all, a stable development.

Turning to sustainability and our carbon index. We saw an average both for the quarter and for the year in total of an AER of 6.8. And we are well satisfied with that. It's 4.2%, I think, lower than 2024. But I think the main observation here is that this curve is starting to flatten out. You cannot energy efficiency yourself to 0. So we have implemented several projects when it comes to operational improvements. We have done several improvements when it comes to technical improvements and we are now turning to biofuel as the third leg of our drive to achieve net-zero.

In December, we launched the first operational green corridor in the world between Brazil and Europe. And first, what is a green corridor? A green corridor is simply a trade lane where we are utilizing greener fuels.

And then secondly, why did we choose this trade lane? First, Brazil is the second largest producer of biofuel in the world, second only to the U.S. And also, Norway has an MOU with Brazil, where the focus is on developing a green corridor.

And secondly, we chose Europe as the ending point simply because that would allow us to utilize the fuel EU maritime. So that is the background for choosing Brazil and Europe as -- for the purpose of this corridor.

The voyage is approximately 5,000 nautical mines. It takes 40 days to conduct that voyage, and we expect to have in average, approximately one voyage per month. This corridor was started already in November, and we are now at the fourth voyage with that corridor being implemented.

We are dedicated to continue this trade. But of course, if we want to make this trade greener, we will have to cooperate with all the other stakeholders in the trade to make that happen.

And I'm very pleased to see that we have very constructive and good dialogues with all the stakeholders involved. We have positive responses for the ports where we look at making the port rotations more efficient.

We have positive dialogues with our customers to see whether we can further utilize the ships that are employed in this trade. And we also have very positive feedback from the governments, both in Brazil, in Europe and in Norway. So we are quite confident that this is something that can be developed further.

We also see that other ports around the world are contacting us and asking whether we can do something similar in their areas of the world. This is something that we are considering. But first and foremost, we want to get this corridor in place and further develop it.

We also are proud that we managed through this initiative, we managed to establish the first continuous supply of biofuel out of Rio Grande because of our offtake agreement. They now have a continuous supply of fuel from that port, and we are in dialogue with other ports in Brazil to see whether the same can be achieved there. So plenty of positive effects of this initiative.

Turning to our Tank Terminals. That is more stable business, I would say. We had an occupancy rate of 96% in the fourth quarter, which is more or less the same as we had throughout 2025. The consolidated EBITDA was USD 7.7 million (sic) [ USD 7.9 million ], and this is down USD 1.3 million compared to the third quarter.

Net result for the fourth quarter was at USD 1 million, and this compares to adjusted net result of USD 1.5 million. For the full year, the terminal reported a consolidated net loss of USD 1.6 million. And on an adjusted basis, the net result was USD 9.1 million.

The outlook is stable. And when we then turn to the expansion projects, we have had several successful expansion projects throughout the years, and we have now recently completed Tankpit-Q at our Noord Natie terminal in Antwerp, and we are now carrying on with Tankpit-S, which will add 18 duplex steel tanks to the capacity in Antwerp. So a very solid development on that terminal.

In Korea, at the Ulsan terminal, we also have an expansion projects ongoing, the so-called E5 expansion, where we are building almost 90,000 cubic meters of new capacity. So a lot of positive developments going on, on the terminal side with an underlying extremely stable business that is supporting this development.

Then we turn to the market update and our prospects for the future, starting with the development in the spot rates. What we see here is that we saw a positive development west of Suez with rates going up, particularly towards the end of the quarter. And we also saw a stabilizing development in east of Suez with a smaller uptick towards the end of the quarter. But all in all, there is positive momentum or there was positive momentum in the markets.

Turning to the swing tonnage. The swing tonnage is now at absolute minimum levels. I think what's left on the swing tonnage side is, of course, those vessels that are always trading with chemicals like Odfjell's 6 coated vessels -- coated MRs, they are only employed in chemicals.

And then there is a portion of vessels that are trading chemicals in one direction and then CPP in the opposite direction. Those vessels are still doing that business. But the remaining vessels, those that are swinging 100% back and forth, it's my impression that all of them are gone. And the reason for that is seen on your left-hand side, where we see that the MR rates have seen a very positive development over actually the past year.

Looking at the order book. As we've said before, the order book stands at 22% of the total sailing fleet, and Odfjell has a 14% share of that order book. Looking at the 2 most important segments, the medium stainless steel and the super-segregators, we see that the majority of the fleet increase is coming in that segment.

When we look at the super-segregators, where Odfjell has a 40% market share, here, we see a relatively flat development and what's being built is mainly replacement tonnage for super-segregators being phased out. And most of the vessels that are being phased out is now the so-called Kvaerner Class, originally 24 vessels that was built between '93 and 2012, and those vessels are slowly and gradually being phased out. So we will see an increase on the medium segment, and we will see a flat development in the super-segregator segment.

If we then turn to Odfjell's order book specifically, we have 22 vessels on order, 20 stainless steel vessels and 2 coated MRs coated with MarineLINE. They will deliver between now and 2029. There are 10 vessels being delivered this year, 9 vessels being delivered next year and then 2 vessels in '28, and one vessel in '29. Of those vessels, there are 25,000 tonners. There are 10 super-segregators and there are the 2 mentioned MarineLINE coated MRs.

We also have a balance of 12 vessels, and those 12 vessels are vessels that either will complete their time charter arrangement with us or they will reach an age of 25, 27.5 or 30 years of age, which means that we have the ability or the opportunity to consider lifetime extension programs. And that means that of the 22 vessels, 12 vessels can balance the development of our fleet. And we will end up in 2030 with somewhere between 92 and 80 vessels in our fleet.

Then turning to the outlook. As we all know, we have seen quite significant market disruptions during the year, and those are rooted in geopolitical events. They are rooted in tariff uncertainties, and they are rooted in consequences of that being customers testing out new trades, new customers and new ways of trading and selling their volumes.

However, volumes have nevertheless been relatively stable, but we have seen some new and interesting opportunities in the wake of all this turbulence that we have observed.

The chemical tanker market is very closely connected to world GDP. And in 2026, the expectation is a world GDP growth of 3.3%. The Red Sea, we originally saw some early signs that the compliant fleet would return to transiting the Red Sea. Then we had the container operator that started transiting in December. We had another container operator who ceased trading through the Red Sea in -- also in December.

We had Houthis that were repeating their threats against the civilian merchant shipping. And now we have the situation in Iran. And the sum of that is that we are not as optimistic as we were 6 to 8 weeks ago, and we expect that it will still take some time before we can sail through the Red Sea.

When it comes to the fleet development, we've been through that. There will be an increase in the fleet over the next 12 to 18 months, particularly within the medium stainless steel segment. And we also see that the crackdown on the shadow fleet is impacting crude oil earnings and CPP earnings. We have lately seen that the U.S. has taken a significantly tougher stance against the shadow fleet vessels.

We've seen France taking action against shadow fleet vessels. We have seen Germany taking action against shadow fleet vessels. And this is, of course, impacting the flow of sanctioned oil, which is again impacting the flow of unsanctioned oil. So all in all, we anticipate that the positive momentum due to the crackdown on the shadow fleet will continue during the first 6 months this year.

So all in all, we expect an upswing on the chemical trade. We expect a positive development in world GDP. We do not foresee any more consequences of all those tariff discussions. There will be an increase in our fleet -- in the chemical tanker fleet this year, and we expect the swing tonnage to remain outside our business.

So to summarize this presentation, we delivered a net result of USD 38 million, this compares to USD 43 million in the third quarter. On the tanker side, we saw a very small reduction in time charter earnings per day, and we had slightly fewer days, which gave a small reduction in our aggregated time charter earnings.

The small reduction in total volumes is due to fewer commercial days. And when it comes to contract renewals, we -- this is not scientific business to compare one contract with another. But all in all, we saw a slight decrease in the contracts that were renewed during the fourth quarter, and that was approximately 25% of our total contract volumes.

On the terminal side, we had a modest decline in activity in the fourth quarter. But all in all, this is a very stable business, and we expect it to be stable also going forward. We saw a strengthening of freight rates, spot rates towards the end of the fourth quarter. And -- it's -- the market is not easy to predict these days, but we haven't seen that market going down at least since New Year.

Slight increase in activity. And as mentioned, the swing tonnage is not at all impacting our business these days. So all in all, we expect the first quarter to show underlying results that are slightly below what we saw in the fourth quarter.

And that concludes our presentation, and we are now open for questions from the audience and also questions being submitted through the webcast.

We'll start with any questions from the audience here. If not, we will proceed with the questions we've received online. And of course, feel free to raise your hands if you have a question afterwards.

So the first question we have received is on the COA renewals, and I'm just reading the question here. You mentioned an active quarter on COA renewals. How many COAs were renewed and at what renewal rate? How did these compare to third quarter '25 renewal rates?

I don't have the exact number of contracts that were renewed in the fourth quarter. But I would anticipate that we are somewhere between 15 and 25 contracts. And we had a portion that were renewed unchanged in line with what was agreed in the contract 1 year ago. We have also had renewals where we have seen reductions above 5%, I would say. And then we have some contracts where we had smaller reductions.

It's not easy to compare one contract year with the previous contract year because normally, there is an adjustment to the ports being called. There are adjustments to the volumes and so on. And therefore, it's not exact science to compare one contract year with the previous contract year.

But all in all, I think it's fair to say that we've seen a slight decrease in our average freight rate for the contracts that have been renewed.

Thank you. So the next question is on the supply side.

And the question is, there are many chemical ships over 25 years of age. What is your outlook on recycling this year?

And I guess we showed some figures on that on the order book side, but if you would like to comment some more.

When it comes to the recycling decision, there is a balance between what the ships are earning and what the recycling price is. And that calculation has to be positive before a shipowner makes the decision to recycle a ship. And the decision points, they will come at the age of 25, where the ship is going through dry dock and then the shipowner has to make a decision, do I take the ship through the dry dock or do I recycle.

The next decision point -- and then you have to have kind of a 2.5-year future because the next dry dock is coming at 27.5, and that is when you have to make the second decision whether you will take this vessel through dry dock or not. And then the third -- and the third decision point is normally at 30 years, and that's where we see most of the European built chemical tankers being recycled. So I think many shipowners with aging tonnage, they make the calculation, and I say that it's still more money to be earned if we postpone recycling. And I think that is why we see so little -- surprisingly little recycling.

I hope that answered the question.

Yes. The next one is on the demand side.

And the question is, are there indicators other than GDP, you think, closely follow your performance?

So I guess, I don't know if this is referring to trade flows or things like that, but...

Yes. I think the most important denominator is world GDP, and that is kind of the long-term indicator for where chemical tankers are heading. And the reason for that is simply the fact that 96% of the world's commercial goods, they need liquid chemicals to be produced. So the more goods that are being sold, the more chemicals are needed in the production process. So that link is, I think, very clear.

I think the second indicator, which is where we probably have to add a 6-month delay or something is development on the CPP side, the MR market. When the MR market is going up, typically, it drags out the swing tonnage and then slowly, slowly, the chemical tankers are following suit.

But there is typically -- there is a delay in this development. I would say that the first segment that will experience that rates are going up are the medium-sized vessels with shorter voyages, which means that they are starting a new voyage earlier than the large vessels. They will see the upswing first.

And then the super-segregators, which typically have voyages with 2 to 3 months of duration, they will have a slower -- it will have a slower impact on that segment. And that impact is also delayed because 50% of the cargo is already with contract rates that were maybe agreed 1 year ago. So it depends on the segment, how fast you will see a correlation between MRs and chemical tankers.

Thank you. We have a few more questions here coming in. The next one is regarding the Red Sea.

And the question is, do you think that the -- it says the Red Sea, but I guess a Red Sea reopening would be a net positive or negative for our performance?

You tell me. I think -- and we don't know the exact answer, but it has been indicated that the reopening of the Red Sea will add somewhere between -- sorry, 1% and 2% of capacity to the world's chemical tanker fleet. And that is, of course, a capacity addition, and it should have a negative impact on earnings.

But then again, it will also boost the trades between Europe and the Middle East and to some extent, Asia because it's more easy to transport products that way. So whether you will have a 1% to 2% effect that I think the effect will be smaller than that. And for many freights, it is an advantage that passage is being reopened.

Thank you. So now for the last question from the online Q&A here.

With our 10 new deliveries in 2026, bringing tonnage into a market with many ships and minimal recycling, on what routes do you plan to deploy the ships?

Good question. As mentioned, we have 10 vessels being delivered throughout the year. Those are being spread evenly through the year, meaning that, we, on average, have more or less one vessel per month.

In total, for 2026, this will add 12% of added commercial days to our fleet. And those who can calculate will see that, that means that we will also have to add some approximately 1.5 million tonnes of additional cargo. All of those vessels are already scheduled into our fleet. We have a plan for every single commercial day. So that project or that fleet implementation is well taken care of.

Okay. Thank you. And we have one questioner. Yes. Just let me hand you the mic so that people online can hear you.

[Indiscernible] SEB. You say that you're negotiating contracts a little bit down.

Sorry, I didn't hear...

You said that you're negotiating new contracts or renewing contracts a little bit softer. But mainly, are you extending durations? Are you still addressing terms, improving terms? Because I mean, even if rates go down a little bit, customers are still paying a lot better than they've done for maybe 15 years or something.

It's correct. The rates are still at acceptable levels, I would say, even if we see a slight decline in freight rates. And rates also has to be seen in combination with all the other terms in our contracts. So right now, I think most of the chemical producers in the world are losing money. So there is an extremely strong focus on the freight rate itself, and I would say less focus on other terms in the contract.

Did that answer your question?

What about duration?

Duration is a good question. I would say that the majority of the contract customers are trying to achieve the similar freight rates as their competitors. And therefore, there is a certain reluctance to locking in the freight over longer periods.

So typically, there are 1-year contracts, but there are options to extend those contracts into the future. But a few contracts have a clear duration longer than 1-year. And that connects to competition between the producers. But then again, some of these -- not some, many of those contracts that are with us have been with us for decades. So there is a kind of an interdependence on this logistics chain.

One more question there.

This is [indiscernible] from DNB Carnegie. Rates are obviously, strong in a historical context, but still far below the '23-'24 highs. And despite sort of swing tonnage being at the historical low levels that you pointed out during our presentation. What do you really see as the missing part for the market to really spark to the upside at the current state?

What are the...

What's sort of the missing part in the market to really spark rates back to '23-'24 levels?

I would say that what I'm missing today is the spillover effect from crude and CPP into chemical tankers. I'm surprised that we haven't seen that spillover already when you see the crackdown on the shadow fleet and the effects that has had on the large tanker vessels.

And then you could say that -- well, the swing tonnage is so long. So there are not any swing vessels left to swing over. But then there would be an expectation that the kind of the most suitable chemical tankers would start to swing into CPP. So I think in a way, what we are waiting for is the effect of this significant impact that we see on the large tanker vessels.

And also, I could also add to that, that there is a certain imbalance in how the chemical tanker fleet is distributed around the world right now. You see that there has been an upswing in west of Suez, and that is, of course, because there is less tonnage available west of Suez.

And then due to all the noise from the tariffs and geopolitics and so on, we've seen an increase of tonnage east of Suez and that is having an impact, particularly on the exports out of the Middle East.

Okay. Any other questions? No. Then that concludes our Q&A, and thank you for coming here today, and thank you for everyone listening online.

Absolutely. Thank you for coming. That is very much appreciated. Thank you.

Good morning to all of you and welcome to this presentation of Odfjell's third quarter results. We will follow a standard agenda for this presentation. I will take you through the highlights. My colleague, Terje Iversen, will present our financial performance. And then I will conclude this presentation by an operational review and a market update and prospects. If we then turn to the highlights.

We once again delivered a strong safety performance in our third quarter, we had high operational performance and we also saw no significant incidents during the quarter. We are delivering robust financial results and this is in line with what we saw in the second quarter. Our total volumes were slightly up in the third quarter. We saw our Contract of Affreightment volumes going up and we now have a contract percentage of approximately 56%. At the same time, we also saw that the spot rates continued to decline during the third quarter. Our time charter earnings ended at $173 million and this compares to $174 million in the previous quarter.

The time charter earnings per day was $28,174. This is slightly down from the previous quarter, which ended at $30,306. We delivered an EBIT of $59 million. This is very much in line with what we saw in the second quarter. Our quarterly net result was $43 million. Adjusted for one-off items, we ended at $42 million, which is again in line with what we saw in the second quarter. The net result contribution from Odfjell Terminals was $2.6 million. This is slightly up from the $1.9 million that we saw in the second quarter. And finally, our carbon intensity. The AER for our controlled fleet remained at 6.8 and this is equal to the record low achievement that we reported after the second quarter.

This concludes the highlights and then I give the words to Terje, which will take you through the financials.

Thank you, Harald, and good morning to all of you. I will, as usual, start with the income statement this quarter. Starting with the time charter earnings. That decreased with USD 1 million compared to first quarter, ended at USD 173 million so very much in line with the preceding quarter. However, looking behind the figures, we saw that the time charter earnings per day was around 7% lower while we also saw that the freight rate we achieved in the quarter was very stable to the previous quarter.

So the reason we are able to maintain the time charter earnings in total in line with second quarter is that we increased the number of commercial days in this quarter both with new vessels and also with fewer off-hire days than we had in the second quarter. Time charter expenses ended at USD 8 million, up from $4.1 million. Operating expenses was slightly down to $50.6 million compared to $52.9 million in the second quarter. Main reason being that we had less dry-docking activity this quarter and also we had 1 vessel that left the fleet during the quarter.

Share of net results from joint ventures being our Terminal investments was USD 2.6 million, up from $1.9 million in the second quarter. That gives us an EBITDA of $97.3 million compared to $98.4 million in the second quarter. Depreciation and amortization, $39.3 million, quite the same figure that we saw in the second quarter. Then we achieved a small capital gain on the sale of Bow Fagus in this quarter, which was sold for recycling at USD 1.1 million leaving us with an EBIT of USD 59 million compared to $58.6 million in the second quarter.

Net interest expenses ended at $15.5 million compared to $16.4 million. And after other financial items and taxes, we then delivered a net result of $42.8 million, an increase compared to second quarter with $40.1 million and that gave us an earnings per share of $0.54 in this quarter. Adjusting for nonrecurring items, being other financial items this quarter, we then delivered a net result of $42 million in this quarter.

Looking at the time charter earnings per day compared to cash breakeven. As Harald mentioned, time charter earnings per day ended at $28,174, down from $30,306 in the previous quarter. We saw also an improvement in cash breakeven per day, which ended at USD 22,054 this quarter compared to $23,791 in the second quarter bringing our 12 months rolling average cash breakeven to $23,307. Decrease in cash breakeven was due to more commercial revenue days and also, as I mentioned, less dry-docking activity this quarter. Going forward, we expect cash breakeven to remain stable around this level in the coming quarter.

Looking at the balance sheet. We took delivery of Bow Gemini this quarter, which previously was a bareboat vessel. That was already included in the balance sheet as right of use assets. And we also sold, as I mentioned, Bow Fagus for recycling for USD 10 million leaving us with a ships and newbuilding contracts book value at USD 1.3 billion end of third quarter. Right of use assets ended at $229.6 million, decreased due to the acquisition of Bow Gemini, which I mentioned was previously classified as right of use of assets.

Investments in associates and joint ventures ended at $173 million, down from $181 million despite a positive result from the JVs. However, we took out dividend from the U.S. terminal of USD 9.1 million this quarter, which then was transferred to the group. Cash and cash equivalents ended at USD 136 million. If you include undrawn loan facilities, we have then available liquidity of around USD 306 million per end of third quarter. Equity increased with around USD 1 million corresponding to the total comprehensive income in the quarter and less the dividend USD 38 million that we paid out on the back of the first half result this year, which was then paid in September.

Noncurrent interest-bearing debt increased slightly and that is related to the acquisition of Bow Gemini, which I mentioned. That was fully financed by bank debt when we took delivery. Looking at the cash flow. Operating cash flow ended at USD 67 million compared to $109.2 million in the second quarter. The reason for decline, I would say that is that we had really strong operational cash flow in the second quarter with a quite substantial decrease in the working capital in the second quarter where we saw a more normalized working capital this quarter leaving us with a cash flow from operation at $67 million, which is very much in line with the first quarter this year.

Looking at cash flow from investing activities, we see that we have included a sale from Bow Fagus with USD 10 million and then we have invested in Bow Gemini and we also have done some dry-docking and invested in some of our assets, USD 43.7 million in total. And if we include the dividend from the terminals in the U.S., which is included in the $8.2 million, we are left then with a cash flow for investing activity of USD 25.5 million in the third quarter.

On the debt side, not that much happening this quarter, but we financed the acquisition of Bow Gemini and we also paid dividend of USD 38 million as mentioned. And that is summarized then with the net cash flow from financing activities of USD 37 million this quarter. So if we include investing activities and operational activities, we are then increasing the cash this quarter with USD 5 million. Looking at the free cash flow on a quarterly basis the last 12 quarters. As I mentioned, we saw the operating cash flow this quarter was $67.4 million, a decrease of $41.8 million compared to previous quarter.

The decline was, as I mentioned, primarily driven by increase in the working capital or more normalization of the working capital this quarter. While we saw cash flow from investment was summarized to USD 25.5 million in this quarter. That leaves us with a free cash flow of USD 42 million in the third quarter. And looking at the 12 months rolling, we have a free cash flow of $41.6 million and if you adjust for repayment related to right of use assets, we reached USD 28.4 million in 12 months rolling average end of third quarter.

On the financing side, not much happening this quarter. This is showing the scheduled repayments in the coming quarters, including fourth quarter '27. We are showing here that we have some balloons in the fourth quarter this year, but that is actually what we have already repaid on revolving credit facilities. And then we have 2 loans that are maturing in first quarter and second quarter of '26 and we have already started refinancing of those vessels. And we are quite positive or optimistic with regard to what we are going to achieve in the market when it comes to both tenor, loan profile and also margin on this refinancing.

Looking at the total debt. We today have interest-bearing debt of USD 756 million. It's expected to decline somewhat through year-end to $709 million, but we also expect a slight increase next year due to delivery of the new vessels in 2026. Here we see that we have total CapEx and time charter commitments. Looking at the CapEx. We have, as mentioned, Bow Gemini which is the last operating lease vessel where we have declared purchase options being delivered, expected to be taken ownership in first quarter next year. Also the purchase option for that is very much below the current market values.

And we expect to obtain financing around the full purchase amount for that vessel. The vessel is already included in the balance sheet as current debt right of use assets so we did not include it to impact the total asset on our balance sheet. And in addition to that, we have also 2 newbuildings on order for own account. So if we summarize CapEx commitments, we are around USD 122.8 million per end of third quarter. Looking at the time charter vessels. We have 18 newbuildings that are going to be delivered from first quarter '26 until 2028; 10 of those will be delivered in 2026, 7 in '27 and 1 in 2028. Here we're showing the total expected time charter payments for these 18 vessels, that is USD 1.1 million, same figure as we have shown before. And total time charter payments on the 10 first vessels in 2026 will be USD 43 million.

However, when we take ownership of these vessels or enter into the contracts, the vessels are delivered, we have to account for the total time charter commitments or the bareboat element of these vessels and we are talking around USD 300 million then will be capitalized in 2026 for these around 10 newbuildings, which will be then booked as right of use assets and also debt related to right of use assets. These amounts stated here are more the total time charter commitments, including also the OpEx element. And as we have mentioned, these vessels, together with our newbuildings account for 14% of the current order book in our core segment.

Then I'll leave the word to Harald again.

Thank you, Terje. We follow on the agenda and I will take you through an operational review of the quarter that is behind you. I will start with the volumes. Once again we saw an increase in total volumes carried on board Odfjell vessels. This is the third consecutive quarter where we see volume increases. As Terje mentioned, we have started to take delivery of our newbuilding program and we did see a 7% increase in commercial revenue days during the quarter and that was compensated increase in revenue days was to some extent compensated by increase in volumes and we also saw relatively robust increase in our contract volumes.

Today, the contract coverage stands at 56% and we are now entering the renewal season for contracts. Only 3% of our contract volumes were renewed in the third quarter and those contracts were renewed more or less on rollover terms. If you look at earnings per day, as mentioned, we saw a 7% decline in average time charter earnings per day. This was mainly driven by the mentioned increase in commercial revenue days, which exceeded the mentioned volume growth. We saw a positive development in specialty chemicals, which is the core business of Odfjell.

We also saw an increase in the commodity chemicals, the large volume chemicals. We saw a flat development when it comes to vegetable oils. And finally, the last segment, clean products; here we saw a decline in volumes carried by Odfjell and we are now back to, what I will call, the normal influx of clean products on board of our ships. So all in all, we see an increase in our core activity, specialty and commodity chemicals; we see a flat development in bag oils; and we see a healthy decline when it comes to Odfjell vessels carrying clean products.

And then turning to sustainability. As mentioned, we are repeating the record low AER that we delivered in the second quarter. Once again we delivered an AER of 6.8. This is the lowest ever reported by Odfjell. And it's important to notice that when the second quarter is perhaps the best quarter when it comes to fuel consumption due to weather conditions, we are now back to the more normal weather conditions in the areas where we operate. It comes as no surprise that Odfjell was disappointed that the IMO Net-Zero Framework was not adopted in October. However, this will not deter Odfjell from continuing on our decarbonization pathway.

We will continue to invest in in decarbonization projects, we will continue to utilize biofuel to reduce our AER and we will continue to invest in a net zero future. Finally, one of those projects relates to the sale installation on our vessel Bow Olympus. We have reported on this vessel before. This vessel recently completed a westward transit of the Pacific. Here we saw a 16% reduction of our fuel consumption. This translates to 4 tonnes of fuel every day during that transit and this is not only good for the environment, it's also good for Odfjell's bottom line.

The Bow Olympus is now loading for the return voyage to the U.S. Gulf. She will commence that voyage in a week or 2. And normally, the eastward passage across the Pacific has more friendly wind direction. So we are very optimistic and eagerly waiting for that transit. Finally, Tank Terminals. The headline here is stability. We continue to deliver a stable performance. We had an occupancy rate slightly above 95%, which is marginally down from the second quarter. We saw an increase in inbound throughput of approximately 3% during the quarter.

And as a result of increased throughput and reduced expenses, we did see an improvement of our EBITDA of approximately USD 1 million compared to the second quarter. However, we still have one-off items at holding level that are negatively impacting the consolidated EBITDA and net results of our Terminal division. The outlook for the division is stable similar underlying performance also in the last quarter of this year. We continue to develop our terminals. We are constructing the so-called Tankpit-Q at the North Sea terminal in Antwerp.

This expansion project will be completed towards the end of the fourth quarter and that will add approximately 12,000 cubic meters of capacity to our Antwerp terminal. We also have a large expansion project going on in Ulsan in Korea at our OTK terminal, the so-called E5 expansion project. Here we are constructing almost 90,000 cubic meters of capacity and that project will be completed towards the end of next year. In total, we therefore have close to 100,000 cubic meters of capacity under construction at our terminals.

It's also worth mentioning that we are refurbishing both our jetties at the Ulsan terminal, OTK. When those refurbishment projects are completed, that will significantly improve the flexibility of that terminal. And finally, it's important to notice that all our CapEx related to the terminals is funded locally within the respective joint ventures. So by that, I turn to a market update and prospects going forward. Starting with the freight rate development, you will see that West of Suez we have seen a flattening of the rates. The decline that we have seen over the past 12 months have come to a stop and we now see a relatively flat development.

We anticipate that some of the reason for this development is the consequence of the tariff negotiations and also the proposed port fees both in the U.S. and in China. As a consequence of these negotiations and the port fees, we have seen that some of the chemical tanker capacity has gradually moved from the Western Hemisphere and over to the Eastern Hemisphere. And the reduction of available tonnage in the Western Hemisphere has had a stabilizing effect on the freight rates in this region.

Then if we look at the situation East of Suez, we've seen that there has been a decline in freight rates during the quarter and that is, in our opinion, the effect of more tonnage moving from West of Suez to East of Suez and the surplus of tonnage East of Suez has put a pressure on chemical freight rates in that region. Overall, it's important to notice that despite the recent reductions in freight rates, we are still significantly above the levels that we saw before the end of 2022 where rates were at relatively depressed levels. So even if we have had a freight rate reduction over the past 12 months, we are still significantly above the levels that we saw before the end of 2022.

And then to swing tonnage. If you look at the graph on your left hand side, you will see that the MR earnings have been in a positive trajectory already since the end of 2024 and they are now at relatively robust levels. This has had an impact on the swing tonnage meaning MRs that are carrying liquid chemicals. The situation is still that we see a relatively comfortable level of MRs swinging into our segment. And we also have to take into consideration that many of the MRs are 100% employed in the chemicals segment. That also goes for Odfjell.

As an example, we have 6 MRs that are continuously trading in chemicals. And that implies that we will never see that the influx of swing tonnage becomes 0, but we believe that we are now close to the lowest level that can be achieved. Finally, the order book now stands at 22% of the existing fleet. The reason for the change from the second quarter is mainly that previously entered into newbuilding contracts have now been registered in the various systems. So there has been relatively few new orders during the third quarter. The main reason for the change is that orders entered into before are now also registered in our system.

The majority of the order book is still related to the medium stainless steel segment while we have a relatively modest increase for super segregators and for all practical purpose, a net zero when it comes to large stainless steel. When it comes to our outlook, we still see that volumes are resilient. We still see that despite the geopolitical uncertainty and tariff negotiations, we still see that we have relatively solid volumes out there. We do see that IMF has revised GDP growth expectations upward once again and we also see that there are indications that the tariff negotiations between the U.S. and China have a slightly reduced risk compared to what we saw 1 and 2 quarters ago.

We were expecting global seaborne chemical trade volumes to see a slight decrease in 2025. This has not been the fact so far and now we are expecting a flat development when it comes to this year's volume. We also see that we have higher oil production. We see that India is shifting towards non-Russian oil and this is, as we all know, supporting the VLCC segment. We have seen a spillover to the CPP segment. And historically, an upswing in crude and CPP have historically had a spillover effect also over some time into the chemical tanker segment. As mentioned, we believe that the swing tonnage will remain low for the rest of this year.

So to summarize the demand outlook; we see a stable development when it comes to chemical trade, we see a small uptick when it comes to GDP growth and we see a stable development when it comes to the tariff effects on our markets. There is an upswing when it comes to the chemical tanker fleet and we do believe that swing tonnage will remain at existing levels. So to summarize this presentation, we did deliver a robust financial result in the third quarter, which was very much in line with what we delivered in the second quarter. Time charter earnings were stable while the average time charter earnings per day saw a decline of 7%.

We saw an increase in volumes. That was particularly driven by an increase in our contract volumes. And we also saw an increase of commercial revenue days of approximately 7%. This was yet another quarter where we had few contract renewals. Those that we had were renewed more or less at rollover terms and we are now entering into the renewal season, which will last until the end of first quarter next year. On the terminal side, we still deliver solid underlying financial results. These were this quarter supported by moderate revenue growth and also slightly lower operating expenses.

We do have one-off items at the holding level, which are negatively impacting the consolidated EBITDA and our net results on the terminal side. Market outlook. We have put a seasonally slower season behind us and we do see some upticks in activity in our markets. We do see positive effects from the increased OPEC production and we do expect that swing tonnage will remain at moderate and low levels. And by that, we expect the fourth quarter financial results to be more or less in line with what we saw in the third quarter.

So that concludes our presentation and we now turn to the Q&A and then I welcome Nils and Terje back.

And just for our listeners and viewers out there, you can still use the question button on the webcast to post any questions as we proceed with the Q&A. We have some questions that have come in. I think the first one will go to you, Harald, and it relates to we recently saw that the U.S. and China port fees were postponed for now. And the question is how does this impact Odfjell?

Yes, that is correct and I briefly touched upon that when I gave an update on the freight rate development. Odfjell was exempted or chemical tankers where chemical tankers operated by Western operators were exempted from the U.S. port fees. So the U.S. port fees did not have a direct effect on Odfjell's operations. Then we saw the introduction of China port fees. Those port fees were mainly aimed at U.S. controlled tonnage and we were also not affected directly by the Chinese suggested port fees.

Having said that, there are plenty of other operators that are in some way or another impacted by those port fees. As I explained in earlier today, this has an impact on how the total world chemical tanker fleet is distributed. And by that, we have seen a change where the overall tendency is that more vessels are East of Suez and less vessels are West of Suez. So no direct impact, but yes, a considerable indirect impact.

Okay. And then we have 1 question concerning cash breakeven so that goes to you, Terje. The cash breakeven came down somewhat this quarter. How do you see the development going forward?

The reason we saw the cash breakeven coming down this quarter was due to several factors. One was that we had more revenue days. We also had a decrease in both OpEx and G&A and we had less dry-docking activities. So this was a kind of a good quarter when it comes to cash breakeven. We are guiding that we expect stable cash breakeven when we are looking at the 12 months rolling. We expect that to be stable in the coming quarter.

But going further into next year, we will see an increase in number of vessels that we have discussed, 10 new vessels being delivered. So we will have more revenue days and that should lead to a lower cash breakeven going forward. We have a long-term target to reach USD 21,000 per day. Whether we reach that in '26 or not, I will not be specific about, but we will still continue to target that USD 21,000 per day in cash breakeven.

Okay. The next question on my list here is it's of a geopolitical nature I would say. So back to you, Harald. And it concerns the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. So the question is how would Odfjell be affected by a potential reopening of transits through the Red Sea and the Suez?

My anticipation is that the effect on the chemical tanker segment will not be that significant. There are estimates indicating that an opening of the Red Sea will add some 1.5% to 2% capacity to the market. And I think if the Red Sea is opening, then that is a positive sign for the world economy. So I think that the reopening of the Red Sea will not have a significant impact on Odfjell's earnings. Right now the Red Sea is closed and we have not so far at any point considered to reenter the Red Sea and we will continue to have that attitude until we see that there are major changes in the security situation in that area.

Okay. And I believe that was the final question. So yes.

Thank you for following this presentation. Thank you for the attention. And I welcome you back to our fourth quarter presentation early February next year. Thanks a lot for joining us today.