Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to SACOS Energy Navigation Conference call on the first quarter 2023 financial results. We have with us Mr. Takis Arapaglu, Chairman of the Board, Dr. Nicholas SACOS, President and CEO, Mr. Paul Durham, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. George Chiroglu, Chief Operating Officer of the company. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. And now I pass the floor to Mr. Nicholas Bernoses, President of Capital Link Investor Relations Advisor with SACOS Energy Navigation. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, and good morning to all of our participants. I am Nicolas Bernoulli of Capitalink, Investor Relations Advisor to Tracos Energy Navigation. This morning, the company publicly released its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2023. In case we do not have a copy of today's earnings release, please call us at 212-661-7566. or email us at ten, T-E-N, at CapitalLink.com, and we will have a copy for you emailed right away. Please note that parallel to today's conference call, there is also a live audio and slide webcast, which can be accessed on the company's website on the front page at www.tenn.gr. The conference call will follow the presentation slides, so please, we urge you to access the presentation slides on the company's website. Please note that the slides of the webcast presentation will be available and archived on the website of the company after the conference call. Also, please note that the slides of the webcast presentation are user-controlled, and that means that by clicking on the proper button, you can move to the next or to the previous slide on your own. At this time, I would like to read the Safe Harbor Statement. This conference call slide and the slide presentation contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which may affect FEMS business prospects and results of operations. And before passing the floor to the chairman, I would like to highlight that, as mentioned in the press release today, TEN celebrates 30 years as a public company. I'd like to extend my own congratulations to Dr. Tsarkos and the entire team. And the company is kicking off 2023 with a record quarter in terms of performance and results. And at this moment, I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Takis Arapoglou, the chairman of Tsakos Energy Navigation. Please go ahead, Mr. Arapoglou.

Thank you. Thank you, Nicolas. Hello and welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our call today. I must congratulate management for an extraordinary set of record first quarter results. and stellar operational performance, and also congratulate TEN as a whole for celebrating 30 years as a public company, 30 years of uninterrupted growth. So many happy returns to TEN. We continue to benefit from the prevailing solid market fundamentals, building healthy cash reserves, which allows us to maintain our policy of redeeming expensive preferred issues when we can, steadily reducing debt, and paying seriously increased dividends, in this year's case a dividend 140 percent higher than in 2022. Subject to the market continuation of this firm market, the board may consider paying an extraordinary dividend during 2023. Over and above the already announced annual common dividend of $0.60 per share. At the same time, we take advantage of the prevailing attractive charter rates, locking in long-term employment for our vessels, resulting in over $1.6 billion of future contracted revenues over the next three years. which, of course, secures a high and sustainable profitable performance. Our vessels operating in spot are taking advantage of the high rates in the market, as is the case with our vessels benefiting from profit-sharing arrangements. All this, the combination of all this, puts us in a position to comfortably continue, as always, to consider new strategic accretive investment divestment opportunities as and when these may arise, in order to grow TEN further, always in a measured and prudent way and for the benefit of our shareholders. So congratulations again to management and employees of TEN, and best wishes for another 30 years of successes. I'll now pass the floor on to our CEO and President, Nicos Sakos. Thank you.