Okeanis Eco Tankers Stock

Welcome to OET's Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Presentation. We will begin shortly. Aristidis Alafouzos, CEO; and Iraklis Sbarounis, CFO of Okeanis Eco Tankers, will take you through the presentation. They will be pleased to address any questions raised at the end of the call.

Matters that are forward-looking in nature will be discussed, and actual results may differ from the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements. Please read through the relevant disclaimer on Slide 2. I would like to advise you that this session is being recorded.

Aristidis will begin the presentation now.

Thank you for taking the time to join our Q2 2026 call. Q2 was the strongest quarter in our history, and the first half of 2026 was also the strongest 6 months period since our inception. Adjusted EPS was $5.91 for the quarter and $8.28 for the first half of the year. Iraklis will take you through the financial results in detail shortly. I want to thank the whole OET team as well as Kyklades for amazing work this quarter, which allowed us to achieve these results.

During the period, we also completed the delivery of the 4 Suezmax vessels acquired through our 2 equity raises. With Nissos Tigani delivered in May and Nissos Vous in July, our 18-vessel fleet is now fully delivered. The second half of this year has similarly fantastic prospects, and the team here is focused on continuing to deliver.

I will now hand over to Iraklis.

Thank you, Aristidis. I'm pleased to go through our second quarter earnings, a quarter that has been a record in our history, starting with Slide 4. We achieved fleet-wide time charter equivalent of about $181,000 per vessel per day. That's $214,000 per day on our spot and $188,000 on operating VLCC days and $175,000 on our Suezmax operating days, all being spot. We report adjusted EBITDA of $252 million, adjusted net profit of $231 million and adjusted EPS of $5.91.

Our Board declared the 17th consecutive quarterly dividend of $5.25 per share. This represents almost 90% of our reported and adjusted net income. This is by far the highest quarterly dividend amount since the company's inception and equals the total dividends paid over the previous 5 quarters together. Including this one, over the last 4 quarters, we have distributed $9.55 per share or 90% of our reported net income for the period.

Since our last update in May, we have taken delivery of our 2 remaining Suezmax resale acquisitions, the Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous.

Moving on to Slide 5. Since our IPO in Oslo, we have distributed approximately 3.5x our initial market cap with over $780 million paid in dividends. Since we have had a fully delivered fleet in 2022, we have paid out 90% of our reported net income, clearly demonstrating our commitment to distributing value to our shareholders.

On Slide 6, we show the detail of our income statement for the quarter and the first half of the year. TCE revenue for the first 6 months stood at over $400 million. EBITDA was $362 million and net income was about $320 million or $8.28 per share.

Moving on to Slide 7 and our balance sheet. At quarter end, we had $248 million of cash. That includes about $35 million earmarked for a portion of the equity for the acquisition of Nissos Vous, which was delivered to us a few days later in early July. Our restricted cash figures as of June 30 include an amount of approximately $17 million we have deposited on short term under certain of our loan facilities, which have the feature that reduced the interest paid, providing a better return than what we would have achieved placing those funds under our time deposit rates for that amount at that time. We may roll forward such cash characterized as restricted or a different amount on a short-term basis depending on our cash flow needs and applicable rates.

Our balance sheet debt was $722 million, reflecting the drawdown for the acquisition of the Nissos Tigani in May. Our book leverage stands at 35%, while our market-adjusted net LTV basis latest broker values and pro forma for the acquisitions and recent transactions and end of quarter cash balance is now below 25%.

On Slide 8, looking at our fleet, I'm pleased to now fully reflect the addition of our most recently acquired modern and high-specced vessels. With the delivery of the Nissos Tigani on May 29 and that of the Nissos Vous on July 8, we now have a total of 18 vessels on the water, 8 modern eco scrubber-fitted Suezmaxes -- 10 modern eco scrubber-fitted Suezmaxes and 8 modern eco scrubber-fitted VLCCs with an average age of only 5.6 years. As a reminder, from a CapEx perspective, our only dry dock for 2026 is that of the Milos 10-year survey, which is currently expected to take place in the next couple of months.

Slide 9, moving on to our capital structure. With all the financings I updated you on in May now effective, the financing for the delivery of the Tigani and Vous and the refinancing of our legacy leases of the Nissos Rhenia and Nissos Despotiko, we have now reduced our weighted average margin to 1.47%. That's an improvement of over 200 basis points since we commenced our refinancing exercise in 2023.

On Slide 10, with a little over half a year past since the delivery of the first 2 Suezmax resale vessels, the Nissos Piperi and Nissos Serifopoula, we wanted to take the opportunity and reflect on those transactions. We look at this from a value creation perspective, and we see 3 pillars that contribute. The first, we have talked about before. We financed the acquisitions with competitive bank debt on one hand and highly accretive equity on the other, having done an equity placement at approximately 30% above our NAV at the time. That implied a benefit or arbitrage in a way against the acquisition cost of the vessels of approximately $12 million in each vessel or $24 million on aggregate.

The second pillar and maybe the most important, the vessels in approximately 7 months are estimated to have generated a combined free cash flow of about $43 million. This is realized one-for-one derisking of the investment. Out of approximately $104 million in equity invested in these 2 vessels, $52 million each, we have already got back 41% of that by trading them in this market, $25 million on the Piperi and $18 million on the Serifopoula.

The third, yes, unrealized, but with a direct impact in our NAV and subsequently our stock price and indicative of the opportune timing of these transactions. We bought those vessels at $97 million each, while latest asset value estimates marked them at over $120 million each. That's over 25% uplift on an enterprise value basis and over 50% uplift against our rate, all that in a little over half a year.

Adding these 3 elements for both vessels gets to $121 million of value creation just from the Nissos Piperi and Nissos Serifopoula. I'm very eager to update this slide in a couple of quarters when the Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous will also have traded for a few months to reflect on the overall transaction across all 4 vessels.

I will now turn it to Aristidis for the commercial market update.

Thank you, Iraklis. Slide 12 shows the commercial performance that drove the record financial results we have just discussed. Fleet-wide TCE for the quarter was $181,200 per day. Our spot VLCCs earned $213,600 per day, while our Suezmaxes earned $174,900 per day. Including the Nissos Nikouria time charter at $90,000 per day and the freight compensation earned by Nissos Keros while waiting to resume her voyage through the Hormuz, total VLCC earnings were $187,700 per day with fleet utilization at 99%. This quarter was, to a large extent, the realization of commercial decisions made during the first quarter.

On the VLCC side, we secured long-haul voyages into the East at premium levels during the strongest part of the market in the frenzy right after the war began. Three vessels were employed on long-haul Eastern voyages, while repeating trading patterns and limited ballast legs allowed us to convert exceptional headline rates into exceptional realized earnings. We also were able to capitalize on the Saudi diversion of crude exports to Yanbu and the ensuing market spike that caused.

The Suezmax market was also extremely active. Oil traders were competing for cargoes in the Atlantic Basin, which allowed us to maintain very limited waiting time and execute consecutive voyages across the Mediterranean and other preferred Western trading areas. The shorter voyage duration of the Suezmax fleet gave us repeated exposure to a rapidly strengthening market and enabled us to compound the benefit of the rate environment. We also took delivery of Nissos Tigani during the quarter and repositioned her quickly to participate in the strong Eastern market.

Nissos Piperi and Nissos Serifopoula contributed for the full quarter, demonstrating, as Iraklis went over on the previous slide, how quickly the vessels acquired through our first equity raise were integrated into our operating platform. It is important to emphasize that this was not the result of one fortunate fixture. It was a cumulative effect of positioning, voyage selection, triangulation, minimizing ballast time and maintaining vessel availability. The rates were extraordinary, but operational execution is what converted those rates into earnings. So as previously, we need to thank our technical manager, Kyklades, who have allowed us to operate so well in these challenging times.

Turning to our Q3 guidance. The numbers remain exceptionally strong. We have fixed 48% of our VLCC spot days at approximately $207,000 per day and 42% of our Suezmax spot days at $133,000 per day. Across the fleet, the fixed spot portion stands at $166,500 per day on 681 days. We also have 92 time charter days at $90,000 per day, while approximately 52% of total fleet days remain open. For a quarter that is normally softer, these are remarkable levels. They also demonstrate that Q2 is not simply an isolated earnings event. The market has remained highly volatile, and the volatility has continued to create attractive commercial opportunities for our fleet.

On the VLCCs, discharge positions developed in the East at a time when available AG capacity remained constrained. We were able to secure AG employment for 2 vessels at premium to prevailing market conditions. We continue to balance the attraction of locking in long-haul earnings against the value of retaining prompt exposure to a market that can move very quickly.

On the Suezmaxes, we have maintained a broad Western presence across the Black Sea, Mediterranean and West Africa. This gives us access to several trading markets and allows us to pursue triangulation opportunities while reducing ballast and waiting time. The Milos is also scheduled to undergo dry dock around the end of September, beginning of October, depending on the exact timing of our trading program and yard availability.

Finally, we also took delivery of Nissos Vous on July 8, the final vessel in our series of 4 Suezmax acquisitions. We, therefore, entered Q3 with the entire 18-vessel fleet on the water and contributing earning days. There is a meaningful portion of the quarter to fix, which is both an opportunity and a risk for us. We cannot predict every market move. Our aim is to preserve optionality, remain disciplined and position the fleet so they can -- we can quickly respond as cargo flows and vessel availability change.

As said before, the tanker market was exceptionally strong in Q2 and was available to all owners. Based on the peers that have reported so far, our spot earnings were approximately 50% above the peer average on the VLCCs and approximately 60% above the peer average on the Suezmaxes. I look forward to seeing how this adjusts over the next reporting period. In a market at these levels, commercial outperformance becomes very meaningful in absolute dollar terms. A relatively modest daily difference multiplied across our spot days and the size of our fleet translates directly into substantial incremental cash flow and earnings per share.

This quarter reinforces the point we have made consistently since 2019. The value of OET lies not only in our exposure to the crude cycle, but also in the combination of our fleet and a highly skilled operating platform positioned to capitalize on market opportunities.

Slide 15 addresses the order book, which is clearly one of the principal questions facing the tanker market today. We should not ignore it. The VLCC order book has reached approximately 32% of the existing fleet, while the Suezmax order book is approximately 30%. Those are high headline numbers, and they represent a genuine medium-term supply consideration. However, the timing and composition of the order book matter. Only a small portion is scheduled to deliver in '26. The largest delivery years are concentrated in '28 and '29. The immediate supply response is, therefore, much more limited than the headline order book percentages imply.

At the same time, the existing fleet continues to age, as we mentioned every quarter. Age alone, though, does not force a vessel to leave the market, but it increasingly affects charter acceptance, maintenance requirements, financing, regulatory compliance and vessel trading efficiency. A substantial portion of the older fleet is operating in sanctioned or less transparent trades and is not interchangeable with a complete -- compliant fleet competing for mainstream cargoes.

Our conclusion is not that the order book is irrelevant. It is that a near-term effect is tempered by the delivery schedule and by the aging and fragmentation of the existing fleet. For OET, the key point is that our fleet is now fully delivered, has an average age of approximately 5.5 years and is designed to remain highly competitive across a range of market environments.

The final commercial slide brings together the geopolitical and fundamental forces currently shaping the market. We are seeing simultaneous pressures across the 3 of the world's most important energy arteries, the Hormuz, the Red Sea and the Black Sea. The combination is unprecedented in the modern tanker market. The situation remains fluid and conditions can change very quickly.

Hormuz transits were recovering under the June memorandum of understanding, but the recovery remains fragile and highly sensitive because of the renewed escalation and have reduced since June. In the Black Sea, attacks on tankers and export infrastructure continues to disrupt loadings and create inefficiencies. In the Red Sea, the threat of renewed attacks is pushing more traffic away from the Red Sea and around the Cape of Good Hope, adding distance and further inefficiency to global trade. For example, a VLCC voyage could be double the duration than it was if it was exiting from the BeM Strait.

The oil balance is also important. The IEA currently expects 2026 supply to decline by approximately 3.7 million barrels per day compared with a demand decline of approximately 1 million barrels per day. In other words, supply has fallen almost 4x faster than demand. Since the onset of the conflict, inventories have drawn by approximately 3.8 million barrels per day on average.

For tankers, the key dynamic has been volumes down, but distance is up. Atlantic to Asia trades now represent approximately 35% of VLCC liftings compared with only around 22% before the conflict. A voyage from the U.S. Gulf to China is approximately 2.6x the distance of the Arabian Gulf to China. With only around 7.4 million barrels per day of pipeline rerouting capacity available, a meaningful portion of the Middle East exports shortfall can only be replaced by long-haul barrels.

Looking further ahead, the expected normalization of Gulf output and increase in OPEC+ production during the 2027 period should allow inventories to be rebuilt. The estimates reflected on this page are approximately 1.8 million barrels per day of crude supply would be required over roughly half a year -- 1.5 years to rebuild stocks. That inventory build translates directly into tanker demand. So the shape of the opportunity may change, but the underlying message remains supportive.

Current disruption creates inefficiencies and longer ton-miles, while eventual normalization creates a substantial restocking need. Our focus at OET is to position our fleet to respond across a range of outcomes and to try to maximize shareholder returns.

To conclude, and as I said at the beginning, this was the strongest quarter and strongest first half of our history. We have returned a record amount to our shareholders, completed the delivery of our expanded fleet and entered the second half with substantial earnings visibility and flexibility. I hope by the end of the year, we can have returned over $1 billion to shareholders since our inception in 2018.

I will now hand it back to the moderator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question comes from the line of Even Kolsgaard with Clarksons Securities AS.

So my first question is on the market in general. So last quarter, you had quite a good analysis on what would happen in different scenarios when it comes to the closure of Strait of Hormuz. And it's basically closed again. I was just wondering how you think about how a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz could look like this time? And if you think there will be any differences compared to last time? And with that in mind, how do you position your fleet today for a potential reopening?

Thank you for your question. Well, I think that we had a pretty good example of how the reopening would work from the previous time in June. I think one difference that we'll see is that in June, some of the more independent oil companies went to lift cargoes for this traditional AG to Far East type run which is difficult because of the open-and-shut nature of the Hormuz and the dangers and risk for crossing it. So I think what we'll likely see when it reopens -- if it reopens again is that we'll continue to see the more national oil companies and larger oil traders use shuttling services to shuttle crude from inside the AG to right outside of Fujairah. And then the normal mainstream fleet can go and lift cargoes from the ships in Fujairah.

And I think the current market is a lot like the middle example we gave in our last quarter where the Hormuz has some oil coming out. I mean there's definitely oil exiting. The Kuwaitis, the Iraqis, the Qataris and the Emiratis principally are moving oil and shuttling it out. The Saudis also have found this export path through Yanbu. So it's definitely not as closed as it was at the beginning of the war.

So there is significant oil being exported, but it's inefficient because of the shuttling. The Saudi's crude being exported is even more inefficient than it was because instead of going to Yanbu and out of the Red Sea, it has to be shuttled up to Egypt and into the pipeline and through the Suez and then all the way around Africa. And that's why we see continued strong demand for Atlantic crudes on the VLCCs, which is why that portion of VLCC liftings is so much higher than it was before the war started. So all these together are creating excellent ton-mile effects for the Vs.

And then just more on the strategy. So we are seeing that other owners are taking on more time charter coverage and some are also selling more modern tonnage, while you have been largely spot exposed until now and basically 100% spot and it's risk on still. So how do you think about the spot market going forward versus the current time charter rates? And how do you compare that towards the current asset values?

Look, I think we fixed the time charter rate at $90,000 in February. And it was a huge mistake. I mean, we probably -- we've earned just as much on that one ship in less than 6 months -- on one of our spot ships in less than 6 months, than we will have earned on her in a whole year. And I think that goes for every single other VLCC owner who's mistakenly fixed their ships on TCEs because the earnings are so high now that even if you do a 1- or 2- or 3-year time charter, when you're earning $200,000 a day or $150,000 a day for 3 quarters, it just -- what you need to earn for the balance period becomes 0 or negative potentially.

So I think that from our perspective for OET, there's no interest at the moment to fix any more time charters. We're very happy with the coverage we have in the short term on the VLCC -- sorry, we're very happy with the spot exposure we have on the VLCC fleet.

In terms of asset sales, we're lucky because some of the companies that we have been seen selling ships are also renewing their fleet. So they're selling some of the older ships and they have newer ships coming in or other companies that have been selling VLCCs, their core fleet composition isn't tankers or they might be funding other sectors that they have on the order book. So I think many owners are doing TCEs and the sales are case by case and depends on each company. But for us, we see a lot of continued upside to this market, and we don't want to reduce our exposure in terms of the number of vessels or number of spot trading vessels.

Your next question comes from the line of Liam Burke with B. Riley Securities.

Can we talk about the Atlantic Basin? And I know you touched on normalization, and I'm sure that's -- we're not sure when that's going to happen. But there are a couple of things. With increased production out of the Atlantic Basin and the lifting of sanctions in Venezuela, do you see longer-term lift for Suezmax rates?

Liam, thank you for your question. Look, the Suezmax is a very versatile asset. So anything that will be traded in the shorter haul will be optimized onto Suezmax. So for sure, a lot of Venezuelan flows will move on Suezmaxes. The same is West Africa, Black Sea, Guyana and U.S. Gulf when the cargoes are staying shorter haul. But if the cargoes are -- and the arbs, fuel, the crude oil arbs make sense for the cargo to be transported long distance, you'll see that these cargoes make much more economic sense on VLCCs.

So for sure that the lifting of sanctions has been very positive on the Suezmax market in Venezuela as well as the increased production from Guyana as well as the SPR as well as a factor of other -- a number of other factors. But yes, I think that definitely the Suezmax is buoyed by Venezuelan exports.

Great. Aristidis, 90% dividend payout. You've opportunistically reinvested in the fleet, and that's seeing the benefit in terms of asset appreciation. Does it stay the course on the capital structure? Or do you see opportunity to pay down debt faster? Or are you just going to amortize it in a normal -- as it matures?

No, absolutely, we stay the course. We will continue with our strategy to distribute as much as possible. No intention to accelerate paying down debt. We feel pretty comfortable with where we are. It has amortized naturally over quarter-on-quarter. And we think that our leverage position is actually a competitive advantage that we have into such a positive market to be able to crystallize that value to our shareholders. So yes, we stay the course.

Your next question comes from the line of Oliver Dunvold with ABG Sundal Collier.

On Suezmax rates, there has been some pressure over the last couple of days. TD20 is now around $70,000 per day. Do you have any market insight explaining this move? And is this the level we should expect to see for the remainder of Q3?

Oliver, look, I think -- thank you for your question, Oliver. And it's an interesting question as well because TD20 is, let's say, it's one of the more global Suezmax routes that wherever a Suezmax is can usually fix a TD20 cargo. And this creates a problem when the Hormuz is closed and when there's fewer cargoes in the East because as the Suezmaxes do go east on their way back, they don't have any cargoes to take from the Arabian Gulf or from Fujairah. So this forces them to look to West Africa.

And when you're sailing back, the West Africa TD20 run is a backhaul effectively. And that will allow the owner to be quite competitive in order to find the cargo off his dates because he's just looking to get that cargo loaded as efficiently as possible and quickly and then go discharge it so he can be back in position. So I think TD20 is negatively impacted by being a place that ballasters are so exposed to. And this is very different than the U.S. Gulf or Mediterranean or Black Sea cargoes on Suezmaxes. So I would say that that's one reason that TD20 has been underperforming at the moment.

I also think that with what happened in CPC in Novorossiysk terminal and the attacks on some ships, a lot of ships, a lot of owners were a bit worried about fixing their vessels from there, and they decided to divert instead to other cargoes, and that made them go down to West Africa is an alternative. So there was like quite a prompt oversupply of ships looking for a new business. And those are 2 reasons. I'm actually quite bullish on TD20. I think that we'll see -- it's probably bottomed about now, and we'll see it moving back upwards in the next couple of days.

Your next question comes from the line of Fredrik Dybwad with Fearnleys.

Congratulations, guys with an incredible quarter. You're doing a great job. So hats off for that. I just saw some reports today about 2 VLCCs of yours being fixed inside of the AG, the Despotiko and Keros. Could you provide some details about that, if you're able?

Sure. I mean, generally, we don't comment on individual fixtures, but we haven't done any of that business at the moment. You're a spot broker today, I guess, looking for -- to make a position list.

Your next question comes from the line of Climent Molins with Value Investor's Edge.

I wanted to follow up on the question on Suezmaxes. A week ago, you disclosed that the Nissos Sifnos was targeted while unloading crude at the CPC terminal. I'm not sure the amount of color you can provide on this, but any updates on the state of the vessel? And secondly, any color you can provide on how this may have affected your willingness to continue calling the CPC terminal?

Sure. Thank you for the question, Climent. The vessel sailed from her -- from CPC after she completed loading, and she's in Turkey now for some inspections. And she will go and complete her voyages after some quick temporary repairs. And then following the discharge, she might have to come back for some further repairs in Turkey, which we don't expect to take very long.

Look, I think the issue with CPC is very complex and political. CPC is a terminal that is -- it's a joint venture, but Chevron and Exxon are big equity holders in that terminal. And the crude from CPC is a critical part of the European oil refining and process. So in the medium term and even in the short term, CPC cannot be a market that's not available to Europe. And with partners who are involved in the CPC trades like Exxon and Chevron and their interest to keep this cargo flowing as well as the government of Kazakhstan, who are the producers of the oil, the Europeans, even more importantly, the Americans, I'm almost positive that a solution will be found to protect the exports of the CPC blend from that terminal. And I think that over time, owners will find comfort that this crude is safe to load.

But for sure, it's a difficult time for vessels to go there, for the crews to go there. It's dangerous. Luckily, we didn't have any injuries on our ships. And I think most of the ships that have been attacked over the past few weeks have also avoided injuries, and that's something we're thankful for. But it's a critical export and the flow will have to go on.

And I mean, hopefully, there will be owners who are willing to go there because CPC is a very strict terminal that you need to fixed with Exxon and Chevron and a bunch of other oil majors who have very strict policies. This is not in no way a shadow fleet. This is one of the most demanding quality trades in the business. So I hope security can be found, so these flows can continue because they're critical for Europe.

That's very helpful. I also wanted to follow up on Liam's question on capital allocation. Working capital has increased meaningfully quarter-over-quarter on the back of the higher rates. Did this have an impact on the Board's decision on the dividend? And should we expect you to revert to, let's say, the $50 million cash raised down the road as working capital balances normalize?

Yes, Climent. It's Iraklis here. Thanks for the question. You're spot on in the sense that working capital movements and receivables balances quarter-on-quarter have had a significant fluctuation in the past period. This is mostly reflective of significantly increased rates. So long as the market continues to be like that, I expect that we will have similar types of working capital movements every quarter.

Now in terms of how that impacts our liquidity position, et cetera, obviously, to a very significant extent, such receivables are typically collected. We capture -- our balance sheet is reflective of that particular date. But typically, we are usually able to collect such receivables relatively shortly after this quarter end. We've even seen elevated figures towards year-end and then everything is collected in the first 10 days of January. So from a liquidity perspective, this isn't something that concerns me. But of course, we are monitoring it.

In terms of cash balance, I think that the $60 million cash balances that we have had in the past were also impacted by working capital movements. I would be expecting that for a fleet of even back then of 14 vessels, but certainly now of 18 vessels, a more steady cash balance at slightly higher levels would be prudent to address such working capital movements. But of course, we continue to monitor. Having said all of that, I think we have been quite consistent. And as I have explained to Liam earlier in his earlier question, our policy is maintained to be to distribute value to shareholders as much as possible. So we take all of this into account every quarter. But then we continue to pay out as much as possible. And I think that our track record has been supportive of all this.

Congratulations for the quarter.

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Iraklis Sbarounis, CFO, for closing remarks.

Thank you. Yes, thanks, everyone, for joining. We look forward to touching base again in November for the Q3 results. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Welcome to OET's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Presentation. We will begin shortly. Aristidis Alafouzos, CEO; and Iraklis Sbarounis, CFO of Okeanis Eco Tankers, will take you through the presentation. We will be pleased to address any questions raised at the end of the call. Matters that are forward-looking in nature will be discussed, and actual results may differ from the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements. Please read through the relevant disclaimer on Slide 2. I would like to advise you that this session is being recorded.

Aristidis will begin the presentation now.

Thank you for taking the time to join our Q1 2026 call. Q1 was a record quarter for our company. And Q1 plus Q2 combined will be stronger than any previous year in our company's history. In fact, the potential distributions tied to this half year are approaching our original listing price in 2018. It definitely was and is an exciting, stressful, challenging and demanding quarter. This cumulative pressure surely overshadowed the pleasure of earning so much for our shareholders, which is regrettable. Q1 began with a sell-off in freight into mid-January, where the market turned by the continued exquisite fundamentals, Venezuela reopening, India diversifying imports and most importantly, the extremely rapid consolidation of the VLCC market by Sinokor-Aponte joint venture. This strength continued until February 28, where the war in Iran began and set off a 2-, 3-, 4-week period of unprecedented strength in the tanker market overall.

Following this explosive and unbelievable period, the market found a balance at extremely elevated rates where the loss of cargo from Hormuz closure is offset by ton miles, inefficiencies, vessels trapped inside and vessels outside waiting for the Hormuz to reopen. Earlier this week, there were over 55 VLCCs in ballast waiting outside the high-risk area for a potential reopening. This doesn't include vessels waiting around Sri Lanka, off India, Singapore and the Sinokor fleet.

Values and time charter rates have also seen consistent and profound strengthening throughout the quarter. We are in a period of record income and the anchoring bias on values, freight time charter rates 20 years ago doesn't hold anymore. The market needs to recognize this. What is the natural ceiling where rates and values can go? Internally at OET and looking at Q2, one of our greatest challenges going forward is keeping tonnage available for the immediate exposure to a Hormuz reopening while optimizing our performance.

I hand you over to Iraklis to go through the financials.

Thanks, Aristidis. Let's have a look at this record quarter. We achieved fleet-wide time charter equivalent of about $93,000 per vessel per day. That's $106,000 per day on our spot and $104,000 on all operating VLCC days and $82,000 on our Suezmax operating days all being spot. We report adjusted EBITDA of $110 million, adjusted net profit of $89 million and adjusted EPS of $2.33. This is based on our average share count for the quarter. Our Board declared a 16th consecutive quarterly dividend of $2 per share. This represents 88% of our reported net income on our current fully diluted share count post our January equity transaction. This is the highest quarterly dividend amount since the company's inception, although I assume everyone is already modeling our second quarter.

Over the last 4 quarters, we have distributed $5 per share or 96% of our reported net income for the period. In January, we executed another successful and accretive equity raise of $130 million in gross proceeds against [Audio Gap]

On Slide 5. Since our IPO in Oslo, we have distributed approximately 2.5x our initial market cap with over $550 million paid in dividends. Since we have had a fully delivered fleet in 2022, we have paid out 91% of our reported net income, clearly demonstrating our commitment to distributing value to our shareholders.

Slide 6, we show the detail of our income statement for the quarter. TCE revenue stood at $132.2 million [Audio Gap]. At quarter end, we had $176.5 million of cash that included a portion of the equity earmarked for the acquisition of the Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous. We also had almost $80 million in trade receivables. Our restricted cash figure as of March 31 includes an amount of $45 million we have deposited on short term against one of our loan facilities, which has the feature thlegacy sale at it reduces the interest paid to just 0.5% all-in.

On a net basis, providing a better return than what we can achieve under our time deposit rates. We may roll forward such cash characterized as restricted or a different amount on a short-term basis, depending on our cash flow needs and applicable rates. Our balance sheet debt was $683 million. Our book leverage stands at 41%, while our market-adjusted net LTV basis latest broker values and pro forma for the acquisitions and recent transactions is now just over 30%.

On Slide 8, looking at our fleet. I'm pleased to show the addition of our most recently acquired modern and high-spec vessels. We have a total of 16 vessels on the water, 8 Suezmaxes and 8 VLCCs with an average age of only 6 years, which will further improve once we get delivery shortly of the Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous currently under construction in South Korea. As a reminder, from a maintenance CapEx perspective, our only dry dock for 2026 is that of the Milos 10-year survey.

Slide 9, moving on to our capital structure. This is a quarterly update that I have been personally looking forward to for a while. We recently announced 3 new financings for 4 vessels as follows. We purchased back from its sale and leaseback and refinanced the Nissos Rhenia with a new $50 million bank loan maturing in 7 years, priced at SOFR plus 125 basis points. This transaction closed last week. We will purchase back from its sale and leaseback and refinance the Nissos Despotiko with another $50 million bank loan maturing in 9 years, priced at SOFR plus 130 basis points. This transaction is expected to close in early June.

We have also signed a $90 million bank loan for the Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous maturing in 8 years, priced at SOFR plus 120 basis points. The Tigani will close in a couple of weeks and the Vous in early July. We have taken advantage of the very competitive financing market and our financiers appetite to transact with us. Our most recent transactions have demonstrated the relationships and track record we have developed in 2 key banking markets for us in Greece and in Taiwan. We now have staggered maturities all the way through 2035, extremely attractive pricing, and we have finally put behind us all our legacy sale-leasebacks.

On Slide 10, we look at our pricing on a vessel by vessel. All our loans are now priced below 2% with a weighted average margin of 1.47%. That's an improvement of more than 200 basis points compared to where we were prior to the LIBOR to SOFR transition in mid-2023. On a consolidated debt of over $750 million, that's pro forma for the upcoming drawdowns, that's an impact of more than $15 million a year, straight into the bottom line. Quarter-on-quarter for a while, we have been seeing the material improvement into our interest expense, and starting in Q3 of this year, when all this will have concluded, we expect to see the full effect.

We're extremely happy with where we are today. But of course, by nature, we continuously monitor the market for opportunities that may further optimize our structure, trying to improve one or all aspects of our debt structure, whether it's pricing, tenure, amortization profile or other terms that might add flexibility and agility.

I will now turn it back to Aristidis for the commercial market update.

Thank you, Iraklis, and great job on the refis. Now as I said during the intro, Q1 was a record quarter for the company. Amazing fundamentals, Venezuela reopening, the consolidation of the VLCC market and likely the biggest shock to oil trading in the past 50 years, all converged in the same 3 months. We concluded fixtures in Q1, mostly realized in Q2 that we could never have previously found, absolutely remarkable. Fleet-wide TCE came in at $93,100 per day with $106,400 on our spot VLCCs and $81,600 on the Suezmaxes, and we achieved perfect utilization across the fleet.

One commercial mistake I want to flag was fixing the Nissos Nikouria for 1 year at a net rate of $90,000 per day. With hindsight, the market gave us much more spot market values. Separately, the Nissos Keros is currently stuck inside the AG, and we haven't added an additional line for her in the table. She is being compensated on a commercially agreed rate while she waits to get out. We took delivery of the Nissos Piperi and Nissos Serifopoula also in this quarter. The market was so firm that we're able to fix -- we were able to fix cargoes from West Africa on our first voyages and get them into our trading patterns. But the ballast voyage from Korea to West Africa was far longer than the laden, which did negatively impact our Suezmax earnings.

On the Suezmaxes, we focused on trading the ships in the Atlantic Basin. We did not fix any vessels into the East and kept the voyages shorter while focusing on optimization in our preferred trades. On the VLCCs, early in the quarter, we committed to longer voyages to lock in higher earnings, balancing with some shorter voyage in the East to keep our fixing exposure intact within the quarter. The strategy is what ultimately led to Keros being trapped inside the Hormuz, but the same strategy is what set up the Q2 numbers. Comparing our Q1 against the peers who have already reported, we are at 28.5% higher on our VLCCs and 20% higher on our Suezmaxes.

Looking at our guidance for Q2, I believe it is likely that our Q2 earnings will be larger than any previous year's annual earnings. And whether that holds up on Q2 alone or not, Q1 and Q2 certainly combined will be. As of today, 56% of our available VLCC spot days are fixed at $223,900 per day and 60% of our Suezmax days at $187,300 per day, giving us a fleet-wide average of about $202,900 per day on the fixed portion, roughly half of the quarter. Comparing Q2 against our peers with reported earnings, we are about 45% higher on our VLCCs and 24% higher on our Suezmaxes.

We were in the lucky position of having significant exposure right around the spike in mid-March for voyages that were affected in Q2. We're able to fix 2 ships load in Yanbu with huge rates, and we fixed the Nissos Despotiko on the long-haul voyage right at the top of the market. On the Suezmax side, the short trading pattern allowed us to do multiple runs into a rapidly appreciating market. Some of the fixtures concluded those weeks were frankly unbelievable. One additional Suezmax newbuilding, the Nissos Tigani is scheduled for delivery during the quarter, which will further reinforce our exposure and give us exposure to a potential Hormuz reopening later this quarter.

Moving on to Slide 14. We reuse this slide every quarter, and I'm very proud of it, almost as proud as Iraklis on his refinancing slide. We had a gain quarter-on-quarter of over $25 million just on our commercial outperformance. I hope an analyst or TradeWinds picks this up. But if our fleet earned the average of our peers who have reported in Q1, our EPS would be over $0.65 less. Since Q4 2019, we have generated approximately $256 million of cumulative outperformance versus our peers.

On Slide 15, I take 2 things away from this chart. Firstly, we have had consistently elevated earnings going back to September of last year. That underpins the fundamental strength of the current market, a strength that predates the geopolitical shock and has only amplified by it. And secondly, the consistent strength of the market following the loss of the AG barrels. The message of this chart is that the disruption created a spike, but the underlying market has held level. To frame the scale of this, roughly 14.9 million barrels per day of crude exports and around 35% of global crude ton miles normally transit to Hormuz. This is the largest single point shock the tanker market has ever absorbed. The well-known effects are visible on this page, extended ton miles, vessels trapped inside the AG and the redirection of Saudi and UAE volumes from Yanbu and the Sea of Oman, which has been the single biggest mitigating factor since the closure.

But I want to highlight one of the factors that I think is underappreciated by the market, the number of VLCCs waiting outside the AG for potential reopening. Earlier this week, we counted 55 VLCCs in ballast sitting outside the high-risk area hoping for the reopening. And the figure does not include, as I mentioned earlier, vessels positioning further afield like Sri Lanka, off India, Singapore or the Sinokor fleet. When you put it all together, 63 VLCCs trapped inside the AG, over 55 waiting outside of the AG and roughly 36 holding at Yanbu, this is 155 VLCCs effectively removed from spot supply. On a global VLCC fleet of 920 vessels, that is approximately 17% of the worldwide fleet, either trapped or waiting.

If we assume the compliant fleet is around 700 vessels, and this is what affects us, that jumps to 22%. That is a massive restriction on compliant supply and is very supportive of freight. One more dynamic to note. In recent weeks, previously, we have seen reduced interest from Asian buyers for Atlantic barrels, which, in my view, reflects an expectation of the Hormuz reopening. The longer that reopening is delayed, the more those Asian buyers will be forced back into the market, from the Atlantic, which we are seeing this week, which would tighten supply further and push rates higher again.

Now looking forward, on Slide 17, we lay out three scenarios we see for how it resolves. I want to be clear upfront. We do not take a view on the macro conditions deteriorating. Our scenarios are about the shape of the Hormuz outcome and not about the demand side. All three paths are supportive tankers. What changes between them is the timing, the shape and the duration of this strength. Before I walk through them, the key number to anchor is that the pre-destruction Hormuz exports were around 14.9 million barrels per day. The total pipeline rerouting capacity is only around 7.4 million barrels per day. That leaves a structural shortfall of about 7.5 million barrels per day, which we can only clear via long-haul ton miles by sea. That gap is what underwrites the demand backdrop in every scenario.

Scenario 1, continued closure. Pipeline rerouting stays maxed out. Asian inventories continue to drink, Western barrels reroute to Asia and the trapped tonnage inside the AG persists. The result is long-haul ton miles maximized and the compliant fleet supply is structurally constrained. The only meaningful risk in this path is demand destruction if it drags on for too long. Scenario 2, partial reopening. Iraqi exports ramp up and others as well. There's roughly 3.1 million barrels per day of capacity that could come back relatively quickly. Floating storage gradually releases into the market and the Yanbu and Fujairah rerouting continue at capacity. There are less Western barrels flowing east, but vessel repositioning will affect supply due to vessel repositioning. The whole scenario depends on transit normalization holding.

Scenario 3, full reopening. Middle East exports normalize over, let's say, about 3 months. And importantly, that is the same dynamic we saw with Venezuela. Any national oil company-linked sanctioned tonnage might find its way back, but the broader fleet stays isolated. On top of that, you would see Asian and SPR restocking demand coming through. There is an initial spike as oil storage drains and restocking provides a ton-mile tail and supported demand and returning supply moderates rates over the medium term, supportive. We assume that cargoes will only be lifted on conventional vessels.

On Slide 18, beyond the Hormuz dynamic and directly linked to the current situation is another structural tailwind sitting in plain sight inventories. OECD commercial inventories have been drawing and are sitting well below the 5-year range as you see on the right-hand side of the graph, and to this, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Inventory builds translate directly into tanker demand, which we read as positive.

Slide 19, the order book, a topic that is starting to become relevant and it was a few quarters ago. Yes, the order book is up. VLCCs stand at 27.5% of the fleet. Suezmax is at 28.5%, although about 3.3 percentage points of the Suezmax number is shuttle tankers. On the face of it, that is a large number, and I understand the reflex. There is an old saying in shipping that given enough time in a good market, owners will find a way to shoot themselves in the foot by over-ordering. And I will be first to admit historically the saying has not been wrong. But I would argue the cycle is slightly different. And the reason is on the right-hand side of the page and is supported by the next page as well, where we dive a little bit deeper into the actual numbers.

Even today, in '26, 48% of the global VLCC fleet is over the age of 15, 22% is over 20. By 2030, those numbers grow to 61% over 15, and 41% over 20. The Suezmax picture is essentially the same. Now if you also have a shadow or dark fleet, which sits within the higher bracket of the above, we know for certainty that most of the vessels will never come back. When you take those vessels out of the supply equation altogether, and we should because they're not competing for the same cargoes as we are, the compliant supply picture gets meaningfully tighter. So yes, the order book is up, but the aging fleet plus the dark fleet isolation gives you, in my view, a structurally tight compliant market for the next couple of years. The numbers on the next slide make this clear.

Slide 20 takes the point I just made and puts it into absolute numbers, which I think is the cleanest way to see it. On the VLCCs, fleet of 919 vessels today, order book of 250. By 2028, cumulative deliveries, including what has already arrived year-to-date, gets you to 184 vessels. But over the same period, 265 vessels will be over 15 years old, while 124 will be over 20 and 90 will be over 25. By 2030, you have 250 cumulative deliveries against 375 vessels over 15, and 180 20-plus. Put simply, 250 deliveries chasing a retirement queue of 375 ships. The order book doesn't catch the aging fleet.

On the Suezmaxes, the same story. By 2030, 204 deliveries against 274 vessels over the age of 20. That is the structurally tightness I was describing about in the previous slide in absolute numbers. So to tie the above altogether. On the demand side, we have the Hormuz ton-mile reset, inventory restocking ahead, plus all the fundamentals that existed prior to the Hormuz situation. On the supply side, we have a record order book that still does not catch a wave of vessels reaching the end of their useful life. Both sides of the equation point towards the right.

Now I'll pass it to the moderator for the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Kristoffer Barth Skeie with Arctic.

Congrats on a record Q2 bookings, really impressive. It has been quite right to keep the fleet open. But what we see now is that term rates are sort of creeping back up again now. And you see 1-year TCE on VLCCs around 120. So my question now is more on commercial strategy. Would you be keen to add more coverage, given that your targeted quite right in 2020 would be interesting to get your take on it.

Kristoffer, thank you for your question. I mean we even mentioned on the call the mistake of fixing the Nikouria on the $90,000 per year. So I think at this point, the time charter market isn't that interesting for us. And especially given the reopening of the Hormuz and how aggressively the rates can go up in that case, it will probably just one voyage at those rates, it will outperform even in a moderated spot environment afterwards any 1-year time charter. But just to add some more color to your question, we're also seeing significant increase in longer-term charter rates on all sizes. And I think the VLCC market for 3 years should be closer to the 70,000 mark.

Your next question comes from the line of Liam Burke with B. Riley Securities.

Can we go back to your scenario 3 of a post-Strait of Hormuz opening? Would you anticipate whenever more normal times occur that there'll be more demand out of the Atlantic because buyers of crude would like to diversify away from the Mid East? And what would that mean for the demand on the Suezmax side?

Sorry, Liam, can you repeat your question? It came in a bit muffled.

Okay, sure. Post -- at scenario 3, you discussed a where the Strait of Hormuz is completely reopened. What I was asking was, is there a situation where buyers of crude would want to diversify away from the Mid East, even with an open strait and buy more out of the Atlantic and what that would mean for the Suezmax understanding the low order book relative to the age of the fleet?

Thank you, Liam. I got the question now. It's a good question. And I think the -- we've also speaking to some refiners and charters but -- and reading news in the media. It's obvious that some of the Asian countries that have a very high reliance on AG crude will need to diversify going forward. And like, for example, the Japanese have 90% of their crude imports from the AG. That will have to meaningfully come down. And it may come from imports from West Africa or Brazil or the U.S. Gulf. So I think at the beginning, at least of the Hormuz reopening, everyone will buy whatever crude they can get their hands on. But then as we move into more of the medium term where there is like more strategic and medium-term approach towards buying crude, they're going to start diversifying their purchases.

Now in terms of the Suezmaxes, -- all this reopening and this diversification of crude purchases for strategic geopolitical reasons create inefficiencies. And the Suezmax is often a very versatile vessel that does well when the market is inefficient. And there's trading patterns that are less accustomed to, and people need options and there's different ports. So I think that generally, on a relative basis over the past 5 years, we've been able to outperform the VLCCs on our Suezmaxes. And I do think that the Suezmaxes will still be very strong assets going forward compared to both the larger and smaller crude tankers.

Great. And then just quickly, your operating cash flow was -- should probably be stronger in the second quarter. And I know you're taking 2 deliveries of 2 Suezmaxes later in the year. But post delivery, your capital allocation, I presume, is going to remain the same with the priority on returning cash to shareholders? Or is there any thought about accelerating debt reduction?

Liam, it's Iraklis. Absolutely, our capital allocation policy will remain the same. We have been committed to distributing out as much as possible within the constraints of our capital structure, of course. As we have explained in the past, it's not possible for us to maintain 100% of our EPS distribution given our capital structure and cash flow, but we aspire to increase that as much as possible, and we have been averaging around 90% for a while. Obviously, we have added already 2 Suezmaxes at the beginning of the year. We're going to be adding a couple more over the next few weeks or through the middle of the summer. So our fleet has expanded a bit, and that should be reflected in how we approach our capital structure and balance sheet. But having said that, we will, of course, continue to distribute as much as possible.

Yes. And this has -- I mean, as a company, we're very comfortable with our LTV -- and if anything, it's probably on the lower side, but we're very comfortable with that. And we prefer, given our comfort to return our profits to shareholders directly rather than paying down debt in advance of the normal repayment schedule.

The next question comes from the line of Even Kolsgaard with Clarksons Securities.

So my first question is about your second quarter bookings. Obviously, super strong. But if you look at -- if I look at your fleet today, you can see that most of them are actually -- or almost all of them, if you look at the fleet are now open. So could you give us some color on the number of days for the remaining open days, get a sense of how the second quarter could come?

Yes, it's Iraklis. Sorry, a part of your question was a bit muffled. I think you inquired about our Q2 guidance and the impact, I guess, of how our bookings are recorded into our books and the impact of ballast days. Is that right?

Yes, that's right.

Okay. Perfect. Sure. So yes, as we have explained in the past, given our accounting policies, revenue recognition has an impact when we look at cutoff days between quarters. Rest assured that, obviously, when something is not booked in the previous quarter, we obviously pass it on and recognize in the following quarter. And we have seen in the past certain instances where this came into play. And that was also the case a little bit with our Suezmaxes in Q1 with certain fixtures that came in late in the quarter. For Q2, it's a little bit early to be able to have visibility on the ballast days of the quarter. We still have 1.5 months ahead of us -- so depending on how the vessels trade, there may be some impact. But obviously, if you look at it from a TCE perspective, this gets averaged out.

Yes, that makes sense. And another one, which you touched upon briefly. So where do you want to position your fleet at the moment? And if you do see a reopening of or when you see a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz? Do you then want to, or do you want to take a risk and wait and see for when that opens? Or do you rather want to trade in the Atlantic until you are certain that the Strait of Hormuz is open?

Sorry, again, it's a bit muffled. Your question is whether we want to trade in the Hormuz if it reopened?

As a rule, do you want to take the risk and wait outside the Hormuz at the moment? Or do you prefer to just stay away until it actually is open?

No. Look, that's a good question. And if you take -- I mean one thing, just to give you some numerical examples, if you open -- if one of our VLCCs opens in Singapore today, and we ballast to the AG and we wait a whole month and we fix TD3 voyage, so AG to China and where the futures are pricing, I guess those would be July days. The vessel would earn $300,000 a day. I assume if you wait an extra 60 days, you'd earn $200,000 a day, a bit less. So clearly, at least where the future, the FFA market is pricing the AG reopening, the market is going to be extremely firm. Just -- I mean, the way that we kind of thought about it is that, if you usually fix cargoes from the AG 3 weeks ahead, and there's around 160 cargoes a month recently, that's about 110 cargoes in the -- over 3 weeks.

So usually, a cargo will fix 3 weeks ahead, like I said. But today is day 0 and 3 weeks is day 21, you need to cover for 110 cargoes. So I think all these ships that are sitting outside will be absorbed very, very quickly. And that doesn't even include whatever production -- or not production, but whatever exports can be increased because of crude sitting in storage. So I think the immediate reopening will see a huge like sucking of whatever prompt tonnage is available in the area. So I mean, you need to be a bit careful because, okay, the future market might be wrong, it could be a little bit lower or it could stay closed for a lot longer. But the 30 days waiting to do a TD3 and earning $300,000, while the market today on the cargoes that we're looking at are between 120,000 and 150,000 is a big difference. I think we've seen companies like Sinokor who are willing to just take the risk and look for the maximum upside and just wait on some ships as a general chartering strategy as a company.

We've been a bit more pragmatic and looking to find the optimal cargoes that we like and not have too much waiting. So we need to do a bit of a combination. I mean we made a bit of a matrix internally, and we want to make sure that we have ships, there are at least a ship every week that could be in the area to do an AG cargo. But I think it would be quite risky just to park everything outside of the AG and wait. And then Iraklis would start yelling at me because we wouldn't recognize any income for the rest of Q2. So we have like a huge Q3, but the Q2 actuals will come off a bit.

Even will be asking questions about it, but that's okay.

So we're balanced. I mean we're going to try to make sure we don't lose all our exposure to reopening on any given date, but we can't just sit everything off there and be completely risk on. The other good thing is that we have a Suezmax that was fixed East, so she'll be open in the East in the next month. And we also have the 2 newbuildings, which will be delivering end of May. So that's like mid- late June date for the AG and the other one is July. So we have 3 Suezmax in our whole VLCC fleet that will have exposure to the reopening at some point in the next few months. So I think we're in a relatively good position on the bigger ships.

Your next question comes from the line of Climent Molins with Value Investor's Edge.

Most has already been covered, but I wanted to ask you about the G&A for the quarter. I'm guessing there was an impact due to the offering to acquire the last 2 Suezmaxes as well as for bonuses. But where do you see the run rate for Q2 and thereafter on a, let's say, normalized basis?

Yes. You're right. This is more a timing issue. We expect -- we currently expect to finish the year maybe slightly higher than last year, 10%, 15% higher, something like that. But obviously, from a timing perspective, Q1 has been much more heavy than the rest of the quarters. The rest of the quarters, I expect we will go back to the usual run rate and spread relatively evenly at the moment. Just keep in mind, we also face because quite a lot of our expenses, including G&A, are in euros. So exchange rates -- the volatility on exchange rates also plays a role.

Makes sense. And this one is just to confirm regarding the vessel trapped inside the AG, you showed 39 days fixed in Q2. Will the $74,000 per day be payable until it gets out?

Yes. I mean, under our commercial agreement, yes, we obviously have to show the number as of the latest information. And so long as it remains in, that's the number for now.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Iraklis for closing remarks.

Yes. Thanks, everyone, for dialing in. As you probably are, we're also looking forward to our next update in early August. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Welcome to OET's Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results Presentation. We will begin shortly. Aristidis Alafouzos, CEO; and Iraklis Sbarounis, CFO of Okeanis Eco Tankers, will take you through the presentation. They will be pleased to address any questions raised at the end of the call. Matters that are forward-looking in nature will be discussed, and actual results may differ from the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements. Please read through the relevant disclaimer on Slide 2. I would like to advise you that this session is being recorded. Aristidis will begin the presentation now.

Thank you. Since August of last year, the large crude tanker market entered the freight cycle that we've been waiting for and prepared for all these years. This is a unique opportunity to have exposure to a fleet that is on the water and able to capitalize today. For a shipping investor, on the water exposure is critical in the current circumstances. As our conviction strengthened after the summer, we executed 2 opportunistic transactions and acquired 4 resale Suezmax newbuildings from Korea. The first 2 have already delivered, one has loaded her first cargo and the other one is about to load, while the remaining 2 will be delivered in the next 2, 3 months.

We have already had a structurally strong freight market with strong asset values. But we added the Venezuelan barrels coming back to normal fleet and the new trade flows that creates, India materially reducing Russian imports, the Iranian question looming, and likely, most importantly, Synacor consolidating the VLCC market in a manner that has not been done before. They are currently owning and operating and waiting to be delivered a fleet of around 150 VLCCs.

As a result, our NAV has been consistently and rapidly increasing and our NAV premium attempting to continue to catch up, but it has somewhat compressed, especially given these absolutely unique fundamentals in our market. We currently have no additional opportunistic transactions in play. Our focus is clear, disciplined outperformance and maximizing shareholder returns through both dividends and sustainable share price appreciation. We will catch up later, and I'll hand you over to Ira right now.

Thanks, Aristidis. Let's dive into it. Starting on Slide 4 and the executive summary. I'm pleased to present the highlights of the fourth quarter of 2025. We achieved fleet-wide time charter equivalent of about $77,000 per vessel per day. Our VLCCs were at $92,000 and our Suezmaxes at $53,000. We report adjusted EBITDA of $79 million, adjusted net profit of $60 million and adjusted EPS of $1.78. This is basis our average share count for the quarter.

Continuing to deliver on our commitment to distribute value to our shareholders, our Board declared a 15th consecutive quarterly distribution in the form of a dividend of $1.55 per share. With visibility on very strong Q1 fixtures and our outlook on the market, that figure represents 102% of our net income, i.e. on our current fully diluted share count post our recent equity transactions. Total distributions over the last 4 quarters stand at $3.32 per share or approximately 95% of our reported net income for the period.

In November, we executed a successful and accretive equity raise of $115 million in gross proceeds against the acquisition of the Nissos Piperi and Nissos Serifopoula that were delivered by the yard in early January. This quarter, we did another similar transaction, bringing the total amount of gross proceeds raised to $245 million, acquiring at the same time, another 2 recent Suezmaxes, which are expected to be delivered to us in the second quarter.

Moving on to Slide 5. Since our IPO in Oslo, we have distributed over 2x our initial market cap with over $461 million in dividends paid. Since we have had a fully delivered fleet in 2022, we have paid out 92% of our reported net income, clearly demonstrating our commitment to distributing value to our shareholders.

On Slide 6, we show the detail of our income statement for the quarter and the full year 2025. TCE revenue for the year stood at $265.4 million. EBITDA was almost $204 million and reported net income was about $130 million or $3.77 per share.

Moving on to Slide 7 and our balance sheet. We ended the year with $122.5 million of cash. That included a portion of the equity earmarked for the acquisition of the Nissos Piperi and Nissos Serifopoula a couple of weeks after. We also had at the end of the year, approximately $85 million in trade receivables. Our balance sheet debt was $605 million, and we subsequently drew $90 million for the 2 Suezmaxes. Our book leverage stands at 46%, while our market adjusted net LTV basis latest broker values and pro forma for the acquisition and recent transactions is around 35% .

Slide 8, looking at our fleet. I'm pleased to show the addition of 4 modern and high-spec vessels. We have a total of 16 vessels on the water, 8 Suezmaxes and 8 VLCCs with an average age of only 6 years, which will further improve once we get delivered in Q2 of our 2 Suezmax resales currently under construction in South Korea. With the initial sequence of seeking of dry docks out of the way in Q4 of last year, our only dry dock for 2026 is that of the Milos 10-year survey.

Slide 9, moving on to our capital structure. I have been very pleased with how our capital structure has been shaping up with the recent refinancings and new financings for the recently acquired vessels. Our margin has improved by about 140 basis points with meaningful further reduction expected once we decide how to refinance the Nissos Rhenia and Nissos Despotiko. The Piperi and Serifopoula were financed by the Greek market at record terms at 130 basis points over SOFR for 7- and 8-year terms, respectively. The debt financing market continues to be open and extremely competitive for us as we're exploring our options for the 4 vessels in the second quarter.

Slide 10. We wanted to spend some time going through the 2 transactions we executed since our last quarterly update. In November, we raised $115 million at $35.5 per share, priced at roughly 1.25x our NAV at the time. In January, we followed with $130 million at $36 per share, priced at approximately 1.2x our NAV at the time. Both transactions were heavily oversubscribed executed a significant premium to NAV and were completed with third-party vessels locked on [indiscernible]. That combination is extremely rare. Very few companies, particularly in shipping, have been able to raise equity at a significant premium to NAV, secure modern tonnage, execute cleanly and immediately create value for shareholders, and we managed all 4.

And here's the most important one. Since those 2 raises, shareholders have generated more than 20% return plus dividends. That is not theoretical accretion, that is realized value. We view it as a very strong statement of our shareholder aligned capital allocation discipline. We do not raise equity to grow for growth's sake. We decided to raise equity when it is accretive. It lowers breakeven, it strengthens the balance sheet. It enhances per share value and increase company share trading liquidity. Both transactions met such parameters.

Slide 11, walking through the mechanics for the first transaction, vessel acquisition price was $97 million each. Imputed price taking into account the NAV arbitrage on the equity portion of the funding of the transaction implies $85.5 million. On the second transaction in January, vessel acquisition price $99.3 million. Imputed price after the NAV arbitrage implies $88.5 million. We effectively acquired recent vessels with [ promt ] delivery at the cost of a newbuild as a pure capital markets arbitrage. Above NAV [indiscernible] funded asset purchases at or below NAV, resulting in immediate NAV accretion.

But it didn't stop there. And as I briefly mentioned before, the raise has also increased free float and liquidity, expanded and diversified the shareholder base, strengthened capital markets credibility and reduced fleet-wide breakeven levels. And importantly, we executed while asset values were rising. So not only did we have -- did we buy accretively, we bought ahead of further appreciation. We consider this a textbook example of shareholder-friendly execution. Growth only makes sense when it improves per share economics, and that is the filter we apply. I will now pass over the presentation back to Aristidis for the commercial market update.

Thank you, Iraklis. Again, we had another great quarter. Q4 was a fantastic quarter with a consistent strong freight market and appreciating asset values. We positioned our fleet to take advantage of the seasonal strong quarter, and this year, it worked out for us quite well. The market dipped aggressively right after Christmas on the VLCCs, but we're lucky to have limited exposure during this brief window. Fleet-wide TCE came in around $76,700 per day with $92,000 on our VLCCs and 53,100 on the Suezmaxes. And we achieved 100% utilization across the fleet.

Q4 looked like it would be a strong quarter since August when rates in the spot market and future started moving in a period that is usually quiet. On the Suezmaxes, as usual, we tried to minimize waiting time, fix shorter voyages as the market was going up through the quarter and triangulate as best as possible. We were penalized by dry docking our 2 2020-built Suezmaxes in China. The freight rates to move out East were actually at a discount to the local Western voyages, while the backhauls were also below round trip economics.

We have a Suezmax requiring dry dock this year, and we are strongly considering putting her into dry dock in Turkey, which is slightly more expensive as a dry dock cost, but we'll be able to earn a lot more as we do not have to position her and reposition her outside of our preferred trading areas. On the VLCCs, we were quite pragmatic. On our Western positions, we fixed long voyages to go east and capture the front haul economics. And on the vessels in the East, we minimize waiting time to optimize time -- TCE, time charter equivalent, while also fixing a couple of backhauls when we're able to find the cargo offer dates and achieve a triangulated outperformance over the equivalent round voyage. The Nissos Rhenia was lucky to fix a voyage loading in the AG and discharging in the U.S. Gulf. Her next voyage had no ballast passage.

This was the first quarter where our VLCCs outperformed our Suezmaxes since Q2 2024. Q1 started with a bang. We already had an excellent structural setup in crude tankers. Then as the New Year's gift and Christmas gift as well, 2 developments reinforced the market. Venezuelan barrels returned exclusively to the compliant fleet and Synacor aggressively consolidating the VLCC market, controlling over 90 ships and now operating roughly 150 vessels. We will elaborate on both shortly. We think that our Q1 guidance is strong. We have very strong fixtures from Q4 flowing into Q1 and even stronger fixtures getting concluded in Q1. We fixed a 12-month charter at $91,140 on the Nissos Nikouria.

While I strongly believe our spot vessels will outperform this over this year, we still have another 15 to 17 spot ships, and we deemed it prudent. In addition, the previous batch of fixtures in the mid-70s were quite low, and we took the opportunity to set the bar higher, which has now been set even higher with multiple fixtures done at $100,000 per day for 12 months. At the moment, we do not have any interest to fix further ships on TCE. But with the volatility and rapidly appreciating market, this could change, even though we really like and want to continue our current spot exposure.

As of today, we have 67% of our VLCC spot days fixed at $104,200 per day and 64% of our Suezmax days fixed at $84,600 per day, giving us a fleet-wide average about $94,800 per day on the fixed portion, roughly 2/3 of the quarter. On the VLCCs, we fixed a combination of longer and shorter voyages in order to structure their next fixing -- cargo fixing windows. The Suezmaxes have also been performing wonderfully with many opportunities for them to earn over $100,000 a day. Take note that our Q1 guidance also includes repositioning our 2 newbuild vessels from South Korea into the West where we like to trade our ships. We secured crude cargoes on both vessels from West Africa, where now they're going to move up into our preferred areas.

CPC Black Sea volumes have resumed at full force as the SPM that was damaged earlier is back in use. This is a great support on the Suezmax market as we see around 40 cargoes a month from that port alone. While recently, we have seen these barrels also getting sold into the East, which has not been the case for months. This is very supportive ton miles as a vast majority of the flows usually go into Europe. Another large factor in the strength of the market and our earnings has been the Venezuela being back in the open market. But again, we'll talk about this signed for and sanctions in the following slides. We were able to capitalize on many opportunities in this quarter and look to do so going forward.

On Slide 15, apologies for the repetitive slide, and I'll keep this one brief. Since Q4 '19, we've generated approximately $235 million of cumulative outperformance versus our peers. So this is a 22% outperformance on RVs and 39% outperformance on our Suezmaxes over a 5.5-year period. This reflects consistent commercial execution, not just one strong quarter.

On the following slide, we look a little bit at the order book and the fleet structure. The order book has grown on the VLCCs since our Q4 report, but context matters. If we consider the 20-year mark is the end of the useful life of a normal fleet vessel, the fleet is declining year-by-year. We saw an interesting development of how a change in sanctions affects oil flows and shipping flows with Venezuela. Oil sanctions are lifted, flows resume in the normal market. The world's best traders and oil managers get involved in the trading and production.

What else do we see? That the ships that were sanctioned or engaged in this dark trade remain isolated. They will not be coming back to compete against us. As we look on the next weeks to Iran, is this how it plays out there. Eventually, when the Ukrainian conflict comes to an end, is that again the same pattern? I strongly believe that sanctioned and dark fleet tainted ships do not come back to the normal market. The only window potentially for some to return are those owned by national oil companies, whether it's the National Iranian Tanker Company or [indiscernible]. But this is a very small number in the overall dark fleet.

And looking at our fleet, we are sitting exactly where investors want to be. We have a young eco-designed, fully scrubber-fitted fleet and most importantly, in the water, earning today. In our opinion, what does the shipping investor want? Exposure and returns today. This is what OET delivers.

And now for the more exciting slides, we have over 20% of the fleet of large tankers sanctioned and even more engaged in the trade tainted but not yet sanctioned. Against all oil analysts and traders predictions, we do not have a massive oil blood in the market. What we see instead is an inability for sanctioned barrels to find a buyer and a lot of floating sanctioned cargoes. This inability has stretched the dark fleet, increased freight rates for them and forces them to absorb more tonnage, which further restricts the size of the normal fleet.

The result is simple, fewer ships available for the compliant market. That is structurally bullish. Against this, we have 3 main noncompliant trades, Venezuela, Iran and the non-price capped Russian business. Today, Venezuela is gone. The oil exporting from Venezuela is only on the normal fleet. Every single barrel from Venezuela is a cargo that wasn't around in 2025. This is extremely positive for tanker ton-mile demand as the market settles and the trade grows, it will become even more pronounced.

Another sign on the tightening enforcement of sanctions, which many respected oil and political analysts gathered was Trump's ability to impact oil flows, but he succeeded and India has materially decreased their purchases of Russian crude. So instead, we are seeing constant market quotes from the Arabian Gulf, from West Africa, from Brazil, from the U.S. Gulf and even flows from Venezuela. Again, every cargo from these places is a new cargo from the compliant fleet that's replacing the Russian crude.

And the final and most bullish part of our 3-slide tanker dream section is the massive unprecedented consolidation in the VLCC sector by a privately owned non-trader. Synacor has or will take control of over 85 ships since Christmas. Their total fleet footprint should be around 156 ships. This is just unbelievable. They control 17% of the total fleet, while almost 40% of the smaller part of the pie of the fleet which we actually compete with in the spot market.

They have been very effective at pushing up the market. Hats off and congratulations to Synacor for this. They have done the heavy lifting and let the rest of the market reap the rewards. The market must understand that this is a seismic shift and the biggest owner-operator of tonnage is not a charter or a state oil company. They are not trying to protect their own oil trading P&L. They're only trying to maximize freight for themselves.

Looking at utilization on Slide 22. When I started my career, a good friend and a highly respected broker, Chuck Monson, always told me that as you move forward -- as you move toward the high end of the utilization curve, rates don't increase linearly. They move exponentially. And that's exactly what this slide illustrates. When the market tightens at these levels, even a small shift in utilization can translate into a very meaningful move in earnings. With how fast the market has moved recently, I suspect that as we give this presentation, we are most likely out of the light blue box and perhaps one click to the right. This is precisely where modern, fully spot exposed fleets like ours benefit the most. And if this trajectory continues, I look forward to making our Q1 presentation even more exciting. Thank you for joining us today.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Even Kolsgaard with Clarksons Securities.

So you mentioned it yourself as well, but I'm interested in your take on the VLCC market versus the Suezmaxes because I think the market today is mostly focused on the VLCCs. The rates are good and you have the Synacor event. But as you mentioned, the VLCC market has finally begun to outperform the Suezmaxes reversing basically trend we've seen for the last few years. So how do you think about the Suezmax versus VLCC market going forward, both for earnings and values?

Even, thanks for your question. I mean, even in Q4 and potentially look -- I mean, at least through our guidance in Q1, on a dollar per metric ton or on a relative basis, the Suezmax is still outperforming the VLCC. So I mean, obviously, it's a cheaper ship, but the delta between price and earnings isn't still justified. So we think that the Suezmax is a really attractive asset. And as the VLCC market continues to tighten, and charters do their best to find ways to reduce the cost of transporting the oil from A to B. We think that the Suezmax will become a very versatile asset in order to do it. So we could -- I mean, there are some trades which will never make sense on the Suez instead of the VLCC or rarely.

And this is like the really long-haul business, U.S. Gulf to China or a lot of the AG business to China. But a lot of the voyages WAF med or backhauls and the shorter runs, Suezmaxes can easily jump in and find a lot of opportunities to do backhauls or nontraditional Suezmax cargoes, which we would consider like a triangulated bonus over the normal Suezmax market. So for this reason, we think that the strength in VLCCs will be equally beneficial to the Suezmaxes and for savvy owners can give them even more opportunities to creatively trade their ships in this market.

Got it. And just a follow-up. I guess you said you don't want to get take on any more time charter contracts at these rates. So you're pretty bullish towards the market. But when it comes to Synacor, it seems like they're bidding for VLCCs from basically every owner. Have you been tempted to sell some of your ships to Synacor?

In [indiscernible] And my personal view is that Synacor will be successful in what he's trying to achieve. So I think that the exposure to the spot market and in the future, potentially TCE market or sales market is what we want to have today. Now going forwards, once things continue to reprice higher, I can't tell you what's the best choice for us to do. But I think right now, there's a lot of upside left in what's happening in the market. And right now, we've seen rates move up 20 points, a little bit more this week. And I still feel like that's just the beginning of the current spike that we're entering. So at the moment, no, we haven't seriously considered selling our Okeanis vessels to Synacor.

Your next question comes from the line of Liam Burke with B. Riley.

You're generating a lot of cash at this level. You've got a nice hefty cash balance to support the acquisition of the 2 new Suezmaxes. Is your capital allocation strategy going to change from how it has been in the past?

It's here.

Liam, it's Iraklis here. I don't think it has changed. I mean it has been for some time, a key priority for us to distribute as much value as possible to shareholders. The transactions that we did were structured in a way where that was not jeopardized by any means. And this quarter and the distribution we're giving is indicative of such strategy. So not really, we're trying to give out as much as possible, and we're just focusing on extracting as much possible -- as much value as possible from the market to deliver that to shareholders.

Okay. Just a follow-on, on the market. In the prepared comments, the spot market is still continuing to move, I mean, exponentially at this point. But is there any thought to taking some money off the table and moving some vessel or more vessels to term charters?

Liam, we answered that during the presentation as well. At the moment, the answer is no. I think what we want is to have a vast majority of the fleet in the spot market, especially as we feel that there's a lot more upside to spot rates and to the charters and owners' expectations of spot rates over the next considerable period. So I think for now, we need to keep our ships in the spot market, so we have all the optionality we need. And then in a few months, we look at it again. But for the time being, the answer is clear no.

Your next question comes from the line of Fredrik Dybwad with Fearnley.

Congratulations with the strong results and strong bookings. I was just trying to circle a bit back to Synacor. I was a bit interested in hearing your take on how -- can you guys hear me?

Yes, you got cut off right when you're asking the question.

Okay. Okay. Yes, I was just circling back to the Synacor stuff. How -- interested in hearing your take about how in practical terms, how is he going to be able to corner the market as we know, he hasn't fixed that many ships yet, has fixed a couple. And then lastly, how long do you think that can last if he's successful?

I think that's a better question for Synacor then or [indiscernible]. I do see that his ships have been fixing. And I mean, I think that he has -- the company has stated where they think the market should be, and they will fix at those levels, and they've been very consistent with that. So I assume once rates get to the levels that they want, they'll fix some ships, they'll assess where the market is, and they'll continue to raise their expectations and put the rates higher and continue pushing this market higher. So I don't know. Again, the specific strategy of the company, and it's a question for Synacor.

Your next question comes from the line of Clement Moll with Value Investors Edge.

First of all, congratulations on the 2 accretive offerings you pursued in recent months. I wanted to start by asking about where you see your maximum fleet size, say, on VLCCs and on Suezmaxes, where you can still capture this kind of premium you've been able to realize in recent years?

Thank you for the question and being on the call. I think we answered it on a previous call as well that we would be comfortable for the fleet to continue to -- on a theoretical level, we'd be comfortable if the VLCC or Suezmax fleet was slightly larger, and we could still capture the same earnings. But what I can tell you for sure is that the fleet is the right size today for us to continue doing so. So it's not just about fleet size. It's also about the team and personnel and the technical manager. So it's -- there's many facets to how we hope -- how we have and hope to continue outperforming. But I can tell you that currently, our fleet size is perfect for us to keep doing so.

Makes sense. And this one is a bit more on the modeling side, but you mentioned you were thinking about potentially doing a dry docking in Turkey. Could you talk a bit about the delta between doing that in Turkey versus, say, in China?

Yes. I mean I think that depending on the type of paint specification you want and maybe you have an expectation of like $0.25 million to $0.5 million more expensive [indiscernible]. But in a strong market, you save way more of that by being able to keep your earnings higher and not repositioning all the way out there and all the way back. Some owners prefer to trade in the East. Historically, as a company, we've always -- we started off on smaller ships as well like before we were public on Aframaxes and our strongest relationships are in the West and with the more Western-based oil companies and traders.

So we really feel that this is the area that we can outperform. And if we have a ship that goes in the East for dry docking or she gets, a Suezmax gets an option declared out there, we never think, okay, let's trade in the East. It's always about bringing her back home into the West. And by dry docking in Turkey, we can avoid the whole positioning out there and repositioning her back. Now I think at times, this can be easier.

So let's say now like CPC Korea is $9.5 million in freight to go around the cape. So those are great earnings to position your ship out there. But the CPC volumes that I mentioned during our call aren't always flowing east. Sometimes they flow only into Europe. Now I assume that with Venezuela and all the knock-on effects of the Venezuelan oil and what places what and down the line, perhaps that has something to do with why we see more CPC going east. But it's not something consistent. And then you also have the issue of the backhaul. And before the war started -- before the war in Gaza started, the Suezmaxes would be easy to go through the Suez Canal as well.

And that was a way to have a backhaul that it was always at a discount to the front haul, but because you're going through the Suez Canal, it wasn't such a long voyage. Now being forced to go around the cape both ways, it becomes an extremely long voyage. So you kind of -- you lengthen those lower rate economics, which is something that we don't prefer for the next dry dock.

Yes. Makes sense. The opportunity cost is simply too high.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Iraklis for closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone, for attending this call. We look forward to touching base in May for our first quarter update.

Bye, everyone.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Welcome to OET's Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Presentation. We will begin shortly. Aristidis Alafouzos, CEO; and Iraklis Sbarounis, CFO of Okeanis Eco Tankers will take you through the presentation. They will be pleased to address any questions raised at the end of the call. I would like to advise you that this session is being recorded.

Iraklis will now begin the presentation.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the presentation of the earnings results of Okeanis Eco Tankers for the third quarter of 2025. We will discuss matters that are forward-looking in nature, and actual results may differ from the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements. Please read through the relevant disclaimer on Slide 2.

So starting on Slide 4 in the executive summary. I'm pleased to present the highlights of the third quarter of 2025. We achieved fleet-wide time charter equivalent of about $47,000 per vessel per day. Our VLCCs were almost at $46,000 and our Suezmaxes at $48,000. We report adjusted EBITDA of $45.2 million, adjusted net profit of $24.7 million and adjusted EPS of $0.77.

Continuing to deliver on our commitment to distribute value to our shareholders, our Board declared a 14th consecutive distribution in the form of a dividend of $0.75 per share. Total distributions over the last 4 quarters stand at $2.12 per share or approximately 90% of our [indiscernible]. Since the end of the quarter, we have declared the purchase options for our last sale and leaseback financings on the Nissos Rhenia and Nissos Despotiko, which will be delivered to us in the second quarter of next year.

Moving on to Slide 5. We have, over the years, stated our clear and strategic policy of distributing and maximizing value directly to our shareholders. Since we have had a fully delivered fleet in 2022, we have distributed over 90% of our adjusted EPS. Since our IPO in Norway in 2018, we have distributed approximately $435 million in dividends or 1.8x our initial market cap. This quarter, with visibility into very strong Q4 bookings as well as pictures that run into Q1 and our view on the current market dynamics, our Board decided to distribute 100% of our reported EPS at $0.75 per share.

On Slide 6, we show the detail of our income statement for the quarter and the 9-month period ending in September of 2025. TCE revenue for the 9 months stood at $172.5 million. EBITDA was almost $125 million and reported net income was over $63.5 million or almost $2 per share.

Moving on to Slide 7 and our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $58 million of cash and approximately $51 million of trade receivables on top. Our balance sheet debt was $617 million. Book leverage stands at 57%, while our market adjusted net LTV is around 40%.

On Slide 8, I'm taking the opportunity to go over one of our key competitive advantages, our fleet. We have a total of 14 vessels, 6 Suezmaxes and 8 VLCCs with an average age of only 6 years. That's the youngest fleet amongst listed crude tanker peers. All our vessels are built in South Korea and Japan, are scrubber-fitted and eco-designed. Our focus on modern assets is clearly paying off in our commercial performance. We have recently completed the dry dock of the Nissos Sifnos, while the Nissos Sikinos follows during the quarter. And I remind you that for 2026, the only capital expenditure we have is for 1 Suezmax, the 10-year dry dock of the Nissos.

Slide 9, moving on to our capital structure. At the end of the summer, we concluded the refinancing of the Nissos Sanafi with a Greek bank, completing the series of refis of our 3 Chinese leased vessels, all 3 at margins between 135 and 140 basis points. These transactions continued within the strategy we set when we commenced the cycle of improving pricing and breakevens, extending maturities and adding flexibility. Since 2023, our margin has improved by 155 basis points on the 12 refinanced vessels or 125 basis points across the entire fleet. That's a benefit of about $8 million of 1 year at our current debt levels or $1,500 per vessel per day across each vessel of our fleet.

As I mentioned earlier, we recently declared the purchase options for the Nissos Rhenia and Nissos Despotiko. The former is expected to be delivered to us in early May and the latter in early June of 2026. We have several options available to us at the moment on how to refinance those vessels, and we look forward to the opportunity to further improve our capital structure and breakeven levels.

As an illustration, we have calculated the imputed margin across all 14 vessels in the second half of next year, assuming we finance these 2 VLCCs at similar terms as the ones we have achieved in our recent refis, potentially bringing our fleet-wide average margin down to 160 basis points.

I will now pass the presentation to Aristidis for the commercial market update.

Thank you, Iraklis. Firstly, I would like to thank the whole OET team and the technical manager as this is a genuine team effort. These results are product of in-house management and Greek ship loving devotion. Q3 is traditionally the seasonal low point of the year. But once again, we were able to deliver very solid operational performance. Fleet-wide TCE came in at $46,600 per day with VLCCs at $45,500 and $48,200 on our Suezmaxes, and we achieved near perfect utilization across the fleet.

If we compare our earnings peers that have already reported Q3 results, our outperformance for the quarter stood at 30% for the VLCCs and 45% for the Suezmaxes. Our commercial strategy this quarter focused on positioning the VLCCs to open in mid-Q4 with a strong balance in the West ahead of the winter market. One of our VLCCs performed a clean air product backhaul voyage to reposition to the West and 3 other of our VLCCs fixed transatlantic voyages to capture improving summer rates as well as keeping the position in the West for Q4.

On the Suezmax side, the Sikinos and the Sifnos, both secured long-haul front-haul voyages heading east for their dry dock schedules, while our remaining 4 Suezmaxes stayed in the West and capitalize on very healthy regional conditions. The Suezmax is a very versatile asset that we really love. If you optimize on triangulation, niche trades and limit waiting time, you can really outperform the market. These decisions maximize returns, protected our utilization and continued the trend we've seen all year. Our Suezmaxes once again outperformed the VLCCs on a per day basis, and this is the fifth consecutive sector.

Looking ahead to Q4, it's shaping up to be a fantastic quarter. What is most exciting, though, is that the rates have continued to strengthen, and we're covering days in Q1 already at 6-digit figures. As of today, 80% of our VLCC spot days are fixed at $88,100 per day and 48% of our Suezmax days at $60,800 per day. This gives us a fleet-wide average of $80,700 per day on the fixed portion, and this is roughly 2/3 of the quarter. Similarly to the Q3 results and based on peers that have already reported earnings, our guidance outperformance on fixed days stands at 37% for the VLCCs and 33% for the Suezmaxes.

The positioning choices we made in Q3 are now paying off wonderfully. 4 VLCCs, which we had in the West have been fixed on long-haul eastbound voyages, locking in strong returns for long duration. Nissos Kea fixed a prompt cargo out of West Coast India to do AG to the East at very attractive levels as well. We also fixed the VLCC for a backhaul at rates we would love to do on a fronthaul voyage. When she is open in the West, if we are able to fix the U.S. Gulf East cargo with limited waiting at today's rates, we will have covered over 4 months north of $125,000 per day on that particular ship. The Suezmax segment remains firm as well with Sifnos now out of dry dock and Sikinos next in line. Our earnings on our 3 -- on our 6 Suezmaxes were impacted, though, by repositioning the Suez to and from dry dock. We have yet to see delays in the Turkish trades, which is a huge driver of Suezmax strength in the winter.

Now a little bit about the market. This is a real tanker bull market. Rates showed strength from the end of the summer, which is seasonally a weak period and continue to push onwards. What gives me confidence today is that we have all sides pushing. The VLCCs will drive 20 points higher 1 week. And the next week, you have Afra and Suez catching up, then the VLCCs happen again. This has happened consistently throughout Q4. The increased flow of cargoes does not give charters the time to sit back, let the position list grow and push down rates.

Tightening global sanctions continue to restrict supply of compliance tonnage. And with OPEC+ announcing incremental production over the past months plus rising tonne-miles out of the U.S. Gulf, Brazil, Guyana and West Africa, we expect a strong winter in Q1 across both our asset classes. It is evident that the U.K., U.S. and EU sanctions have created challenges for Indian, Chinese and Turkish receivers, but we'll get into this a bit later in further detail.

We continue to outperform the market on Slide 13 and our peers quarter after quarter. As the only listed pure eco and fully scrubber-fitted tanker platform, we consistently sit at the top of the earnings stack. Since late 2019, we have generated roughly $220 million of cumulative outperformance, $113 million from our VLCCs and $107 million from our Suezmaxes. This may just be luck, but it could also be the result of a disciplined strategy, fleet quality and an agile commercial mindset that lets us react faster than the broader market.

On this slide, we've been showing versions of this for a long time because the trend is unchanging and extremely supportive. More than 40% of the global VLCC and Suezmax fleet is over 15 years old and around 20% is involved in sanctioned trades. These vessels are effectively removed from mainstream employment. At the same time, the order book remains modest, around 14% for VLCCs and less than 20% for Suezmaxes, with many of those delivering after 2027.

Now it's true that ordering has picked up recently, but there are several important mitigating factors that prevent us from feeling any stress on this. Most new orders are scheduled far up, in many cases '28 and '29 because earlier yard slots simply are not available. A meaningful portion of orders is replacement tonnage for very old ships, not incremental growth. And importantly, sanctioned tonnage continues to grow faster as a share of the global fleet than the order book. This further reduces the mainstream fleet available for compliant trades. I am personally convinced that sanctioned vessels and non-sanctioned vessels that use dodgy flag states and insurances while engaging in sanctioned business will never return to the mainstream market. So even with an uptick in ordering, the broader picture improves. Retirements are not being replaced fast enough, effective comply continues to shrink and the modern end of the market where OET sits remains exceptionally tight.

Building on the previous slide and current order book, another mitigating factor is yard capacity. Even if orders wanted to -- owners wanted to place large orders today, they simply couldn't on any scale for anytime soon. Global shipbuilding capacity is halved since 2010, both the number of active yards and total output and yards are allocating capacity to higher-margin projects. This reinforces our conviction that the value of a modern, efficient fleet like ours will continue to rise. Against this backdrop, OET is resilient by design. Our fleet is young, fully echo and 100% scrubber-fitted, purpose-built to outperform in an aging market where a large portion of older noncompliant vessels will struggle with EEXI and CII requirements. Roughly 40% of the global VLCC and Suezmax fleet are eco-design. At OET, the number is 100%.

Turning to the broader macro environment. Fundamentals remain constructive. The IEA remain -- projects that supply will modestly exceed demand through 2026, leading to some stock builds. Even more supportive, recently, IEA brought back the no peak oil scenario. In this view, oil and gas keep rising through 2050, while coal use declines more slowly than many expected. This effectively drops the idea of peak demand and points to a longer and stronger role for fossil fuels in the global energy system.

I personally do not subscribe to the large stock build theory. OPEC+ has underproduced to its quota and effectively, a lot of sanctioned crude is floating. Effective supply of compliant crude is much more manageable. Saying this, a flat forward price on crude or even a slight contango is the healthiest for our market. It does not incentivize drawing storage like when in backwardation, nor does it pay for real storage when in a deep contango, which could be a short-term boom, but will create medium-term pain. The shallow contango or a flat oil market, which we are in, makes longer haul business affordable, which is exactly what the tanker game wants.

What matters, however, is the composition of where those barrels come from. Incremental supply is coming from the Atlantic Basin, the U.S., Brazil, Guyana, while demand growth is driven by China, India and wider Asia. India has been a surprise this year and has shown formidable growth in oil demand. This all means longer voyages, more ton miles and higher utilization for large crude carriers.

On Slide 18, we illustrate visually a point made earlier. Most incremental production is coming from the Atlantic, while demand is anchored in Asia. This dynamic increases tonne-miles and tightens vessel availability, precisely the environment in which our fleet is optimized to perform. This slide is very pertinent if we tie in what is happening with sanctions, which we cover in the next slide. As India, Turkey and China divert some of their purchases to Western compliant crude, where do they buy from? Some comes from the AG, while also West Africa, Brazil, the U.S. Gulf and Guyana.

Sitting next to my spot team and following cargo quotes every day, it is abundantly evident that this replacement is occurring. And this is exactly what we need to drive our market, new compliant cargoes replacing noncompliant cargoes. This is very bullish freight and time charter rates, but it's also bullish values, which I'll explain in the next slide.

Now sanctions. Sanctions have been a major structural driver. Roughly 16% of the global fleet is under sanctions. And when you include shadow tonnage that is unlikely to return to the compliant trade, the mainstream crude fleet is actually shrinking. This is the first time in many years we've seen negative effective fleet growth on the compliance side. And I repeat, I strongly believe these ships are never coming back to compete on compliant trades. More importantly, Iranian and Russian exports remain near record levels, but barrels are harder to place and pushing more crude into floating storage. Repeating myself, this storage is increasingly covered by older shadow tonnage, which is unlikely to reenter the compliant trade, shrinking the mainstream fleet.

So let's look at what is the effect of Turkey, India and China reducing purchases of Russian crude. Firstly, until now, exports do not stop and nor do we expect them to. Shutting down production in Russia just has too many medium-term problems that weigh out, but that outweigh short-term challenges. So the cargo flows. India and Turkey reduce imports. And where do these laden ships go? They go towards China. This is the most likely eventual buyer. Right off the bat, the average voyage has doubled. Then as the Chinese cannot just absorb all this extra crude, every voyage incurs additional waiting time while the cargo is waiting to be sold. This can easily add another 20 to 30 days per voyage.

Next, due to the most recent sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, compliant tonnage that was moving Russian cargo legally under the price cap has greatly reduced. Finally, Ukrainian drone attacks have impacted Russian refinery outputs, where product exports have been meaningfully restricted. What does this mean? More crude to be exported. These 4 points have severely stretched the dark fleet.

In my opinion, the dark fleet size as of this summer cannot move the cargo base today, incorporating longer voyages, more waiting time, less compliant tonnage and more crude exports. So the dark fleet needs to grow. The dark fleet will grow, and this will further reduce the size of the compliant fleet while pushing up values. Replacing sanctioned barrels with compliant supply would lift demand for mainstream ships, tightening effective supply and supporting freight rates. For owners of modern assets like us, this is a powerful tailwind.

Last interesting point for today's market overview is inventories and oil on the water. OECD inventories remain near the low of the 10-year range, while crude in transit is at multiyear highs. China is buying for their SPR, while a lot of the floating crude in transit is sanctioned crude, having a challenge to discharge due to stricter sanctions enforcement. That's a clear sign of a tight market, and it supports an elevated freight environment, especially for modern efficient vessels like ours.

With all of the above backdrops from both supply and demand side, crude tanker utilization is now 93%, the highest level in 3 years, corresponding to highly attractive rates, similar to the period before the EU ban on Russian crude. Every 1 percentage point increase in utilization equates to roughly $25,000 per day for VLCC and $15,000 per day for Suezmax. Having our cost basis in mind, this illustrates the significant operating leverage of our platform. For the past few years, Q1 has been a very strong quarter and often the strongest. We do not think that 95% to 96% utilization in Q1 is unlikely at all.

To close the presentation, rates have strengthened meaningfully. VLCC earnings on Middle East to China route are above 2022 highs today and Suezmax rates are firming in tandem. Eco and scrubber-fitted vessels earn a clear and constant premium, and OET sits at the very top of that curve. We have absolute spot exposure, a lean balance sheet and a young high-spec fleet. This combination gives us exceptional torque to sustain crude tanker upside. As a team, we are now focused on continuing this level of outperformance when it really matters like today. Thank you.

Operator, we're opening up for questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Frode Morkedal with Clarksons.

My first question -- so yes, you clearly benefited from being spot exposed. My question is really, how do you see time charter opportunities now? What's the duration? What type of levels can you achieve? And what type of -- what do you need to see to change out of being fully spot?

Frode, thank you for your question. I think that the strength of the market really caught off guard most of the charters. And the rates that makes sense for owners have adjusted so materially since the summer that charters are still trying to reassess and get comfortable paying these levels. At the moment, I think these past few months, especially on the Suezmax have been very busy in that 1- to 2-year segment. We've seen some 3-year deals. The VLCC as well. You're not seeing very much longer period deals than this. But also a lot of the oil majors have really reduced their time charter size of their fleet, and they will have to grow that in the near future. And time charter -- oil majors are a lot more selective on who they want to do long-term business with, and they look to established owners rather than funds owning ships or more speculative setups.

So I would say that if you wanted fixed time charters, you definitely can. But when you're earning like on a west position of VLCC that we have is earning $145,000 to go to U.S. Gulf, China and back to Singapore for 80, 90 days. The TCE rates of the charters need to increase a little bit more. And I think that in Okeanis' perspective, given our outlook for the next 6 to 12 months, it's so attractive that the TCE rates have to be materially higher than where they're being quoted today.

Makes total sense. So it sounds like you're going to be spot for the time being at least. So maybe my second question is, can we talk more broadly on your strategy today? I guess you mentioned your IPO a few years ago. At that time, I think you're more like an asset play and growth. Of course, that was a different time and a different point in the cycle, right? Now you've clearly been more in the harvest mode and just paying out dividends. But things are changing, I guess, again. And so where do you see investment or buying ships in today's market? It seems like if I look at the broad peer group, equities are trading above NAV again, and then that might be more tempting again. I don't know, what's your view on investments?

So, I think for Okeanis, the most important thing for our shareholders is for us to continue paying dividends. So as we've said over multiple calls, the main focus will be being able to pay out dividends to shareholders at levels similar to that we do today. In terms of investments, I think the most attractive investments are assets that you can have delivered quickly. I mean I think purchasing something that delivers in 3 or 4 years is too far out and it's too much capital committed for a company like us at the moment. But overall, as an organic shareholder, I think that we continue to buy dividends, dividends and more dividends.

Your next question comes from the line of Omar Nokta with Jefferies.

Yes. Congratulations on the quarter and obviously, the bookings for 4Q look amazing. I wanted to follow up a little bit on Frode's question and your answer about assets from here. Clearly, after a good amount of outperformance, I guess, fairly consistently, the stock has garnered a premium valuation relative to the group, and you are at a significant premium to NAV. And that seems obviously well earned. And it looks like the market is basically saying, listen, we want you to grow or at least we want more assets in your portfolio to continue capturing this outperformance. And so if -- you mentioned newbuildings perhaps out of the question, looking for assets on the water.

Two-part question. One, would you want to continue to scale into [ Vs ] and Suezmaxes? Or do you go down into the Aframaxes? And then two, how do you think about being able to continue to capture that premium you have been getting if you were to go from 8 VLCCs today to 16. Do you think your platform would be able to continue to capture its premium rates?

Omar, firstly, thank you for the question. Also, your report was the first one I read before I took my kids to school. So it was a nice positive report and made me feel good about the morning. And -- in terms of opportunities, I think that we examine many opportunities. And up until now, we haven't found one that fits, and we're very careful about selecting the right opportunity for the company and our shareholders.

And in terms of looking at which assets we scale into, I think potentially, of course, so it's a theoretical question. For us, the sweet spot is VLCCs and Suezmaxes. Historically, as a family, we've also been very comfortable and traded Aframaxes a lot. But I think it's important right now to stay within the sectors that our investors know and not to do any surprises by ordering, especially product tankers or stuff that's very foreign. So we would like to stick in the sectors that we currently own and that we currently believe in the most, which is why we own them.

In terms of growing, we control in Okeanis, 8 VLCCs, and we have some more on the private side. And I think that the footprint, it can comfortably grow to 20 or 25 ships without impacting how we like to trade our ships materially. And again, this is just a theoretical discussion. I'm not -- we don't -- we're not going to surprise with the 16 VLCC newbuilding order. But I think we can still manage with another 4, 6, 8 VLCCs to continue trading on the backhauls that we like, making sure we pick the right front hauls and not having too many ships overlap. But the more you grow, the more careful you have to be that you don't have too many ships opening in the same area at the same time and having that overlap, which makes you forced to choose suboptimum cargoes.

And I think that looking at some of the very big fleets in our sector, they've been forced at times to do that. And it's obviously a huge benefit not to be forced to do that. And we just need to be very careful as a smaller company that when we do fix our ships, we have them spread out in a way that we can capture volatility throughout the quarter because it's such a -- luckily, Q4 has been so awesome that it's just been fantastic throughout. But we had this huge spike early in October, and we didn't have very many ships open for that. So we fixed 1 ship out of the 8.

If that was the end of Q4, we wouldn't have locked in much. But we had spread our ships out throughout Q4. So we're able to fix ships in late October and throughout November, and we're able to fix the entire fleet. So positioning becomes much more important as you scale up or scale down.

Your next question comes from the line of Liam Burke with B. Riley Securities.

Yes. You traded one vessel clean this quarter. Do you plan on continue trading clean? Or is the market on the crude side so good that you'll flip it back into the crude fleet?

Thanks for your question, Liam. We've mentioned previously, as hard as we tried, we've never been able to trade a crude carrier for a consecutive voyage in the clean market. So we were able to get to clean her up, load in the Arabian Gulf, come to Europe and discharge. We've tried to do some transatlantic voyages, and we weren't able to get fixed on that to go load in the U.S. and come back to Europe. So the plan is that once we've discharged all the gas well we have on board, we go over to the U.S. Gulf for Guyana or Brazil and load a front haul East and make $145,000 a day for 75-plus days.

Nice business if you get it. And then on the -- you talked about evaluating the capital structure. You've got taken care of some low-hanging fruit by buying your vessels out of sale leaseback. Where else along the capital structure do you see opportunity?

Liam, let me take this one. Yes, the low-hanging fruit have actually provided quite a significant amount of value, both in terms of pricing, in terms of extending maturities, in terms of improved amortization profile. All of that effectively adds to the bottom line. So we look at it more from the perspective of how we can structure anything that's accretive. So, so far, we have taken advantage of an extremely competitive financing market with relationships that we have already in the banking segment as well as new markets that we have been developing and are achieving really, really good rates. So long as we continue to do that, I think it's an easy and good strategy to improve and increase value.

So now that we have indeed declared the purchase options for the 2 remaining leases, we have a bit of time. Those come in, in May and June. This is obviously still an option for us to go down that path. And so long as we continue to see the very competitive rates, I think there's a lot of value to be extracted there. The next maturities that come in line, I think we still have time. And given where the average cost of our capital structure will be, hopefully, post June. I don't think that there's going to be anything imminent that we would need to be working on. But we have options and we continue to explore them all the time.

Your next question comes from the line of Climent Molins, Value Investor's Edge.

I wanted to start with a market question. Aframaxes have been consistently outperforming LR2s for a couple of months, and the delta has been quite significant at times. Could you talk a bit about the factors that have kept the dirty over clean premium so wide?

Climent, thank you for your question. Look, I mean, I just -- Aframax has been overperforming LR2s. So obviously, the LR2 has had an order book that's been delivering. And I think that a lot of the LR2s have been more traditional Aframax owners. So perhaps the first voyage, you see them trade clean to come west where the preferred location for a modern Aframax and then they dirty up.

But as you've seen that crude exports have increased, the compliant trade has increased overall, and it services the Turks, the Indians and the Chinese as they replace some of the Russian and the Venezuelan that they're struggling and the Iranian that they're struggling to import. It creates more opportunities for the dirty Aframaxes.

I think historically, the dirty Aframaxes have also been much more volatile. They have a lot more regional trades. So you have the Cross Med, which is a 15-day voyage. You have the U.S. Gulf TA. You have a lot more shorter runs where you can see like more local volatility than the LR2. And I guess it's quite fluid. I mean, as we've shown that we can clean up an uncoated ship in now in about 15 days and the VLCC, which is 3x an Afra, I think you'll see a lot more flexibility on LR2s, which are coated. So it's even easier trading between clean and dirty. And you'll see the swapping between whichever market is stronger.

So I guess, over time, we should see rates between the 2 find balances. And then they'll fall out of balance, and then you'll see one or other class clean up or dirty again and find balance and so on and so forth.

Makes sense. It's just that I would have expected some more switching, but the [ premium ] has remained at least for a while. And final question from me. You've had several dry dockings throughout 2025, but it seems you only have Suezmax to dry dock in 2026. Would you tell us when you expect to conduct it?

The Milos, which is the ship we'll dry dock in 2026, we're looking at second half, most likely. We have a bit of flexibility. So definitely not in Q1, but we can push it around a bit. We'll try to time it when the market is a bit weaker.

Perfect. That's helpful. And congratulations for the quarter.

Thank you for your questions. I will now turn the call back to Iraklis Sbarounis, CFO, for closing remarks.

Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for joining. We look forward to touching base again with a new year presenting our Q4 results. We're pretty excited for that. So looking forward to that in a few months. Thank you.

Thank you, guys. We really appreciate your time.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.