Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Tacos Action Conference Call on the first quarter 2024 financial results. We have with us today Mr. Takis Arapoglu, Chairman, Board, Dr. Nicholas Tacos, President and CEO, Mr. Paul Durham, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. George Saraglou, 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 this conference is being recorded today. I will now pass the floor over to Nicholas Bornozis, President of Capital Link, Investor Relations Advisor for TACO Energy Navigation. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. And good morning to all of our participants. I am Nicolas Bornellos of Capital Link, Investor Relations Advisor to TACO Energy Navigation. This morning, the company publicly released its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2024. If you do not have a copy of today's earnings release, please call us at 212- or email us at 10 at capitaling.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.temn.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 presentation, the webcast, 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 and slide presentation of the webcast contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor Provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are questioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which may affect 10 business prospects and results of operations. And before turning the floor over to the chairman, I'd like to mention that we also have today with us, as part of the management team, Mr. Kairos Kosmatos, the co-chief financial officer. And congratulations, Mr. Kosmatos, for your new role. And at this moment, I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Arapoglou, the chairman of Tsakos Energy Navigation. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Nicholas. Good morning and good afternoon to all. And thank you again for joining our call today for Q1 results. Despite, as you've seen, a historically low utilization of 91 percent, just over, mainly due to a large number of dry dockings that we decided to do, we continue to deliver operational excellence on the back of a very positive market. based on strong shipping fundamentals and geopolitical events, which are both expected to continue in the foreseeable future. Our very comfortable equity-generating ability and cash position allows us to double our semiannual dividend from last year's. In addition, we are mainly making use of the good market And we're using opportunities in the S&P side of the business to sell old tonnage and buy new, modern, green vessels, reducing the age of our fleet and positioning ourselves to capture a creative business that comes our way from our demanding blue-chip clients. The result of all this is the steady increase of our stock price in recent months as the recognizes our robust business model, and this makes us very happy. So, once again, well-deserved congratulations to Nikos Tsakos and his team, and best wishes for maintaining TEN's stellar performance going forward. Thank you, and over to you, Nikos Tsakos.