Capital Clean Energy Carriers Corp.

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Clean Capital Energy Carriers Corp. Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. We have with us today Mr. Jerry Calgarados, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Brian Gallagher, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations, and Mr. Nikos Tripadakis, Chief Commercial Officer. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session, at which time if you wish to ask questions, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, March 5, 2026. Statements in today's conference call that are not historical facts, including our expectations regarding the sale or acquisition transactions, their expected effects on us, cash generation, equity returns, and future debt levels, our ability to pursue growth opportunities, our expectations or objectives regarding future distribution amounts or share buyback amounts, dividend coverage, future earnings, future leverage, capital allocation, as well as our expectations regarding future Market fundamentals and the employment of our vessels, including delivery dates, free delivery dates, and charter rates may be forward-looking statements as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the stated or forecasted results to be materially different From those anticipated, unless required by law, we expressly disclaim any obligation to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether because of future events, new information, a change in our views, or expectations to conform to actual results or otherwise. We make no prediction or statement about the performance of our common shares. I would now like to hand the call over to our speaker today, Mr. Brian Gallagher. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning or afternoon to wherever you are, and thank you for listening to the Capital Clean Energy Carrier's Q4 2025 earnings call. As a reminder, we'll be referring to the supporting slides available on our website as we go through today's presentation. Let's start with the highlights on slide four. An exceptionally busy quarter has continued with subsequent events into the current quarter, but it's pleasing to report the company is continuing to make progress on multiple fronts. The key highlight from Q4 was our contracting of three latest technology LNG carriers. This opportunistic transaction illustrated our capability to act with conviction and speed in capturing what we believe will be valuable and timely additions to our fleet. More details from Gerry on that later on. Elsewhere, early on in the current quarter, we welcomed the active into our fleet, the world's first 22,000 cubic metre liquid CO2 multi-grass carrier. but we also said goodbye to another container vessel as we pressed on with our focus on gas transportation. In terms of our governance and ongoing focus on sustainability, the company was pleased to gain accreditation from the CDP in our first submission to that particular platform. Finally, the LNG shipping spot market had a robust, if short-lived, upturn during Q4, with freight rates touching $100,000 per day. This is an encouraging feature for the future development and potential earnings power from the sector, and there are some key underlying trends which will require consideration, and they'll be covered later on in the presentation. We are acutely aware of the current and fast-moving dynamic in the Middle East, impacting LNG and gas shipping sectors, which our Head of Commercial, Nikos Tribodakis, will provide some thoughts on later on. And naturally, management will be available to take questions after the formal presentation. Moving back to Q4... and our reporting net income from continued operations for the quarter came in at $28.4 million, from which we fulfilled our commitment to a fixed distribution of 15 US cents, dividends per share, to our shareholders, retaining the company record of distributing a cash dividend for every single quarter since our listing in March 2007. With that, I'll hand it over to our Chief Executive, Gerard Calidratis, to run through, firstly, the financial highlights.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning or afternoon to everyone listening in today. It has almost become routine to report further container sales, and the fourth quarter of 2025 is no different. As Brian pointed out, we have now classified Buena Ventura Express under discontinued operations due to its sale, which nevertheless had the full quarter before being delivered to its new owners in January. The sale of the Buena Ventura represents the 14th container carrier sale in 24 months, consistent with the company's strategy to pivot to gas transportation. The reclassification of the Buena Ventura Express under discontinued operations affected our results compared, for example, to the previous quarter. This leaves the company with just one container vessel. It continues to generate positive cash flows for the company, as it is on a long-term charter with a blue-chip partner to 2033 and options to extend to 2039. We have made significant progress in our pivot, but we have always remained focused on ensuring value creation for our shareholders. We will only look to sell the last container asset if it is accretive. This strategy has served us well with the 14 other vessels, and we will continue on the same path. The dividend payout remains a core component of the company's value proposition to shareholders. The $0.15 dividend was paid on February 12 to shareholders on record on February 3. This was the 75th consecutive quarter that the company has paid a cash dividend. Moving now to the balance sheet on slide 7. We closed the year with a solid cash position of $296 million, including restricted cash, and a net leverage ratio just short of 49%. As mentioned earlier, we also finalized the sale of a 13,700 EU container vessel in early 26, continuing our disciplined capital recycling strategy. Finally, just a week ago, we issued a 200 million euro bond listed at the Athens Stock Exchange, further enhancing our balance and flexibility. We continue to work closely with different sources of finance on the funding of the nine LNG carriers still due for delivery, and we are very encouraged with the progress of these discussions. We hope to be able to report much more on this front in the next quarterly call. Moving to slide nine, our LNG fleet continues to provide long-term visibility and stability. We have 90 years of contracted backlog at an average TCE of approximately 86,800 per day, representing 2.7 billion of contracted revenue. If all extension options are exercised, this increases to 123 years or approximately 3.9 billion in contracted revenues. A recently announced order for three new LNG car renewables, shown at the bottom of this slide, positions us to benefit from increased LNG shipping demand towards the end of the decade. We continue to be in constant dialogue with counterparties regarding our LNG fleet in what has become increasingly a more active period market, and looking for the right employment structure for our remaining six open new builds. In terms of fleet updates, we will have four upcoming dry docks for our LNG fleet. In the first quarter of this year, we have the Adamastos, and in the next quarter, we expect to have a dry docking of the Aristarchos, the Attalos, and the Asclepios. In terms of cash costs, the guidance remains the same as in previous quarters, at 5 million all-in cost per dry dock, and around 20-25 days of higher. Importantly, we will welcome two more vessels during the second quarter of 2026, our second liquid CO2 carrier and handy LPG carrier, the Amadeus, at the end of April, and also our first dual-fuel 45,000 cubic medium LPG carrier, the Aristogenes, in early June. Turning to the next slide, funding of our new building program is well supported. We have already paid a portion of the required CAPEX, supported by tenant-generated cash flows, asset monetization, and attractive debt financing terms. As we progress through 2026 and 2027, we expect CAPEX to be mostly weighted towards LNG carriers, for which we assume on average approximately 70% debt financing. The picture that you see is before tapping into the proceeds of the 250 million euro bond issue. This leads neatly to look briefly at the key events for the company during the quarter, namely the contracting of three new LNG carriers on slide 11. As mentioned earlier, we secured three state-of-the-art LNG carriers with deliveries scheduled of one vessel in the fourth quarter of 28 and two in the first quarter of 29. These vessels include enhancements to fuel efficiency, boil-off rates, as well as liquefaction capacity, placing them among the highest-performing LNG carriers globally. We secure this verse at HC Hyundai Sample in South Korea on attractive terms. The delivery profile is optimized for a market period where the order book looks particularly undersupplied in view of the anticipated demand, giving us significant commercial optionality. Now, after a quarter end, we deliver the world's first 22,000 cubic liquid CO2 multi-gas carrier, the Active. This vessel is capable of transporting liquid CO2, LPG, and ammonia, and other petrochemicals, and remains fully competitive in the conventional semi-ref gas market. The vessel is already employed on a six-month charter, transporting LPG with an optional extension, demonstrating immediate commercial demand. As mentioned earlier, we successfully raised last month €250 million through a newly issued unsecured bond, taking advantage of a favorable interest rate environment. After hedging the currency and interest rate exposure of the new bond, we expect the all-in cost to be approximately 5.11 for €295 million in dollar terms. Part of the proceeds of the new bond will be used to refinance our outstanding bond of €150 million issued in 2021, maturing later this year. The rest of the proceeds will be used to finance our new building program and for general corporate purposes. I would like now to turn to our Chief Commercial Officer, Nikos, who will run through our LNG market slides. I will then be available to answer your questions, along with Nikos and Brian, at the end of the call. Nikos, over to you. Thank you, Jerry, and good morning or afternoon, everybody. Currently, of course, the war in the Middle East and how it will affect the energy market, and in our case, the energy shipping market, is in everyone's mind. I will come back to this at the end of my presentation. Please allow me to start with the main highlight of Q4, which has been the unexpectedly strong spot market. As slide 14 shows, spot rates rose strongly to exceed $100,000 a day in mid-December, the highest level of the past two years. An unexpected surge in LNG production from the U.S., pockets of east-west arbitrage and logistical constraints, led to an absorption of available tonnage and the significant increase in spot rates. This served as a stark reminder of the fragility of the LNG shipping supply-demand balance during winter months, when modest changes in cargo economics, production volumes, or port and canal logistics can collectively have a disproportionate impact on freight markets. However, as we will see in slide 15, not all vessel types benefit in a similar way from a surge in spot rates. Turning to slide 15, as we can see on the left-hand side, we see the five-year quarterly average freight rates up to 2024. What is interesting is that the charter rates for steam vessels during that period captured around 50% of the rates of a two-stroke modern vessel, but in 2025, that percentage dropped to 20%, even though the market has been consistently lower compared to the five-year average. What is also worth noting is that even though two-stroke charter rates rose by approximately $32,000 a day on average through Q4, steam rates only rose about $7,000 a day and continued to trade below OPEX levels. This clearly indicates that two-stroke vessels, like the one CCC owns and operates, capture the lion's share of the benefits in a rising market, while older vessels remain unattractive as long as two-stroke vessels are available, even if the charter rate for two strokes is approximately 400% higher, as it was during the Q4 of 2025. This widening rate gap underscores the increasing obsolescence of older technology and supports our strategy for investing exclusively in modern, high-efficiency LNG carriers. Turning now to slide 16. The challenging market conditions for all the vessels described so far have led to 2025 becoming a record year in terms of scrapping, with 15 team vessels exiting the fleet. Looking at the age, the re-delivery profile from current charters, and the fact that these vessels would operate below their OPEX break-even in the spot market, even when the spot market goes through its seasonal spikes, the commercial removal of those vessels either through laying up or scrapping becomes inevitable. Our attention now turns to the other end of the spectrum, and specifically new buildings on slide 17. As we look at slide 17, a clear pattern emerged in Q4 with an increase in ordering, something we were part of with a three-vessel order. In December alone, there were almost as many orders placed as for the rest of the year combined, indicating greater confidence among station owners regarding the dynamics of the LNG market. This has led to a slight uptick in new building prices, as we can see in the right of slide 17. We expect this trend to continue as limited yard capacity for deliveries in 2028 and 2029 meets the surge in demand for energy carriers stemming from the doubling of U.S. energy production from the U.S. This limited capacity for 2028 and 2029 provides a very good opportunity to look at the order book availability and see CEC's market share of open new buildings. Turning to slide 18, it is demonstrated that out of the 30 new buildings in the order book, six of those, or 20%, are controlled by CCEC. This makes us the owner with the largest market share of the open order book and in prime position to capitalize from the increased demand expected in 2027 onwards as charters seek more than tonnage. Moving on to slide 19. We would like to summarize our view on the long-term supply and demand picture of LNG freight. As with any shipping segment, there are always a lot of cross-current and moving parts. We have tried to incorporate the recent supply and demand developments on this chart. Firstly, to explain the chart, the orange dashed line represents the maximum potential growth in demand for LNG carriers in view of global LNG projects extending to 2032. The blue dashed line represents the number of LNG vessels required based solely on those projects that have reached an FID status, which is a relatively conservative approach, as we expect more projects to reach FID in the months to follow. The gray bar represents the gross number of LNG carrier deliveries expected on a cumulative basis year on year, with the orange bars being the estimate from CCEC on LNG vessel removals. The dark gray bars finally represent the net number between vessel deliveries and removals. In summary, we anticipate the LNG shipping market to reach an inflection point in late 2027 or early 2028, with new energy supply requiring a substantial number of additional vessels. Accounting for scrapping of older ships, demand is anticipated to outpace vessel supply, creating a constructive long-term outlook. Now, as mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, we need to address the current situation in the Middle East. The U.S.-Iran conflict, following the coordinated U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran on the 28th of February, has significantly increased geopolitical risk in the Persian Gulf, and particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy shipping chokepoint. Most commercial vessels are avoiding the area due to security concerns, missile and drone attacks, AIS interference, and the withdrawal of war risk insurance. This has disrupted significantly any normal shipping patterns and the flow of energy commodities and has created a situation where Western-affiliated vessels face particularly high risks and costs when transiting the region. The conflict has major implications for the global LNG market, as roughly 20% of the global LNG exports originate from the Arabian Gulf, mainly from Qatar's Ras Al-Fan export complex. Qatar alone exported over 82 million tons of LNG in 2025, accounting for nearly a fifth of the global LNG trade, and these volumes must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Any prolonged disruption could therefore materially impact LNG supply, particularly to Asia, which receives more than 30% of its LNG imports from the Arabian Gulf, and producers such as Qatar, Oman, and the UAE. At the same time, regional gas supply disruptions are increasing LNG demand even further. Israel has shut down at least two major gas fields due to security concerns, potentially forcing Egypt and Jordan to increase LNG imports by up to 65 cargoes per year to replace lost pipeline gas supply. Combined with the Arabian Gulf export disruptions and the withdrawal of war risk insurance for vessels operating in the region, the situation could significantly tighten global energy markets as a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz will lead to increased competition for the limited flexible supply, mainly from the U.S., and result in significant price increases in gas worldwide. Now, the most important unknown right now is the duration of the conflicts. We cannot speculate on how long this situation will last, but the effects on the gas and shipping markets in less than a week are very clear. Global gas prices for the prompt months have more than doubled at some point during this week, with Asian gas prices combining a significant premium over TTS. The increase in global prices, in combination with the surge in ton-mile demand due to unopened arbiters to the east, has led to an unprecedented rise in small charter rates from circa $40,000 a day last week to around $300,000 per day on a round-trip basis for March and April loadings, and even rates above $100,000 a day for 12 months on modern vessels. One thing is clear, the longer the situation continues, markets will price the risk accordingly, and the rise in commodity prices will further support the rise in freight rates. This concludes our presentation for today. I'm happy to open the floor to any questions.