Dorian LPG Ltd.

Greetings and welcome to the Dorian LPG first quarter 2024 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. dorianlpg.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ted Young, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Ryan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us for our first fiscal quarter 2024 results conference call. With me today are John Hajbateras, Chairman, President, and CEO of Dorian LPG Limited. John LaCouris, Chief Executive Officer of Dorian LPG USA, and Tara Rasmussen, Vice President of Chartering. As a reminder, this conference call webcast and a replay of this call will be available through August 9th, 2023. 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 statement 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 express today. Additionally, let me refer you to our unaudited results for the period ended June 30, 2023, that were filed this morning on Form 10-Q. Also, please refer to the investor highlights slides posted this morning on our website to accompany today's discussion. Finally, please refer to our previous filings on Forms 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 Hedgwateris.

Thank you, Ted. Good morning from pleasantly sunny Stamford, Connecticut. Thank you for joining John, Ted, Taro, who is calling in on behalf of Tim, who's on vacation, and me to discuss our first quarter financial 2024 results. The quarter's results reflect a strong freight environment, with Doering earning a time charter equivalent exceeding $50,000 per day. We generated $46.5 million of free cash flow, which more than funded our $40 million dividend last quarter. Including the dollar dividend declared on July 27, we will have returned nearly $610 million to our shareholders since our IPO. To strike the right balance in our capital allocation approach, our board considers current and expected freight market conditions the company's capital and operating needs, our net debt to total capitalization, which is roughly 32% at present, as well as potential strategic opportunities. Regarding fleet renewal, 25 ships with a useful life of approximately 25 years implies replacing one ship per year. We capitalized on a good set of market dynamics to build one ship, and to charter in three more on initial seven-year terms with options. These fleet renewal deals were economically attractive, as the chartered-in ships give us market exposure, optionality on length and the potential upside of the precious options, while not requiring a large upfront investment. We prize optionality in our investment decisions as we continue to evaluate fleet renewal and other opportunities. We see increasing demand for LPG, both for residential and for commercial use in the petrochemical markets, supported by the relative cheapness of LPG versus NAFTA and LPG's lighter environmental footprint. With additional delays expected due to the well-publicized drought conditions in the Panama Canal, we hope that our choice to charter in three ships whose beam enable them to transit both the Panama and the Neo-Panama locks will be rewarded. It is appropriate to mention the importance to our business of our relationships with our charters to whom we are committed to provide safe, reliable, and clean transportation, and with our people at sea and onshore to whom we commit to provide a safe, inclusive, and equitable workspace. These priorities, we believe, equips us to deliver the best returns for our investors. And a productive collaboration between our charters and seagoing and shore staff help us achieve efficiencies and reduce fuel consumption and emissions as we evaluate and deploy new energy-saving devices. I should also mention that in response to the crisis which continues to affect a number of our Ukrainian and Russian seafarers and their families, we introduced flexible arrangements for joining and repatriation, added free internet on board, supplemented medical insurance, and are providing a monthly allowance for displaced families. The current freight market level supports an optimistic financial outlook for the second quarter ending September 30th. Our cautious approach to capital allocation will continue to guide our decisions. As I hand over to Ted.