Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Overseas Shipholding Group first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sam Norton, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Danielle. Welcome, and thank you for joining our presentation, which is first quarter 2024 financial results, and for allowing us the opportunity to comment in more depth on those results and to provide additional context to the current state of our business and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. As usual, I am joined in this presentation by our CFO, Dick Trueblood. To start, I would like to direct everyone to the narrative on slides two and three of the PowerPoint presentation available on our website regarding forward-looking statements, estimates, and other information that may be provided during the course of this call. The contents of that narrative are an important part of this presentation, and I urge everyone to read and consider them carefully. We will be offering you more than just the historical perspective on OSG today. And our presentation includes forward-looking statements, including statements about anticipated future results, performance, and opportunities. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by our forward-looking statements and could be affected by a variety of factors, including factors beyond our control. For discussion of these factors, we refer you to our SEC filings, particularly our Form 10-K for 2024, and our Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2024, which we anticipate filing later today, both of which can be found at the SEC's Internet site, www.sec.gov, as well as on our own website, www.osg.com. Forward-looking statements in this presentation speak only as of today, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as may be legally required. In addition, our presentation today includes certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we define and reconcile to the most closely comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release, which is posted on our website. Before discussing our financial results for the first quarter of 2024, I would like to address the status of the unsolicited non-binding indication of interest submitted to our board by Saltchuk Resources in January 2024. to acquire the OSG shares it does not already own for $6.25 per share in cash. Our Board continues to carefully consider Salchuk's indication of interest in consultation with our outside financial and legal advisors and is committed to acting in the best interests of our stockholders. Because the Board's work is ongoing, we do not intend to comment further on this call or address questions regarding Salchuk's indication of interest or the possibility of any potential transaction. We respectfully ask that your questions be focused on the company's recent financial results and its ongoing business activities. We kicked off 2024 sustaining our strong performance in 2023. Our cash flow and profitability continued to steadily improve. We are particularly gratified to report a more than 35% growth in earnings per share when compared with the first quarter of 2023, rewarding our shareholders with value derived from the combined effects of the numerous initiatives that we've undertaken over the past 12 months. We delivered significant increases from the prior year's first quarter in the financial metrics that we believe are important in measuring our performance, TCE revenues, and adjusted EBITDA. Dick will be sharing with you later on this call details of these as well as our other financial results for the period. Our cash flow from operations continues to build at a pace that has met our expectations, and as a result, our board declared and the company paid in April our second successive quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share, demonstrating confidence in our business plan. Our attained cash flow reflects the realized benefits of charter parties that we have fixed at escalating rates over the past several quarters, providing us with the means to make continued progress in meeting our key capital allocation goals. I spoke at length in our year-round earnings call about the events and circumstances that have contributed to strong market demand for our Jones Act vessels. The persistent influence of geopolitical tensions outside of the United States continues to severely disrupt historical trading patterns for crude oil and its refined products. Hostilities in the Red Sea, growing geopolitical tensions in the Persian Gulf, and the continuing war in Ukraine have kept international freight markets at or near historical highs. Most analysts consider this market strength to be durable, with positive implications for our Jones Act vessels. High international freight rates indirectly stimulate domestically sourced fuel consumption and, by extension, Jones Act transportation demand. since import substitution is constrained by comparatively high freight costs for products shipped over longer distances on foreign flag vessels. So long as international freight rates remain high, Buy America, when it comes to fuels, will have economic as well as rhetorical justifications. Added to these disrupted forces, U.S. government policies and state regulations have stimulated a growing market for transporting renewable diesel and its feedstock components from production sources along the Gulf Coast to markets along the U.S. West Coast. According to the Energy Information Agency, quarterly shipments of renewable diesel from Pad 3 to Pad 5 have more than doubled over the past two years, with marine transport of renewable diesel recently approaching 50,000 barrels per day. The EIA currently expects renewable diesel production to increase by approximately 30% annually in both 2024 and 2025, a development which is likely to add further demand for tankers to move renewable diesel from the U.S. Gulf to the West Coast in the coming quarters. The strong demand signals evident in the Jones Act trades have led our core customers to seek out extensions to vessels on charter for both longer periods and well in advance of contractual renewal dates. This has allowed us to extend our committed charter book with increasingly attractive rates. Examples of this trend during the first quarter include the overseas Nikitsky being extended to its current charter for three years from October 2024, and the OSG 205 Courageous being extended for three years from December 2024. During the first quarter, we also exercised an option to extend the bare boat charter of the overseas Tampa with its vessel owner, for a period of five years commencing June 2025 until June 2030. Updating on the progress of bringing the Alaskan Frontier, sister to our other three ATC-operated crude oil tankers, into service, we still anticipate the vessel being ready for service in the fourth quarter of 2024. This week, we have signed a towage contract to move the vessel from Labuan, Malaysia to Singapore. The vessel is scheduled to enter a shipyard in Singapore during early June, where we will carry out both a comprehensive reactivation scope of work, as well as previously announced lifecycle upgrades on each of her four engines. The engine upgrades will improve performance and fuel efficiency, and also prepare the engines for possible use of methanol fuel in the future. In parallel to shipyard activities, we are currently fielding employment inquiries for the vessel, and are optimistic that we will fix the vessel on time charter at attractive rates in the next couple of months. I will now turn the call over to Dick to provide you with further details on our first quarter results for 2024. Dick?

Thank you, Sam.