Good afternoon. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the d'Amico International Shipping first quarter 2022 results. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. For operator assistance via web call, please press the headset icon on the bottom left side of your screen. For conference call assistance, please press star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Paolo d'Amico, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Hello to everybody. Good afternoon, and welcome to our first quarter 2022 presentation. Going straight to the presentation itself, I would skip the executive summary because it's just a repeat of what we are going to say afterwards, and I would go straight to the first session on this overview, leaving the floor to Carlos Balestra, our CFO. Carlos, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Paolo. Good afternoon to everyone. As usual, we start with the slide just for a quick overview of our fleet, as at the end of March. We control 36 vessels, of which 26 either owned or bareboat chartered in, and 10 time chartered in, nine of which long-term. Mostly MRs as usual, 24, and same number of LR1s and Handysize. We did announce recently the sale of one of our oldest vessels in the fleet, the High Priority, 17-year-old vessel. It will be delivered to the new owners around of May 12th to 12th, we expect. It's still included in our fleet as of March 31st, but it will be leaving us soon.
We have a very modern fleet, average age of seven years, which actually falls following the disposal of the High Priority to 6.6 years. We mentioned here 81% of our owned and bareboat fleets and bareboat vessels are ECO. Following the disposal of the High Priority, this percentage actually rises to 84%. As you know well, we renewed our fleet through an important newbuilding program with vessels which we started ordering in 2012, and which were delivered to us between 2014 and 2019. Going on to the following page, we don't have any newbuilding CapEx commitments left.
We do have maintenance CapEx planned, but also in this respect, the amounts have been falling from $12 million in 2020 to $6.8 million in 2021, and it falls further to just below $4 million in 2022. It stays at around the same level in 2023 and 2024. On the bank debt side, as previously discussed, we have refinanced all the debt maturing in 2022, mostly at the end of last year. One of the facilities was drawn in Q1 this year. We are currently working on refinancing the debt maturing in 2023, and we are making good progress in that respect.
We're seeing good appetite at very competitive terms from the banks we work with. We expect to finalize this before the summer, if not all the refinancing, the large majority. In terms of the bank debt repayments, we finished reimbursing some facilities which had quite a fast amortization profile. That is why the daily bank loan repayments has been falling and is expected to continue falling. There are a few of these facilities which have faster amortization that we, well, are going to either refinance or finish reimbursing in the course of this year and next year.
Going forward, the purchase options on our lease vessels, we already exercised one of these, and then we sold the vessel, the High Priority, as we just discussed. There are still eight left. The LTVs on these vessels are around 80% today, some slightly higher. Given the very strong markets we are currently experiencing and we are going to discuss this in greater detail later, but we expect markets to stay at strong levels throughout the year and then also in the following years, we expect soon to be able to start exercising these options. Vessel values are also moving in the right direction in this respect.
They started rising in the second half of last year and continued this trend also in the first part of this year. These LTVs should be falling and we will, if needed, also have the additional liquidity to invest at the right time to exercise these options and therefore lower our cost of funding. Going on to the following page, in terms of TC coverage, TC coverage is part of our strategy, our core strategy, of course. However, we do look at the prevailing market conditions and at the expected future market conditions when we decide how much coverage to take.
We intentionally, given the very positive outlook, which we anticipated for the second half of 2022, kept our coverage quite short. When we did take coverage, starting from the end of last year, we did so usually for not longer than 12 months, and often also for a shorter period, around six months. That explains why our coverage falls quite rapidly throughout 2022. Already in Q2, we are at 38%. Then it falls even faster thereafter. In 2023, our residual, our current coverage represents only 6% of our available vessel days. This coverage, which is falling, is however at increasing rates.
The blue line includes also the variable charter contract. We see that the lowest level was reached in Q4 2021, and then this line starts rising quite fast. It's also very positive, especially in the current very high fuel oil price environment we're experiencing. Given the regulations that we are going to have, we're going to be facing from next year, we have an increasing proportion of ECO vessels. This is for all our fleet, including the time chartered-in vessels. For 2022, 80% of our fleet will be composed of ECO vessels, and this should continue rising over the course of the next two years. This is the fleet evolution.
We also included here in dark gray the optional TC-in vessels. These are vessels which we TC-in, and which we have extension options for these TCs. Some of these firm periods terminate in 2023. One at the end of 2023, and a few others in 2024. Of course, in a very strong market as the one we anticipate we will have over the course of the next few years, we will be looking to exercise these extension options. Which will allow us to continue to control a larger fleet going forward.
We include also the sensitivity at the bottom for every $1,000 per day change in TC-in equivalent earnings. We see that we still have a $6.6 million sensitivity for the last three quarters of 2022, and of $11 million for 2023 and 2024. Going on to the following page. Also on the cost side, we have been achieving some good results. We did experience an increase in Q1 last year. Then we experienced a further contraction in the Q1 of this year. The trend has been one of falling direct operating costs. Of course, the fleet renewal program played an important role here.
Also the investments in technology, which allows us to better determine when to replace spare parts, has helped. In particular, in the first quarter of this year, we were helped by the strong U.S. dollar. This is even more important for our G&As since 75% of our G&A costs are in currency other than the U.S. dollar, and most of which are in euro. We are currently benefiting from the very strong U.S. dollar in that respect. Going on to the following page. The ratio of net financial position to fleet market value improved relative to the year-end figure, from a decrease from 60.4% - 58.5%.
Despite the small loss we did in the quarter, this is of course because of the positive dynamics we discussed regarding vessel prices. Mostly the valuations of our vessels as of thirty-first of March were confirmed to be in line with those we had been provided as at year-end. Of course, the vessels aged since. Formally, they are one year older. So it does imply an increase in prices and this trend is continuing also in April. Has continued also in April. Of course, our liquidity position also improved slightly despite the loss we made. This is thanks to the sale of the High Ballad, which was delivered to a new owner in January.
It will improve further also thanks to the disposal of the High Priority, which I previously mentioned. The net result, we have here the key P&L line items. It was a loss of $6.5 million, but excluding non-recurring items, the loss was of $4.2 million. The main non-recurring item being the asset impairment on the sale of the High Priority. In terms of daily results on the employment of our vessels, on the vessels employed on the spot market, the average daily result obtained in the first quarter of the year was around $12,900, including the TC coverage at almost $15,000 per day.
That led us to a blended rate of $13,800, which was much better than the prevailing market in Q1. If we look inside the quarter, we had quite a good January, a very weak February, and then a stronger March where we started benefiting from the effects of the war in Ukraine and the increase in the average distances over which these refined products are being transported, and which Paolo is going to be discussing in greater detail soon. I pass it over to Paolo now for the market overview.
Thank you, Carlos. Let's go to page 17. This is the slide for those who follow us in the past know very well. The only thing I would say here is look at the peaks which are in the graph, on both graphs. Those on the spot and one-year time charter rate, and those on values of, five- and 10-year-old vessel. I think we can go back to those peaks easily. The way the market is looking today, the fundamentals are very strong. One thing I would like to say is, we spoke already in January, and then we were saying that the fundamentals were right, and we were expecting a better market in the second half of the year.
Certainly, nobody was forecasting the Ukrainian crisis, but the Ukrainian crisis arrived and accelerated that process, which was anyhow due. Here again, with the graph that we showed in the past, we did that because we believe that we were going back to certain values. Today, this is more and more likely. Going to the next page on the Ukrainian war and trade flows. What's happening today is that due to the war, and mostly due to sanctions and to the fact that more and more owners and more and more charterers and more and more countries now, we have to see what happens with Europe, are not going to touch the Russian oil. You have a double element. One, Europe, which relies for something like around 40% on Russia for oil and oil products.
Europe is going to look for its supply far away. It is going to United States, West Africa, Middle East, and South America. The most, the best crude oil for us, funny enough, it comes from Iran, but we cannot touch that because it's under a previous sanction, and from Saudi Arabia. The diesel is heavily lifted out of U.S. Gulf, from Houston and Louisiana. This is substituting with a long leg, very short voyage, because usually these products and this crude was coming out either from the Baltic to Rotterdam, mostly, or to the Black Sea, to the Mediterranean countries, European countries. As for the Far East, okay, fine. That was supplying mostly China and is still supplying it.
Now what's happening, we are buying from sources which are by far on a longer distance. Russia has to sell its oil to mostly China, India, and some other places in the Far East. To do that, they have a longer trip. China can be supplied easily from the Russian Far East, but the rest would go from Baltic and the Black Sea. All these equates to ton-miles. Ton-miles is a parameter for us to measure the demand, and this will strengthen the demand very much. Now to temper a little bit this situation on oil prices. As you know, United States decide to release part of its strategic reserves.
We should expect, of course, more oil coming from non-OPEC countries and OPEC countries too, excluding, of course, Russia. From OPEC, it is not too much to expect because they have these increases of 400,000 bbl per month, but they are not managing to supply them because they have production problems. From non-OPEC countries, we will see certainly an increase of oil coming out of Canada and coming out of United States, of course, and Brazil. On page 20, we look at COVID-19, because we forgot COVID-19, basically, thanks to the war. COVID-19 is still there. Now, most of the countries have been through vaccination programs, and we have less and less cases in hospital.
Even if we have an increase of people getting affected, but thanks to the vaccinations, they are not going to hospital, they are not going to be recovered on ventilators and all this. The world is coming back more and more to its normal life. We see that on page 21, as a result of oil demand and refining throughput, the recovery is there and is going to be accelerated more and more, especially now going to the summer period. The inventories on refined products are very low.
We are draining down not only the U.S. inventories on diesel, and I don't know what the Americans are going to do, because for the moment, the American oil companies are very much focused in exporting the barrel than using it for themselves. For the moment, a lot of diesel is coming out of the U.S. Gulf and from the Middle East. This demand should be even stronger in the near future because with the vacation period coming in, I'm talking mostly about United States, but you can see that everywhere, I mean, in all the continents. More and more vehicles rolling out.
You know that in U.S., we have this driving season which starts more or less after Memorial Day, which is in the end of May. It is where the Americans, they go for vacation, and a lot of them, they go by car. Now, the gallon this year is quite expensive, but it looks like for the moment, they are driving around as usual. We must expect a stronger demand on products for this. Now, the element which is coming out, is showing back again is jet fuel. As you know, due to COVID-19, the flights were heavily affected and
Planes are flying back, still at 20% lower than what they used to in 2019, but they are still, but by far better than what it was in 2020 and 2021. On top of that, I have to remember that due to the war, airlines cannot fly anymore over Russia and over Siberia, which is the shorter way from Europe to the Far East. I'm talking about many flights. A flight from London to Japan is three hours longer and so on all the Far Eastern destination, which means more jet fuel burned and we should see an increase out of this and is already going on.
On the longer term demand, this is an old slide of ours, but we keep putting it because we keep saying it is going to be healthy. We are going to see a healthy growth in the future with a stronger participation of the refined products as a share of the total oil moved on sea. The changes in the refinery landscape is another element known. Most of these changes, the newer refinery are coming out mostly in the Middle East and the Far East, i.e., China. Europe is losing some capacity, old capacity and inefficient. Australia and New Zealand, they are losing a lot of their capacity. New Zealand basically closed down the only refinery they had. This is an element of increase for the ton-mile and a strengthening of the demand.
Always on the supply, U.S. shale oil is coming back. It's coming back at a slower rate, but it's coming back. We expect. As you know, shale oil is the fastest one to put in production. We see it as a fast element to the Russian shortage of oil. Let's go at this point to the supply side of the equation. Demolition is very much pushed because the price of steel is very high. We are talking of demolition price of $700 per ton, which is extremely high price. It's the highest I have seen in my life, frankly. This is a big inducement for those who have old ships, but have to face high maintenance costs to sell their ship.
I mean, today, VLCC, a 2 million bbl ship, can easily make $22 million-$33 million, which is a big price for a 20-, 21-, 22-year-old ship. Another element which is going to push out old ships is the fact that banks are not going to finance old vessel, and insurance are going to be more and more refrain from giving coverage on older vessel. We have a fleet which is aging rapidly, and this contributes very much to keep the growth curve of the supply very low. We have more and more candidates overtaking the 20 year of age, which is, let's say, the area where you start thinking of scrapping your ship.
You have more and more candidates overtaking the 15-year age is where you lose interest from the major oil companies and major oil charters on chartering your ship because it's becoming commercially too old. All this is evident. We are seeing a strong pickup in demolition numbers. The yards are working quite a lot because they are coming out of a period of the COVID-19, where they have been closed due to the COVID-19 itself. We are seeing more and more ships going to be dismantled. Of course, this will take a slower phase due to the fact that the market is getting stronger and stronger.
Of course, the owners are trying to get as much as where they can out of the trading market. Always on the supply side, we have a very limited newbuilding orders, and we expect they will be limited for quite a while. Number one, due to the price structure because due to the steel costs and the and all the other inflationary elements, new ships are costing more and more. It's very difficult that a shipyard can keep a price for a longer period of time. They are always renewing their numbers. This is creating a stronger secondhand market. Still, the secondhand price are cheaper against newbuilding, a newbuilding price. Newbuilding parity is still in favor for older ship than the new ones.
All this is, at the end, showing up in a very slow fleet growth. We are talking for this year, growth which is not going to exceed the 1.2%. For next year, we are saying is 0.5%. For me, it's basically zero. It will be. The fleet will be flat out. We have a very slow fleet growth, close to none, and the demand coming up due to all these elements and dynamics of the market, which are not only related to oil demand, but also where this oil is going to be picked up, because longer is the route and better is for us, our demand. Here I finish on the market. I leave it to Carlos if he wants to do some considerations on the evolution of our net asset value.
Thank you.
Thank you, Paolo. Yeah, moving on to the slide where we cover the NAV. Well, the overall NAV rose slightly between December 2021 and March 2022, from $288 million - $297 million, almost $300 million. On a per share basis, we are almost at the same level. We were trading at quite a big discount to NAV at the end of March. Share price has traded up since quite a bit, but today it wasn't performing that well a few minutes ago. Haven't checked the latest one.
We do expect that this discount will continue falling, in addition to the fact that the NAV should continue rising, as we expect to be profitable in Q2, and there are very good chances that we will continue being profitable and hopefully very profitable also for several quarters after that, given the very strong fundamentals which we just discussed for our sector. I believe we covered the key points of the presentation. I pass it over to you for the Q&A session.
Excuse me, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. To enter the queue for questions, please click on the Q&A icon on the left side of your screen, and then press Raise Your Hand button. Please mute your microphone locally. When prompted, make sure you turn on your webcam in the pop-up window. If you are on the phone instead, please press star and one on your keypad. The first question is from Matteo Bonizzoni of Kepler. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I have two questions. The drivers which are generating the strengthening of your market are pretty clear. You explained quite well both on the demand and supply side. My question is just to know if you can provide some figure as regards the rates which you enjoyed in March, which were included in the Q1 results, just to understand the sequential strengthening compared to January and February and April and currently, just if you can mention some figures for the spot rates which your fleet is experiencing. The second question is as regards. You say clearly that you are approaching the exercise of some option on the bareboat fleet, no?
The eight vessels which you can buy back basically in the future. Can you provide also, in this case, some figures as regards the total cash out which you could experience to exercise these options? Thanks.
As far as the market, it didn't move the same way everywhere. The first one to react is the U.S. Gulf because at a certain point it was clear that diesel, which is a big consuming commodity at this moment in Europe, and Europe was already short before, had to come from United States. We had a reaction there, and these things start moving to the Far East and then all the Atlantic Basin. To give it in numbers is difficult because it's difficult and it's dangerous because every segment had its own story, not only of demand, but of supply of ships.
There are basically some routes which they had less ships available, and they paid more, and other ones that they had a bigger crowd. Rates were a little bit more discounted. If I have to put a value on what is going on today, I would say we are talking of something around an excess of $20,000-$25,000 a day, up to, in some cases, $50,000-$60,000 a day on a reasonable evaluation, let's say. Of course, there have been spikes which are ridiculous. I'm not even naming them. If we have to look where we were, you see the average, Carlos told us about the average over the first quarter, and we were talking of just over 13,000 or close to 14,000 dollars a day.
Already, if you take the bottom rate at $20,000, you can add another $6,000 a day on spot ships. Now, please don't use that in your models because it wouldn't be fair. Let's see where the market goes. It just started its way up and its recovery, so we would like to understand more how what is going on.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah. Go ahead, Paolo. Go.
No, no, no. We are up to you for the options and everything else.
No, just you know, on the figures for March, I mean, I think they're not, as Paolo was mentioning, that significant since we only started benefiting from the surge in rates that was much more pronounced and strengthened much more in April or in the last few days of March, I mean, for a few of our fixtures. We were, I would say, substantially at breakeven, I would say. That is overall, including the TC contracts in March. If you look by vessel type, our MRs, the spot average was above $14,000 and around $14,600. The results were not very strong on the Handysize in March. They are the vessels that suffered most.
The other ones we had on the spot, but there were not that many vessels, did almost $20,000. They did quite well. You know, as Paolo was mentioning, you know, it's not that significant to look at that particular month. The trend, of course, is that of strengthening and the figures for April are going to be much stronger than in March. On the spot days, we are well above $20,000 for Q2. Since the market has been continuing to strengthen, this average is only, it's most likely going to increase going forward as we continue fixing vessels at higher and higher rates.
What is also very positive that we are seeing is that the market is strong currently in all regions. There is a lot of volatility, so we did experience a big spike, for example, for shipments out of the U.S. Gulf a few weeks ago. The market came down to very low levels again, and a few days later, it was back up at very attractive levels. The TC2 route from Europe to the U.S. continent was very weak to start off with, and then it strengthened a lot as a lot of vessels moved, which would usually have sailed back to Europe, moved to the U.S. Gulf to chase the strong market there.
This is a market which seems to me characterized more by you know, inefficiencies associated with these very long voyages than still by a very big volume. This could be interpreted as a positive aspect because it means that when also the volumes come back then the market can go even higher, right? What we are seeing is what is benefiting us is that these average sailing distances are increasing. There's also all this dislocation of the traditional routes with new routes which are longer.
The fact that the VLCCs are so depressed, of course, has to do with their own supply dynamics. It is a segment which was very overbuilt, but it's also an indication that there is still not that much oil moving. The market is short oil, and that's why we have been, you know, drawing down inventories. If we are able to supply this market with more oil, then given the current scenario, the market can go even higher, and it can become really, really strong. Regarding the purchase options, it will.
A lot will depend on, you know, it's very hard to forecast because a lot will depend on how the vessel prices evolve over the course of the next few months. We, you know, we will not be looking to invest a lot of equity into this, so we will most likely only exercise these options when the additional equity we have to put in is in the region of around $5 million, maybe not much more. We are seeing here, for example, five-year-old vessels today are valued around $33 million. And assuming we have to put 15% equity to exercise these options, we would be putting in around $5 million per vessel. So for vessels which are five years old.
Assuming that is the average price of the purchase of the vessels on which we have purchase options for the eight vessels, that would equate to around $40 million in investments. It's some of the vessels are more expensive than that. There's one LR1 also for which we did a sale leaseback transaction, the Cielo di Houston. But that is a very rough estimate of how much liquidity we might have to invest to exercise these options. Also, one thing we were looking at today is that we.
There are also some vessels which we charter in long term, which unexpectedly, given the vessel price movements and also the yen dollar exchange rate movements, we have purchase options on these vessels, and some of them are at the money now. They were well out of the money before, but they're starting to move into the money. That is also one potential use of funds going forward, which we still have to further analyze. There might be some opportunities there too.
Thank you.
The next question is from Daniele Alibrandi of Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yep.
The first question is, given that we are seeing a clear bull market, and especially the market environment for MR is very favorable, I was wondering what your opinion would be , and sorry for coming back to Matteo's question, a fair assumption on rates, spot rates for the remainder of the year. Did I understand correctly that $20,000 that you were mentioning before should be a fair assumption, being at the lower end of the range that you were guiding? And the second question, what should we expect in terms of coverage for 2022? You provided us the current levels, but looking ahead, should we expect this to remain skewed to the lower bound of 30%-60% range? Thanks.
I would say to put a number on the remainder of the year is always a big bet because still there are elements of, let's say, not danger, but can cap the market somehow. One element is, as Carlos said rightly before, due to still a low flow of crude, VLCCs are suffering. So, you know that we suffered in the past this. New VLCCs on their maiden voyage can easily load diesel or middle distillates and carry them from the Far East, where they are normally built, because the ships are coming out normally from China and Korea.
They can easily load the middle distillates well and bring it over to West Africa and North Europe, so they can capture our markets on middle distillates, which are the commodity very much in demand today. I can tell you that I expect the 20,000 to be there, certainly. For whatever it is on top of this, frankly, I would like to wait at least this quarter to give a better view with the end of the first half, because it wouldn't be correct to give numbers like that now. As said, we are just on the beginning of this recovery.
Excuse me, the second question was?
What is the coverage level that we should expect for the full year, I guess. Probably we can, given that you will take advantage of the very strong underlying market, probably. I was wondering if it's a good assumption to stay at least in the lower bound of the range.
Yes.
Let's say around the 40-45, but still below 50.
No, no, certainly that is going to be our strategy for the coming quarters. We probably going to the next. As you know, the last quarter for us is the strongest one, and it's normally where you try to work out what you think for the future of the coverage you want to take. I would say yes. I mean, can always happen that something stupid comes up, and we are very happy to pick it up. I mean, otherwise, as a ballpark, I mean, we certainly go ahead keeping a very low coverage for a while and wait to cover later on.
Okay. Thank you, Paolo. Extremely helpful.
Thank you.
The next question is from Massimo Bonisoli of Equita. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, just a couple of questions from my side. Back on the question of Matteo, just to understand the underlying net value for you of the purchase option on the vessel which you mentioned, now are well in the money. The second question is just on the market structure for your current product tanker ships. If I got it correctly, Russian product cannot be transported by many carriers because of the restrictions. Is there a market for shipping Russian products? And how many players are out there to work with Russian crude? I mean, there are two completely different markets, one for Russian crude and one for non-Russian crude right now with different day rates and spot freight rates.
Let me take the second question. I leave the first one to Carlos. We are not obliged to avoiding Russian crude or Russian products. We can load them. We, like many other owners, are avoiding it on a voluntary basis. Because there are some risk elements to go to Russia to load, and you don't know what can happen. Besides that, we are doing well and very well somewhere else, so we don't need to get there. For the moment, the world tanker fleet can load Russian crude and can load Russian products. What is going to happen is, if the oil is going to be sanctioned, then is a different story, is you have a situation like Iran, where you cannot touch it at all. What is going to happen afterwards?
There is a fleet since the Iranian sanctions are in force, and it's not a small fleet. We are talking of many tens and tens of ships, which at least 20 VLCCs, so also big ships, were trading on smuggling, basically, because it is unlawful now to trade Iranian oil. These ships are loading and carrying Iranian oil and Venezuelan oil. They did this for the last years. Now, one possibility in the near future is that U.S. is coming to an agreement with Iran and Venezuela. It's possible. I wouldn't take it for granted because it's far from done. If this happen, this fleet is certainly going to move on for whatever.
I mean, for the dimensions which are feasible for the Russian trade, are going to move on Russian oil. Because we are not going to be. It's not going to be possible for us to trade on them. You have basically two fleets, but we have this already since the Venezuelan and Iranian affairs are up. It's going to move on, I expect this at least, on the Russian thing. Carlos?
Yeah. No, on the options, I'm not too sure I understood the question. I mean, but the reason we would exercise such options would be the. We see these leases as basically an alternative form of financing, right? I mean, these are vessels which are, to all extents, ours.
I mean, we have purchase obligations on all these contracts. In one it's a purchase option, but it's well in the money. I mean, in most cases. It's effectively a purchase obligation.
Of course, since these transactions, when we closed them, they were at very high LTVs. The cost of the transactions reflects this. They were still very competitive costs, I would say, given the high LTVs at the time, but they are in most cases between all-in costs between 6.5% and 7.5%. One is slightly lower. The other one costs, the JOLCO. The idea of refinancing is basically that of deleveraging and benefiting from lower cost financing bank, traditional bank financing, basically. That is where the value of exercising this option lies.
We will do so if we have, as I mentioned, a very comfortable liquidity position that allows us to do that. Of course, as already discussed previously, when our LTV on mid-cycle vessel prices overall falls below 50%, we will also, you know, start looking at alternatives to reward our shareholders as share buybacks or eventually also dividends. Last but not least, just last in the order that I'm mentioning it, but not in our consideration, of course, we keep our eyes open for new investment opportunities when attractive ones do materialize.
As Paolo was mentioning, newbuilding prices are extremely high now, so we don't expect to be ordering newbuilding product tankers at this point. Also deliveries are very far in the future. We continue monitoring the market and, you know, looking for new opportunities. At the right moment when these materialize, we might decide to seize them.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press Q&A on the left bar and raise your hand or press star one on your telephone. For any further questions, please press Q&A on the left bar and raise your hand or press star one on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. I'll turn the call back to you for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for being with us. I hope, I mean, we are certainly going to meet again on the next quarter results and I hope that, after many meetings we had, with a lot of frustration, at least this time, things are looking by far in a more positive way. I hope we are going to satisfy your expectation. Thank you very much and bye-bye.