Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Tsakos Energy Navigation Conference call on the second quarter 2023 financial results. We have with us Mr. Taki Arapoglou, Chairman of the Board, Dr. Nicholas Tsakos, President and CEO, Mr. Paul Durham, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. George Sargou, 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 names to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. And now I pass the floor over to Mr. Nicholas Bornozis, President of Capitalink, Investor Relations Advisor of SACOS Energy Navigation. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much and good morning to all of our participants. As the operator mentioned, I'm Nicholas Bournos of Capitalink, investor relations advisor to Tsakos Energy Navigation. Before I continue with the conference call, I would like to take this opportunity to express on behalf of all of us our condolences to the Tsakos family for the loss of Dr. Irene Saroglu Tsakos, Nicholas's beloved mother, a distinguished figure in Greek shipping, who is also known as the doctor of shipping. She co-founded the Tsakos Group and pioneered naval medicine, passionately authoring medical literature and caring for seafarers and their families. She received numerous prestigious tributes from institutions like the Academy of Athens, the Hellenic Foundation of Cardiology, Euroclassica, and many, many others. And again, our condolences to the Tsakos family. And now we'll proceed with a conference call. This morning, the company publicly released its financial results for the second quarter and six months ended June 30, 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 10 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 that this conference call and slide presentation of the webcast contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are accustomed that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which may affect tens And before passing the floor to Mr. Takisarapoulou, the chairman of the board, I would like on a happier note to say that we hope to have Dr. Tsakos with us in New York more often, now that his two daughters will be attending Columbia University. And on another happy note, to remind everyone that Tsakos Energy Navigation is celebrating this year the 33rd year of being a publicly listed company, I would say a unique and enviable track record. And we all know the company's commitment to creating shareholder value for the long term. And with that, I will pass the floor to Mr. Takis Arapoglou, the chairman of the board of Cyprus Energy Navigation.

Thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. As expected, a great set of results. The results, of course, benefit from continued strength in the market. Management needs to be thoroughly congratulated. They are making best use of all opportunities in the spot and time chart of business following the model. The model, of course, allows them to be able to reward shareholders in good and in bad times. So in this framework, we've been repaying PREFs consistently in the last couple of years, and we have continued paying dividends, returning directly or indirectly value to our shareholders. We feel that it is appropriate with this framework excess liquidity to continue refreshing the fleet, selling old stock and buying new state-of-the-art vessels, which we do. And hopefully the market will continue from going forward, and the model will continue to reward everyone. So that's it for me. Congratulations to Nico Tsarkos and the team, and looking forward to continued success. Thank you. I pass on the floor to Nicolas Tsakos.