Cool Company Ltd.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Cool Companies Limited Q4 2023 Business Update conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Richard Terrell. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Eric, and good day, everybody. Thank you for joining the Coolco fourth quarter 2023 results call. Let's get started by turning through the first couple of pages and taking a look at page three, cool company at a glance for the quarter. On the left, we have the headlines. Our time charter equivalent increased to $87,300 per day, a record level that was driven by our contracted revenues and seasonal tailwinds. This fed into higher revenue, higher EBITDA and higher net income if you adjust for the mark-to-market losses on interest rate swaps. The natural consumption of backlog over the quarter as a result of the passage of time was offset by the announcement of a 12-month charter for one of our open vessels after the end of the quarter. As a result of our strong operational performance, the board announced a dividend of 41 cents per share for the fourth quarter of 2023. This equates to a dividend yield of 14% at the current share price. The shares have been under pressure since the end of the quarter because some of the factors you see on the right-hand side of the page We'll get into these as we go through the presentation, but in summary, the warm winter has resulted in falling gas prices, and charter is seeking to sublet any excess capacity in their fleets. These sublets have weighed on rates and resulted in negative sentiment, but we do see them clearing the market, and as shipping demand increases with longer shipping distances as we move through the year, we expect rates to bounce back. Shipping distances have started to increase, because of the distributions in the Panama Canal and the Red Sea. Current LNG prices are expected to spur demand in the more distant markets that are even further away than normal because of these disruptions. And this is positive for our modern ships. It's not so great for smaller, less efficient steam turbine vessels, and it's hard to envisage how they stay in the market. This last point, along with the new LNG supply that is now visibly coming,

is expected to balance the shipping market.