Dorian LPG Ltd.

Greetings, and welcome to the Dorian LPG first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Additionally, a live audio webcast of 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.

Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us for our first quarter 2022 results conference call. With me today are John Hajibateris, 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 August 11, 2021. 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 June 30, 2021 that were filed this morning on Form 10-Q. In addition, 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 it over to call to John Hajimateris.

Thanks, Ted. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us this morning to discuss our first quarter financial year 2022 results. And Ted, John, and I are speaking from Stanford. Tim Hansen from Copenhagen. We had a healthy market this past quarter. North American exports rebounded swiftly going into April and May as winter storms abated in the Gulf and U.S. LPG production and export capacity once again proved resilient. This swift increase resulted in temporary ship shortages in the West and pushed rates up. The Baltic began the quarter on an upward trend, reaching a peak rate of 64.57%. in mid-May before the increase in bunker prices started to put some pressure on earnings. Rates remained healthy for the rest of the quarter, and we are optimistic about market strength going into fall and winter. On the operational side, our shoreside staff have worked very hard to continue to facilitate safe crew changes around the world, despite the continuous and new logistical challenges due to the COVID pandemic. Our dry docking and scrubber upgrade program is now complete. The last two ships left the shipyards in late May and early June. In total, we have installed 10 scrubber systems since the summer of 2019. Twelve of our 22 own ships are now capable of operating with hybrid scrubbers, enhancing their earning potential and commercial flexibility. In June, after the MEPC 76 meeting, the IMO announced their near-term carbon and greenhouse gas emissions reduction measures. We have been planning for these measures and are now in the late stages of our analyses of various emissions-reducing technologies. We plan to compare these add-on technologies to the environmental and financial considerations around converting some of our vessels to burn LPG as fuel. In calendar year 2020, Efforts to reduce emissions also achieved about $1.5 million in fuel savings, and we continue to enhance those efforts with new software and technologies. We have classified the Captain Marcos NL, which is debt-free, as available for sale, and we will be reporting future developments in due course. The past quarter saw commodity market fundamentals stabilize as crude prices rose to double their averages in second quarter 2020. LPG demand is consequently also rising, especially in the East. Global exports were up by about a million and a half tons this quarter, with the largest increases coming from Houston and the rest of the U.S. As we come out of summer, we expect exports from both the U.S. and the Middle East to increase as OPEC implements production cut reversals in August and winter demand returns. Our outlook for the second half of 2021 remains optimistic. Production forecasts continue to be revised higher. Demand continues to ramp up, driven by the PET-CAM sector. The Panama Canal has seen increasing congestion from container and LNG ships, and this may push more VLGCs to balance around to keep increasing ton-mile demand. We expect this trend to continue and be amplified when new emission regulations come into force. Continuing our commitment to returning shareholder capital, the Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $1 per share to the company's common stock, returning over $40 million of capital to shareholders. We have now returned over $260 million since our IPO in 2014. This announcement does not reflect the commencement of a regular dividend, but we have responded to clear feedback from our investors that they wish to see dividends alongside stock buybacks, and we will continue to evaluate both. I'd like to point out that the declaration of a dividend in no way changes our view that our stock is still trading at a meaningful discount to our intrinsic value. I will now pass the line over to Tim to further brief you.