Navigator Holdings Ltd.

Welcome to the Navigator Holdings conference call for the second quarter 2025 financial results. On today's call, we have Mods Peter Zacco, Chief Executive Officer, Gary Chapman, Chief Financial Officer, Oregon Lindeman, Chief Commercial Officer, and myself, Randy Givens, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Development here in North America. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. As we conduct today's presentation, we will be making various forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, the future expectations, plans, and prospects from both a financial and operational perspective, and are based on management assumptions, forecasts, and expectations as of today's date, August 13th, 2025. and are as such subject to material risk and uncertainties. Actual results may differ significantly from our forward-looking information and financial forecast. Additional information about these factors and assumptions are included in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. With that, I now pass the floor to our CEO, Mats Petersakko. Please go ahead, Mats.

Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon, and thanks a lot for joining this Navigator Gas Earnings Call for Q2 2025. As a start, I'll just review the key data on our Q2 2025 performance and then go over the outlook for the rest of the year. After that, as usual, Gary and Oivind and Randy will discuss our results in more detail. Geopolitical backdrop for our Q2 result was certainly unusual and very difficult. Ahead of and during the quarter, we experienced a number of significant challenges, including the announcement of US port tariffs, unprecedented high import tariffs on commodities that we transport, ethane export licenses, which were effective export bans, and new military conflicts flaring up, including the bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities. Several of the conflicts receded during and after Q2, but the effect on our customers and our business during Q2 brought a lot of uncertainty, disruption, and hence lower trade volumes. The quarter also brought new opportunities such as ambient temperature LPG exports out of Iraq to Asia and the opportunity to buy back our own shares at a high discount to our estimated NAV. So this was a quarter of shipping at its worst and at its best. Please turn to slide number four. With that background and moving to our results, in Q2, we generated revenues of $130 million down 12% compared to the same period last year. This reduction is the direct result of customers halting new business and for a time, even in some cases, canceling committed fixtures with us for which we still got paid. However, notwithstanding the backdrop, we generated EBITDA of $72 million and adjusted EBITDA, which excludes a $12 million book gain from selling Navigator Venus of $60 million. And that showed really the resilience of our business. Earnings per share was $0.31. The gain on the sale of Navigator Venus gives credence to the estimated net asset value. We did a lot of work optimizing our capital structure during the second quarter. The balance sheet is very strong with a cash position of $287 million at quarter end. It was supported by the $300 million refinancing, which was signed and drawn down as planned and at the lowest margin ever for Navigator. The return of capital continued in Q2 with both the $0.05 fixed dividend and a share buyback up to, in combination, 25% of net income. We also progressed the additional $50 million share repurchase program, completing $30 million in Q2 and the remainder in July. So done and dusted, 3.4 million shares bought back at an attractive price. Randy will elaborate on this one in a few minutes. Commercially, we achieved average TCE rates of $28,216 per day during Q2. This is lower than the approximately $30,000 achieved in previous quarters. We achieved utilization of 84%, also lower than prior quarters. Our ethylene spot fleet was impacted the most, whereas the semi-rev fleet fared better. Throughput at our joint venture ethylene export terminal rebounded to 268,000 tons for the quarter, which was more than three times Q1, but still below full capacity. We are pleased to announce the two 51,500 cubic meter dual fuel ammonia vessel orders and their associated five-year time charter contracts. The combination of attractive yard prices, the grant from the Norwegian authorities, and expected attractive financing makes this transaction accretive to shareholders and strengthens navigator position in the ammonia supply chain. It's also an important step in our gradual fleet renewal and goes hand in hand with our sale of older vessels like Navigator Venus. We expect to be able to report more sales of older tonnage and associated book gains as the year progresses. Looking forward, we also expect that most of the headwinds that we saw in Q2 are gone. Global trade in commodities we transport have restored during July and into August. So today we see utilization and rates returning to normal levels. We expect LPG exports from Iraq to Asia to continue, and we expect ethylene exports from US to Europe and ethane exports from US to Asia to continue. The latter will be further supported by the opening of enterprise's new Beaumont terminal that will free up more ethane export capacity. This means more business for our ethylene and ethane vessels. Of course, trade discussions between US and its trading partners continue and much can still change. But with our diversified customer base, trading capability and strong balance sheet, we remain resilient even if geopolitics take an unexpected turn. So now over to you, Gary, and talk a little bit more about the details on our financial result, please.

Thank you, Mads, and welcome, everybody. During this quarter, as Mads mentioned, we've seen a number of geopolitical announcements and events across the world that have affected our markets that we were not able to predict or foresee at the beginning of the year, or indeed some of them we were not able to predict at the beginning of the second quarter. However, I'm very pleased to report that despite the unpredictability that we've experienced, we're able to report a healthy set of results. Not as high as we would like, but focusing on our strengths, we've been able to maintain solid progress in many areas across the quarter. And we believe we're also able to look forward to a strong second half of the year. Our second quarter 2025 financials show a healthy result due to the quality, diversity and flexibility of our fleet and business, which allowed us to maintain charter rates and utilization at profitable levels, supported by our operational efficiency and cost controls. On slide six, we report TCE of $28,216 per day, leading to a quarterly net operating revenue of $129.6 million and an EBITDA of $71.9 million. Our lower TCE this quarter came about primarily due to the performance of our ethylene vessels across the quarter, stemming from the trade, licensing, and tariff-related issues that Mads has already mentioned and that Oyvind will also cover. Whilst our fully refrigerated handy-sized fleet also did not perform so well, we only have six vessels in this category. In contrast, our semi-refrigerated and mid-sized vessels performed almost as normal throughout. So overall, the quarter was affected by certain specific global issues that we do not believe are long-term, and we're seeing a bounce back already in our third quarter performance to date. We sold one of our oldest vessels, as mentioned, the Navigator Venus, for net proceeds of £17.5 million, resulting in a strong book gain of £12.6 million in the quarter. And excluding this from EBITDA as the main difference, we get to an adjusted EBITDA result of £60.1 million. Hence the vessel sale in this quarter made up for the sequential drop in earnings, leaving EBITDA for this quarter at £71.9 million, broadly in line with our first quarter of 2025 result. Then for the reasons we've already covered, utilization was 84.2% in the second quarter, down 9.2% compared to the second quarter of 2024. You will see that voyage expenses have decreased by 1.9 million compared to the same quarter last year, mainly due to lower utilization in the second quarter this year, as these are pass-through costs to our customers, hence they're reflective of the decrease in operating revenue. Vessel operating expenses were up compared to the second quarter of 2024 at 47.4 million, with the increase primarily driven by the increase in our fleet following the purchase of the three second-hand vessels in the first quarter of this year, which you can see is reflected in the table shown bottom right, as well as simply the timing of maintenance costs incurred during the three months ended June 30, 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. We do currently expect to close the year on or close to budget for our OPEX costs adjusting for the extra vessels. Depreciation is also slightly up compared to previous quarters due to our now increased fleet. Unrealised movements on non-designated derivative instruments resulted in a loss in the second quarter of 1.4 million, this being related to movements in the fair value of our long-term interest rate swaps, which affects net income but which has no impact on our cash or liquidity. Our income tax line reflects current tax and mainly deferred taxes primarily derived from our investment and share of profits in our ethylene export terminal at Morgan's Point. Randy will shortly explain more about their terminal throughput volumes in the second quarter, but they were up to 268,000 tonnes from 85,000 tonnes in the previous quarter, resulting in us reporting a profit this quarter of $4.8 million. Then overall for the second quarter of 2025, net income attributable to stockholders was $21.5 million, with basic earnings per share of $0.31. Our balance sheet, shown on slide seven, continues to build and be strong with a cash equivalence and restricted cash balance of $287.4 million at June 30, 2025, which if you include our available but undrawn liquidity, was $316 million at the same date. This is despite paying out $26.4 million for scheduled loan repayments, $6.8 million under our return of capital policy in respect to the first quarter of 2025, and a further $29.6 million of share buybacks as part of the new $50 million share repurchase plan. Our liquidity in the quarter was boosted by the $40 million bond tap issue that was settled in early April, the sale of the Navigator Venus, which completed in May, and the debt refinancing that we drew down in mid-June 2025, which added $142 million of net liquidity. Including our available but undrawn revolving facilities, we had $314 million of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at close on August the 11th, 2025. On slide eight, we show a summary of the main capital events across the quarter, where with a very supportive banking group and a strong underlying business, we were able to return capital to shareholders, extend our debt maturity, boost our liquidity and reduce our finance costs. We completed our latest share repurchase programme on July 30th, 2025, having bought back $50 million of our common stock, and Randy will also provide some more details on this shortly. We continued to pay out under our return of capital policy at a level of 25% of net income, and we sold one of our oldest vessels, the Navigator Venus, as we've mentioned, for net proceeds of $17.5 million, resulting in a book gain of $12.6 million. Also in May, we entered into a new senior secured term loan and revolving credit facility of up to $300 million that was used to repay the company's existing September 2020 and October 2023 secured outstanding loan facilities of $143 million and $15 million respectively, and thereafter be available for general corporate purposes. the facility has a tenure of six years maturing in twenty thirty one amounts outstanding bear interest on a quarterly basis at software plus a hundred and seventy basis points and the facility is secured by eight of the company's vessels And then following our successful issuance of 100 million of new senior unsecured bonds in October 2024, which at the time closed with the lowest spread for an unsecured US dollar denominated shipping bond in the Nordic market since 2008, we took advantage of favourable market. And on March 28th, 2025, we successfully issued a further 40 million tap of our bonds, which also priced at 7.25%, which funds settled with us in early April, right at the start of the second quarter. The borrowing limit under the bonds is $200 million, hence a further $60 million is available to us as the aggregate principal amount to be issued by the company under the bond term should we choose to do so in the future. We now have only two relatively small debt maturities due in the next 24 months, with balloon payments due in 2026 of $54 million in total. On the right hand side of this slide is a summary of our main debt movements across the last quarter, which also demonstrates our progress in reducing our cost of debt, which is ongoing and which is possible due to the strength of our business and the confidence in Navigator of our banking partners. Our next priority is to close finance in relation to our now six new bill vessels, and this work is already ongoing with several options being pursued. We're currently targeting to complete this work within the next six months. On slide 9, our leverage against earnings remains in a strong position, with net debt to adjusted EBITDA at 2.7 times for the last 12 months to June 30, 2025. In the quarter, we returned $36.4 million to shareholders through a combination of cash dividends and share buybacks, and by the end of July 2025, that figure had risen to $56.8 million as we completed our new $50 million share repurchase programme. We also made substantial loan repayments of £26.4 million in the quarter, as mentioned, and our net debt to on-water fleet value, i.e. loan-to-value ratio, was 34%. And if you include and ascribe a value to our terminal at Morgan's Point, that ratio falls to below 30%. As we have shown before, we're continuing to make substantial debt repayments with around $124 million of average annual scheduled debt amortisation payments expected across the coming three years, 2025 to 2027, to manage our financial risk, but whilst also still being able to raise more capital to invest and to grow. On slide 10, this remains one of our most important slides showing our estimated all-in cash breakeven for 2025, which at $20,270 per day is significantly below our average TCE revenue, even for this slightly softer second quarter of 2025 of $28,216 per day, the difference being nearly $8,000 per day. The all-in breakeven rate shown here is materially unchanged from the estimate we provided on our last earnings call back in May 2025. And this estimated cash break even figure is all in and includes forecast scheduled debt repayments and our scheduled dry dock commitments. On the right hand side is our updated OPEX guidance for 2025 across our differing vessel size segments, ranging from 8,050 per day for our smaller vessels to 11,100 per day for our larger, more complex ethylene vessels. This guidance is unchanged from our last quarterly call in May 2025. And following below is further next quarter and full year guidance across vessel OPEX, general and admin costs, depreciation and net interest expense in total dollar terms. The full year guidance for vessel OPEX towards the bottom is now slightly lower in total than the previous guidance given in May 2025, as we have one less vessel across the remainder of 2025. Net interest expense is also a little lower than the previous guidance given in May 2025. Slide 11 outlines our historic quarterly adjusted EBITDA, adding this second quarter's figures and demonstrating that whilst this quarter was not another record due to the political issues we've discussed, particularly impacting our ethylene and ethane capable vessels, still remains a very positive result. On the right hand side of the slide, we show our historic adjusted EBITDA for 2024 and our last 12 months adjusted EBITDA. In addition, the EBITDA bars then to the right provide some sensitivity and illustrate an increase in adjusted EBITDA of approximately $90 million for each $1,000 incremental increase in average time charter equivalent rates per day. In terms of an update on our vessel's dry dock schedule, projected costs and time taken, we've moved this slide to the appendix, as although this is important information, the slide itself is quite data heavy. On this topic, we're continuing to invest in our energy and fuel saving initiatives, which we believe are great investments to make, both for financial and environmental reasons, where they're also typically showing very short payback periods. So with that very quick run through, I will hand you over to Oivind who can provide some more color on the commercial environment that we have seen and what we are seeing today. Oivind.

Thank you, Gary. And good morning, everyone. Let's turn to page 13 for the rate environment. Despite market uncertainty and various geopolitical curveballs, the handy-sized market actually held up pretty well during second quarter, all things considered. The handy size ethylene 12 month time charter rate stayed steady at around $36 per day or 1.1 million per month. Semi-refrigerated rates dipped a little, settling at about $30,000 per day, and fully refrigerated rates saw the largest correction, ending the period at $25,000 per day. We only have six out of our 58 vessels in that segment, three of them on time chargers, so the overall impact on us was small. Two things worth keeping in mind. Firstly, as you can clearly see, these rates are well above our all in fleet break even of $20,270 per day. Secondly, having three vessel categories gives us great diversification, spreading exposure across petrochemicals, LPG and ammonia and cushioning us against market swings. Historically, we see external factors impacting the three markets in very different ways, and this was the case in this second quarter. Page 14, earnings days. We always show our earnings days mix in our presentations, and this time around, LPG really stands out for this second quarter. When the US ethane export license slowed down demand for our ethane-capable vessels, other parts of the fleet benefited from incremental demand elsewhere in the world. In this case, for more LPG exports from Iraq, we added three extra vessels into that trade during the quarter, pushing our fleet LPG earnings days to a two-year high, almost matching that of petrochemicals. This is a real example of how the fleet versatility kicks in. One market is down, another one is up. Another good sign, as you can see to the far right, is our July utilization, which hit 90%, suggesting the market is settling into a more normal steady state. So between the diversification and this normalization, our earnings are already looking healthier. Page 15 utilization. The top left graph illustrates our five-year highs and lows for our fleet utilization. You can see the green dotted line representing year to date dip in second quarter for reasons that Mads and Gary already mentioned. But as you can see, it then rebound five points in July. We have always maintained that any utilization above 90% represents quite a healthy market. And we are in this zone today. The other graphs show the benefits of diversification. LPG employment is growing in our semi-refrigerated segment and utilization is rising across all three vessel types. Page 16, ethane. Ethane and ethylene exports from US makes up a fair portion of our petrochemical vessel demand. And it makes sense then to address the ethane export license restriction and its immediate and short-lived impact. Firstly, let's take a step back and look at why US ethane matters. The US has a major cost advantage in producing ethylene from ethane, matched only by the Middle East. European and Asian NAFTA-based producers are placed much higher on the cost curve. So for them, importing US ethane or ethylene can dramatically improve their cost position and sustain their operations. China is the largest buyer of U.S. ethane. When the export license requirement came into effect during May and June, trade to China essentially stopped. But it was short-lived. Exports rebounded in July, hitting a record high. Almost immediately, new spot requirements for handy-sized ethane vessels were quoted in the market. In addition, that same month, Enterprise newly constructed Beaumont ETA and export terminal began operations. Extra terminal capacity means more demand for ships like ours. As an aside, one of our vessels loaded the very first cargo from the new Beaumont terminal. Page 17, Europe's ethylene rationalization. As mentioned, European producers are facing a challenging position in the ethylene cost curve. Many of these producers are shutting down uncompetitive plants. The first graph is showing a downward trend in European ethylene production capacity. The good thing for us is that the Europeans are leaning towards US to backfill lost ethylene production with imports. In July, the Europeans imported 75% of their seaborne demand from US, the highest portion on record. This trend is likely to continue. Instead of producing at high cost, they import from a more competitive producing country, i.e. the US. I've added Italy as an example, and you can see there's, after shutting down their own production, there's a sudden spike in US imports of Italy. Page 18, U.S. ethylene exports. Even though U.S. ethylene prices have risen since April, which is the bottom left graph, the gray line, delivered prices in Europe have moved in lockstep. The theoretical transatlantic ethylene arbitrage is about $210 per ton for freight, more than enough to support the trade. In recent months, nearly all US ethylene exports have gone to Europe, reinforcing the structural long-short dynamic between the two regions. Page 19, vessel supply. Vessel supply remains well balanced, just 12% of the handy size segment is on order, or 9% if exclude four CO2 carriers on order. And 22% of the fleet is over 20 years of age. So in summary, second quarter was messy at times, but July brought a welcome return to normality, higher utilization and rates maintaining well above breakeven. In addition to the day-to-day freight trading, we've been working on some other exciting developments, which Randy will talk to. Over to you, Randy.

Thank you, Oyvind. Following up on several announcements we've made in recent months, we want to provide some additional details and updates on our recent developments. Starting on slide 21, we're pleased to announce our return of capital for the second quarter of 2025. But before we get into that, I want to highlight that during the second quarter, and specifically as part of our return of capital policy, we repurchased more than 234,000 common shares of NVGS, totaling $3.3 million for an average price of $14.12 per share. Now looking ahead, in line with our return on capital policy and the illustrative table below, we're returning 25% of net income, or a total of $5.4 million to shareholders during this third quarter. The board has declared a cash dividend of $0.05 per share payable on September 17th to all shareholders of record as of August 28th, equating to a quarterly cash dividend payment of $3.3 million. Additionally, with the shares trading well below our estimated NAV of $28 a share, we'll use the variable portion of the return of capital policy for share buybacks. As such, we expect to repurchase another $2.1 million of NVGS shares between now and quarter end so that the dividend and the share buybacks equal 25% of net income, or $5.4 million this quarter. Now, continuing on the topic of share buybacks, let's turn to slide 22. During the first quarter call in May, we announced the new $50 million share buyback program. And as you can see, the announcement was not just to make a positive headline, but we immediately put it to good use and recently completed the program by repurchasing 3.4 million shares at an average price of $14.68 per share. As you can see on the bottom left chart, we had about 56 million shares outstanding for many years, and that was up until the merger with UltraGas in 2021, in which we issued 21 million shares in exchange for 18 vessels at an implied value of $16.82 per share. Since then, we've repurchased more than half of those shares back, or 11.8 million shares, totaling $166 million, for an average price of $14.15 per share. For further details, look at the table in the bottom right, slide 23. 23. So as we've said before, there are several compelling reasons for us to repurchase shares. Buying them back at a discount boosts the NAV per share, reduces the share count, increasing our EPS, supports the share price, diversifies our uses of cash to that five pillars of capital deployment. And as you've seen over the past few years, and even more so the past few months, Returning capital to shareholders will remain a primary focus for us going forward. Now turning to our ethylene export terminal on slide 23. Following the first quarter of very low throughput, volumes during the second quarter more than tripled to 268,000 tons as multiple U.S. Gulf ethylene crackers ramp production, resulting in lower U.S. ethylene prices, allowing us to utilize the flex train in both May and June. Looking at the bottom right chart, despite a recent increase in U.S. ethylene prices, European prices have also increased, so we expect third quarter volumes to remain firm near second quarter levels. And longer term, U.S. ethylene prices are expected to stay at an attractive level for the coming quarters and years. Additionally, with the widening of the arbitrage, we have completed multiple spot cargoes in recent months, many of which have discharged ethylene to new ports throughout Europe. As for contracting the expansion volumes, following the original contracts, we've signed two new offtake contracts in recent quarters, and many conversations with new customers are progressing. As such, we continue to expect that additional offtake capacity will be contracted in the coming months. Now on slide 24, we are very pleased to announce our recent inclusion in the Russell 2000, the premier small cap index, and the Russell 3000 total market index, further expanding our shareholder base and increasing our trading liquidity. So on May 23rd, the Russell indexes announced their upcoming additions, including Navigator Gas and both. This is when the active managed funds start positioning their portfolios. Now, on June 27th, which was this year's Reconstitution Day, that was completed after market close. And this is a meaningful event. As you can see, 4.5 million shares of NVGS traded that day. Now, as you can see in the chart on the bottom left, both our share price and our daily trading liquidity have increased since May 23rd. And taking a longer term view, as you see on the table on the right, daily trading liquidity has increased significantly in recent years, with a more pronounced step up in recent months. Our trading liquidity has steadily increased despite that ongoing reduction in shares outstanding, as mentioned earlier. Now, for the year to date 2025, we're averaging almost 400,000 shares traded per day, totaling almost $6 million per day, with several days well above $10 million. So with that, there are many funds that require around $5 million of daily trading liquidity. So we are now on the radar screen of a much larger group of investors. Now turning to our fleet, starting with the first part of our fleet renewal on slide 25, our fleet renewal program continues to be implemented as we sell our oldest vessels and replace them with more modern tonnage. Starting with the Divesture, in May, we completed the sale of our oldest vessel, Navigator Venus, a 2,000 belt, 22,000 cubic meter gas carrier to a third party for $17.5 million, resulting in a $12.6 million profit. That leaves us with only two of our original vessels built in 2000, and we continue to engage buyers who are showing interest in acquiring those older assets. Additionally, we expect to sell another unencumbered vessel during the third quarter in line with current market valuations, resulting in a substantial book gain and cash inflow. So as a result of our recent sale and purchase activity, our current fleet is now 12.2 years of age on average, with an average size of 20,816 cubic meters. Now looking at slide 26, our average fleet age is set to decrease, while our average vessel size is set to increase. In July, we announced a new joint venture in which we will own 80% and Amon, our partner in Zain Fuel Solutions, will own 20% to construct two new 51,530 cubic meter ammonia-fueled liquefied ammonia carriers. The new buildings are scheduled to be delivered in June and October of 2028 at a price of $84 million each. Now, importantly, each vessel will receive a 90 million kroner or $9 million grant from the Norwegian government agency, ANOVA, resulting in a net price of $75 million. And assuming 70% LTV debt financing, we expect the total equity needed to be only around $16 million per vessel, which will be split between ourselves and AMON. These vessels will be the largest in our fleet. They'll have the dual fuel engines for clean ammonia and will be able to transit both the old and new Panama Canal locks. Additionally, each of the vessels will be employed on a five-year time charter upon delivery to a blue chip industry leader. Lastly, in terms of vessel financing and capital needs, we've included that CapEx table on this slide and we're currently targeting to complete financing arrangements within the next six months. Finishing on slide 27, I want to personally invite all of you to our upcoming 2025 Analyst Investor Day here in Houston, Texas, in a few months from now. On Tuesday afternoon, November 11th, we'll be hosting our Morgan's Point tours of the ethylene export terminal and flex train, as well as one of our vessels. So just take a picture, take a look at that picture to the right, and imagine yourself climbing on board that beautiful ethylene carrier and seeing the flex train operate in all of its splendor. Later that evening, the management team and members of our board will host a dinner for our analysts and investors. Then the next day, November 12th, we'll host company and industry presentations covering current market trends, our financial update, as well as our medium-term strategy. We'll then have lunch, followed by an appreciation event for analysts, shareholders, customers, and partners. And looking at the Farmer's Almanac, the weather is expected to be fantastic. So we hope to see you in November. With that, I'll now turn it back over to Mads for closing remarks.

Thank you very much Randy and let's move to page 28. So it's time to summarize an eventful second quarter where waves of port fees and import tariffs and export licenses tested our resilience and negatively impacted our profitability. But we did not sit on our hands during Q2 because Q2 was also a quarter of opportunities where we took advantage of strong financial markets and optimized our balance sheet. We lowered the cost of debts and used excess cash for buying back 5% of outstanding shares at attractive prices. And we looked through the fog and we took another step in positioning Navigator as a leader within not only the ethylene ethane supply chain, but also the clean ammonia supply chain. Q3 has come off to a robust start and we now see a normalization of our operating environment. By any further geopolitical surprises, we expect to be back on the previous trajectory. This will be driven by the continued growth of U.S. natural gas liquids production and the significant build-out in U.S. export infrastructure over the next four years. We expect this will support exports of natural gas liquids and thereby also transport demand for the products that we carry. And as in previous quarters, the vessel supply picture remains attractive with small handy-sized order book and an aging global fleet. So thanks a lot for listening and I'll hand it back to you, Randy, now for the Q&A.

Thank you, Matt. Operator, we'll now open the lines for some Q&A. So to raise your hand, press star 9, and then you'll have to unmute yourself by pressing star 6. Or if using Zoom, just use the raise hand function. So first question, your line is open.

Hey Randy. Hi guys. This is Omar Nocta from Jefferies. As usual, very detailed presentation and just had a couple of follow-ups to that. And maybe just in terms of the business from a big picture perspective, obviously 2Q was quite volatile with the geopolitics kind of really having a pretty significant impact. Sounds like from your commentary that third quarter and the second half in general is going to be quite a bit better just in terms of how we think about that do you think uh 3q as a whole can return to how things were prior to uh you know the second quarter or is it more of a gradual improvement you see in the third quarter and it's really the fourth quarter where things start to uh get back to normal quote unquote

Yeah, and I can't help thinking back to when we had this discussion back in the middle of Q2, talking about the Q1 result. At that time, we were looking at port fees that had disappeared for our segment. We also saw the trade war between China and US kind of receding. But then came the export licenses, which were really a surprise. And even though at the time we argued they were coming, they would be a bargaining chip, they did lead to some disruption and some reduced utilization for all fleeting Q2. So, when we talked a quarter ago, I thought that maybe we communicated that we were seeing a gradual improvement, but then came this knock. That's different now, because now the effects have gone away, and as Øyvind was talking about, we see the utilization back up at just above 90% for July. And we can also confirm that the rates have reacted similarly. So we would say that Q3 as a whole is back to the levels that we saw before Liberation Day. And we see a normalization of the business in Q3. Then we'll deal with Q4 once it comes. But so far, that looks good too.

Okay, very good. Thank you, Mads, for that. So good to hear. And then just wanted to ask about the terminal contracts. You mentioned the two contracts were signed here recently for the expanded part of the terminal. And also, it sounds like there's potentially more in the works in the next few months. Justin, can you give us maybe a sense of what portion now do you have of the expansion that that's now contracted and it may be as a overall in terms of the 1.55 of total capacity, how much of that is contracted?

Yeah, we think so. We don't want to go into too many of those details because they're still having those commercial conversations. So we won't go into the quantum of the new contracts, but it's certainly a large portion. We have four existing contracts, offtake customers we have multiple term sheets out to many new customers especially here in the last few months when we've been doing a lot of these spot cargos they have been to new customers right so that's why we do expect additional longer term offtake contracts to be signed here in the coming months Duration still to be determined. Some want just a couple of years, some want multiple years. Whereas in terms of size, it ranges as well. So there's still a lot of variables to be determined, but we should have more updates on this in the November call.

Thanks, Randy. I appreciate that. I understand the sensitivity. And maybe just one final one, and I'll pass it back. And it's kind of maybe just back to the terminal in terms of the capacity of the 155 and the potential to ratchet that up to a potential as high as three, depending, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, in terms of, I think it's enterprise, they sort of direct the flexing potentially of the The volumes that would switch from, say, ethane to ethylene. And so as I think about or as we think about going into 26, do you know when that decision is made on how much of that capacity will end up being ethylene?

Yeah, it's really going to be on a month-to-month basis. Now, there's a few positive developments. One is the Beaumont facility, the Neches River facility, is now online for Enterprise. One of our vessels took the inaugural cargo very recently here. So now that there's a new ethane export facility for Enterprise to operate out of, that frees up some capacity at Morgan's Point. Secondly, the new ethane storage tank, which you've been out to Morgan's point, we have the ethylene storage tank in place for almost five years now. They are just now completing or soon to complete their ethane storage tank. So that will also give them more flexibility, some optionality around the cargo switching between ethane and ethylene. And it is an enterprise decision operationally, but really it's a market decision, right? If the customers and the offtakers want ethylene, they can switch it to ethylene pretty much immediately, right? The damper setting only takes a couple hours. So it's really going to be a every week decision in terms of flexing between ethane and ethylene. But for those two positive developments, the new terminal in Niches River, as well as the ethylene storage tank, will give us more optionality for more ethylene cargos above and beyond the 1.55 million tons in coming years.

Understood. Thanks, Randy. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it back.

Thank you, Omar. Next up, looks like Clement Mullins, your hand is raised.

I wanted to start by asking about the ammonia carriers you recently ordered. Does the Innova grant come with strings attached or are those minimal? And should we think about the grants as a kind of a one-off or could this be repeated in the future?

Thanks for that question. And they're always strings attached when it comes to grants. They're really linked to the, you could say, the technology features of the ship. The add-ons that you would put on, had to been compared to, you could say, a regular fossil-fueled ammonia carrier. So this is paying partly for the ammonia propulsion, but also many of the other bells and whistles that we are adding in terms of energy efficiency for the vessel. So it is to fund, you could say, the upgrade compared to a very standard vessel. But that being said, it doesn't mean that we need to burn, you could say, a high percentage of ammonia during the first couple of years. It doesn't mean that we can't trade or we have to trade, let's say, near Norway or similarly. It is for global trading, and we have a lot of flexibility in operating these ships. So it's a very attractive grant because it doesn't really limit us in anything that we wanted to do on it. So they'll be operated on a Norwegian flag, which is a very efficient and professional flag. So in all aspects, this is a pure add-on and a pure benefit for us without any downsides, really. If the question is around whether it can be repeated, then the answer is yes. Because the Norwegian authorities are really interested in maximizing, you could say, the volume of new green propulsion, green shipping in the world. It's not... quite likely we can just do a complete carbon copy of this one. But if we were to be innovative and take a further step onwards, there would be opportunities for this. They recently granted another grant to Ammon for bulk carriers, and there's more coming here also.

That's very helpful. Thank you. And Randy, you mentioned you continue to engage potential buyers to divest the remaining 2,000 build handy sizes. Once those vessels are sold, should you expect you to redeploy proceeds on more modern tonnage, or have you already done that with the acquisition of the three middle-aged Ethylene carriers and the new build additions?

Yeah, Oivin, I'll let you take this one.

Yeah, I mean... Once they are sold, the funds will go into the capital allocation program, the three pillars, and they'll be distributed accordingly to which pillar we deem necessary at that time. So it's flexible. We'll put it to work where we deem it's greatest value.

Maybe I can just add here that if you were to ask us if there was likelihood, the likelihood was that we were going to buy more ships or sell more ships in the near term, it is probably going to be sell more ships. Because I think we have done quite well in both the new building program and also buying the three German built vessels in the spring. So I think we've done most of the work there in renewing the fleet from adding new ones. And I think now we have a little bit of work to do in terms of selling a couple of the older ones.

Makes sense. Thank you for taking my questions.

Thank you, Clement. Again, to ask a question, just raise your hand. We've had one come in here just looking at the tariffs. So it seems like the tariff announcements in trade news was negative during the second quarter. But recently, there have been some positive developments around trade deals. So, Mods, how do you think these announcements will impact your business, specifically U.S. commodity exports, going forward?

Yeah, I think they will bring much wanted clarity to the customer base of ours and for us to see that we will have a more stable trading environment. And that's always very positive. I mean, what happens is once you get this volatility, you don't quite know what the direction is. You tend to step back and say, oh, let's see how this all falls into place. I think now we have a number of trade deals between the US and its major trading partners There's still some details to be fully agreed on, but I think we have the overall framework in place and that gives the stability and the ability for us to forecast for us and our customers, which is really what we've all been looking forward to. So again, we don't know what the future will bring. There will be unknown unknowns, but from how we can see it, we think it's a quite positive development that we get some clarity and some trade deals falling into place. And most of them, they don't really put any tariffs on products that are exported out of the US and into the various other countries. It's mainly been leading to tariffs from imports into the US, and we don't do much of that. So in essence, there haven't been put tariffs on much of the transportation that we do.

Thank you, Matt. Gary, this one's for you. For the six new building financings, should we expect similar terms as your most recent debt financings?

Yeah, that's a very good question. We are hoping to at least match what we've done in the past. I think at the moment we've got a number of different structures and we've got quite a lot of conversations going on with all kinds of different stakeholders. potential capital providers so i think given the nature of the ammonia vessels in particular but also the panda vessels i think we've got six really attractive projects there and we'll probably group those vessels whether it's six or whether it's four and two or two and four um but certainly we will be looking to do those in the next six months we've got plenty of opportunity and i think the uh the capital providers that we're talking to are very keen And I think we'll get some really good terms. And certainly we're shooting for as low as we can get in the best terms that we can get. And we'll see where that lands.

Perfect. Great. All right. We see another hand raised here. Dalton. Oh, we still can't hear you.

Can you guys hear me okay now? We got you now. Thanks, Randy. Thanks for taking my question, guys. Dalton Willett with Charmos Capital Partners. One question I had on the new builds that you guys are working on financing out. How do you think about the risk of… you know, like IMOs new, new rules for how ships have to be fueled or, you know, carbon related related issues. How do you think about going and making those investments knowing that the, you know, the goalpost could be changed in a six, 12, 18 month period? How are you guys managing that risk?

Yeah, I think we should look at the two different orders that we've made. You could say the four ethane ethylene vessels that we ordered, they don't really have much of a link to whatever the IMO is putting into place. They will be most likely fueled by ethane, which is incredibly cost competitive compared to regular fuel oil. So they will be having an advantage to pretty much any other vessel in the global fleet regardless. When it comes to the two ammonia carriers, we have the five-year contract coverage, which means that we will have a secured return on the shifts for the first five years. And what then comes after, we will see. The good news is that those vessels are dual fuel. So even if we were to see a situation where ammonia was less competitive than we had forecasted, they would still be able to operate very efficiently, very efficiently on regular fuel oil. So in that sense, they are very flexible vessels and they are very attractive regardless of what the direction of the IMO is going to be.

Yeah, no, that's that's helpful. Thank you. And then on the on the kind of the restructuring of the balance sheet, getting yourself in a better capital position. Can you kind of talk about the timing of that and why it made sense to go now versus, say, you know, towards the end of the year? How are you guys thinking about, you know, getting the getting your balance sheet where it is today?

Maybe I can just kick us off and you can fill in, Gary, also. When it comes to the share buybacks, I think we've been pretty consistent over the past three years in having share buyback programs at the right point in time during the year, adding or buying back about 5% of outstanding shares. And then on top of that, we have the regular quarterly dividends and share buybacks. That model has kind of worked well for us. So we think it's a good way to do it. It's of course up to the board, if they were to decide to do something in addition or not, we'll see about that. We have good liquidity in the balance sheet right now. So it gives us a lot of flexibility to allocate between the different opportunities of investing, paying or buying back shares or other uses of our cash. But Gary, you can add.

Yeah, I mean, I think We've taken advantage a lot of the fact that there's a lot of liquidity out there at the moment. Navigate is in a great place. We've got a strong business, a flexible business. Our banking partners are very keen to work with us. That's allowed us to refinance, push out the maturities, lower the cost of our debt. And we're going to continue to do that. What that's also doing is it's providing plenty of liquidity for these projects that we're doing. You know, we paid $64 million towards the cost of our new Bill Panda vessels already. We don't have finance for those vessels yet, but we paid all of that out of cash. so far so you know it buys us some really good flexibility we've got to be careful that we don't you know carry too much liquidity and too much cash and we're constantly monitoring that but i think at the moment you know from our perspective we've got a number of older debt facilities that we would perhaps like to um refinance and refresh And so I think there's some work to do on that and alongside the new build vessels as well. So I think we've taken advantage of a strong market using our strong business model to be able to do what we've done. We've ended up being able to do pretty much everything that we want to do. including buying back the shares as Mads was talking about. So I think we're trying our best to be efficient with what we do, but also lower the cost of what we do. And I think we've been able to do that so far and we expect to be able to continue to do that.

Great. Fantastic. Thanks. Thanks for that. I appreciate it. I think that's going to be the last thing I have. Pass it back to you guys. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Dalton. So that completes our Q&A for today. Thank you again for joining us for our second quarter earnings results. We'll be reporting our third quarter earnings results in early November and hope to see many of you here in Houston on November 11th and 12th. Thanks again and have a great day.