Frontline plc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the second quarter 2024 frontline PLC earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Lars Barsted, CEO of Frontline Management AF. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much for that introduction, dear all. Thank you for dialing in to Frontline's quarterly earnings call. The second quarter of 2024 ended up very much in line with the first, with volatility, but ending up on a softer note as we entered the seasonal summer lull. Complications around war risk in the Middle East and tightening sanctions against Russia has regretfully become the norm, and I will be touching on that later in the call. It's important to remember, though, that we are at the seasonal lows, and I would like to say that all shareholders have a very exciting fall ahead, as Frontline has not had this number of potential money-making days going into the winter for decades. Before I give the word to Inger, I'll run through our TC numbers on slide three in the deck. In the second quarter of 2024, Frontline achieved $49,600 per day on our VLCC fleet, $45,600 per day on our SUSEMAX fleet, and $53,100 per day on our LR2 slash AFRAMAX fleet. So far in the third quarter, 79% of our VLCC days are booked at $47,400. 85% of our SUSE max days are booked at $49,900. And 65% of our LR2 slash AFRA max days are booked at $50,100 per day. Again, all these numbers are on a load-to-discharge basis, meaning they will be affected by the amount of ballast days we end up having at the end of the third quarter. Although Q3 bookings came in somewhat short of market expectations, please do keep in mind the binary characteristics of our market, especially as we come out of the seasonal lows. And then I'll let Inger take you through the financial highlights.

Thanks, Lars, and good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let's then turn to slide four. and look at profit statement and highlights. We report profit of 187.6 million or 84 cents per share this quarter and adjusted profit of 138.2 million or 62 cents per share. The adjusted profit in the second quarter was comparable to the first quarter as you can see from the slide. And the decrease in our TCE earnings with 12.4 million as a result of the disposal of two VCCs and two Susmax tankers was offset by a decrease in ship operating expenses, administrative expenses, depreciation and finance expense, as well as an increase in interest income of 12.6 million, making up the 0.2 million increase in the quarter. Let's then move to slide five and look at the balance sheet. The balance sheet movements in this quarter are mainly related to sale of four vessels in the second quarter, of which one we will see was held for sale in the first quarter. and also to re-leveraging part of the existing fleet used to repay debt drawn to partly financed acquisition of the 24 BCCs from Euronav. Trompe l'Ile has a strong liquidity of 567 million in cash and cash equivalents, including undrawn amount of the senior unsecured revolving credit facility, the marketable securities and minimum cash requirements to the bank as per June 12th, 2020 to 24th. We have no remaining new billion commitments and we have no meaningful debt matrices until 2027.

Then we can look at slide six.

In the second and the third quarters of 2024, we completed our strategy of freeing up capital by re-leveraging part of the existing bleep. and also divesting older vessels, which enabled us to repay an aggregate of 395 million, which was drawn under the Hieman shareholder loan and also under our evolving credit facility with an affiliate of Hieman to partly finance the acquisition of the 24 villas from Euronav earlier. From this slide we have made up here, we can see that this has involved optimizing the capital structure through refinancing of 36 vessels and divesting eight older vessels. Total recent and ongoing refinancings in a total amount of $1.55 billion have secured long-term financing at highly attractive terms with maturity of about eight years and have improved debt margins with about 30 basis points on a weighted average basis. The net expected cash proceeds from the refinancing is 548 million, sorry, and 311 million from divesting older vessels. Let's then look at slide seven. Our fleet consists of 41 businesses, 23 SUSEMAX tankers, and 18 LR2 tankers. It has an average age of six years and consists of 99% ecovessels and where 56% is scrubber fitted. We estimate average cash break even rates for the next 12 months of approximately $29,600 per day for VCC to $22,300 per day for SUSEMAX tankers and $21,200 per day for the LR2 tankers. with a fleet average estimate of about $25,700 per day. It is slightly down from previous quarter, mainly as a result of the financing and refinancing done. The fleet average estimate includes dry dock of two suspect tankers and four will cease in the next 12 months, whereof two will cease in the third quarter of 2024, one will cease in the fourth quarter of 2024, one ZeusMax in the first quarter of 2025, and one VLCs and one ZeusMax in the second quarter of 2025. We recorded OPEX expenses including dry dock in the second quarter of $8,600 per day for VLCs, $9,300 per day for ZeusMax tankers, and $7,600 per day for air-active tankers. This includes dry dock of two ZeusMax tankers and two VLCs in the quarter. The Q2 24 fleet average OPEX including, excluding the dry dock I mean, was $7,600 per day.

Then let's move to slide eight and look at cash generation potential.

Trondheim has about 30 earnings days annually. We have about 28,000 R-spot days. Even in this weak spot market that we experience now, the cash generation potential at current feed and spot market earnings from Clarkson's research as of August 29th of $33,500 per day for VLCs, $36,600 for Zeus Max tankers and $28,700 for LR2 tankers is 242 million or $1.09 per share. The sensitivity is high from these spot market levels that you see now, and 30% increase from current spot market will increase the potential cash generation with about 116%. Note that the spot market earnings at the 30% increase is only 43,600 for VCCs, 47,500 for SUSEMAX, and 37,300 for LRQ tankers. and the upside potential should be much higher going forward when the party begins. With this I leave the work to Lars again.

Thank you very much Inger. Let's then go to slide 9 and start discussion on the current market narrative. You will notice that there is a new theme we're focusing on at Frontline. as we've been trying to kind of explain the developments in the current market. We all sit on more or less the same S&D models. The unknown is basically how oil trades. There is a development of a two-tier market between what we would refer to as the compliant and non-compliant market. And this divide has grown over the last 12 to 18 months. And this is quite surprising to some, I would assume. 23% of the global fleet is suspected to be or involved in sanctioned trade. And in these numbers, it's not necessarily a ship that has lifted Russian crude, because the molecule is still not sanctioned. But it's vessels that have adverse activities surrounding their trade, whether it's with Russian crude or other sanctioned crudes. And so basically what these numbers tell you is that 17% of the VOCC fleet is currently under some sort of scrutiny, either by OFAC, UANI, or they have red flags attached to their activities. And likewise, if you move to the SUSE Maxis, you have 21% of the fleet is under the same kind of, in the same kind of situation. And we have 28% of the AFRELA-2 fleet having the same characteristics. This is obviously related to the rise in sanction scrutiny and also the volumes trading, and I'll come back to that later in the following slide. Geopolitical risk linked to the Middle East is ever increasing. It's also quite surprising to us to see the somewhat moderate oil movements of volatility considering this explosive backdrop. Chinese imports are in question after July, but as far as we can see it, August tracking imply an increase of 1.2 million barrels month-over-month to China. So although that doesn't really make this story fantastic, it's at least you should not base China on the July observations. Global oil demand is on track. at least looking at the numbers we see. Oil in transit is in a rising trend. World inventories are at historical lows. And there is a limited cushion for adverse events, which also could be related to weather. The order book expansion in our industry is slowing. The available delivery window for tankers has moved into 2028, for any substantial order, that is. and other asset classes are starting to take the center stage. Let's move to slide 10 and discuss a little bit more of the sanctioned exposed trade growth. So there has been over the last month an increased scrutiny on the Russian trade, basically exposing more and more vessels to being sanctioned by either G7 or EU in their operations surrounding the Russian trade. We've also seen steep growth in Iranian exports, which basically has increased the need for tonnage for transportation. What we've ended up seeing is that we have a two-tier market, which is kind of developing in front of our eyes. We have what we would refer to as the compliance market, which involves 80% of the tanker fleet or thereabouts. And then you have the dark or gray fleet, which involves 20% of the tanker fleet, or even up to 23% of the tanker fleet. The interesting part here is that you're not building vessels to enter the dark or gray fleets. So basically, they get their fleet supply from the compliant fleet. So the compliant fleet is shrinking whilst this kind of dark or gray fleet is growing it's supplied by the aging of the overall tanker fleet basically and over 20 year old vessels still do not trade in what we regard the conventional market it creates an interesting dynamics because unless non-conventional trade continues to grow the illicit market will soon be oversupplied as the fleet aging accelerates so basically the vessels moving from the compliant market due to age, and basically because we have zero scrapping, will at some point here start to overcrowd the dark or gray fleet, and one should expect scrapping to start to happen in the end. The parallel trade carries an increasing risk to any reversal of sanctions as well, and that needs to be kept close to mind. kind of implication here and we can question where is sanctions enforcement in this picture and also where is IMO in respect of safety and reducing emissions etc. I can assure you this fleet is not spending too much capex on reducing their carbon footprint. At the bottom right-hand side of this slide, you will see kind of how this development is, and the red arrows basically indicate this divide. So basically, the overall fleet continues to grow, as basically no ships are being recycled. But the compliant fleet that was under 20 years of age is gradually shrinking as it proceeds. This includes the new buildings coming into the market. So with that harsh message, I'm going to move to slide 11. And let's look at the upside potential here in the compliant market. We have tanker seasonality, and it's extremely pronounced. 90% of the global population lives in the northern hemisphere, basically where most of us on this call live. And EIA expects the oil consumption to increase by 1.5 million barrels by December. basically due to some temperatures turning. On average, looking back, the winter market sees an increase of consumption by 1.5 to 2 million barrels in the period from August to December. This is a long-term pattern and we see it both in oil in transit and then obviously in freight earnings. If you look at the bottom right-hand slide chart, That's basically just taking the last 34 years and looked at the seasonal trend. And we're basically in the weeks where this market starts to come to action. It's also quite encouraging to see oil in transit actually dipping out of the long-term trend. And to top it, we have to keep in mind that the inventories within OECD, and we added China and India as well to this, is at historical lows. And again, I would like to emphasize, it offers a very limited cushion in the event of an unexpected event. OPEC is still supposed to increase supply from October. The question is whether they will do it where oil is currently trading. But 2.2 million barrels is said to be returned between October and the end of 2025. And again, as from the previous slide, the shrinking compliant tanker fleet capacity to serve conventional oil demand growth makes this a very interesting picture. And also, I think we need to keep in mind that although the market is sluggish currently, the balance is fairly thin. Only two weeks ago, we had VOC rates moving up 25%, and it doesn't take much to move the needle. Let's then have a look at the order books. And the overarching theme here is that the ordering we saw in the beginning, or the first half of the year, has been muted over the last month, month and a half. Basically, virtually zero tankers have been awarded in the last month and a half. And basically, at the same time, we've seen other asset classes move in to contract vessels. And in particular, we've seen big orders being placed on the container side for 2028 delivery. We think that for VLC and SUSEMAX, the order book still looks low, very low for VLCC, medium low for SUSEMAX, and high for LR2. But with LR2, as I mentioned before, we need to consider that there are virtually no Afromaxes on order. So if you take that percentage and apply it, or sorry, take that number of ships on order and apply it to the overall LR2 Afromax fleet, we come in at 13%, which is still not alarming. We also need to keep in mind that we're heading into a generation of ships that came post 2008 for VLCC and SUSEMAX, post 2007 for LR2s, which are sizable generations of vessels, which will come to age in 2027, 2028 and onwards. So to sum this up before we open up for questions, Frontland has decades high earnings capacity as we move into second half. We have a strong balance sheet with sensible leverage on our modern fleet. There is, as mentioned, a growing divide between the compliance and the sanctioned trade, which can create interesting volatility going forward. The security situation in Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Middle East is ever increasing. As delivery slots for new building moves into 2028, we have seen that container ordering has accelerated again. Short and medium term oil demand looks on track, but China is, of course, a question. The seasonal play is on, and I know a few people will know this, but I'll say it again, winter is coming. So with that, we will open for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. We will now take our first question. Please stand by. And the first question comes from the line of Jonathan Chappell from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Inger, first question is for you. Slide 6 says you've completed the re-leveraging and the divesting of older vessels. So I just want to be clear, there's no more big refinancings that we should expect before 2027, and the divestiture of the older vessels is mainly complete at this point?

Your first question was that there were no more refinancings until 2027. Was that correct? Correct. Well, not any material ones. We have a few smaller ones, which will come in 2025. Okay. And your next question, or your second question was, sorry?

Was it around the divesting of the older vessels? Is that process completed as well?

Yeah, that is also completed, yeah.

Okay, good. And then just a follow-up question on this latest refinancing with the sale and leaseback. You know, it's interesting. Sale and leasebacks were kind of a thing of the prior tanker markets where rates were weak and maybe financing wasn't as available or attractive. And you've done most of your refinancing through, you know, traditional credit facilities. What was the thought process of doing another sale and leaseback at this point in the cycle to refinance that prior one?

Well, actually, it's... This new leaseback arrangement is refinancing a current leaseback arrangement. So we are not actually doing more. That's the same type 10 vessels that we have today, which we just are replacing. And it's not a standard leaseback arrangement in a way. You can look upon it more like a kind of bank facility because it's... leverage is only 60% loan-to-value and the terms are like a bank facility in a way. So that's why, yeah.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you for that, Inger. And then Lars, just one for you. I mean, I think the seasonality slide is pretty clear and many of us who've been around understand this very well. I guess there is some concern about China. You noted in your prepared remarks, let's not extrapolate July. But is there any way to take that inventory slide that you did for slide 11 and isolate China? And is there a reason that China may be a lot more aggressive in the back half of the year? Or is it more of an OECD depleted inventory and maybe China doesn't have that type of panic going into their winter season where they need to be more aggressive on the imports?

It's a very good point. And if we did that chart with China isolated, although it's implied inventory builds, because the strategic part of their inventories is not public, it would look a bit different. Whereas China has been more or less stable, running a fairly high level of inventory ever since we came out of COVID. And as you might remember, they used that period with extremely weak oil prices to replenish their inventories. But with regards to China, it's not a mystery, but it is apparent that China is not going at the speed that we would like to see. However, if you just look at our neighbors in this building, being in the dry bulk market, there is somewhat a different story. So I think it's just very important to, or it's very difficult to kind of read China right now. We also need to keep in mind that of the imports China do, you know, they take, you know, close to 20% of their supply is coming from either Iran, Venezuela or Russia. So it's kind of difficult to, to monitor these flows accurately. But also we know that they're taking more crude coming from Russia in the north. So I would say China is the dark horse. And right now it doesn't look too good, to be fair. But there are other countries in the region that are historically higher consumers during the winter. And, you know, the most notable one is, in fact, India. So, you know, but I actually think that, you know, I don't believe we'll have a muted China into Q4 or towards Q1. You know, that I doubt, whether if we're going to have year-on-year growth, that's more questionable. But I still think that, you know, with the rest of the situation, the rest of the countries that normally grow their demand during winter, I think we should still be okay.

Okay, great. Thank you very much, Lars. Thanks, Inger.

Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by.

And the next question comes from the line of Omar Nocta from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Hi, Lars and Inger. Good afternoon. Just a I've got a couple questions on the market, but also wanted to touch on the BLTC performance you've booked thus far into the third quarter. You've got 79% of 3Q booked at just over $47,000, which obviously a little bit down from the first half, but still, I would say, quite impressive when we look at what the market has averaged since the start of, say, June, whether you take into account ECO and Scrubber Premium. So I just wanted to ask, what's driven that? perhaps outperformance, you know, in your view?

Well, first of all, Omar, you need to keep in mind the fact that we report on a load-to-discharge basis. So that has to be, you know, highlighted. It's not all our peers, and it's not always clear how our peers report.

So, you know, you should not expect us to be able to book too much towards the end of the quarter basically because we can't account for income until the vessels actually load the cargo.

But what has happened in Q1 is that, you know, we received a fairly big new fleet from Euronav. you know, almost all delivered in the Middle East. What we've done over the quarter is been able to kind of put this fleet into the trade, reflecting the rest of the frontline fleet, whereas we try to keep, you know, limit our exposure to, or to kind of, to try and avoid having too much exposure to one particular basin. And most, more recently, it's been the Middle East that is the soft spot, kind of the

It's kind of ironic that the VLCC benchmark or S&P 500 or Dow Jones index is based on into the trade in the Atlantic Basin with Africa, US Gulf, Brazil.

regretfully a lot of short hauling because oil hasn't really gone far during the latter part of Q2 and into Q3 this also explains some of the weakness in this segment in particular and also how it's been cannibalizing on Susmax and to some extent I'd say that there is no magic portion portion portion here is probably the word yeah and But also keep in mind that this performance, we're quite okay or proud of it, considering also the fact that we've reduced our scrubber penetration in the fleet. Having said that, you probably also noticed that the spread between high and low sulfur has been fairly narrow. So you could say that the scrubber benefit in the more recent months has not been as pronounced.

Okay. Thanks, Lars. Appreciate that. And just a quick follow-up just on that point or just generally on the Vs. Have you played into the whole product cargo lifting in your fleet?

Not on the VLCCs, but on the SUSE MAXs, yes. So basically cannibalizing our own LR2s.

Okay. And then just kind of more on the market here, you know, one we've seen, you know, the recent pullback in Libyan exports, or at least production volumes, it seems like they're maybe still able to export from inventory, but if this is prolonged and that volume is away from the market, how do you think that affects the different dynamics within the crude trade at this point? Obviously, Afromax has seemed more exposed to that, but how do you think the VLCCs and Suezmax react in that type of environment?

I do ask maybe four questions. the disruptions started in the Suez Canal or Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, I would have said that this is kind of material. But basically what's happened kind of since those events started to occur, Libyan used to go east by way of either Suez or, well, actually really all the way around, but at least through Suez. And, you know, with the disruptions in Suez, We've seen that oil trade local, so you're right that it affects the Afro-Maxis. It might have a limited impact on the Zeus-Maxis, but I would say virtually no impact on the VLCCs. And it's actually again then that if you take one crude out of the equation, another one comes up.

And I guess in that situation, if you lose that crude from Libya and that gets made up potentially from the Middle East, does that become a VLCC trade?

Potentially, but it could also be, you know, replenished from Latin America or US Gulf or West Africa, because Libyan is now then predominantly going into Europe and not to the East, basically due to the disruptions in the US.

Okay, got it. And then one more for you, just on, you talked about the sanctions and, you know, the dark fleet, the gray fleet. I wanted to ask, in terms of, you know, what's gone on with Iran, how would you, how do you think the market would move forward in a situation where, say, there's more scrutiny on Iranian crude exports and those fall back to where they were a few years ago? You know, I guess you, that gray dark fleet perhaps maybe makes its way back to the clean, quote unquote, or not clean, but the market fleet. How do you kind of think about that versus needing to make up those barrels?

No, I think, you know, as this, you know, this development has been going on for far longer than at least I anticipated or we anticipated. But so it's basically, you know, kind of, making it less and less likely that the vessel servicing this market is ever going to be able to return to a compliant market. So it means that any change, however unlikely, to the sanction regime against Iran will be even a more positive effect on the compliant market. This is a discussion that comes up quite often. From our side of the equation, we struggle to understand why this trade can even go on. But obviously, if you come from a crude, short nation who needs to refine petrol for your inhabitants, then you will obviously take an opportunity for any barrels that you can get hold of. So regretfully, I don't think we can necessarily do much with this trade. What I am saying, though, is that as the compliant fleet is aging, it supplies into this fleet, and this aging is accelerating as we move forward here. So I actually, unless you see Iran able to produce significant more oil, or same goes for Russia, of course, and Venezuela, all three, which is unlikely, will actually start to have an overcrowded fleet. kind of oversupplied sanctioned market. So I think that's, you know, because I've lost all faith in enforcing sanctions. I've lost all faith in kind of, you know, to regulate one out of this. You know, we had a tanker that blew up outside Singapore recently and nobody really, you know, put too much attention to that. So we have a Zeus Max burning in the Red Sea as we speak. Nobody really, it doesn't really make that much of a headline if you're outside of shipping. So I kind of lost that faith, but what I do believe is that we will see that fleet just continue to grow because the source of, or the alternative for a ship turning 20 is still, it makes a lot of sense to go into that market. But once the margins in that market are destroyed, we'll actually start to see recycling. If that made sense. Sorry, it was a very, very long answer to your question.

No, it did. Very interesting. I appreciate that perspective. Somewhat sobering.

But yeah. Thanks, Lars. I'll turn it over. Thank you, Omar.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again.

We will now take our next question. Please stand by.

And the next question comes from the line of Devon Sangoy from TEJ Investments. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Yeah. Yeah, Lars. I just want to ask you a question that you mentioned about, you know, the oil spillage in Red Sheep, which happened, and there were several other instances. How do you see this dark fleet insurance getting covered? Because that's, again, the amount of food is moving on and you don't have a global insurance companies who are willing to underwrite?

It's an extremely good question and you know when we did the basically you know we've done an exercise prior to this to gauge how many ships and how many vessels are operating in the sanction trade or are kind of operating illicitly in the Russian trade. Because there are owners that are able to trade Russian barrels within, you know, either by way of getting at the station on the price cap or other means that they actually manage to trade Russian crude without raising any flags. But in order to gauge how much of that, you know, that oil is actually on the sanction, One of the studies we did was basically to see how many of these vessels are actually not insured by any recognizable P&I club. And that is basically the foundation for saying that we assume 75% of the Russian volumes are under sanctions or sanctions exposed. So, and that paints a horrendous picture if something happens. So, you know, the sewage marketing question that is currently burning in, you know, Gulf of Aden, that has insurance, I understand, from a P&I club that's recognized. But the tanker that blew up outside Singapore, I might be mistaken, but I still think they're trying to figure out who actually owned the vessel in the end.

so so I think this pegs it paints a very very bleak picture uh if we get more events like this okay thanks and the second question is on uh if you see the way uh soft landing is being questioned about there is always a doubt about U.S economic going into a sort of recession if not soft landing and you have a Chinese economy not recovering so next year do you see if both these don't uh you know recover then uh there'll be a lower oil demand globally um i don't think we'll have lower global oil demand globally but the expected oil demand growth will be limited

so so um but but if you couple that with the fact that uh you know the fleet the tanker fleet is is presumably shrinking at least the efficient fleet is shrinking we're not too worried about that from a tank and demand perspective and uh any other uh factor which can affect the ton mile because we've seen a significant change in ton mile over last

12 months, you know. So do you see any other factor which affects TurnMile positively or negatively?

No, there's nothing really that comes to mind. We are moving into a weather exposed period of the year, which partly explains the volatility we normally see towards winter. So that could obviously change things up. But, and obviously, you know, sudden supply changes like, you know, Libya was mentioned where we're losing six and a half, sorry, 660 million barrels per day or thereabouts. That is actually enough to trigger certain changes. But there is nothing kind of apparent I see. We see the TMX pipeline, which is a new flow out of Canada on the US West Coast. That is kind of developing, but it doesn't seem to have altered trading lanes materially. But again, one thing to watch is, of course, production growth in Guyana, in Brazil, and then in the US Gulf. There is not much export growth expected out of US gold for next year, but everybody has been wrong every year in quite a long time. And there is also an election over there, which might affect the willingness to invest in production, which will hit on exports. I think there are numerous kind of interesting spots to look at, but nothing kind of material that I think will happen very, very soon.

And as you've seen, you've been paying out handsome dividend, but if your call on the bull market was right, you will be flushed with so much cash. What do you do with the cash?

We pay it to our dear investors. Then you can decide what to do. That was kind of jokingly said, but that's basically how we operate. Unless we see an investment opportunity that we think will yield our investors a better return on equity, we will pay it all out.

so you don't see any see you've done uh pretty uh we were the first one to you know uh take out all the ships from the yard you know half completed VLCC and now you leverage your balance sheet so you have a financial leverage operating leverage do you still see any good asset acquiring opportunity or are we done with it um I think and I hope that we are in line with the rest of the markets that

We need to see a confirmation in the rates in our market before we have the conviction to do anything on the asset side. So basically, right now, we're content with the fleet composition we have. But if the market is going to continue to only pay us $40,000 to $45,000 per day, there makes no sense to either buy or not. order a ship at these price levels.

Thank you Lars and all the best. Thank you very much.

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question please press star 11 again. As there are no further questions, I would like to hand back to Lars Bastlund for any closing remarks.

Thank you. And thank you for listening in. Thank you for a row of very, very good questions. And we'll just keep our fingers crossed for the normal season pattern to start to come to play. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating.

You may now disconnect. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Dear all, thank you for dialing in to Frontline's quarterly earnings call. The second quarter of 2024 ended up very much in line with the first, with volatility, but ending up on a softer note as we entered the seasonal summer lull. Complications around war risk in the Middle East and tightening sanctions against Russia has regretfully become the norm, and I will be touching on that later in the call. It's important to remember, though, that we are at the seasonal lows, and I would like to say that all shareholders have a very exciting fall ahead, as Frontline has not had this number of potential money-making days going into the winter for decades. Before I give the word to Inger, I'll run through our TC numbers on slide three in the deck. In the second quarter of 2024, Frontline achieved $49,600 per day on our VLCC fleet, $45,600 per day on our SUSEMAX fleet, and $53,100 per day on our LR2 slash AFRAMAX fleet. So far in the third quarter, 79% of our VLCC days are booked at $47,400, 85% of our SUSEMAX days are booked at $49,900, and 65% of our LR2 slash Afromax days are booked at $50,100 per day. Again, all these numbers are on a load-to-discharge basis, meaning they will be affected by the amount of balance days we end up having at the end of the third quarter. Although Q3 bookings came in somewhat short of market expectations, please do keep in mind the binary characteristics of our markets, especially as we come out of the seasonal lows. And then I'll let Inger take you through the financial highlights.

Thanks Lars and good morning and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Let's then turn to slide four and look at profit statement and highlights. We report profit of 187.6 million or 84 cents per share this quarter and adjusted profit of 138.2 million or 62 cents per share. The adjusted profit in the second quarter was comparable to the first quarter as you can see from the slide. And the decrease in our TCE earnings with 12.4 million as a result of the disposal of two VCCs and two SUSEMAX tankers was offset by a decrease in ship operating expenses, administrative expenses, depreciation and finance expense, as well as an increase in interest income of 12.6 million, making up the 0.2 million increase in the quarter. Let's then move to slide five. And look at the balance sheet. The balance sheet movements in this quarter are mainly related to sale of four vessels in the second quarter, of which one we also see was held for sale in the first quarter. And also to re-leveraging part of the existing fleet used to repay debt drawn to partly financed acquisition of the 24 VCCs from Euronav. Trondlein has a strong liquidity of 567 million in cash and cash equivalents, including undrawn amounts of the senior unsecured revolving credit facility, the marketable securities, and minimum cash requirements to the bank as per June 12, 2024. We have no remaining new billion commitments, and we have no meaningful debt maturities until 2027.

Then we can look at slide six.

In the second and the third quarters of 2024, we completed our strategy of freeing up capital by re-leveraging part of the existing fleet and also divesting older vessels, which enabled us to repay an aggregate of 395 million. which was strong under the Heman shareholder loan and also under our evolving credit facility with an affiliate of Heman, to partly finance the acquisition of the 24 VCs from Euronav earlier. From this slide we have made up here, we can see that this has involved optimizing the capital structure through refinancing of 36 vessels and divesting eight older vessels. Total recent and ongoing refinancing in a total amount of 1.55 billion dollars have secured long-term financing at highly attractive terms with maturity of about eight years and have improved debt margins with about 30 basis points on a weighted average basis. The net expected cash proceeds from the refinancing is 548 million. and 311 million from divesting older vessels.

Let's then look at slide seven.

Our fleet consists of 41 VCCs, 23 SUSEMAX tankers, and 18 LR2 tankers. It has an average age of six years and consists of 99% ecovessels, where 56% is scrubber fitted. We estimate average cash break even rates for the next 12 months of approximately $29,600 per day for VCC, $22,300 per day for SUSEMAX tankers, and $21,200 per day for the LR2 tankers, with a fleet average estimate of about $25,700 per day. It is slightly down from previous quarter, mainly as a result of the financing and refinancing done. The fleet average estimate includes dry dock of two SUSEmax tankers and four VLCCs in the next 12 months, whereof two VLCCs in the third quarter of 24, one VLCC in the fourth quarter of 24, one SUSEmax in the first quarter of 25, and one wheel to seize and one Zeus Max in second quarter of 25. We recorded OPEX expenses including dry dock in the second quarter of $8,600 per day for wheel to seize, $9,300 per day for Zeus Max tankers and $7,600 per day for electric tankers. This includes dry dock of two Zeus Max tankers and two wheel to seize in the quarter. The Q2 24 fleet average OPEX including, excluding the dry dock I mean, was $7,600 per day.

Then let's move to slide eight and look at cash generation potential.

Trondheim has about 30 earnings days annually. We have about 28,000 R spot days. Even in this weak spot market that we experience now, the cash generation potential at current feed and spot market earnings from Clarkson's research as of August 29th of $33,500 per day for VCCs, $36,600 for Zeus Max tankers and $28,700 for LR2 tankers is 242 million or $1.09 per share. The sensitivity is high from these spot market levels that you see now, and 30% increase from current spot market will increase the potential cash generation with about 116%. Note that the spot market earnings at the 30% increase is only 43,600 for VCCs, 47,500 for SUSMACs, and 37,300 for LR2 tankers. and the upside potential should be much higher going forward when the party begins. With this I leave the work to Lars again.

Thank you very much Inge. Let's then go to slide 9 and start discussion on the current market narrative. You will notice that there is a new theme we're focusing on at Frontline. as we've been trying to kind of explain the developments in the current market. We all sit on more or less the same S&D models. The unknown is basically how oil trades. There is a development of a two-tier market between what we would refer to as the compliant and non-compliant market. And this divide has grown over the last 12 to 18 months. And this is quite surprising to some, I would assume. 23% of the global fleet is suspected to be or involved in sanctioned trade. And in these numbers, it's not necessarily a ship that has lifted Russian crude, because the molecule is still not sanctioned. But it's vessels that have adverse activities surrounding their trade, whether it fits with Russian crude or other sanctioned crudes. And so basically what these numbers tell you is that 17% of the VLCC fleet is currently under some sort of scrutiny, either by OFAC, UANI, or they have red flags attached to their activities. And likewise, if you move to the SUSE Maxis, you have 21% of the fleet is under the same kind of, in the same kind of situation. And we have 28% of the Afrella True fleet having the same characteristics. This is obviously related to the rise in sanction scrutiny and also the volumes trading and I'll come back to that later in the following slide. Geopolitical risk linked to the Middle East is ever increasing. It's also quite surprising to us to see the somewhat moderate oil movements of volatility considering this explosive backdrop. Chinese imports are in question after July, but as far as we can see it, August tracking imply an increase of 1.2 million barrels month-over-month to China. So although that doesn't really make this story fantastic, it's at least you should not base China on the July observations. Global oil demand is on track. at least looking at the numbers we see. Oil in transit is in a rising trend. World inventories are at historical lows. And there is a limited cushion for adverse events, which also could be related to weather. The order book expansion in our industry is slowing. The available delivery window for tankers has moved into 2028, for any substantial order, that is. and other asset classes are starting to take the center stage. Let's move to slide 10 and discuss a little bit more of the sanctioned exposed trade growth. So there has been over the last month an increased scrutiny on the Russian trade, basically exposing more and more vessels to being sanctioned by either G7 or EU in their operations surrounding the Russian trade. We've also seen steep growth in Iranian exports, which basically has increased the need for tonnage for transportation. What we've ended up seeing is that we have a two-tier market, which is kind of developing in front of our eyes. We have what we would refer to as the compliance market, which involves 80% of the tanker fleet or thereabouts. And then you have the dark or gray fleet, which involves 20% of the tanker fleet, or even up to 23% of the tanker fleet. The interesting part here is that you're not building vessels to enter the dark or gray fleets. So basically, they get their fleet supply from the compliant fleet. So the compliant fleet is shrinking, whilst this kind of dark or gray fleet is growing. It's supplied by the aging of the overall tanker fleet basically and over 20 year old vessels still do not trade in what we regard the conventional market. It creates an interesting dynamics because unless non-conventional trade continues to grow the illicit market will soon be oversupplied as the fleet aging accelerates. So basically, vessels moving from the compliant market due to age, and basically because we have zero scrapping, will at some point here start to overcrowd the dark or gray fleet, and one should expect scrapping to start to happen in the end. The parallel oil trade carries an increasing risk to any reversal of sanctions as well, and that needs to be kept close to mind. kind of implication here and we can question where is sanctions enforcement in this picture and also where is IMO in respect of safety and reducing emissions etc. I can assure you this fleet is not spending too much capex on reducing their carbon footprint. At the bottom right-hand side of this slide, you will see kind of how this development is, and the red arrows basically indicate this divide. So basically, the overall fleet continues to grow, as basically no ships are being recycled. But the compliant fleet that was under 20 years of age is gradually shrinking as it proceeds. This includes the new buildings coming into the market. So with that harsh message, I'm going to move to slide 11. And let's look at the upside potential here in the compliance market. We have tanker seasonality, and it's extremely pronounced. 90% of the global population lives in the northern hemisphere, basically where most of us on this call live. And EIA expects the oil consumption to increase by 1.5 million barrels by December. basically due to some temperatures turning. On average, looking back, the winter market sees an increase of consumption by 1.5 to 2 million barrels in the period from August to December. This is a long-term pattern, and we see it both in oil in transit and then obviously in freight earnings. If you look at the bottom right-hand slide chart, That's basically just taking the last 34 years and looked at the seasonal trend. And we're basically in the weeks where this market starts to come to action. It's also quite encouraging to see oil in transit actually dipping out of the long-term trend. And to top it, we have to keep in mind that the inventories, within OECD, and we added China and India as well to this, is at historical lows. And again, I would like to emphasize, it offers a very limited cushion in the event of an unexpected event. OPEC is still supposed to increase supply from October. The question is whether they will do it where oil is currently trading. But 2.2 million barrels is said to be returned between October and the end of 2025. And again, as from the previous slide, the shrinking compliant tanker fleet capacity to serve conventional alderman growth makes this a very interesting picture. And also, I think we need to keep in mind that although the market is sluggish currently, the balance is fairly thin. Only two weeks ago we had VOC rates moving up 25 percent and it doesn't take much to move the needle. Let's then have a look at the order books and the overarching theme here is that the ordering we saw in the beginning or the first half of the year has been muted over the last month, month and a half. Basically, virtually zero tankers have been awarded in the last month and a half. And basically, at the same time, we've seen other asset classes move in to contract vessels. And in particular, we've seen big orders being placed on the container side for 2028 delivery. We think that for VLC and SUSEMAX, the order book still looks low, very low for VLCC, medium low for SUSEMAX, and high for LR2. But with LR2, as I mentioned before, we need to consider that there are virtually no Afromaxes on order. So if you take that percentage and apply it, or sorry, take that number of ships on order and apply it to the overall LR2 Afromax fleet, we come in at 13%, which is still not alarming. We also need to keep in mind that we're heading into a generation of ships that came post 2008 for VLCC and SUSEMAX, post 2007 for LR2s, which are sizable generations of vessels, which will come to age in 2027, 2028 and onwards. So to sum this up before we open up for questions, Frontland has decades high earnings capacity as we move into second half. We have a strong balance sheet with sensible leverage on our modern fleet. There is, as mentioned, a growing divide between the clock compliance and the sanction trade, which can create interesting volatility going forward. The security situation in Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Middle East is ever increasing. As delivery slots for new building moves into 2028, we have seen that container ordering has accelerated again. Short and medium term oil demand looks on track, but China is, of course, a question. The seasonal play is on, and I know a few people will know this, but I'll say it again, winter is coming. So with that, we will open for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. We will now take our first question. Please stand by. And the first question comes from the line of Jonathan Chappell from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Inger, first question is for you. Slide 6 says you've completed the re-leveraging and the divesting of older vessels. So I just want to be clear, there's no more big refinancing that we should expect before 2027, and the divestiture of the older vessels is mainly complete at this point?

Your first question was that there were no more refinancing until 2027. Was that correct? Correct. Well, not any material ones. We have a few smaller ones, which will come in 2025. Okay. And your next question, or your second question was, sorry?

Was it around the divesting of the older vessels? Is that process completed as well?

Yeah, that is also completed, yeah.

Okay, good. And then just a follow-up question on this latest refinancing with the sale and leaseback. You know, it's interesting. Sale and leasebacks were kind of a thing of the prior tanker markets where rates were weak and maybe financing wasn't as available or attractive. And you've done most of your refinancing through, you know, traditional credit facilities. What was the thought process of doing another sale and leaseback at this point in the cycle to refinance that prior one?

Well, actually, it's... This new lease back arrangement is refinancing a current lease back arrangement. So we are not actually doing more. That's the same type 10 vessels that we have today, which we just are replacing. And it's not a standard lease back arrangement in a way. You can look upon it more like a kind of bank facility. leverage is only 60% loan-to-value and the terms are like a bank facility in a way. So that's why, yeah.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you for that, Inger. And then Lars, just one for you. I mean, I think the seasonality slide is pretty clear and many of us who've been around understand this very well. I guess there is some concern about China. You noted in your prepared remarks, let's not extrapolate July. But is there any way to take that inventory slide that you did for slide 11 and isolate China? And is there a reason that China may be a lot more aggressive in the back half of the year? Or is it more of an OECD depleted inventory and maybe China doesn't have that type of panic going into their winter season where they need to be more aggressive on the imports?

It's a very good point. And if we did that chart with China isolated, although it's implied inventory builds, because the strategic part of their inventories is not public, it would look a bit different. Whereas China has been more or less stable, running a fairly high level of inventory ever since we came out of COVID. And as you might remember, they used that period with extremely weak oil prices to replenish their inventories. But with regards to China, it's not a mystery, but it is apparent that China is not going at the speed that we would like to see. However, if you just look at our neighbors in this building, being in the dry bulk market, there is somewhat a different story. So I think it's just very important to, or it's very difficult to kind of read China right now. We also need to keep in mind that of the imports China do, you know, they take, you know, close to 20% of their supply is coming from either Iran, Venezuela or Russia. So it's kind of difficult to, to monitor these flows accurately. Also, we know that they're taking more crude coming from Russia in the north. So I would say China is the dark horse, and right now it doesn't look too good, to be fair. But there are other countries in the region that are historically higher consumers during the winter. And, you know, the most notable one is, in fact, India. So, you know, but I actually think that, you know, I don't believe we'll have a mute to China into Q4 or towards Q1. You know, that I doubt, whether if we're going to have year on year growth, that's more questionable. But I still think that, you know, with the rest of the situation, the rest of the countries that normally grow their demand during winter, I think we should still be okay.

Okay, great. Thank you very much, Lars. Thanks, Inger.

Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by.

And the next question comes from the line of Omar Nocta from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Hi, Lars and Inger. Good afternoon. Just a I've got a couple questions on the market, but I also wanted to touch on the BLTC performance you've booked thus far into the third quarter. You've got 79% of 3Q booked at just over $47,000, which obviously a little bit down from the first half, but still, I would say, quite impressive when we look at what the market has averaged since the start of, say, June, whether you take into account ECO and Scrubber Premium. So I just wanted to ask, what's driven that? perhaps outperformance, you know, in your view?

Well, first of all, Omar, you need to keep in mind the fact that we report on a load to discharge basis. So that has to be, you know, highlighted. It's not all our peers and it's not always clear how our peers report. So you should not expect us to be able to book too much towards the end of the quarter, basically, because we can't account for income until the vessels actually load the cargo. But what has happened in Q1 is that we received a fairly big new fleet from Euronav. almost all delivered in the Middle East. So what we've done over the quarter is been able to kind of put this fleet into the trade, reflecting the rest of the frontline fleet. Whereas we try to keep, you know, limit our exposure to, or to kind of to try and avoid having too much exposure to one particular base. And most more recently it's been the Middle East that is the soft spot, kind of the, It's kind of ironic that the VLCC benchmark or S&P 500 or Dow Jones index is based on into the trade in the Atlantic Basin, West Africa, US Gulf, Brazil. Regretfully, a lot of short hauling, because oil hasn't really gone far during the latter part of Q2 and into Q3. This also explains some of the weakness in this segment in particular, and also how it's been cannibalizing on Zeus Maxis and to some extent . But I'd say that there is no magic portion here is probably the word. But also keep in mind that this performance, we're quite okay or proud of it, considering also the fact that we've reduced our scrubber penetration in the fleet. Having said that, you probably also noticed that the spread between high and low sulfur has been fairly narrow. So you could say that the scrubber benefit in the more recent months has not been as pronounced.

Okay. Thanks, Lars. Appreciate that. And just a quick follow-up just on that point or just generally on the Vs. Have you played into the whole product cargo lifting in your fleet?

Not on the VLCCs, but on the SUSE MAXs, yes. So basically cannibalizing our own LR2s.

Okay. And then just kind of more on the market here, you know, one we've seen, you know, the – recent pullback in Libyan exports, or at least production volumes, it seems like they're maybe still able to export from inventory, but if this is prolonged and that volume is away from the market, how do you think that affects the different dynamics within the crude trade at this point? Obviously, Afromax is seem more exposed to that, but how do you think the VLCCs and Suezmax react in that type of environment?

I do also, maybe for the disruptions started in the Suez Canal or Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, I would have said that this is kind of material. But basically what's happened kind of since those events started to occur, Libyan used to go east by way of either Suez or, well, actually really all the way around, but at least through Suez. And, you know, with the disruptions in Suez, We've seen that oil trade local, so you're right that it affects the Afro-Maxis. It might have a limited impact on the Zeus-Maxis, but I would say virtually no impact on the VLCCs. And it's actually again then that if you take one crude out of the equation, another one comes up.

And I guess in that situation, if you lose that crude from Libya and that gets made up potentially from the Middle East, does that become a VLCC trade?

Potentially, but it could also be, you know, replenished from Latin America or US Gulf or West Africa, because Libyan is now then predominantly going into Europe and not to the East, basically due to the disruptions in the US.

Okay, got it. And then one more for you, just on, you talked about the sanctions and, you know, the dark fleet, the gray fleet. I wanted to ask, in terms of, you know, what's gone on with Iran, how would you, how do you think the market would move forward in a situation where, say, there's more scrutiny on Iranian crude exports and those fall back to where they were a few years ago? You know, I guess you, that gray dark fleet, perhaps, maybe makes its way back to the clean, quote unquote, or not clean, but the market fleet. How do you kind of think about that versus needing to make up those barrels?

No, I think, you know, as this, you know, this development has been going on for far longer than at least I anticipated or we anticipated. But it's basically, you know, kind of, making it less and less likely that the vessel servicing this market is ever going to be able to return to a compliant market. So it means that any change, however unlikely, to the sanction regime against Iran will be even a more positive effect on the compliant market. And this is an ongoing discussion that comes up quite often. From our side of the equation, we struggle to understand why this trade can even go on. But obviously, if you come from a crude, short nation who needs to refine petrol for your inhabitants, then you will obviously take an opportunity for any barrels that you can get hold of. So regretfully, I don't think we can necessarily do much with this trade. What I am saying, though, is that as the compliant fleet is aging, it supplies into this fleet, and this aging is accelerating as we move forward here. So I actually, unless you see Iran able to produce significant more oil, or same goes for Russia, of course, and Venezuela, all three, which is unlikely, will actually start to have an overcrowded fleet. kind of oversupplied sanctioned market. So I think that's, you know, because I've lost all faith in enforcing sanctions. I've lost all faith in kind of, you know, to regulate one out of this. You know, we had a tanker that blew up outside Singapore recently and nobody really, you know, put too much attention to that. So we have a Zeus Max burning in the Red Sea as we speak. Nobody really, it doesn't really make that much of a headline if you're outside of shipping. So I kind of lost that faith, but what I do believe is that we will see that fleet just continue to grow because the source of, or the alternative for a ship turning 20 is still, it makes a lot of sense to go into that market. But once the margins in that market are destroyed, we'll actually start to see recycling. If that made sense. Sorry, it was a very, very long answer to your question.

No, it did. Very interesting. I appreciate that perspective. Somewhat sobering.

Thanks, Lars. I'll turn it over. Thank you, Omar.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1, 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1, 1 again. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. And the next question comes from the line of Devin Sangoy from TEJ Investments. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Yeah, Lars, I just want to ask you a question that you mentioned about the oil spillage in Red Sea, which happened, and there were several other instances. How do you see this dark fleet insurance getting covered? Because that's, again, the amount of food is moving on, and you don't have global insurance companies who are willing to underwrite.

It's an extremely good question. And, you know, when we did the, basically, you know, we've done an exercise prior to this to gauge how many ships and how many vessels are operating in the sanction trade or kind of are operating illicitly in the Russian trade. Because there are owners that are able to trade Russian barrels within either by way of getting at the station on the price cap or other means that they actually manage to trade Russian crude without raising any flags. But in order to gauge how much of that oil is actually under sanction, one of the studies we did was basically to see how many of these vessels are actually not insured by any recognizable P&I club. And that is basically the foundation for saying that we assume 75% of the Russian volumes are under sanctions or sanctions exposed. And that paints a horrendous picture if something happens. So, you know, the sous-maxing question that is currently burning in the Gulf of Aden, that has insurance, I understand, from a P&I club that's recognized. But the tanker that blew up outside Singapore might be mistaken, but I still think they're trying to figure out who actually owned the vessel in the end. So I think this paints a very, very bleak picture if we get more events like this.

Okay, thanks. And the second question is on, if you see the way soft landing is being questioned about, there is always a doubt about US economy going into a sort of recession, if not soft landing, and you have a Chinese economy not recovering. So next year, do you see if both these don't recover, then there'll be a lower oil demand globally,

I don't think we'll have lower global oil demand globally, but the expected oil demand growth will be limited. But if you couple that with the fact that the fleet, the tanker fleet is presumably shrinking, at least the efficient fleet is shrinking, we're not too worried about that from a tanker demand perspective.

And any other factor which can affect the tonne mild? Because we've seen a significant change in tonne mild over the last 12 months. So do you see any other factor which affects tonne mild positively or negatively?

No, there's nothing really that comes to mind. We are moving into a weather exposed period of the year. which partly explains the volatility we normally see towards winter. So that could obviously change things up. And obviously, sudden supply changes like Libya was mentioned, where we're losing 660 million barrels per day or thereabouts. That is actually enough to trigger certain changes. But there is nothing kind of apparent I see. We see the TMX pipeline, which is a new flow out of Canada on the US West Coast. That is kind of developing, but it doesn't seem to have altered trading lanes materially. And again, one thing to watch is, of course, production growth in Guyana, in Brazil, and then in the US Gulf. There is not much export growth expected out of U.S. Gulf for next year, but everybody has been wrong every year in quite a long time. And there is also an election over there, which might affect the willingness to invest in production, which will hit on exports. I think there are numerous kind of interesting spots to look at, but nothing kind of material that I think will happen very, very soon.

And as you've seen, you've been paying out hands-on dividends, but if your call on the bull market goes right, you will be flushed with so much cash. What do you do with the cash?

We pay it to our dear investors. Then you can decide what to do. That was kind of jokingly said, but that's basically how we operate. Unless we see an investment opportunity that we think will yield our investors a better return on equity, we will pay it all out.

so you don't see any see you've done uh pretty uh we were the first one to you know uh take out all the ships from the yard you know half completed VLCC and now you leverage your balance sheet so you have a financial leverage operating leverage do you still see any good asset acquiring opportunity or are we done with it um I think and I hope that we are in line with the rest of the markets that

We need to see a confirmation in the rates in our market before we have the conviction to do anything on the asset side. So basically, right now, we're content with the fleet composition we have. But if the market is going to continue to only pay us $40,000 to $45,000 per day, there makes no sense to either buy or not. order a ship at these price levels.

Thank you Lars and all the best. Thank you very much.

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question please press star 1 1 again. As there are no further questions I would like to hand back to Lars for any closing remarks.

Thank you. And thank you for listening in. Thank you for a row of very, very good questions. And we'll just keep our fingers crossed for the normal season pattern to start to come to play.