Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp.

Welcome to OET's first quarter 2023 financial results presentation. We will begin shortly. Aretidis Alafouzos, the CAO, Herakles Sparonos, the CFO, and Konstantinos Ikhinomopoulos, the Chief Development Officer of Okines Ecotankers, 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. Heraclius will begin the presentation now.

Welcome to the presentation of Kiani's cycle timetable results for the first quarter of 2023. We will discuss matters that are forward-looking in nature, and actual results may differ from the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements. We'll start with slide four and the executive summary. During my first conference call with the company back in February, I was privileged to present our then-strongest quarter since inception. I'm very happy to now present you the highlights of yet another record-breaking quarter in terms of revenue, EBITDA, and net income. The firm's time-to-market dynamics, in combination with our echo, young, and fuel-efficient fleet, has resulted in a fleet-wide time charter equivalent of $70,800 per vessel per day. That includes our fixed time charters. We report net TCE revenue of over $88 million, an 80% increase from our fourth quarter of 2022, adjusted EBITDA of over $74 million, and adjusted net profit of $1.60 per share, marking yet another quarter-on-quarter growth. Finally, our board has declared a fourth executive capital distribution of $1.60 per share. That is 100% of our EPS, a testament to our commitment to delivering value to our shareholders. In previous quarters, we made certain adjustments related mostly to our capital structure and then returned all remaining available value. Our current liquidity position, standing at levels of above $115 million as at the end of the first quarter, gave us the flexibility to return our full profit for this quarter. We continuously monitor our performance, the crude oil time care market outlook and fundamentals, global inflationary and interest rate dynamics, and naturally our balance sheet. We plan on carefully balancing this in the future, while staying true to our promise of delivering maximum available value to our shareholders. Our latest distribution, annualized, implies a yield against our current trading price of approximately 28%. We're now moving to slide five. On slide five, we summarize our corporate and capital structure, as well as our employment profiles. On the latter, the latest related to the Nisos Despotiko is that we expect her to be re-delivered from our time charters in late June. The Milos is also expected to conclude its shorter-term time charter within the next few weeks. Both will join our other 10 vessels trading spots. The two Suezmax long-term time chartered vessels, Nisos Sykinos and Nisos Syknos, are expected to be re-delivered to us sometime within the fourth quarter of this year. While we're currently fully financed, we're constantly in discussions with our financing partners, both current as well as potential new ones. The current banking market, in combination with us being able to demonstrate to our financiers our solid track record and state-of-the-art fleet, may provide some opportunities to refinance certain vessels at accretive levels from a pricing and debt service perspective. Of course, we expect a meaningful improvement in our capital structure with the opportunity of the first purchase options coming up with respect to the Milos and the Koliagos in the first and second quarter of next year. I will now hand over to Aristides for a commercial and market update. There is a most of you have probably tuned into this presentation for.

Thank you, Achli. Overall, it was another record quarter for OAT. To give a recap of Q1, we began with weakness in the freight markets, which carried over from Q4, but this rallied strongly towards the end of the quarter. The rally was driven by the Atlantic Basin exports, mostly on VLCCs to Asia and Europe, and these cargoes are less systematic and often driven by arbitrage opportunities. At times, the trade seems binary. All of a sudden, the U.S. Gulf and West Africa come alike with 10 live cargoes, and this creates great volatility and can quickly change the fundamentals of the market. Q1 Chinese crude oil imports were very high in March and marked the record month. Chinese refineries go into maintenance in Q2, so expectations that imports would come off before increasing again after turnaround season. Chinese Golden Week holiday travel data show domestic tourist numbers increased by 70% year-on-year. Recovering above 2019 levels, and this is from data from the Chinese Ministry of Tourism. Data from the ministry also revealed that flight traffic jumped up 500% year on year and 4.2% above 2019 levels. We are more focused internally on Chinese transportation and travel demand as opposed to COVID recovery driver of oil demand. On both segments, we looked to take advantage of longer voyages when opportunities arose. We continued our strategy of maintaining a strong western presence on our VLCC fleet. We put a lot of focus into optimizing our selections of voyages to limit waiting and maximize the speed during laden and ballast passages. These two factors can have a greater effect on the TCE of a voyage than small to medium fluctuations in market rates, and this is even more apparent on shorter voyages. During the quarter, we have achieved a fleet-wide TCE of $70,800 per operating day, including our time charge. Our VLCC generated $76,300 per day in the spot market, a 50% outperformance relative to our tanker peers that have reported Q1 earnings. And our Suez Maxis generated $95,900 per spot day, a 56% outperformance relative to our tanker peers who have also reported Q1 earnings. These numbers reflect our actual BOOKTC revenue within the quarter as per our accounting standards. Moving on to the next slide for guidance and a market update on Q2. First, let's quickly recap what has changed since last week in the market. The weakness on the VLTCs in the West vanished, as well as all of the available tonnage, and rates have firmed from around $2.8 million for U.S. Gulf TVA voice to mid $4 million in just under a week. Within less than a week, the U.S. Gulf, Guyana, and West Africa have absorbed a very over-tonnaged Atlantic Basin VLCC position. The positivity in the West and increase in rate has also given confidence, along with increased cargo inquiries in the East. Rates will increase now into the low 40s from the high 30s. Cargo allocation by suppliers in Asia is also expected to come out this Sunday, so we expect more firm inquiries on Monday. To give you an idea of how quickly the market fluctuated in the West, we put a ship on subs, which was the Nicos Kipnos, at almost $25,000 per day higher than what we would have pictured two days earlier. The market snapped back in a little over a month since the OPEC voluntary customer announced. I find this positive, and we expect to see further volatility in the market going forward. Reviewing Q2 then, Q2 began with eventful news from OPEC that they will voluntarily cut oil production. As usual, and even more as it's voluntary, we expect OPEC Plus overall to not cut the full extent stated in their afternoon, which ruined my Sunday and I assume a lot of other Sundays as well. These cuts came at an inopportune time, though, as rates were falling anyways for VLCCs, sentiment was weak, and refineries in Asia were going into maintenance. OPEC cuts will always have the greatest effect on the VLCC market, and as expected, that market weakens on a comparative basis much more than the Suez Maxis and AfriMaxis. The VLCCs have found the floor, as we discussed earlier, and the East as well. The Suez Maxis market has also weakened, but is more resilient given its more regional trading and the cargoes from the non-OPEC nations. So far in Q2, we have 74% of our fleet-wide spot days at $82,800 per day, 72% of our VLCC spot days at $75,500 a day, an 11% outperformance relative to our tanker peers who have reported Q2 earnings, and 79% of our SWSMAC spot days at $86,500 a day, a 61% outperformance relative to our tanker peers that have reported Q2 earnings. In Q2, NISOS, as Irakli's mentioned as well, NISOS Despotico will be re-delivered to us following the completion of our three-year time charter, and therefore we will have 100% of our VLCC fleet in the spot market. Milos will also re-deliver from our short VC. Moving on to slide nine, we highlight our continued outperformance above our peers, which is consistent, and which is a consistent 40 and 20% for the Suez Maxis and VLCCs respectively. Part of this output performance is due to our assets. We are the only pure eco-scrubber fitted and youngest crude tanker company. Moving to slide 10, we focus on the medium-term outlook. The OPEC voluntary cuts reduced available cargoes in the market and inevitably weakened the supply-demand balance. The silver lining here is that this leads to global economy being undersupplied with crude oil. Inventories will draw, creating the foundations for much stronger fundamentals in the future. Q2 will counter seasonally draw before accelerated draws in Q3 and Q4. What excites us the most is the expected seaborne crew tanker demand, which looks to have a 5% increase in tons transported, but more importantly, a 5.7 increase in ton miles. Ton miles have been a key factor in the strength of the market in 2022 and will be sustained through 2023. This growth occurs as the normal fleet loses ships to the grey fleet, and we effectively have a fleet contraction this year. We hold the view that the grey fleet cannot compete on normal business and becomes marginalized to only engage in grey and black trades. Moving on to slide 11. As we have discussed consistently in the past, the key oil demand driver comes east of Suez, and China being one of the critical factors. Chinese crude imports are expected to surpass historic highs this year, and as this inventory situation tightens in the second half, this demand will pull incremental barrels from the West, and especially the United States. We expect to see a further increase in the East of Seward market share on the U.S. Gulf exports. Jumping to slide 12. From a supply perspective, the fleet has never been more attractive in my career. Realistically, a delivery window for VLCCs or Suez Maxes from ShipGuard is into the second half of 2026. There may be a very finite number of berths available slightly earlier, but the number will be entirely negligible if you look at it on a whole fleet basis. If you wanted to order them, you're most likely to receive a ship in 2026, and yards are quoting prices in Korea of over $125 million for a VLCC. Zooming forward to 2026, 50% of the VLCC and Suez Max fleet will be over the age of 15 years old. The black and gray fleet lifts sanctioned cargoes from Iran, Venezuela, and Russia. The Iranian and Venezuelan lifters are classified as the black fleet. They have zero interaction with normal market participants, such as owners, charters, agents, etc. The insurance classification and slag that they fly are worth nothing. Some ships may not even bother to have any of these. The grey fleet is different. It is of a non-European nexus and lifts non-price-capped Russian cargoes. The quality of management on both fleets is questionable at best, and the tonnage is much older. Like the black fleet, the ownership structures are obscure and the insurance is debatable. This poses an environmental risk. If there is an incident, who will step forward to cover the pollution or damage? The owner that owns a vessel for a single purpose vehicle based out of a Middle Eastern country. I assume the person with the money is not the person who appears on the corporate documents. Or the insurance. The insurance companies are not large P&I clubs who use reinsurance and reinsure their risk all over the world like we do. But small, marginal office who issue a certificate to facilitate trade and consider the consequences only once they've occurred. I'm convinced that the owner and likely the insurance cover would disappear and potentially leave the bill with the nation defected. We have an example now of the aftermath that blew up off Malaysia called the Paslo. Luckily, so far pollution has been minimal, but let's see who covers the bill and the recovery of the vessel. The EU is considering legislation to not allow calls in Europe by the Greek League, which would marginalize it further into a category closer to the Black League. This is an effective removal of tonnage from the international white fleet. Although environmentally scary, all of the above is extremely positive for the normal fleet. We have a rapidly aging fleet and a large gray-black fleet that keeps absorbing normal tonnage to meet the inefficient long-haul service demands. Beginning next year, the market will also have to consider the effects of the CII rating and the EU ETS. This will create barriers to the less sophisticated owners and even more so to the less efficient ones. We believe that our fleet will further develop a competitive advantage of this. And now handing you back to Irakli for the financials.