Title

Presentation

Scorpio Tankers Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $3.02, expectations were $2.73.

Operator: Good day and welcome to the Scorpio Tankers Inc. First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. By pressing the star key followed by zero, you may reach an operator. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to James Doyle, Head of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you for joining us today.

James Doyle: Welcome to the Scorpio Tankers Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. On the call with me today are Emanuele A. Lauro, Chief Executive Officer; Robert L. Bugbee, President; Cameron Mackey, Chief Operating Officer; Christopher Avella, Chief Financial Officer; and Lars Dencker Nielsen, Chief Commercial Officer. Earlier today, we issued our first quarter earnings press release, which is available on our website, scorpiotankers.com. The information discussed on this call is based on information as of today, 05/05/2026, and may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainty. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in such statements. For a discussion of the risks and uncertainties, you should review the forward-looking statement disclosure in the earnings press release as well as Scorpio Tankers Inc.’s SEC filings, which are available at scorpiotankers.com and sec.gov.

Call participants are advised that the audio of this conference call is being broadcast live on the Internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. An archive of the webcast will be made available on the Investor Relations page of our website for approximately 14 days. We will be giving a short presentation today. The presentation is available at scorpiotankers.com on the Investor Relations page under Reports and Presentations. The slides will also be available on the webcast. After the presentation, we will go to Q&A. For those asking questions, please limit the number of questions to two. If you have an additional question, please rejoin the queue. Now I would like to introduce our Chief Executive Officer, Emanuele A. Lauro.

Emanuele A. Lauro: Thank you, and good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I would like to start this earnings call by saying thank you. And thank you to all the stakeholders who have supported us in bringing the company to where it is today. When Robert, Cameron, and I started this business in 2009, I cannot say that we envisioned every detail of what the company would become. But in our most ambitious plans, I remember looking at something like this. We have built a platform that can return capital through the cycle while preserving the flexibility to invest countercyclically. This would not have been possible without the trust of our shareholders, the partnership of our customers, and, most of all, the commitment of our people.

So thank you. Now focusing on the business front, in the first quarter, the company generated $214 million of adjusted EBITDA and $151 million of adjusted net income. For years, we have focused on what we have under control, on what we can control: strengthening the balance sheet, optimizing the fleet, and reducing our cash breakevens. Today, the discipline is fully reflected in the model. Our cash position stands at approximately $1.4 billion, and it is bound to hit the $2 billion mark early in the summer, with a daily cash breakeven of around $11,000 per day. To put that into perspective, in today’s market, we generate, of course, substantial free cash flow, but in a stressed environment similar to the depth of the COVID 2020 market, we remain at or above breakeven.

That is a structural advantage. Our recent financing further reinforces this. We reduced our cost of capital through 1.75% convertible bonds and a new bank facility at 120 basis points; these are the lowest margins in our history. These were proactive and opportunistic actions that were executed from a position of strength and not necessity. We are applying the same discipline to the fleet. Since the start of the year, we have sold 12 of our older vessels at prices above their original purchase levels more than a decade before. This value realization is not only fleet management. The balance sheet strength and fleet optimization together create a powerful foundation for sustained capital returns. In April, we repurchased 1.4 million shares for around $100 million.

Today, we are going further. We are announcing a new $500 million share buyback authorization and a quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share. This is deliberate capital allocation. By any measure, this was one of the strongest quarters in the company’s history, not only in earnings but also in execution. Rates have improved for consecutive quarters, and that momentum not only continues, but has strengthened further into the second quarter. While the timing of geopolitical developments in the Middle East remains uncertain, we remain constructive on the underlying fundamentals that are driving the tanker market. We expect restocking and demand to reassert themselves as disruptions normalize. Critically, our low breakeven model allows us to perform across all environments, as mentioned before.

We can be resilient in a weaker market and highly levered in stronger ones. We believe Scorpio Tankers Inc. is exceptionally well positioned to continue generating meaningful cash flow and deliver long-term shareholder value. Thank you again, and I will now turn the call to James.

James Doyle: Thanks, Emanuele. Slide 7, please. Today, product tanker rates are at unprecedented levels, with average clean tanker earnings over $70,000 per day. It is unclear when returns to the Strait of Hormuz will normalize. But what we do know is this: global inventories, commercial, strategic, and floating, have been significantly drawn down. The system will need to rebuild inventories globally, and given the scale of these draws, that process will take time. This creates a constructive setup for product tankers as refinery utilization and seaborne flows increase to support restocking and global demand. More importantly, product tanker rates were strong prior to these disruptions as a result of robust global demand driving higher seaborne exports, refinery dislocation increasing ton-mile demand, and modest fleet growth constraining supply.

We remain optimistic that those fundamentals support a constructive outlook in the short and medium term. Slide 8, please. Last year, over 18 million barrels of crude and refined products transited the Strait of Hormuz. Approximately 90% of the crude oil and naphtha volumes transiting the strait were destined for Asia. West of Suez, roughly 75% of jet fuel flows go to Europe, and 45% of diesel moves to Africa. The temporary loss of these volumes has forced global rerouting of trade flows on an unprecedented scale, reshaping supply chains across regions. Slide 9, please. We are seeing a rebalancing of flows with increased exports from the U.S., Africa, and Europe partially offsetting reduced volumes from the Middle East and Asia. Voyage distances have more than offset lower volumes, tightening effective supply and supporting a strong rate environment that we are seeing today.

Slide 10, please. Despite the scale of the disruption, demand has remained quite resilient. In the second quarter, refined product demand is expected to decline by approximately 1.5 million barrels per day year-over-year before rebounding by roughly 2.4 million barrels per day in the third quarter. This aligns with what we are seeing on the water, with seaborne exports down 1.9 million barrels per day in April compared to last year. As transit through the Strait of Hormuz normalizes, we expect demand to recover. Slide 11, please. Importantly, the recovery in demand is expected to occur alongside a period of significant inventory restocking following recent draws. High-frequency refined product inventories have declined by more than 80 million barrels since the start of the year.

U.S. refined product inventories have drawn 12 out of the last 13 weeks. Taken together, these data points highlight the scale of the drawdown and the magnitude of the restocking cycle ahead. Slide 12, please. Product tanker newbuilding activity has slowed meaningfully over the past 18 months. Only 37 vessels have been ordered year to date, and approximately half the product tanker order book is LR2s. As we have highlighted, a meaningful portion of LR2s operate in the crude market. Today, roughly 57% of the LR2 fleet is trading crude oil. As a result, the effective product tanker order book is smaller than it appears, reinforcing the view that future fleet growth will remain constrained. Slide 13, please. Today, the order book is 18% of the existing fleet, which may seem high, but context matters.

As you can see on the left, 21% of the product tanker fleet is already older than 20 years. By 2028, it will be 30%. Roughly 25% of the Aframax/LR2 fleet and 9% of the MR/Handy fleet are sanctioned, averaging 20 to 21 years old. In a normal market, much of this tonnage would have likely already exited the fleet. Slide 14, please. When adjusting for aging vessels, sanctioned capacity, and LR2 crossover, effective clean products supply fleet growth is materially lower than the headline order book implies. We expect fleet growth to average approximately 3% over the next three years, but potentially lower. As refinery utilization and seaborne flows increase to support global restocking and demand normalization, the market should tighten further.

Longer term, refining capacity remains constrained while the fleet is aging faster than it can be replaced. Overall, we expect ton-mile demand to outpace fleet growth. With that, I would like to turn it over to Christopher.

Christopher Avella: Thank you, James, and good morning or good afternoon, everyone. Slide 16, please. This quarter, we generated $214 million in adjusted EBITDA and $216 million in net income on an IFRS basis. This includes a $66 million gain on the sale of four vessels during the quarter. We sold another two vessels in April and have reached agreements to sell another nine vessels, all built in 2014 or 2015, all at cyclically high prices. Additionally, we declared a $0.45 per share dividend and replenished our securities repurchase program to $500 million. The chart on the right shows the evolution of our net debt position since December 2021. Our capital allocation policy over this period has been headlined by debt reduction and balance sheet fortification.

As you can see, this approach has resulted in a reduction of our net debt position by $3.8 billion, from a net debt balance of $2.9 billion at 2021 to a pro forma net cash balance of $876 million as of today, which reflects our actual net cash balance of $479 million adjusted for the sales of nine vessels that are pending closing. Slide 17, please. The chart on the left breaks down our outstanding debt by type. As you can see, our capital structure keeps evolving as we continue to pursue opportunities to lower our cost of capital. First, we have $368 million in secured bank debt with a lending group exclusively comprised of experienced shipping lenders, and this debt all carries margins below 200 basis points. Further to this, $198 million of this amount is drawn revolving debt, an important tool that we can use if we want to repay the debt but maintain access to the liquidity in the future.

Next is our $200 million five-year senior unsecured notes, which were issued in the Nordic bond market in January 2025 and are currently trading at above 103 to par. Last is our $375 million convertible notes due 2031, which were just issued under a month ago. These notes have a coupon rate of 1.75% and are convertible to common stock only under certain circumstances at a conversion price over $100 per share. As part of the offering of our convertible notes, we repurchased 1.3 million, or 2.6%, of our outstanding common shares for $100 million. The chart on the right shows how we continue to pursue ways to reduce our cost of capital. Over the past four years, we have transitioned our vessel-related borrowings out of expensive lease financing into lower-cost, higher-flexibility secured bank debt.

Our efforts to pursue lower-cost, longer-tenor structures are ongoing, as you can see with our recent announcement of a $50 million secured credit facility with Bank of America at just a 120 basis point margin and a seven-year tenor. This strategy, coupled with our aggressive prioritization of debt reduction, has transformed the company’s credit profile, thereby unlocking these opportunities in the markets. Now around 60% of our debt structure is unsecured, and not due until 2030 and 2031. Slide 18, please. The chart on the left shows our liquidity profile. We had $1.4 billion in cash as of May 1. If we consider the sale of three vessels that were pending closing as of that date, the cash balance is $1.8 billion on a pro forma basis. We also have an additional $712 million in availability under revolving credit facilities for a total of approximately $2.5 billion in available liquidity.

Since November, we have signed contracts to purchase 10 newbuilding vessels, and the chart on the right is a waterfall reflecting our commitments to purchase these vessels. Our disciplined capital allocation over the last three years has afforded us the financial flexibility to enter into these newbuilding contracts. Our remaining newbuilding commitments total just over $641 million as of today, after the payment of $69 million towards these vessels in 2026. Hypothetically speaking, we could pay for all of these vessels today in cash without incurring any new debt. Importantly, approximately 80% of these remaining installment payments are not due until the years 2027, 2028, and 2029. With a low cash breakeven rate, currently at approximately $11,000 per day, we are well positioned to build cash prior to delivery.

Moreover, the age and specifications of these vessels make them attractive financing candidates, which has the potential to open opportunities for us to further optimize our capital structure and lower our cost of capital. Slide 19, please. Our cash breakeven rates are at the lowest levels in the company’s history. As shown on the left, these levels are below our achieved daily TCE rates dating back to 2013, with the closest point occurring during COVID-19 when global oil demand saw its largest decline on record. To add, the cash interest on our convertible notes only raises our cash breakeven levels by a modest amount and is more than offset by the interest we currently earn on our deposits. To illustrate our cash generation potential at these cash breakeven levels: at $20,000 per day, the company can generate up to $260 million in cash flow per year; at $30,000 per day, up to $548 million per year; at $40,000 per day, up to $836 million per year; and at $50,000 per day, up to $1.1 billion per year.

This concludes our presentation today. We would like to thank everyone for their time and attention. We will now open the call for questions.

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Operator: To ask a question, if you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the key. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question will come from Gregory Robert Lewis of BTIG. Please go ahead.

Gregory Robert Lewis: Hi, thank you, and good morning and good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. I guess this first question is either for Christopher or Robert. Could you walk us through the decision on the convertible bond? Clearly, you laid out how strong the balance sheet is, and you touched on it, but just curious, with a lot of cash on the balance sheet, how are we thinking about the liquidity and opportunities for staying, you know, with the convert?

Christopher Avella: Sure. Thanks, Gregory. As we said, it was opportunistic. The convertible markets are strong right now, and we have a strong credit profile. It made for a good opportunity to execute an instrument that we view as a low cost of capital: a 1.75% coupon and a high conversion premium. We are mindful of the fact that we have a lot of secured debt maturing in a couple of years—say, 18 to 24 months. Our debt position is not static, and we are going to continue to look at opportunities to execute on low-cost transactions, and this is just one of those.

Robert L. Bugbee: I do not have anything to add to that, Gregory.

Gregory Robert Lewis: Okay, great. And then the other question on the market: James, you touched on volumes being a little bit light. Roughly a little over two months into the conflict in, or the war in, Iran, have we started to see pockets of hoarding or anything that is out of the ordinary? How is that translating into maybe new trade routes or expanding ones, replacing others? Curious what you are seeing there.

James Doyle: Lars, would you like to take this one?

Lars Dencker Nielsen: Yes, sure, I will start off. We have seen a lot of what you would consider to be genuinely unique voyages and instances. Ton-miles have obviously elongated across the board. We have seen a huge increase in U.S. Gulf Coast exports, very much further afield than what we would have seen before. From a pre-conflict into conflict level related to Iran, we had ships that were transporting towards the West, and before they even came to the Cape of Good Hope, they were asked to go to the Middle East, and then one day later, to go back to Asia where they had loaded from. The fact is that the price of oil and product has made it such that the price of freight has become insignificant. We are not seeing any issues of freights being curtailed because of the price of freight, because the oil underlying is so valuable and so important for the security of supply.

That also goes into the structural reshuffling of product in the United States. We saw the headline of the Jones Act being waived for a brief moment in time; that has also moved the needle relative to anything we have seen in the past. So, yes, there certainly has been a lot of change.

Gregory Robert Lewis: Super helpful. Thank you very much.

Operator: The next question comes from Omar Nokta of Clarksons Securities. Please go ahead.

Omar Nokta: Clearly, things are moving in a really nice direction for Scorpio Tankers Inc., certainly from a financial perspective—going deeper into net cash. You just re-upped the buyback to $500 million, and I wanted to get a sense from you: does this signal a pivot in how you are viewing use of capital from here? And is there any preference at this point in terms of the interest looking either at the shares or the unsecured notes or the converts?

Robert L. Bugbee: I do not think it creates a pivot in strategy. I think it creates a point where we feel ready enough to give ourselves the largest ever buyback the company has ever had, if it decides that that is the right thing to do. So there is no pivot. The idea is a developing strategy. The first thing is to de-lever. The second is to start to renew the fleet and take advantage of backwardation in the curve. The third is, as Christopher says, to start to use that balance sheet to get very effective, cheaper finance. Being able to put up the largest ever buyback for the company is a continuation of the strategy: we will watch, act, and react when and if we see the opportunity. We have developed, in a way, a hammer and an anvil here.

We have the tremendous cash position that the company has and its ability to get debt cheaply. Underneath it, we are developing the anvil so that if you had a wobble in the stock or we see a continuing dislocation between NAV and stock price, we can take advantage of that, because we believe very much in the long-term development and continued health of the company.

Omar Nokta: Thanks, Robert. That makes sense. Maybe just a follow-up: you were mentioning the fleet and taking advantage of the backwardation. How are you thinking about the fleet as it is now? You sold a bunch of vessels this year; you have about $500 million coming in in the second quarter from those vessel sales. Are we getting to a point where the active selling, if you want to call it that, slows down? And is it more about fine-tuning the fleet? Is it looking at newbuildings? How are you thinking about the fleet position from here?

Robert L. Bugbee: We have not changed on that. We will continue to take opportunistic sales and work on longer-term time charters too. At the same time, we might continue to gently and responsibly, where it is clear that the financing is not changing our hammer, engage in the renewal part of it. You are not going to see some massive, great big order. You are not going to see an acquisition of a competitor. It is going to be continuing to gently move each of the parameters we are looking at along the way—much of the same.

Operator: The next question comes from Jonathan B. Chappell of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Jonathan B. Chappell: Thank you, and good morning. James, appreciate the presentation. Regarding the disruption, a lot of it seems to be focused around once the flows normalize. Can you help us with scenario analysis? There is still a lot of uncertainty. It feels like the path may be changing by the week, if not the hour. What are some of the other upside opportunities but also downside risks as this unprecedented situation continues to evolve?

Robert L. Bugbee: Thanks. I do not think we are in control of that. We do not spend much time going through the hypotheticals or working out if they happen, if they all happen, or even whether any will happen. Information changes—whether or not the straits are open, whether or not there were shells hitting international ships about three or four times just yesterday. We will pass on the hypotheticals, if that is okay.

Jonathan B. Chappell: Okay. How have your operations changed? We see these headline rates. Are you fully absorbing them? Have you had to move the fleet around, so maybe you have imbalance or maybe even better exposure to certain regions? As we think about these headline rates, how does it translate to you both from a top-line perspective, but also from a potential disruption or cost/bunker perspective?

Lars Dencker Nielsen: This is part and parcel of what we do every single day. We assess where we anticipate the market to react as fleets are deployed. When this happened, we made a conscious effort to move our ships West, where we could see that the market dislocation was the greatest and there were clearly, at the margin, stronger market movements taking place. We moved ships a lot, both through the canal and also around the Cape of Good Hope, and we also made sure that the ships we had opening in New Zealand, Alaska, and North Asia made decisions to move across. That took a little time, but it paid off. You still see today, even with the high volatility in the markets, rates are moving 15% to 20% intra-week. Structurally, the West market has been benefiting from a rate perspective more than vessels trading East of Suez.

Jonathan B. Chappell: Got it. Thank you, Lars. Thanks, Robert.

Operator: The next question comes from an Analyst at Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Great. Good morning and good afternoon. Can you talk about any increased interest in multiyear charters given the environment, and your thoughts on that? Do you want to keep the same exposure to the spot market? And then any incremental developments from Venezuela—we have talked about that a lot in terms of short-haul moves.

Robert L. Bugbee: I will take one part first. Our reduced breakevens, the lack of debt, and low borrowing cost open up situations where you can look quite favorably at five-year, six-year, seven-year charters. These are very simple, profitable, secure returns, adding to a base of income which has always been lacking in tanker companies. We are not only looking at opportunities that arise, but also favorable to them because of our own financial breakeven dynamics. Lars, would you like to go through the details?

Lars Dencker Nielsen: We reported a couple within the quarter. In my experience, these are generational highs in terms of long-term charters, and this is long-term charters to very bankable first-class end users, which we have not seen before. We will always have a balance between spot and time charter. We certainly still have a very large component towards spot, but the ships we have on time charter all reflect the quality of the paper and also counterparties that we have strategically aligned with in terms of the spot business we also do for them, so the relationship goes to a different level. Over the years, that has benefited the business. In terms of looking at period charters for the future, we continue to look at charters every single day.

There has been continued interest both in MRs and in LR2/Aframaxes. As everybody on the call will appreciate, we today look at LR2s and Aframaxes as one segment. There has been substantial interest in that market. We have seen one-year deals at extremely high and elevated numbers, three-year interest, five-year interest. Eight-year deals, which we have done on a one-off basis, are not that frequent, but it is clear that not only shipowners consider the market to look pretty good; a lot of the people we do business with are willing to put pen to paper for long-term charter.

Analyst: Great insight. Thanks, Lars. Two rapid ones: are you seeing any shortages now at this point on some products—jet fuel or different areas? It seemed like Australia was starting to ration some fuel. Thoughts on where we are? James was talking about inventories. Then you mentioned the $2 billion in cash by this summer, but with the $500 million buyback plan, thoughts on the other $1.5 billion usage plans?

James Doyle: I will start with shortages. In Southeast Asia, we have seen methods to reduce travel, but at a high level, it appears it is more inefficient supply to meet demand. Demand has been quite strong. A lot of the current issues fall to the fact that there is not a lot of spare refining capacity in the world. We have been talking about this for years: closures around the world, and refinery capacity has moved further away from the consumer. What you are seeing is a result of this. Going forward, you are going to see a lot of restocking. You will still see refinery dislocation because of how long it takes to build a refinery. We will see how the situation develops, but it is very constructive in the short to medium term based on this refinery dislocation.

Robert L. Bugbee: On the future, I think you will see us continue to maintain a very healthy overall cash position. We have said we would even consider further sales of older tonnage. That would result in an even higher cash position than any forecast you could make at the moment. We have also said that we would be willing to explore opportunistically continuing our renewal, which would indicate a few newbuilding orders—not many, but a few to keep a steady position—while keeping the vast majority of cash generated. You are giving some of it out on buybacks, as you have seen so far this quarter, dividends, and newbuilding orders. We did not raise the dividend this quarter, but not for any reason other than it was a knockout quarter.

It is fantastic, and we would like to have a look later in the year—July or September—whether we are likely to increase the dividend again, and by how much, whether in smaller steps or a slightly bigger step. Overall, it is a continuation of what we have been doing in the last six, nine, twelve months: taking advantage of the arbitrage on the curve, taking advantage of great secondhand prices, which are indicated to still be increasing. We are seeing that in the market. It is a continuation. It is working well so far.

Operator: The next question comes from an Analyst at Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to touch on fleet renewal. Do you have a preference whether it is more LR2s or medium-range exposure in the fleet? Any general commentary on fleet exposure within fleet renewals would be helpful. I do have one follow-up.

Robert L. Bugbee: We have backed off the VLCCs in terms of expanding there. The recent renewals have been in product tankers, both MRs and LR2s. My expectation is that is where we would continue to concentrate and find opportunity.

Analyst: Appreciate it, thank you. Then a follow-up on the dividend itself. Given the favorable financial position that you are in now—and I appreciate your stance on flexibility—do you have any kind of quarterly targeted payout that we should be looking at?

Robert L. Bugbee: We have not reached that. I can tell you what we will not have: we will not do extraordinary dividends, and we will not do a high payout dividend. We are for what we would call a permanent dividend that can be met through good times and bad, and ideally can be improved on in good times and bad. High payout dividends, particularly those tied to percentages of income, work great in good times and are quite tragic in other times.

Operator: The next question comes from Christopher Robertson of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Christopher Robertson: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. This might be one for Lars. This is related to the bunker fuel market. Initially there was quite a bit of disruption and a huge spike in prices. Can you talk about availability and whether it is having any impact on where you are thinking about positioning the fleet and which voyages you are taking? Has that situation gotten better over the last few weeks?

Lars Dencker Nielsen: The short answer is that we do not see issues today in terms of securing bunkers on any of our ships around the world. Prices certainly went to a very high and elevated place, and there were a lot of questions as the conflict started, and we were looking at this. To be honest, this is what we do every single day anyway. Bunker planning is a very important part of any voyage planning that we do. These things are looked at at any given time so that we can reflect the pricing of the bunker input to the output on the time charter equivalent. Right now, we do not encounter issues that create additional challenges for us in terms of supplying bunkers.

Christopher Robertson: Got it, thank you. A follow-up related to the dividend. Realizing this is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, Robert, could you talk a little more about the philosophy around the dividend? Are you looking for a certain amount of balance sheet strength, a certain breakeven level, or a certain market environment in rate sustainability? What would drive an increase to the dividend, realizing that the goal is to have a sustained level throughout various parts of the cycle?

Robert L. Bugbee: The goal is a regular dividend that we can raise through the cycle—not the same percentage of earnings or linked to the stock price. We would hope to raise the regular dividend so it is clear to the most conservative of long-only large institutions, and hopefully to the income growth side too, that we can pay it under any circumstances. You are starting to see in the presentation a lot of concentration by Christopher on cash breakeven and slides related to what happens if we relive the worst market we have ever lived in, which is COVID. Can the company continue to pay and grow the dividend through that cycle? That is how we are evaluating it. At the moment, things are moving. We waited in the last quarters gradually.

This was an unbelievably knockout quarter. We felt it was unclear whether to raise it 1 cent or 5 cents. We left it aside, knowing we had an incredible quarter. We put steps into the balance sheet and gave terrific guidance for the second quarter. It is extraordinary; it even surprised us. Later in the year we can see what the next sustainable level is that we are happy to move to.

Christopher Robertson: Got it. Thank you. That is very prudent, and we appreciate the commentary. Thank you, Robert.

Robert L. Bugbee: Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Liam Dalton Burke of B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Liam Dalton Burke: Yes, thank you. Even prior to the tensions in the Mideast, the rates in the Aframaxes were higher, and there had been a lot of shift from clean to dirty. Post tensions, is there anything that would flip that situation where the Aframaxes would move back to the LR2s or start trading clean?

Lars Dencker Nielsen: We are in the perfect situation where you have a lot of LR2s in a north of $100,000 per day market, where the alternative in Aframax is also trading north of $100,000 per day. If you look at the numbers, a couple of years back we were trading around 256 LR2s in the market. Today, we are trading around 170 LR2s in the market. You have had a large component of LR2s go into the sanctioned trade and the age part as well. You also have the element of crude transporting itself farther afield. You have a very strong Aframax market not only in the Atlantic Basin but also East of Suez. TMX, which goes from the Pacific Northwest to Asia, has been extremely strong. The market that goes down to the Pacific lightering area has also been very strong, particularly because VLCCs have been very strong.

The Suezmaxes have been very strong. Every element within that framework is extremely strong. The last time we saw switching the other way was when you had a very weak crude market that had been persistent for a while, and the LR2 market had ramped up. At that point, you had a delta of about $8 million between one to the other, and you started seeing a large number of vessels going into the clean market. Today, whichever way you look at it, it is very strong. Regarding Venezuela, that is also an Aframax market. TMX is 100% an Aframax market. The stuff that goes out of Australia is 100% an Aframax market. The story is good in terms of supply and demand when you look at LR2s and Aframaxes together, which is what you have to do today. The argument that was the case a while back—saying you have all these ships being built—does not hold that much when you consider the average ages of the fleet and what ships are actually able to trade.

Structurally, we are looking at a very decent supply-demand story on both Aframaxes and LR2s.

Liam Dalton Burke: Great, thank you. I think this would be for James. You have always highlighted the redistribution of global refinery capacity. Post-conflict, a lot of that has been Middle East refinery. Would you anticipate any modification of that redistribution?

James Doyle: Thanks, William. Good question. It is a challenge. The quickest you can probably build a refinery is seven years, so if you are not starting today, it is not coming in that time frame. One of the things we feel is likely is people will view storage differently coming out of this—how much crude and how much product you are keeping domestically. I think that is going to be great for refinery runs. But in terms of major changes, it will be a challenge to do anything in a short time frame. I am certain people might look at new pipeline opportunities.

Liam Dalton Burke: Great. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Emanuele A. Lauro for any closing remarks.

Emanuele A. Lauro: Thank you very much, operator. No closing remarks of any substance apart from thanking everybody for your time and looking forward to connecting in the near future. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation, and you may now disconnect.

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