Dorian LPG Ltd.

Greetings and welcome to the Dorian LPG second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Additionally, a live audio webcast for today's conference call is available on Dorian LPG's website, which is www.dorianlpg.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ted Young, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, Mr. Young.

Please go ahead. Thank you, Doug. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us for our second quarter 2021 results conference call. With me today are John Hajbataris, Chairman, President, and CEO of Dorian LPG Limited, John LaCouris, Chief Executive Officer of Dorian LPG USA, and Tim Hansen, Chief Commercial Officer. As a reminder, this conference call webcast and a replay of this call will be available through November 9, 2020. Many of our remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations. These statements may often be identified with words such as expect, anticipate, believe, or similar indications of future expectations. Although we believe that such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot assure you that any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, as well as general economic conditions. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions or estimates prove to be incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those we expressed today. Additionally, let me refer you to our unaudited results for the period ended September 30, 2020, that were filed this morning on Form 10-Q. Also, please refer to our previous filings on Form 10-K, where you'll find risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn over the call to John Hadjbateris.

Thank you. Good morning from John Lycoris in Athens, Tim Hansen in Copenhagen, Ted Young, Clay Webb, and myself in Stamford, Connecticut. And thank you for joining us today. for our financial year 2021 Q2 earnings call. Following our AGM on Wednesday last week, when two of our directors, Christina Tan and Tom Coleman, were reelected, and our regular quarterly board meeting on the same day, we expect to continue our focus on capital allocation and to pursue opportunistic share repurchases, as well as consider dividends, deleveraging further, and other opportunities. I'm happy to report that our seafarers and shore staff are safe and continue to ably perform their duties. With the cooperation of our customers, local and flag authorities, and classification societies, we've been performing many statutory surveys remotely. In addition to the health benefit of reduced exposure, digitalization and remote monitoring enhance efficiency, and reduce costs. During the quarter, our crew rotation has been successfully restored to normal levels. The industry-wide crisis caused by disruption to the free movement of seafarers during the shutdowns has somewhat abated, though restrictions continue in many ports and they result in logistical challenges and increased costs. Our last quarter's results largely reflect the poor market of the previous April to June quarter. Many analysts understandably base their forecast on the Baltic published rate, and I would like to share a word of caution about that. The Baltic index for LPG is a daily forecast by a panel of brokers reflecting their assessment, yes, of the rate fixed on the spot fixture within 10 to 40 days on the route Middle East to Japan. As well as the obvious and the lag effect of time elapsed between fixture and voyage completion, there are other inherent distortions which make extrapolating from the single route published Baltic rate an unreliable forecasting tool for time charter equivalent earnings. These include sailing speed, actual cost of bunkers, Panama and other port delays, routing changes for weather, deviation for extraordinary crew changes and or for guards, and of course idle time. We have communicated our opinion to the Baltic and hope that they will open a dialogue with stakeholders with a view to making their index more useful. U.S. production is 10% below the all-time high in January, but nearly 14% above the year's low in May, and exports are up 15% year-on-year through September 30th. India's imports are up 14% year-to-date. U.S. storage is 10% above the five-year average. These are some of the factors which, together with fractionation capacity being added in the U.S., and PDH plants being commissioned in China. Give me cause for optimism. As usual on our calls, you will hear an analysis of our quarterly financial from Ted and industry and market updates from John LaCouris and Tim Hansen. Tim, over to you.