Navigator Holdings Ltd.

Good morning and good afternoon and thank you very much for joining this Navigator Gas Earnings Call for Q2 2026. Before we get into the results, let me just say a few words about the Middle East. We continue to have no vessels operating in or transiting the Hormuz Strait and we don't see any material operational impacts. As I'll touch on shortly, and though it's on a sad background, the conflict continues to create real commercial tailwinds for us. Please turn to slide number four. Q2 2026 was an exceptional quarter, and I mean that in the most literal sense. We set all time records for net income, for EBITDA, for earnings per share, and average TCE rate, all at the same quarter. and for a company that's been operating for over 25 years, that is quite special. Let me walk you through a couple of the highlights. On the commercial side, TCE rates hit a record high of almost $34,000 per day. This is up significantly from Q1 and up 20% from the same period last year. Utilization came in above our 90% benchmark. These are strong numbers across the board. Our ethylene export terminal at Morgans Point delivered yet another record 374 tons in the quarter. That follows from previous record that we set just one quarter ago. Demand from Europe and Asia for US ethylene continues to grow, driven by high NAFTA prices and structural changes to how global crackers are sourcing their feedstock. We've also signed a fourth new off-take contract in the quarter and discussions for further contracts remain active. On portfolio management, we completed the sale of Navigator Pegasus in April for approximately $31 million and a book gain of over $15 million. And in July, we signed the definitive agreement to divest the eight Unigas pool vessels for a combined $183 million. That's a significant transaction and we expect most of those sales to complete during Q3. We expect the net book gain on this transaction of 65 to 70 million dollars and this again underscores the value of our vessel portfolio. We have indeed been quite consistent in booking net gains on our vessel sales. Financing for all six new built vessels are now in place, both the four Panda ethane ethylene carriers and the two coral ammonia new builds. Completing that financing package is a real milestone and it was done at the most competitive terms ever for Navigator. The balance sheet is healthy. Available cash at quarter end was $226 million after significant debt repayments, shipyard payments and capital returns. Our investment in a sane fuel solution is developing towards a final investment decision to build three ammonia bunkering terminals along the west coast of Norway. It's supported by a significant Innova grant from the Norwegian government upon reaching final investment decision. On capital return, we are again delivering on our commitment. The board has declared a dividend of 7 cents per share for Q2. and together with buybacks, we will return 35% of net income to shareholders in line with our improved capital return policy. From Q3, we are raising the fixed cash dividend element to $0.08 per share. Now on the outlook. Q3 is expected to see some normalization in TCE rates and terminal volumes. That's also consistent with the seasonal patterns and a tighter arbitrage on Ethylene. The underlying demand picture, though, driven by the growing U.S. natural gas liquids production, remains fully intact. And the homeless straits situation continues to support demand for U.S. commodities across LPG, ethane, and petrochemicals. On the supply side, the handy-sized order book stands at just 11% of the fleet, while 17% of vessels are over 25 years old. The math on the fleet renewal continues to work in our favor. With that, I'll pass on the word to Gary, and please go ahead with a little bit more detail on the financials. Go ahead, Gary.

Thanks, Mads, and hello, everyone. Following on from where we left off on our last call in May this year, the tailwinds we described as we moved through the second quarter did indeed arrive, and as Mads has said, we're pleased to report exceptional second quarter results. This was achieved against a backdrop that included continued disruption across key global shipping corridors, including the Strait of Hummus, which... Having limited direct operational or financial impact on us has acted as a meaningful demand catalyst, pushing customers towards North American supply chains and benefiting our utilization and rates in the quarter. Oeyvind will go more into this shortly. Turning to more detail on slide six, we're reporting an average TCE of 33,946 for the second quarter of 2026, an all time high. being more than $4,000 per day higher than the 29684 in the first quarter of 2026 and over $5,000 per day higher than the 28216 in the second quarter of last year. Utilisation was above our benchmark at 90.8% compared to 90.6% in the first quarter of 2026 and 84.2% in the second quarter of last year. Voyage expenses are showing higher in the second quarter of 2026, but which are effectively pass-through costs to our customers related to bunker fuel and other such spot voyage costs, and they're reflective of the record total operating revenues that we're reporting this quarter. Vessel operating expenses at $47.1 million for the quarter were broadly flat in absolute dollar terms, though up on the basis of dollars per vessel per day at $9,554 compared to $8,905. This was mainly driven by high accruing and logistics costs and the timing of project-related expenses incurred in the quarter. The depreciation was down at $31.5 million compared to the second quarter of last year, reflecting our reduced fleet size following vessel sales, and the sale of the Navigator Pegasus in this quarter brought us the gain of $15.3 million on proceeds of $30.5 million. EBITDA for the quarter was an all-time high of $101.6 million compared to $80.3 million in the first quarter of 2026 and $71.9 million in the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA, also a record, was $86.4 million, up from $65 million in the first quarter of 2026, and significantly higher than the $60.1 million in the second quarter of 2025. As always, Randy will discuss more about our ethylene terminal, but throughput volumes for the second quarter were another record high of 374,278 tonnes, with our share of the terminal's results reflected in the equity method investment income line of $7.1 million for the quarter, up from $4.8 million in the second quarter of last year. Our income tax line reflects current tax and deferred tax in relation to our equity investment in the Ethylene Export Terminal in line with the stronger terminal results for the quarter. Net income attributable to stockholders for the second quarter of 2026 was $53.0 million, or 86 cents per share. Again, the highest Navigator has ever reported, surpassing the previous record set just last quarter, and well above the $21.5 million, or 31 cents per share, reported in the second quarter of 2025. We continue to actively use, strengthen and build our balance sheet as shown on slide 7. Our cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash balance was $274 million at June 30, 2026 and this figure was $362 million at close on August 3, 2026, in particular following the $57 million we drew from our recently closed new-built vessel financing facility. As a precautionary measure, in April 2026, when the war in Iran started, we drew down just over $91 million under our revolving credit facilities, given the geopolitical uncertainty seen at that time. And whilst this, of course, has not gone away, we expect to repay those revolving facilities in the coming months based on our ongoing assessment of market conditions and as the proceeds from the sale of the Unigas vessel fleet are received. Our healthy liquidity position at June 30, 2026 is after returning $10.6 million to shareholders across dividends and share buybacks, repaying $26.8 million of scheduled loan amortisation and, ahead of our agreed sale of the Unigas pool fleet, early repaying $43 million of debt secured against certain of those vessels. We also made $20.8 million of payments towards our new-build vessels during the quarter. Our share in the Morgans Point Ethylene Export Terminal remains unencumbered. We also own 14 unencumbered vessels at June 30th, 2026, eight of which are part of the Unigas fleet to be sold. And with our bond having $60 million of untapped capacity, we continue to retain significant additional liquidity for if and when needed. Looking beyond this quarter, we've paid from our own cash a total of $131.6 million at June 30th, 2026 towards the six vessels we have under construction, of which $8.5 million represents capitalised interest under US cap. On July 17, we drew $57.6 million, as I referred above, from our new $164 million bridge loan facility, recouping 80% of the pre-delivery instalments paid to the shipyard to date for the first of our two Panda Newbill vessels. We continue to press forward in maintaining a balanced capital structure and on slide eight across the quarter and with a very supportive banking group and a strong underlying business, we were again able to return cash to shareholders, use funds for the construction of our new builds, reward shareholders through buybacks and continue managing and refreshing our debt to meet our financing needs in an efficient and cost competitive way. In respect to the first quarter of 2026, we returned 30% of net income attributable to stockholders comprising $6.3 million of share buybacks and $4.3 million of cash dividend representing 7 cents per share. And in respect to the second quarter of 2026, our Board yesterday approved an increase such that we will return 35% of net income attributable to stockholders This will comprise $4.3 million of cash dividend, representing 7 cents per share, and we expect the balance will comprise around $14.2 million of share repurchases to take place between now and September 30th, 2026. Given the company's strong cash position for the third quarter ending September 30, 2026, yesterday our Board also approved an increase in the fixed element of the company's capital return policy to 8 cents per share of the company's common stock, while maintaining that the fixed element and the variable element together should equal 35% of net income attributable to stockholders of the company. Just note that the declaration of any dividends and the amount of any such dividends, including with respect to the third quarter, do remain subject to approval by the company's Board of Directors following the conclusion of each quarter as normal. We've continued to be busy with vessel financings and we've now closed three transactions relating to our six Newbill vessels. In addition to the March 2026 facility we previously announced that finances two of those vessels, on June 18th 2026 we secured pre-delivery bridge finance for our first two Panda ethylene Newbill vessels and we drew the 57.6 million of that on July 17th as I mentioned earlier. plus at the same time we obtained committed 205.8 million Jolco financing to refinance this bridge facility on delivery of the vessels and provide long-term post-delivery financing on very competitive terms. Then very recently, only last week on July 31st, we signed a new secure terminal facility for up to $121.8 million to finance approximately 70% of the cost of our two coral ammonia new-build vessels, executed at our lowest ever margin, 135 basis points plus SOFA. The facility is available to draw on delivery of the vessels around May and September 2028 respectively and as always we'd like to thank our banking group for their continued support. Net debt to last 12 months adjusted EBITDA fell to 2.2 times at June 30th 2026 down from 2.5 times at March 31st 2026 and we have only relatively small near and mid-term balloons as we work to ensure our debt profile is pushed to the right. Net debt was $653 million and our loan-to-fleet value ratio remains approximately 31%, or below 30% when you include a reasonable value for our Morgan's Point terminal investment, and 55% of the company's debt was either hedged or on a fixed interest rate basis at the quarter end, consistent with the prior quarter. We'll continue to prioritise returning capital to shareholders while maintaining balance sheet strength, lowering the cost of our debt where we can, and balancing growth, deleveraging and shareholder returns, all in a disciplined, deliberate and careful manner. On slide nine, this again highlights two of the core strengths of our navigator platform, our ability to generate consistent operating cash flow and our structurally lower all-in cash break-even when isolating for the change in ownership days. Starting with cash flow over the last 12 months to June 30th, 2026, the business continued to generate strong underlying operating cash flow with a pre-CAPEX cash flow yield averaging around 17%. Post-CAPEX free cash flow continues to reflect investment in our new build program. Our latest estimate for 2026, all in cash break-even, is $21,990 per vessel per day, up from $21,230 last quarter. The increase versus last quarter's estimate principally reflects our agreed sale of the eight Unigas pool vessels, which reduces the average fleet size across which costs are spread. Notwithstanding, our headroom over our TCE revenue remains substantial, even adjusting out the exceptional rate levels we've seen in this quarter. Our cash break-even figure incorporates over $175 million of operating costs, $114 million of debt amortisation and approximately $44 million of net interest expense. Expense guidance for 2026 is materially unchanged from the guidance provided in our first quarter earnings results presentation when accounting for the change in ownership days, noting that in particular OPEX and depreciation have reduced accordingly with the upcoming sale of the eight Unigas vessels. Slide 10 outlines our historic quarterly adjusted EBITDA, adding this second quarter's result. We now have 14 quarters in a row since the beginning of 2023, where we've reported at least $60 million of quarterly adjusted EBITDA and with an average of $72 million per quarter over that period. We've also added for reference some historic data points to this slide showing our share of the terminals adjusted EBITDA. Then as we've highlighted previously, our earnings remain sensitive to TCE movements and we estimate approximately $17 million of annual additional EBITDA uplift or 28 cents per share of annual EPS uplift for every $1,000 increase in TCE rates, all other things being equal. Then, as for previous quarters, an update on our vessel dried up schedule, projected costs and time taken can be found in the appendix, should that detail be of interest to anybody. And finally, looking ahead, after an exceptionally strong second quarter, we do expect TCE and utilisation to moderate in the third quarter, also consistent with normal seasonal patterns. Even so, we expect the business to remain cash generative and despite the geopolitical uncertainty of market crosswinds that remain, Navigator is in an excellent financial position and it gives us the confidence and the flexibility to move forward and pursue opportunities as they arise. And with that, I'll hand over to Oeyvind to provide the latest commercial update. Oeyvind.

Thank you, Gary. Good morning, everyone. I'll spend the next few minutes on the Strait of Hormuz and what it's doing to maritime trade lanes. Then the Ethelin story, our utilization, and I'll wrap up with a quick view on vessel supply and rates. So let's start with the big one, which continues to be the Strait of Hormuz on page 12. The Strait continues to disrupt global shipping lanes and is creating inefficiencies across pretty much every ship segment. Today, Only around 20% of the vessels that would normally transit the Hormuz are actually doing so. The rest are either finding employment elsewhere or they're sitting in the Indian Ocean waiting for a green light to resume Middle East loadings. And where do the cargoes come from instead? It's North America. It's really the only region with enough capacity to substitute the lost Middle East supply. So we're seeing a meaningful number of vessels heading toward the Panama Canal. And because Panama comes with its own headaches, transit uncertainty and auction fees that can run into millions of dollars for one-way passage, many ships are going the long way round instead via the Cape of Good Hope. Either way, it's more days at sea. In shipping terms, that is called inefficiency. And inefficiency, at least in the short term, works in our favor. You simply need more ships to move the same amount of cargo from A to B, and that's positive for the supply and demand ballots. We're seeing this play out in LPG, in ethane, and in ethylene. And of the three, ethylene is where the impact on our shipping demand has been the biggest. So let's turn to page 13. Since the straight close to commercial shipping on the 28th of February, ethylene exports out of the US have been climbing. You can see it on the right hand graph on March, April and May were particularly strong. Most of that volume went transatlantic to Europe. And why? Because the arbitrage between US and European pricing was at its widest. You can see this on the left-hand graph with the light blue line sitting above the others, meaning an exporter of US etlin could on paper make the biggest net back selling to European buyers. That picture has shifted over the past couple of months. Both graphs show it. The arbitrage is now widest to Asia, The dark blue line versus the grey line. And that's pulling ethylene across the Pacific. From where we sit, that's good news. Longer voyages, more ton miles for the handy size ethylene segment. And ethane pricing, which underpins US competitiveness for both ethane and ethylene, has stayed remarkably flat through all the volatility. Ethane is really the rock in all of this. It is key when thinking about long-term fundamentals. These exports drove our utilization higher, and you can see that on page 14. We averaged 90.8% for the quarter, well above the same quarter last year. This is illustrated by the green dotted line on the left-hand graph. Now, toward the end of the quarter, uncertainty crept in. The geopolitics, the strait itself, the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding on ceasefire, conflicting messages became the norm, like a traffic light flipping from green to orange to red and back again for the strait transits. That clearly resulted in less activity. Many market participants simply went into wait-and-see mode. That said, Ettelin seems to have found a floor when looking at the dotted dark blue line on the right hand graph. Volumes have come off the record highs of May, yes, but recent exports are still running above historical average for this time of the year. And that is good to see. Moving to fleet supply on page 15, the order book across the gas segments is largely unchanged from last quarter. which is also applicable for our handy size segment. As Mads mentioned in his opening remarks, we have a low order book, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the operating fleet of 125 vessels. We believe this is very much manageable going forward. One thing to note, our eight smaller ships, the dark blue box at the bottom middle of the chart, will drop out of the picture by next quarter's call, we think, as they're part of the Unigas transaction we just announced and which was commented on. And finally, market rates on page 16. It shows the updated Clarkson's 12-month time charter assessment. Rates rose during the second quarter on the surge in demand across all vessel classes, including hand size. The assessment has since come back to pre-Hormuz levels. But let's remember, those pre-Hormuz levels were quite robust to begin with. And as always, spot rates can run above the 12-month assessment and aren't necessarily captured by this index. So to wrap it up, Global trade disruption is generally positive for shipping, and we've seen that firsthand, particularly in ethylene exports on seagoing demand for our vessels. These inefficiencies, Panama being a good example, won't disappear anytime soon. was holding back the record 2Q volumes from carrying straight into third quarter is uncertainty. Market participants are hesitant to commit beyond critical keep-the-lights-on deals and are shying away from longer-term transactions. But the market itself remains robust at levels similar to before Hormuz happened. With that, over to Randy. Randy, what do you got to share?

Thank you, Oeyvind. I have plenty to share. So as Mads mentioned earlier, there have been several recent developments that we want to provide some additional details and updates on. So starting on slide 18, during the second quarter, we paid a $0.07 quarterly cash dividend that totaled $4.3 million, and we repurchased over 270,000 common shares of NVGS in the open market, which totaled $6.3 million at an average price of around $23.19 per share. As we announced in May, our capital return policy currently now includes a fixed quarterly cash dividend of $0.07 per share as part of our quarterly payout percentage of 35% of net income. So as a result, we are returning a total of $18.5 million to shareholders during this third quarter. The Board has declared a cash dividend of $0.07 per share, payable on September 1, to all shareholders of record as of August 19. That equates to another quarterly cash dividend payment of $4.3 million. Additionally, with our shares trading well below NAV of more than $30 a share, will use the variable portion to return capital via share buybacks. As such, we plan to repurchase $14.2 million of our shares between now and quarter end so that the dividend and the share repurchases together equal 35% of net income, or $18.5 million for the quarter. Thank you for watching. Slide 19. Throughout the years, we've been saying how attractive the value of our shares are, and we continue to put our money where our mouth has been. Since December 2022, and including our recently declared return of capital to be distributed here in the third quarter, we will have soon returned over $300 million to shareholders, including $50 million in cash dividends and $256 million of share buybacks. Slide 20. So for a quick recap, as you can see on that bottom left chart, we had about 56 million shares outstanding for many years up until the merger with UltraGas, which happened almost exactly five years ago. We issued 21 million shares in exchange for 18 vessels. Now, since peaking at that 77 million share number in late 21, we have repurchased 16 million shares at an average price of roughly $16 per share. So our total return of capital equates to around $4.40 per share based on the average share count of about 70 million shares during the time. So a 28% return. As seen in the last few years, we want to reiterate that returning capital to shareholders will remain a priority for us going forward. Now looking at our ethylene export terminal on slide 20. Oeyvind Lindeman, Oeyvind Lindeman, Randall Giveans, Mads Peter Zacho Looking ahead to the third quarter, throughput has decreased this summer due to falling NAFTA prices, global inventory destocking, and the recent restarts of multiple European crackers. Also, summers are hot here in Houston, so that slightly impacts the terminal's operations. However, volume should increase in the coming months, along with the widening of the arbitrage and inventory restocking. Oeyvind Lindeman, We continue to right-size our fleet by selling our older, smaller vessels and those non-core assets. So in April, we sold the Navigator Pegasus, a 2009-built 22,000 cubic meters semi-ref gas carrier, to a third party for $30.5 million, netting a gain of $15.3 million. Now, this was the ninth vessel we've sold since 2022, and all of those have an average age of 22 years at the time of sale. Oeyvind Lindeman, Now, most recently, we signed definitive agreements to sell our eight unigas vessels for $183 million. So after repaying a total of $54 million of associated debt, of which around $18 million was outstanding at the end of June, the net cash proceeds will be around $129 million. Now, these eight vessel sales will result in a book gain of about $65 to $70 million. So it's more than a dollar per share. John Reay, Michael Schroder, Oeyvind Lindeman, Randall Giveans, Mads Peter Zacho Our current fleet consists of 54 vessels with an average fleet age of just over 12.5 years and an average size of just over 21,000 cubic meters. Excluding the unigas vessels, our fleet would be slightly younger with an average age of below 12.5 years and slightly larger with an average cubic meters of around 23,000. Lastly, we continue to upgrade our vessels with some energy savings technologies. More details are on slide 28. And we'll continue to roll out some new artificial intelligence and AI programs to make our fleet even more efficient. Now, finishing on slide 22. I want to personally invite you, all of you, to our upcoming 2026 Analyst Investor Day here in Houston, Texas in a few months from now. So on Tuesday afternoon, November 17th, we'll be hosting our Morgan's Point tours of the ethylene export terminal and one of our vessels. So just take a look at the picture to the right and imagine yourself climbing on board that beautiful gas carrier and seeing the flex chain chilling ethylene down to negative 104 degrees Celsius. It's a thing of beauty. Later that evening, the management team and members of our board of directors will host a dinner for our analysts and investors. Now on Wednesday morning, November 18th, we'll host company and industry presentations covering the current market trends, a financial update, as well as our medium term strategy. will then have lunch, followed by an appreciation event for analysts, shareholders, customers, and partners. So I'll personally guarantee that the weather will be much cooler then than it is today in Houston. With that, I'll now turn it back over to Mads for some closing remarks.

Thanks a lot, Randy. I'll certainly be there. Q2 2026 was a quarter where everything came together. Record net income, record EBITDA, record TCE rates, record terminal throughput, all in the same quarter. and that of course doesn't happen by accident. It reflects the strength of the platform that we have built over the years. The numbers speak for themselves, but I want to just take a moment to point to what's all underneath them. Our cash break even sits below $22,000 per day. Leverage has come down to 2.2 times and financing is now in place for all six new builds. And the Unigas sale proceeds are still to come and that will certainly give us significant financial flexibility going into the second half. Q3 may become slightly softer commercially, but expected to remain healthy. TCE and utilization may normalize from record levels. Terminal volumes will ease as the ethylene arbitrage tightens and the European crackers restart, but the structural story has not changed. US ethane remains the lowest cost feedstock in the world. The handy size order book is thin, and the growing share of the existing fleet that's getting too old to remain competitive is right ahead of us. We enter Q3 from a position of real strength, a clean balance sheet, a clear capital return policy now at 35% of net income and a fleet that's getting younger and more efficient with every new build delivered and every older vessel being sold. So thanks a lot for listening and now back to you, Randy.

Thank you, Mads. Operator will now open the lines for some Q&A. So to raise your hand, if you're on your phone, press star nine, then you'll have to unmute yourself by pressing star six. Now, if using the Zoom app, just use the raise hand function. First caller, your line should be open.

Hi, Randy. This is Omar from Clarkson Securities. Hi, how's it going? Thanks for the update. I have a couple of questions. I was just jumping back and forth with another call, so I may have missed this in the commentary. I just wanted to ask about the balance sheet and the drawdown of the 91 million from your revolvers back in April. Early during the Hormuz crisis, it sounded like it was as a precautionary measure. You're fully drawn as at the end of the quarter. Are you still fully drawn as of now? And what are your plans near term with that cash? Do you repay it, invest it, or just simply keep it on a balance sheet?

Yeah. Hi, Omar. Yeah, we did cover that in there, but I can cover it again real quick. We did draw it down. It is still fully drawn. and our plan is to obviously take a look at the situation, but particularly with the proceeds coming in from our Unigas fleet sale, our plan is to likely repay those revolvers over the course of the next couple of months.

All right. Thanks, Gary. That's clear. And then just in terms of the as we think about things from here, you had your strongest quarter ever in terms of, as you mentioned, revenue and rate and earnings and so on. You got nearly thirty four thousand a day on on the handies as an average rate. How do we think about that trending for the third quarter? You know, ARBs have narrowed a bit from the very high levels that we saw back in the second quarter. They're still elevated. You do expect a bit lower terminal throughput, but we're still seeing headline rates remain elevated. How do you think about that as we think about earnings power from here? Is it the utilization that maybe comes off, but the rate itself can hold at this latest level? Or do we see them kind of reverting back to the averages you captured back in the first quarter?

There's a relationship between utilization and rates, and our priority is to obviously try to push both as high as we can. I think the graph from the 12-month time charter assessment issued by Clarkson's shows this bump in assessment during the last three quarters, and they come down to pre-Hormuz level, as we commented on, which is pretty strong still. So we expect, yes, it's slightly softer than the second quarter, but it's still quite robust going into the third quarter as well.

All right, good. Thanks, Oeyvind. Those are my questions. I'll hand it over.

Thank you, Omar. Next caller, your line should be open.

Hey, good morning, guys. You got Spiro here from Citi. Maybe starting off, I want to talk about next strategic steps here. You've secured financing for all your new builds. I believe you contracted most of Morgan's Point at this point, maybe a little bit left. You're reaching what looks like maybe the tail end of the fleet renewal process for now anyway. So a lot of major items checked off that list. But something tells me you're not going to be sitting on your hands, especially with all this liquidity. So how should we think about next steps for you? What's on the checklist now? And maybe I think about the timing when you start to move there.

Yeah, I think by and large, nothing has really changed in terms of our strategy. We are looking for opportunities to consolidate the segments where we are strong. That goes for the handy size segment, that goes for the MGC segment. So we'll be looking for opportunities here to add to our fleet. If we find modern tonnage at attractive prices, this is certainly I think those commercial synergies of the underlying case you could say for doing so is very healthy right now and we'll continue to look around for those. It has been a little bit harder you could say given the uncertainty that we are seeing geopolitically right now, which means that bid-ask spreads, they may have widened a bit when spot rates have been elevated the way they have. I mean, that does raise expectations. But we also see that there is a big order book on the VLGCs and the MGCs. So let's see over the next coming quarters, and we are patient people, but over the next couple of quarters and into 27, 28, We enjoy having the financial and strategic flexibility to go and do those transactions when they make sense. But I mean, all that goes, of course, together with the capital return policy that we have been gradually increasing our return to shareholders. And our plan is to continue to do that in a very measured and predictable manner.

Great color, Mads. Thanks for that. Second question, maybe just switching gears a bit here to the customer mindset. You know, you talked about customers being apprehensive to contract given all the uncertainty, but maybe you should put a finer point on when the dust settles, how you're thinking about the long-term impacts from this conflict and how that impacts Navigator. Do you see customers signing up for term? Are you seeing new names show up on your customer list? And I guess ultimately, what sort of signals do you think customers are waiting for to really start contracting again?

It's a good question, Spiro. As Randy mentioned, there's a new terminal contract offtake agreement signed post-Hormuz. So clearly the signaling, I think, or what we're hearing from customers is that Definitely reliability on your supply chain for the molecules that you need becomes top priority. So it's not only about price and shortest distance from the producer. So the Hormuz has really put that front and center. and reliability is definitely placed along the US Gulf Coast and East Coast in terms of these molecules. So be that LPG, be it ethylene or be it ethylene. So I think more interest is coming there. It's obviously quite difficult to commit to a longer term contract with everything that is happening, but the underlying sentiment is being pushed towards the United States of America. and we will benefit from that.

Appreciate the call, gentlemen. That's it for me.

Thanks, Biro. Next caller, your line should be open. Thanks, everyone.

Just maybe following up on Spiro's questions here, looking at the terminal performance, can you talk about how we should think about the fixed versus more variable or spot exposed portion of the EBITDA for the quarter here?

Specifically at the terminal level?

Yes, Randy.

Yeah, that's a good question. So we haven't gone into the exact details. The majority of the capacity has been sold on take or pay contracts, but also the spot rates were above the rates that we charge on the kind of time charter or the off take contract level. So the volume that was spot is lower than that of contracted. But when you bake in the rates at higher levels, it was a pretty even mix there.

And Randy, just to follow up on that, you talked a little bit about warmer weather and seasonality here. How should we be thinking about, I guess, an annualized run rate on the terminal, just taking into account some of that weather pattern and or regular maintenance or downtimes?

Yeah, so the full year, the terminal can do around 1.55 million tons. In the colder months, you can get a little bit above nameplate capacity. In the warmer months, you're pretty much right at it, maybe slightly under it, especially here in July. And you live in Houston, you know August. So on a full year basis, though, we're still getting the 1.55. That's around 130 or so thousand tons per month. Oeyvind Lindeman, Randall Giveans, If an off-taker, let's just use a round number, has 100,000 tons or 120,000 tons per year, that doesn't mean they have to do 10,000 tons per month, right? So every quarter, there's some minimums and maximums. So they may have pulled some in to second quarter, maybe not taking as much in the third quarter, likely taking more in the fourth quarter, depending on the widening of the arbitrage. So there's a lot of factors at play in terms of kind of forward run rate from these levels.

Got it. So my second question, it just relates to some comments that Oeyvind made during Marine Money this year. So just taking a step back, looking at the general environment, you know, we're in a spot right now where liquefied natural gas prices are elevated and pretty volatile, which generally doesn't play very well to certain price sensitive buyers or markets, especially in the emerging markets. Do you think Navigator has a role to play here in terms of additional infrastructure projects that could deliver alternative fuel gases other than methane to the market?

Definitely, we have the wherewithal, the balance sheet, the knowledge and the floating assets and partners. We had the example with enterprise product partners to put in infrastructure to create a supply for the customers that want it. So I think we have all the pieces together. I think the environment As to the previous question whereby perhaps Asian consumers are looking at perhaps putting in ethylene storage or ethylene storage for their businesses as an alternative for NAFTA coming from the Strait of Hormuz. So I think we have The assets and the knowledge to do it. So the biggest challenge is, of course, to learn those things. But it's definitely something we are trying to develop.

All right. Thank you. I'll turn it over. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Chris. Next caller, your line should be open. I see your hand.

Hi, this is Clement Molins. I'm from Value Investors Edge. I wanted to ask about design field solutions. Could you talk a bit about the total capex for the project as well as how much of that would be attributable to your net of the grant? How does the cadence for this capex look like if the project goes forward?

It's very straightforward, Clement. The Norwegian government have awarded Azeen Fuel Solutions 442 million NOK, which let's call it $45 million. And that to cover 80% of the capex for the three terminals that they intend to construct on the west coast of Norway. So most Fantastic large piece of the capex is a grant with no strings attached, which I think answers your question.

Yeah, that's helpful. Thanks for the breakdown. And you've already touched on capital allocation, but I wanted to delve a bit deeper on your plans to allocate the proceeds from the sale of the Unigas vessels. Part of it, of the gains, will be used to repurchase shares. But could that be complemented with, let's say, incremental repurchases? Or should we expect most of that to be kept on the balance sheet in anticipation of other opportunities?

I mean, an important capital return will take place once the sale has been completed, because as we mentioned, there's a potential net gain of 65 to 70 billion dollars and with a 35% return on capital return policy. There's going to be a significant contribution coming from that. As to the remainder of it, we haven't earmarked those funds for now. As I mentioned before, we are looking at various opportunities and it's still this consolidation game that is central to our strategy and then also the infrastructure projects that we are working on. So there'll be some growth element to it, but it's not going to be something that we will Thanks for the call. That's everything from me. I'll turn it over. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you, Clement. That completes our Q&A. Mads, over to you.

Yeah, no, I just want to say thanks a lot for listening. It was a fantastic quarter. Thank a lot for all the great questions from the analysts and do reach out if you need any further discussion from me, from Randy. We always appreciate your engagement. So all the best and have a fantastic day.