Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to GE Shipping Earnings Call on declaration of its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2025. At this moment, all participants are in the listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I now hand over the conference to Mr. G. Shivakumar, Executive Director and CFO at the Great Eastern Shipping Company Limited, to start the proceedings. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the conference call to discuss the results for Q4 FY2025 and also to discuss the market as we are seeing it. We'll go through a presentation, as always, and after that, we'll be happy to take questions from you. I have with me Rahul Sheth, who will be also answering your questions. First disclaimer, we are not forecasting the markets necessarily. We're just giving our views on how we think it may play out. There are a lot of uncertainties involved in the shipping business, and you should always keep that in mind. Q4 FY2025 highlights: we had a drop in profit versus the previous year, and we'll come to the main reasons for that. Our consolidated net asset value is at just over INR 1,400 per share.
This is around the same level that we were at the same time last year, that is in March 2024. We will come to that as well. We have declared the 13th consecutive quarterly dividend, and this time it is for INR 5.40 per share. You have seen the results, I am sure, and you have had time to absorb them. Let me just take you through to the normalized financials. One highlight we had was that we had an impairment on three of our MR product tankers that we bought in the last 18 months as part of our switching strategy, where we sold our older vessels and replaced them with the same type of vessel, but more modern ships.
This is because we did not want to lose capacity, but we also did not want to put in a lot of capital in the market, which we felt was where the prices were too high. However, the asset prices have gone down in the last six months or so. We applied our standard impairment test to the vessels that we bought. Out of the four MR Tankers that we bought, three of them had some impairment, and we have taken that impairment into our accounts, just short of INR 700,000,000. The other thing that affected the results, and you can see a big drop from Q4 FY2024 to Q4 FY2025 on both standalone and consolidated basis, was the drop in tanker earnings.
You may recall that the Q4 of the previous FY was when we just started having the Red Sea problem, where the Houthis were attacking ships that were passing by the Bab-el-Mandeb, and therefore ships were getting routed around Africa when they had to go from east to west or west to east. That resulted in a significant tightening of the market and therefore very good tanker earnings in January to March 2024. That effect has now played out some time ago, and markets were quite weak. In fact, we were expecting a reasonable recovery during the winter months of 2024-2025. That did not happen. Therefore, we had significantly lower earnings than the same period last year. That, of course, the impact has filtered through from the standalone results to the consolidated results.
We have about INR 400 crore drop from Q4 last year to Q4 this year. Coming to, and these are just our standard ratios, and I mentioned this already. You can see what's happened to crude tankers. We dropped from Q4 FY24 to Q4 FY25. We dropped by about $22,000 a day. Product tankers also we dropped by almost about a third from $37,000 to $24,700. LPG carriers, all four of ours are on time charters, and those pricings have gone up, and therefore our rates have gone up from $35,500 to $43,000. Dry bulk also dropped marginally. Again, the big impact has obviously come from the tankers. Coming to the net asset value, this is the standalone net asset value.
Ship prices, the fleet values dropped between 15%-20% year on year, and that's the negative that you see, INR 176 a share, which has got compensated by the cash profit that has been earned. We've always said this, that even when you have a drop in the value of the ships, a significant part of it in a strong market is made up by the cash profits. That's what has happened in the last financial year. We've, of course, also paid out a dividend of INR 35 during this period. We have a small drop from INR 1,127 to INR 1,115. This is the standalone movement in the standalone net asset value over the last five years. That's from March 2020 to March 2025, where we've gone up to INR 1.5x.
This does not take into account the dividend which has been paid over this period, which is in excess of INR 100 a share. Again, on a consolidated basis, it's a similar picture to what we saw on standalone, except that here the cash profit is a little bit more, and the fleet value drop is not that significant, is not much more than it was on a standalone basis. Coming to what's been happening in the shipping market, you can see on the left side, you can see the Suezmax earnings graph. Focus on the table at the bottom, where you can see that FY24 market earnings were about $51,600, and these are not our ship earnings. This is a market benchmark earning, which has come down to about $44,000 a day. The Aframax is saw an even more dramatic fall. Also, crude tankers saw an even more dramatic fall.
MR tankers also moved down by about 20% from just short of $30,000 a day to about $23,400 per day. A large part of this comes from slow growth in demand, unwinding of previous inefficiencies like the Red Sea impact, which I mentioned for Q4 of last financial year. Global crude oil demand in Q4 grew by about 1%. Chinese crude oil imports also grew slightly. They've been building stocks as far as we can see. We had some new sanctions from OFAC. That's a U.S. sanctions authority, which tightened the crude tanker capacity. That's one factor which we might see playing out. Every week or two, we are getting a few more ships being added to the sanctions list. The fleet growth has been zero year on year for the crude tanker fleet.
We've been saying this for some time that there are very few new ships being added currently to the world on the crude tanker fleet. Product tanker fleet saw growth of about 2% during the year. Tanker asset prices during the quarter dropped by about 5%, but over a longer period of time from a year ago period, you could see product tankers dropping by about 20%, and we'll see that graph. And crude tankers by a little less. Order book continues to be reasonably low, especially for crude tankers. Dry bulk earnings for cape sizes were about the same as they were in the previous financial year, while for Supramaxis, they were slightly better than in the previous financial year. The quarter, of course, was much worse than the same quarter in the previous year. Iron ore trade has been weak in the first quarter.
Again, this is a seasonal disruption that one sees in Australia and Brazil. Coal trade has dropped significantly. The two large importers, which is China and India, both of these economies are producing more coal domestically, and that's leading to lower import demand. Global grain trade has also dropped off during the quarter. Some of it is lower soybean imports or purchases by China from the U.S., again, pending what happens with the tariffs. Also, we've had lower wheat production from the Black Sea region and correspondingly lower demand from China. There are also reports that Chinese grain production has been growing or at least grew last year, and therefore import demand has been a little lower. The bulk carrier fleet grew by about 3%. And bauxite trade has been very strong. It's been one of the few bright spots for the last few years.
Consistently strong growth in bauxite imports into China, especially from Guinea. The order book continues to be at very low levels, around 10%. LPG, our ships, of course, are on time charters, so it does not matter much, but we have seen a huge drop in port rates from $85,000 in FY2024 to below $40,000 a day in FY2025. This is because of a reversal. The previous year, we had the Panama Canal water levels being very low, which meant that the number of transits through the Panama Canal was restricted, which meant longer ton-miles for gas carriers carrying LPG from the U.S. Gulf to Far East. That has got reversed now, and therefore that impact has got removed from the market. The order book stays pretty solid, and we will come to that in a moment.
Coming to fleet supply, you have an order book of about 29% for LPG ships, and you have 21% for product tankers, while around 11% for crude tankers and dry bulk. The good news for even crude is that it's a little more rear-ended, especially so in LPG. You can see that 29% order book really delivers in 2026 and 2027. You can see that big green pillar there of 13.9%. That is delivering in 2027. It is not an immediate concern, but in product tankers, we see significant deliveries this year and the next couple of years, so 5%, 7%, and 7%. Coming to scrapping, obviously, when the market is this strong, there is very little scrapping going on, and it continues to be very, very low. We keep looking at this.
There is still a lot of potential for scrapping, which will mainly kick in only when markets are very weak. At these levels, there is no incentive really to scrap ships. Looking at asset price movements, you can see the top right-hand corner, which is the price movement in an MR tanker, and you can see that it's dropped by about 20% from the peak, which was maybe six to nine months ago. Even for crude tankers, we've had some downward movement pressure in prices, but not as much for the product tankers. For LPG and for dry bulk, prices continue to be reasonably firm. In dry bulk, the Cape Size values have been very firm. For the smaller ships, that is for the Kamsarmaxes and Supramaxes, prices have dropped a little bit more than for Capes.
Coming to the offshore business and backup utilization has been, while it's not gone down, the mood in the market is not very positive with all these Saudi Aramco actions which have been happening, and there is talk of even more renegotiations or cancellations. This is the fleet supply data, which hasn't changed much. We have a very old fleet internationally, but it's not really changed much because the issue here is more on the demand side. Coming to our repricing, we have two rigs which have already come off their previous contracts. Both of them have obtained short-term contracts in India. Both of these contracts will commence, and these contracts are between four and seven months. Both of these contracts will commence only after the monsoon period on the west coast of India. We are talking of commencement in October, November of this year.
One of them is scheduled to finish within H2FY26. The other one within H1FY27. There are options as well, but that depends on what happens with the drilling campaign that we are part of. If required, then it can be extended. We have another rig coming off contract sometime around December this year. We have bid into a three-year contract in India, and we have been awarded that contract as well. She will come off the contract in December and do the usual work between two contracts and go back onto a three-year contract, hopefully within Q4 of FY26. After that, the next repricing is required only in H2FY27. On the vessels front, we only have five vessels that need to be fixed during this financial year.
These are our two M-class vessels and include our two M-class vessels and our two 150-ton Bollard Pull anchor handlers, which are the most capable and widely marketable of our vessels, which are typically running on short-term contracts internationally, and we are okay to run them on those short-term contracts. Otherwise, 80% of our vessel capacity for FY26 has already been locked in at profitable rates. Coming to financials, this is yet another slide that we show. We are still net cash on a standalone basis. The results of all the CapEx that we did and the levering up that we did, we are awaiting opportunities to buy while prices have dropped. They have not yet reached our comfort levels, and we will wait for that to happen. On a consolidated NAV, you can see that we are still trading at a significant discount.
We also invite you to go to our website and look at all of these projects and partners that we support on the CSR front. We are very proud of this. Also, if anybody is interested in Great Eastern's 75 year, now 76 and a half year history, you can look up our coffee table book on our website, which gives you a significant amount of our history. Thank you. That brings me to the end of this presentation. We are now happy to take questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may click on the raise hand icon tab available on your screen. You may also post your text questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We'll take our first question from Prithesh Cheda from Lucky Investments. Please go ahead.
So can you hear me?
Y es, yes, you can. Yeah.
Yeah. Sir, can you go to your slide on the rigs? Because when you were giving out your comments, it was not audible here.
Okay. One moment.
Sorry for that.
No, no problem. Yeah.
We cannot see the rig slide.
Yeah. One moment. One moment. Yeah. You want to see the slide after? Yeah. Okay.
So what I understand here is that you have a repricing lined up for three rigs, or let's say one rig in the second half of this year.
That's right. Okay, let me just put it slightly differently.
you just tell us how many rigs are deployed today?
Yeah. Okay.
How many are idle for you, and what is the repricing?
Yeah. So we have a total of four rigs. One of them, so two of them continue to be on their long-term contracts currently. Okay. Two of them have come off their previous long-term contracts. Of these two, one is idling. Both of them technically are idling. One of them is receiving a small standby rate while idling.
Okay. One is receiving a small standby contract, small rate, or a small tenure. What is it receiving?
No, no. Through this period, we receive a minor rate, which, I mean, a very low rate which compensates for basic expenses. Technically, you can just take it as idling. It does not meet some costs.
Basically, two rigs are deployed on long term. Another rig got deployed at a lower rate right away, and one rig is idle, right?
Yes. Yeah.
Sorry, just let me clarify. We own four rigs.
One rig is fully employed for the full financial year. The second rig is employed for the greater part of the financial year. She will come off sometime in the month of January, February. She has already won her new contract with ONGC. The other two rigs, those two rigs are on shorter contracts. They will begin their contract in the month of November. Because they are short-term contracts, generally, when we price those contracts, we price in the fact that there is some idleness until the contract begins. In one of those contracts, one of these two contracts which are short-term, there is a standby rate during the monsoon period, which is what she was referring to. The other one does not have that.
When we price the contracts with the charter, we eventually factor in for the fact that the contracts are starting with a bit of delay. Yes. They will begin in the month of October, November. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. [crosstalk]I feel like it's just, yeah,
I'm more confused than what you started to answer.
Just take it that two are idling currently. Both of these rigs will probably go on. They have received contracts which will start only after the monsoons are over, so they should go on hire between October and November this year. These contracts are short-term contracts between four and seven months. One of them will get over in Q4 FY2026. One of them is scheduled to get over, if there are no further extensions, in Q1 FY2027.
Okay. Now, this is very simple. Another question here is, in the recent round of ONGC tender, why do we see a significant change in the rates?
Market participants take a view on what this is, a tender process, right? The number that you put in is important in deciding on whether you are successful in landing employment for your rig or not. Market participants take that into account, and their keenness on landing a contract goes into the pricing which is put into the tender. Sometimes it reflects a view of the market and the risk as well.
So this that contract which is a six-month, a shorter duration contract?
No, no, no. You're referring, that short-term contracts are with other players.
Okay. This recent win that you have, what is the duration of that contract?
The ONGC tenders are three-year contracts.
Okay. Okay. So basically, this is a recent.
Sorry to interrupt. May I request you to join back the queue, please, as we have other participants waiting for their turn?
It's okay. Let him clarify first.
Okay. Please go ahead.
I'm here to clarify. I'm actually stuck on the first question. This is my only question. Just to recap, you will have another two rigs post this, which will come for repricing, which is H2 half of this year and H1 of next. So next one and a half years, there are another two rigs for repricing to be done for the longer tenures. Correct?
That's three rigs, Prithesh.
Three rigs. Okay. Sorry. Up to H2 in the next two years. Sorry. I included H2 FY2027. If you don't include that, it's in the next one and a half years. Yeah. Okay. Done. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Mohammad Farooq from Pearl Capitals. Please go ahead. Mohammad Farooq, can you please unmute your microphone and go ahead with your question, please?
Hello. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. With the recent imposition of U.S. tariff on Chinese goods, there is growing uncertainty in global trade flows, particularly in commodity movement and supply chain realignment. Could you elaborate on how these developments might impact the shipping tankers and dry bulk segment, either in terms of trade patterns, fleet deployment, or charter rates?
You may have seen the recent announcement which just happened today declaring the lowering of these tariffs. Of course, it is for a 90-day period, and we do not know whether those rates will again change in the future.
As the tariffs rate change, the way trading patterns in general will get affected and which commodities get covered in these tariffs will change. Just to have a very broad view, because you mentioned crude, you mentioned oil and ribald. What we have seen is two things you have to keep in mind. You have to keep in mind the tariff rates between the two countries on the commodity in question. Oil has been largely exempted from this tariff. China imposed a tariff previously on imports from crude exports from U.S. to China. The amount of trade that happens between these two countries on crude is very minimal. That is why China could very easily find alternate buyers for that crude.
U.S. would find alternate, I mean, China would be able to buy from other countries, and U.S. would also find alternate places to sell that. There is close to minimal to zero impact on crude. On product trade, there is barely any product trade, if any. That did not get affected by the tariffs. On dry bulk, also, the volume between the two countries is very minimal. The major commodity that gets affected is soybean. We had seen that in Trump's first term. Basically, what happened was, to just oversimplify it, U.S.'s exports of soybean to China basically went more to Europe, and Brazil, Argentina, which sent a certain amount to Europe, sent it to China. You had a realignment of the trade. Basically, the two countries were able to more or less evade the imposition of these tariffs.
Now, of course, today, we just saw the announcement before the meeting that the tariff rates have changed. And so this impact may not be there. Have I answered your question, or was there a second part to it?
Yeah. The main part is that GE Shipping impact won't be huge, yeah, with these tariffs in this case.
Yeah. No, not at all. Because I gave you an implication of the general market. And GE Shipping is one of many shipping companies that yeah.
Fine. So the second one is we understand the operating margin in shipping industry can be highly volatile, moving sharply in either direction depending on the market condition. Based on the past experience, what measures does GE Shipping have in place to protect or maximize operating profit margin in the event of an unfavorable market environment?
See, what you said was right, that markets are very volatile. On the revenue front, the only thing you can really do is to take a time charter cover. We do not actively pursue a strategy whereby we decide that we must protect the top line by fixing out a certain number of ships. If we believe that it is a favorable decision to take a time charter cover, which means fixing out a ship for a year or two or three, we may take those decisions. However, because the market can be very volatile, we do ensure that the balance sheet is strong enough to weather a market where the rates are low. We have underinvested in this space over the last few years.
If the market does come off and the asset values do come off, we are fully prepared to invest more into this business to renew the fleet and expand the fleet.
Yeah. Okay. Last question, sir. GE Shipping has consistently demonstrated strong margins, maintained a robust cash position, and brings over 70 years of operational track record. However, the stock continues to trade at a significant discount, over 40% to its net asset value, and at a valuation well below peers. While we appreciate the management is focusing on operating performance rather than the share price, could you share your perspective on why investor confidence remains muted despite these fundamentals? Are there any steps the company is considering to help narrow this valuation gap?
As a company, we do our best by explaining the business either on the investor call or through our investor meetings.
Eventually, it is up to the market to decide the valuation it gives any company. The stock market is full of companies which are either overly priced or underpriced. That is how our market works. Eventually, it is up to market participants to decide what the fair valuation that they believe the company should be valued at.
I understand that. GE Shipping is one of the lowest in the market. Is there any reason for that?
There is a reason for that. I think you will have to ask your fellow investors that so that you can take that off the table. We are not experts on that area, unfortunately.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. We will take one text question from Jeet Gala from Centra Insights LLP.
Order book for dry bulk and product tankers are now more than the aging fleet. Does it mean that if scrapping does not happen in the next one or 1.5 years, supply-side tightening thesis for these two segments will be over because order books are catching up fast for deliveries post-calendar 2026?
Yeah. No, you have to also keep in mind the demand side because you have to see how that also pans out. Yeah. The other thing to keep in mind here is that the order books catching up fast for deliveries, actually, the pace of ordering has slowed down in the last three to four months, at least for dry bulk. That has been a very low number for the first four months of calendar 2025. What also happens is that you have building and deliveries of ships happening in clusters.
The next five years, we'll see a lot of bulk carriers turning 20 years old because we had a big building boom in bulk carriers between 2006 and 2020. All of those will happen. Finally, it comes down, as Rahul mentioned, to the demand side. You still do need demand. Supply can only help you a little bit. You still need demand to be fairly positive in order to enable markets to be strong.
If you see on one of the slides that we have provided, the balance between the order book and the average age of the fleet, which is old, it's still skewed. I think you can just pull up that slide. Yeah. This is what you have mentioned. Yeah. You can still see that. We can always share that picture also.
We've seen it over different time periods over the last 20-25 years. We still are at a position where the order book as a percentage of fleet and the age of the fleet is still skewed, which means that this is one of the oldest fleets we have seen in the last 20-25 years. The order book, while rising, is not still at the highest we have seen. The two ends are not fully matching, especially on the tanker side.
This is the historically high order book. You can see how high the order book has been in the past. One more thing I'd just like to clarify here. The product tanker order book includes what are called LR2, long-range tankers, which technically can trade both crude oil and refined products.
They are the largest product tanker and the smallest crude tanker. If you find that the crude tanker market is stronger, a lot of these ships could easily move over to the crude tanker side. Therefore, they can switch between the products and crude sectors.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from Shivam Mittal from Kehr PMS. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you so much for providing the opportunity. My first question is regarding the regulations. I am over 2030 and 2050. Any update on that part, how that will impact the industry dynamics in terms of supply?
I think looking at 2030, 2050 is too far out. A lot of the rules have also not been crystallized.
There is one of the new fuel emission rules which are coming up in 2028, but they still need to be ratified at the IMO. Until that happens, we prefer not to speculate on that.
Okay. How it will impact in terms of supply shipping?
Again, let's just see exactly how the rule gets crystallized. The broad idea is that there will be certain costs for emissions. Eventually, it just depends again on supply and demand, right? For example, just to oversimplify it, let's say there is a very highly polluting ship, right? The cost of that ship will be more than a ship which is polluting less carbon dioxide.
If the market is very weak and the costs of the high-polluting ship are prohibitively high, enough so that the person is not generating sufficient EBITDA to keep that ship, and the ship is very old, the person may end up scrapping that ship. To speculate on something that will come up a few years from now, I think, is too far down the line. We even need to see whether the rules change and in what fashion the rules come. We will be in a better position to exactly know what happens.
Okay. The second question is, in terms of aging of rigs and vessels in industry, any idea on that aspect?
Sorry, could you just clarify the question?
What will be the overall aging in terms of rigs and vessels in industry, overall industry level?
It is a pretty old fleet, and that's there. The thing is, yeah, we have that. The percentage of the fleet which is more than, rig fleet, which is more than 30 years old, is one-third of the fleet. It is a very old fleet in any case. These rigs are continuing to work. This thesis has not really worked out.
Yeah. The rig fleet has been old. We have seen this data point for the past 10, 15, 20 years. The rig fleet has been old. As long as charters are willing to take those rigs in, then they will find a market.
All right. Thank you so much.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Proline Nandu from Edelweiss Public Alternatives. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team, am I audible?
Yes, yes. Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. Shivam, my question is on crude and product carriers, right? If I look at your age of fleet, it is somewhere close to 15-16 odd years, right? I mean, the heuristic that one uses is that after 20 years, there is a significant decline in day rates, right, in some sense. Now, what I am saying is that in the past, you have mentioned that the peaks and troughs in asset prices have probably spanned three and a half, four years, right? That is the cycle that one has observed in the past. That has not played out in the last five odd years. There have been multiple disruptions in trade routes or changes in trade routes, which in a way have only aided the, let us say, a longer supply or longer trade routes, right, in some sense.
Where I'm coming from is that how do we make this age of this fleet much more younger, right, in some sense, in an environment where the asset prices are not seeing the kind of decline where we'll probably go ahead and buy the vessels? Is there any structural change in the industry in terms of number of years of peak and dove in asset prices? Does that structural change lead us to change our strategy of how we look at asset prices? Once we acquire the asset, I mean, we prefer to put it on a not on the long-term contract, but on a shorter-term contract, right, in some sense. Any change in our strategy based on how the shipping cycle has been playing out in the last five years?
Yeah. Good question and a lot of things to unpack there. Let's look at it here. Your main thing was, if I get it correctly, what if you don't get the prices that you're looking for? Is there some kind of paradigm shift which prevents your getting the prices that you're looking for? There are ships from dropping in price. I assume something like that is what you were asking.
Correct.
One is, let's take that thing. What you said is correct. Beyond a certain age, ships are not able to trade as freely. Tankers, especially, are not able to trade as freely as when they are younger. Therefore, the earnings could suffer under some markets. That's one. It's correct. Yes, we would like to have a younger fleet. We would like to have more ships in our fleet.
What we have done over the last 18 months or so is that we have the ships which were getting overage and which we could not trade in the international market and which we could not deploy elsewhere. We opted to sell them and replace them with ships which are a little younger, and therefore improving the age profile of our fleet and improving the number of ships that we could trade internationally. However, ship prices were very high, and therefore we did not want to commit too much capital towards CapEx at the time. We restricted ourselves to only doing those switches just to maintain our capacity in the market. Coming to the next question, which is, is there a paradigm shift in asset prices? Are they at a permanently high plateau, so to speak? Those are prophetically bad.
That's a prophetically bad phrase because I think that's a phrase which was used in 1928, 1929 in the U.S. for stock prices. It is possible that they are at significantly higher prices than they've been in the past. Our preference is to wait to get the prices. There is a lot of uncertainty with regard to the demand side. The global economy, especially with all this tariff stuff, which might get sorted out, which might be getting sorted out even as we speak. There is a significant amount of uncertainty. We still believe that we will get the opportunities to buy the ships that we need to buy for meeting our targets for replacement and growth. If we don't, then that is a risk for us, but we will wait and see whether we get those ships.
We do not know whether there is a paradigm change in the way people think about pricing of ships, but we would rather wait to acquire ships at the prices that are comfortable for us.
You mentioned that at some point we shared that the average cycle time is three years, but that is an average. It is not like we have not seen cycle times being longer. One that you may remember or may be aware of is during the preliminary period where you saw cycle times of five-six years, depending on which sector it is. Even if you go back and if you do some analysis during that period of time, asset values had gone even higher, rates were even higher. When you look back then and you say that, "Okay, was it wise to have bought at those prices?" It was not.
It was much wiser to have waited patiently for the appropriate time to have invested. Yes, having very long cycles in shipping is not very common, but we have seen it and we have studied it. Therefore, we are able to at least from history, take a few lessons and be able to prepare for that.
Great. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Just one follow-up on the same aspect, right? You mentioned that in 18 months, you have changed the age, right? I am looking at a presentation of October 2023, which is right there in front of me. In every aspect, in terms of fleet profile, I mean, for all your four products, the ages have on an average went up, from 14.9 to 15.3.
See, the larger question is that are we probably willing to cut down the capacity, right, cut down the number of fleet that we have, 38 right now on our books, right, because they are aging first? And then when we get an opportunity, we will buy. Is it fair that we are, I mean, we are open to downsize first our scale of operation before we get an opportunity? Is that a fair way to probably think about it?
Just two things to keep in mind. One is that had we not done any of these switches, what would have been the age? We should have been older than the number you mentioned. We have arrested some of that aging. Secondly, the number of ships we own today are 38, but we have two in charter. Effectively, the capacity is 40.
From October, I do not have that number in front of me, but I think you should be seeing a number of 42 ships at that point in time. From 42 to 40, we have dropped, which is two mainly on dry bulk, but on tankers, we have remained the same. Now, whether it is 40, 41, 42, I think that is at a very marginal level where we are drawing a line. The idea is not to really drop much capacity from here. Although there will be a gap because on our call on the market, you will sometimes maybe sell first, then buy, buy first, then sell, which means that in the last one or two ships, the exact numbers may not match. Broadly, the idea is not to drop significantly from here.
Great, team. That is it from my side. Thanks a lot for these answers.
Thank you. We'll take a text question from Surendra Yadav, an individual investor, referring to the notes to consolidated financials for FY25, point 7, subpoint B, DSCR, the ASTEC remarks mentions.
Yeah. So the question is on whether the point on DSCR says includes effect of prepayment of borrowings and wanting to know details of the prepayment done because there was a stock exchange filing informing that the NCD prepayment was canceled. Yes, the NCD prepayment was canceled. The prepayments were with regard to a loan that we had taken from a bank, and we prepaid the loan. And that's the prepayment which is mentioned in this point. We can move to the next question.
Next question is from Kirtan Mehta from Baroda BNP Paribas Mutual Fund.
On crude tanker, what has resulted in drop in rates this quarter while ARB trade between West and East has grown and several tankers have been sanctioned?
Yeah. The drop is, again, because of the base. The Q4 of FY2024, as I mentioned, was very strong because we had the Red Sea disruption and ships having to take the long route. That set a very high base from which we have dropped. We are still at reasonably strong levels. We are at, I think, our crude tankers average $30,000 plus. We also have the pressure of lowish oil demand growth, not just for and while we look at Q4 versus Q4, there is some growth, but in general, oil demand growth has been weak. That is why we have had a general drop-off in tanker earnings between FY2025 and FY2024.
We have also seen that the demand in China has been a bit weak, which, because the two points you've raised are relevant, that the West East trade is there and tankers have been sanctioned. We have seen some weakness in demand from the refineries in China. We've seen some weakness in the demand in refineries in Europe as well. There is a very major refinery that has even opened up in West Africa, which used to import a lot of cargo, but they've been consuming a bit of domestic crude. It did add a bit of weakness in this quarter. The second point, also on the sanctioning of the tankers, yes, initially in the month of January, when a lot of sanctions did come in, it did affect the market. Now, of course, as you can imagine, this data is not absolutely clear.
From what you can kind of gather, it shows that the sanctioned ships, while initially had some impact, it seems that the crude is still moving because there's not really been much deliveries of new tankers. It has given some support because we've seen in the month of April and May, the crude market becoming stronger over the last few months. However, it seems that the sanctioned tankers, some way or the other, the oil is able to move. It's not like those ships have completely gone out of the market.
Thank you. We'll take a live question from Vikram Suryavanshi from Philip Capital India Private Limited. Please go ahead. Vikram, can you please unmute your microphone and go ahead with your question, please?
Yeah. Am I audible now?
Yes. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, sir. Sir, you said that two ships are in charter.
Which are the categories of these ships? Second is that since now we have limited or reduced the fleet, the in-chartering would be like a structural decision to add some of the capacity, or is it like these are taken just to complete a few of the voyages?
No. One is an MR tanker, and one is a Suezmax tanker. That is one product and one crude. It is not like a structural decision. It just depends on the pricing. For example, if you have sold a ship and you are looking to get some more capacity, at some point, you may weigh the option between whether it is beneficial to buy a ship or in-charter a ship.
When you're in-chartering a ship, let's say for example, if you're in-chartering a ship for five years or you're buying a 15-year-old tanker, which has five years of life left, effectively, you're getting five years of exposure to the market. It just depends on relative pricing where the company decides is the best place to take the deal.
Okay. What would be the duration of these contracts?
One was originally about five years, so that has about three and a half years to go. That's for the Emma tanker. The crude tanker has about two years to go.
And NAV calculation, what would be the gross value in million dollars for our offshore assets? If possible, sorry.
That should be between $500 million and $600 million. $550 million and $600 million. Yeah. $500 million to $600 million.
Fine. Okay. Would it be possible to share what approximately the share would be for rigs?
Rigs will probably be about 60% plus of the value. 60-70% of the value. Yeah. 60%.
Okay. I think that was it from my side. Thank you very much, sir.
Yeah.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from Rajesh Kattar, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible? Yes. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon. I wanted to understand which are your most common routes, source, and destination points. So basically, in case of any geopolitical developments, when will you get positively impacted and when can you get negatively impacted? I just wanted to get a sense of that. Which are your most common routes?
I think that, so basically, you should not look at it like that.
You should look at the shipping market as one big market because eventually what happens is ships move around and markets rebalance. For example, if one of the routes, because of tariffs or sanctions or whatever, or demand collapse or whatever it may be, comes down, the ships will get redeployed on the other routes. Eventually, the balancing happens fairly quickly. You should look at the market at large rather than focusing on specific routes. Shipping companies generally are not dependent on one route or another route. It is a market at large.
Just to give you an example here, three years ago, this Russia-Ukraine conflict started. Because of that, that disruption happened.
Even though we were not participating in the trade of Russian exports to India or China, the market goes up because of the impact of that trade, and we get the benefit of that, even if we are not participants in that particular route. That is why it does not matter what our routes are. We cannot even tell you what our routes are because we do not know what voyage we will do next. We do not have any standard routes that we fly. We are not like a liner service where we have a schedule that we would like to do. We go where we believe the rates will be best.
Historically, in which country have you seen the maximum source or destination origin? I mean, it would have been constant. I mean, it would have been more or less constant, right? For example, China.
It varied quite a bit. If you want to just take a general idea, firstly, our routes will keep changing. If you're in the dry bulk trade, a large part of the dry bulk trade, something like 30%-40% of the cargoes go to China. Depending on where they're loaded, and that's a variety of countries, like Brazil is very big, Australia is very big, again, for different kinds of commodities. China is very large. If you're talking about the oil trade, the Middle East, as you can imagine, is a very big exporter of oil and products. The US is also a very big exporter of crude. Like that, you've got certain countries which are very large, and effectively, at some point or the other, you will have to trade in those markets.
We know shipping companies that do the oil trade, and they're very limited to go to the Middle East because they are mainly in the Western area. Like Shiv mentioned, eventually, you don't need to do a particular trade because the market at large will change based on how tight the market is.
Rates will tend to equalize in different zones.
Yes.
When you were responding about asset prices to a previous question, you mentioned that you are reasonably confident of acquiring assets for your growth targets. What exactly are your growth targets? Can you articulate them?
Eventually, it is depending on the price levels you get in the different asset classes. Depending on when you get the price levels that we are happy with, the idea is to eventually deploy all the capital into the business.
It just depends on which asset comes down to the price levels we are happy with and when. Then it depends on what kind of assets you get in the second-hand market.
I understand that because that has been the same stand you have been carrying for the last many calls. I just heard the word growth target, which is something which I have not heard before.
If your question is, how many ships do you want to build? We do not have a number specifically for that. We wish to grow. We wish to deploy our capital as much as we can into the business. That is our target, really. If we can grow the fleet to 50% higher than it is today, deploying all our capital, we will be happy to do so.
But it's a question of having as much capital as possible employed into ships at good prices.
Because ship prices, depending on what you buy, they can vary from $10 million, $15 million to $50 million, $60 million. That's why the number of units that you have in the water can vary widely depending on which asset class you end up buying.
Have you pondered that? Raj,
I request you to join back the queue, please, as we have other participants waiting for their turn.
Yeah. I mean, just on this point, and I'm not asking a new question. Just on this.
Sure. Sure. Yeah.
Have you pondered that whatever savings you have made in waiting for lower asset prices, and you have been waiting for more than three years now, have you not given up equivalent or more profits by selling your assets quite early in the cycle and by being very low in your assets for the last three or four years?
If you look at the last, probably, 18 months, any asset that we would have bought would have probably been between a zero to negative return if we had bought incremental assets. You have actually been much better off waiting on the sidelines than investing it,
Even considering the earnings that you would have generated.
Yes. If you have seen in the NAV calculation for this year, you've seen that you've generated a lot of cash, but you've also had a correction in asset values.
So it is a zero return.
Which is broadly even steep. That's at a macro level. You can kind of boil it down to individual asset classes as well.
Your point is valid. Yeah. Your point is valid that if you had bought three years ago, with hindsight, if we had bought three years ago, we would have been better off. With the same hindsight, buying one year ago would not have been a great decision. It's tough, tricky to know where you are in the cycle at any point in time.
Okay, fine. I'll come back in the queue. Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. We'll take a next question from Himanshu Upadhyay from Bugal Rock PMS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello. Am I? Yeah. The first question was on MR tanker side. We are on the three tankers we have taken a write-off. What would be the amount of write-off in percentage terms on the overall fleet? And after this write-off, means the ships would be now at the current market prices. How are you looking at the segment now? Because from whatever we have purchased, there has been a significant rise or let's say 10-12% type of write-off. Is now the market more interesting, or it still remains far off from where we decided to have a replacement of the older vessels?
Yeah. First, just to clarify, you wanted the impairment amount as a proportion of the total of these three ships?
Y eah.
Or proportion of the total?
It's less than 10%. First, it's less than 10% of the original cost. Okay. That's one. The second is it is not necessarily written down to market value. It is written down to the higher of market value or the value in use, which is basically the NPV of the future cash flows, where you do an assessment based on certain assumptions, etc. It's written down to whichever is the higher of the two. That's on the impairment calculation. You had something on the values of today. What was that?
No. My question was, we decided at those price points that we wanted to replace the older fleet. Okay. That's correct. With 10% type of correction, let's say approximately, okay, is the market much more attractive? Does it make sense to still replace only, or you would like to even go for expansion now after this?
One thing you just noticed, the market has risen a lot. Actually, the correction from the peak is a little bit more than 10%. Depending on the asset class, it's between 10%-30%, depending whether you look at dry bulk or crude tankers or product tankers. Still, the prices are very high from a historical context. The other thing also to keep in mind is that, just to clarify on the impairment, right, we did sell a ship against this purchase. What happens is when you sell a ship, had we not sold that ship, that ship also would have come off in the price.
While the ship that we bought had come off in price, you basically saved the money on the ship that you sold. They somewhat balance out. Today, we still feel like the prices
are relatively quite high. Can we continue with the replacement strategy, or you think that is done for now what we were doing?
No, I think we largely still would like to follow a replacement strategy because, like I mentioned earlier on the call, we do not want to drop capacity substantially from here. The timing may vary a bit between when you sell first or buy, so there could be a gap for a few months. Broadly, we do not want to drop capacity.
Just to clarify, replacement could come from long-term in charters as well. .
Okay. Historically, the thought process was the level of assets' cheapness or expensiveness will decide on the basis of what the historical average charter rates have been in the last 10, 15 years. Are we still following a similar thought process, or has there been some change in thought process?
No, Himanshu, no. It was not based on the average charter rates. It was based on how we see the asset prices in a historical context. Just asset prices themselves in a historical context.
Okay. Okay. In terms of the three segments, how are you looking at the market now? Its attractiveness or still you find all the three categories?
You mean in terms of attractiveness for investment?
Yeah.
On a historical context, dry bulk is probably lower than the others. LPG is off the charts still in values.
Dry bulk is a little lower than product tankers and crude tankers in historical terms.
Asset values are still expensive, basically across the board.
Okay. One thing was.
Himanshu, I'd like to request you to join back the queue, please. Thank you. We'll take a text question from Amit Ketan from Laburnum Capital. First question is, how much further would prices need to correct for us to be comfortable to take fresh capital allocation call? Between the various segments, where are we closest to pulling the trigger? The second question is, the offshore earnings in Q4 were quite strong. How many rigs were operational in the quarter gone by?
Firstly, we don't give an exact number on when at the price level at which we will invest. Like Shiv just mentioned, dry bulk is historically cheaper than the tankers.
Maybe it's the closest to our purchase prices, although not there yet. And then offshore.
Yeah. The rigs which were operational, two rigs were fully operational during the quarter. One of them was operational for part of the time. Yeah. Sort of. The fourth one, we had a contract cancellation that we mentioned last time, for which we received a compensation in Q4. Therefore, the earnings were reasonably strong. In effect, we got income on even the vessel which had its contract canceled. That's why the offshore earnings were quite strong.
Thank you. We'll take the next text question from Surendra Yadav, an individual investor. Has the redemption of preferred shares issued by Great Ship India to JESCO started? Understanding this would happen over four years starting this FY.
Yes, it has started from this year.
So we have already had that first installment last month.
Thank you. We'll take our next live question from Shreekar Sai, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Shreekar, please unmute your microphone and go ahead. Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Sir, it's regarding our offshore drilling rig contracts.
Shreekar, I'm sorry. Can you speak a bit louder, please? Your audio is not, it is very low.
Am I audible now?
Yeah.
A little bit better.
Yeah, sir. It's regarding our offshore drilling contracts. If we look at the day rates like one year back and now, they have come down substantially. All the way from $80,000-$85,000, they are now hovering around $35,000, sir. What has changed so much in this one year that the day rates have fallen so much, sir?
Yeah. The big factor which happened was the Saudi Aramco actions of about a year ago where they canceled contracts. I think the latest count is for some 24 or 25 jackup rigs, which obviously had a big impact on the availability. It had an impact on the market psyche as well. Till then, the markets were in recovery mode and going at very profitable rates, similar to those that you mentioned. Once that happened, there has been obviously some concern about the direction of rates. Therefore, the keenness to get contracts has affected the day rates which are being earned by jackup rigs.
Sir, my second question is regarding last three to four months, we have seen India Energy Week, and also we have seen Indian government passing our oil field amendment bills, I mean, the act.
Do we see any enthusiasm from the government players like ONGC, Oil India to drill more in the coming future, not now, but maybe six months or one year down the line, going back to the drawing board and trying to do the seismic data for whatever the fields they got in the OALP round nine? Also, round ten has been launched recently. Are we seeing any enthusiasm from that side, sir?
Yeah. We will come to know significantly later. We think there is enthusiasm. We have actually landed contracts for two players, and this is not ONGC. The two short-term contracts which we have got for our two rigs, the Chetna and the Chaya, are both for non-ONGC contracts. Hopefully, it means that the market is widening with more players coming in. Let's see how.
Just generally for your understanding, when they do these rounds of auctions for the blocks, a lot of these surveys get done. They map out to know where to drill, how viable is it to drill. Based on that, they come out with the plan of how many rigs one would need to employ. That will all take a bit of time. As of today, we will not know exactly how the demand picture will pick up based on all these auctions of all these blocks.
Got it. Got it. Thank you, sir. That is it from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have a text question from Kirtan Mehta from Baroda BNP Paribas Mutual Fund. One more follow-up. How do you see crude supply changing over this year and consequent impact on crude tanker rate?
Do we expect West to East trade grow as tariff discussion progress? Will we see more ships getting sanctioned as well as get locked in shadow trade on Iran and Venezuela?
Yeah. Crude supply already OPEC has announced that they're going to push up quotas by about 400,000 barrels a day in June, two months in a row, which means that's 800,000 barrels a day more of supply coming into the market. Also, we are seeing Atlantic Basin supplies coming in, U.S. and Guyana and Brazil. There is a significant amount of supply coming into the market, which is great for crude tankers. It's very positive for crude tankers because the more oil there is to carry, the more business there is for crude tankers. Rahul had mentioned earlier on this tariff discussion, there is not that much of trade between U.S.. and China on crude oil.
However, the one thing that you could have is that U.S. exports more crude oil to Asia, which might include India as well, as part of a trade deal. Again, this is all in the realm of speculation. In any case, the growth in demand was coming from the East. The growth in supply ex OPEC was coming from the Atlantic Basin. Therefore, it was always likely that there would be a West to East trade growing. Coming to the final question, which is on more ships getting sanctioned and getting locked into the shadow fleet, yes.
One of the effects you could have of these renewed OFAC sanctions and various U.K. also announced some sanctions on some ships is that those ships are unable to trade or at least unable to trade efficiently and therefore need to be replaced by other vessels, which are currently not the subject of sanctions. That could be a positive. You could see more vessels going into those trades from the currently legitimate fleet, which is not sanctioned. That is a possibility, and including in the Russian trade as well, not just Iran and Venezuela.
Thank you. We'll take a live question from Proline Nandu from Edelweiss Public Alternatives. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you again for giving me this opportunity. My question again is on the capacity addition, right, that I previously discussed.
Now, traditionally, our view always has been to probably rent out more of our vessels on a spot market, right, because we want to capitalize on changes in geopolitical things or any supply disruptions. Now, again, from a point of, I mean, how much does our preference for spot market influence the price at which we want to buy any new ship, right? Hypothetically, in case if we decide that we want to probably change the strategy from spot to more of a contractual rate, kind of an agreement going forward, does it up the kind of value that we have in mind for any vessel to be added in our fleet? Is this the relation that I'm thinking about? Is it valid? Is it how you guys also think about adding any new vessel in your fleeting?
Our base position, like you said, is to prefer the spot market versus the time charter market. One thing you should know is that time charter market, generally, you're fixing for maybe a year, two, three years. The ship may have a life of 10, 15 years, right? It's not like you're covering up all your days. Basically, the simple answer is that the price level at which we buy the ship and the decision to whether to remain on spot or time charter are not linked. It's not like as if if we follow time charter market, we could up the price and start buying at a completely different level. Understood.
Thank you so much. Sorry, go on. I'm sorry. Please, please.
Yeah. What happens here typically is that you could put out on time charter and say, and I think the point you're making is that you can go to a higher price when buying because you're able to lay off some of that risk by chartering out at a higher level. What tends to happen is that extrapolation of rates happens for much longer than the time charter period. You may be paying, just as a number, you may be paying a $10 million premium, but only recovering $5 million of that in the charter period. You're still open for the remaining part of the excess that you paid for the ship. That's not something really that we do, which is to buy at a high price and try to fix out. It's something that you can do in a small way.
Understood. Very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Gaurav Jhaa, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Gaurav, can you unmute your microphone? Yes.
Am I audible? Yes.
Yes, but there's a lot of background noise.
First, thanks for the opportunity. First, I would like to make a suggestion. Sir, can you please provide a true account from earning quarters so we can analyze more thoroughly?
Sorry, I didn't get your question. We lost you in between. Could you please provide what?
Sir, can you please add notes to account from the earning quarter?
Gaurav, I'm sorry, but it's very unclear. We can't hear the question. Maybe you can put it in the text in the.
Okay. Okay, sir.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Gaurav. You can post your text question on the Q&A tab. Yeah. Thank you.
We'll take a text question from Vinay, an individual investor. Can you please provide breakup of the cash and cash equivalents by instrument and currency?
Yeah. So about a little over 50%, about 55% of our cash is in U.S. dollars. The rest is in rupees. U.S. dollars are just in bank deposits. They just sit in our bank. The rupees are typically about a third of it is in bank deposits. The rest is in mutual funds, typically debt mutual funds.
Thank you. We'll take a text question from Surendra Yadav. What's the breakup of spot versus time charter across four shipping segments, inclusive of in-chartering done via IFSC? Also, please share the tentative break-even rates for each segment.
Yeah. We don't share break-even numbers for each segment. But we can look at the spot versus time charter.
The one outlier in this is that our LPG carriers, we have four of them. All of them are on time charter. The rest of the four, the other three sectors of shipping, they're just crude, products, and dry bulk. Crude and products tend to be much more on the spot. You would have typically 90% of the capacity in crude on spot, maybe 80% of the capacity in products on spot. In dry bulk, maybe it will be a little bit lower at maybe 60-70%. That's the breakup.
Thank you. We'll take a live question from Rajesh Kattar, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Sir, just wanted to understand the valuation metrics in the shipping industry. I don't want to talk about the stock prices, but theoretically, if you have to sell your company today, would you be
happy if you get the NAV price? Or if you have to acquire another shipping company, would you be okay to buy the target company at its NAV price? How do you think about valuation when you are making a deal of another company or of your own company?
Yeah. We have never done a deal for a company so far. We only know how to buy and sell ships. We have never looked at how companies are valued, really. It's tough to say. As I said, we are not stock market experts. What little capabilities we have are in the shipping space of buying and selling ships. We really don't know how valuation is done in the stock market. It's.
No, sir, not even talking about the stock market. But if a big investor comes and offers you the NAV of your company, would you take it?
It's a hypothetical that we haven't thought about. [crosstalk] Which we haven't thought about, frankly.
Okay. Okay. And what has been your company's insurance policy? So in case of any adverse situation, will you have to take any hits in your P&L?
No. Our insurance covers us for various. So we have a few different types of insurance. One is Hull and Machinery, which covers the ships themselves. And P&I is protection and indemnity, which is like a third-party insurance, including for the people. So between these, they cover pretty much most eventualities that can happen for a ship.
Okay. So you have some uncovered risk? I mean, when you say most.
Typically deductibles, things like deductibles.
Yeah. The deductibles are minor, but otherwise, you're covered.
Okay. Okay. I missed the opening commentary. Can you repeat whether the rigs getting fresh contracts are at higher rates or lower rates? I put it in the text question also, so you can just answer it here.
Yeah. The long-term contracts are at lower rates. That is, the three-year contracts are at lower rates than the previous contracts, which are awarded maybe a year ago. The short-term contracts are about the same level as they were maybe a year ago.
We haven't seen anything. Yeah. Were you not positive about the rigs getting repriced at a higher rate in your commentary a few quarters ago?
Mr. Khater, if I may interrupt, you can have a look at the when we put up the transcript on the website so that we can save time for other questions. Yeah. Just as the question has already been answered. Yeah.
Yeah. We just had this thing on a few quarters ago. The markets were looking positive till around this time last year till we had those significant cancellations by Saudi Aramco. That is the simple thing, which changed the nature of the market.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We will read the text from Gaurav Jhaa, an individual investor. Sir, firstly, thanks for the opportunity. I would like to make a suggestion regarding notes to accounts. Kindly add the same from next quarter results since it will corroborate us. Inventory turn days are increased by 16 days. Any specific reason?
Third is in cash flow, what is WTDL from bank and deposit in bank?
Sorry, is WTDL from bank? Are we talking about working capital loans? We have no working capital lines. I do not know what WTDL is. I assume it is something to do with working capital lines. We do not have any working capital lines. We only take long-term debt. Or rather, if we have working capital lines, it is only for, say, currency or derivatives contracts. Inventory turn days is not a metric that we track at all, so I cannot comment on that. Notes to accounts, we have the notes, which come always. In any case, we will have them in the annual report as well. We will see if it adds value, and we will see if we can do. I have not fully understood that. Maybe we can take a look at that.
Thank you. We'll take a text question from Surendra Yadav. Are the AHTSV capable of being deployed in other territories like North Sea where demand is much higher than supply currently?
Firstly, I don't think the demand is much higher than supply in the North Sea. In the North Sea, what happens is you get shorter-term contracts. The market is very volatile there, so sometimes you may see that the rates are higher. What happens is the utilizations are lower because the contracts are shorter duration. You have to equalize it on a 100% utilization for the year. We do do that calculation across different markets. Our AHTSVs are deployable not only in the North Sea but in other markets as well.
The typical North Sea AHTSV is larger than ours. Ours is 150-ton Bollard Pull. Typically, the requirement there is at least 180-200.
There is a market probably for the 150s, but the most common AHTSVs in the North Sea are larger than ours. Yeah.
But we have vessels which are deployed outside India as well. We do look at other markets as well.
Thank you. We'll take a live question from Shivam Shah from Impact Wealth Advisors. Please go ahead. Shivam, can you please unmute your microphone and go ahead with your question, please? Since there is no response, we'll take the text question from Vinay. Is there cross-usage potential of product tankers into crude tanker market and vice versa? Product tanker order book is increasing faster than crude tanker order book. Also, how do you propose to play this demand-supply dynamic?
This is possible. Shiv had earlier mentioned also on the call that the LR2 vessels, which make a large part of the order book, basically, they are just quoted Aframax tankers. Aframax tankers carry crude. You can basically take a product tanker and load crude, and then the supply of the crude tankers increases. It can happen on the other side as well. Crude is a dirtier cargo than product, so you often entail some waiting time and cleaning costs of the tanks so that they are in a condition to carry products because the cleaning standards are higher. We have certain ships that can actually switch between the two segments. Depending on our views on the market, we have at times switched between the two. We have the ships that are capable of doing so.
Basically, what happens is that the market at large, so if, say, for example, you see the product space being significantly stronger than the crude tanker space, you will see many ships cleaning up and trying to carry products and vice versa. Eventually, markets do end up somewhat balancing out.
Thank you. We'll take a live question from Shivam Shah from Impact Wealth Advisors. Shivam, kindly unmute your microphone and go ahead with your question, please.
Am I audible, ma'am?
Yes. Please go ahead.
Regarding the new asset acquisition, you mentioned that you are waiting for the correct price to come. What are the fundamental reasons that are keeping the asset price this high? What are the reasons that will cause the price to correct?
Earnings have been quite high, and that is what is keeping prices high for now.
Along with earnings being high, there are people who are wanting to buy also, and that is keeping prices from dropping a lot. That is what is keeping prices high now. What can bring these down? There are typically two things that stop hot markets or strong markets. One is demand not keeping up, and the other is too much of supply of vessels. The order book is building up. It is not a big amount, but it is building up, especially for LPG, maybe a little more for maybe for product tankers as well. That can cause some imbalance in demand-supply and therefore bring the markets down. If earnings come down, the next thing which happens is that that also pulls down asset prices. That is what we are waiting for. On the demand side, you have significant uncertainty on economic growth happening.
If that continues, then you could have lower earnings and therefore lower asset prices, which will give us an opportunity to buy.
Okay. Just a follow-up question to this. Is there any target return on asset that you wish for before acquiring any particular ship?
We would like to make at least a 10% IRR on the ships that we buy.
Okay. Thanks. That was my question.
Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks.
Thank you. There is a text question from Rajesh Kattar. Why are you not following the spot policy for LPG carriers? How is the LPG market fundamentally different in this aspect?
No, it is not that it is fundamentally different. Basically, we took a call on the levels at which the repricings were at. Actually, if you look at it, we priced all these contracts in the first half of calendar 2024.
If you see how the spot market has actually behaved versus the contracts we fixed at, they've been substantially lower. Eventually, it just comes down to the pricing of the contracts that you get.
That's right. You took the market call that we get.
Yeah.
Thank you. We'll take a last text question from Karan, an individual investor. What is the reason for so much fall in crude carrier and dry bulk spot prices? Will it improve in the near future?
Again, as Anjali had mentioned earlier, we have discussed this in our presentation, and we've given the reasons for the drop in rates. If you could just go back through those, then you will have the answers to the question.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I now hand over the call to Ms. Anjali Kumar for closing comments. Over to you, ma'am.
Yeah. Okay. I can see a text question there which has just come up. What's the basis of assumption of ship revenue rate in NAV calculation?
We don't assume a revenue in the NAV calculation. The NAV calculation just replaces the book value of the ship with the market value of the ship. That's it. We just take the if we had to sell the entire fleet today, what is the amount that we can realize divided by the number of ships?
We have one more text question. It is from Surendra Yadav. What has been the company's experience with Chinese carriers? Are the operational costs higher than similar ships from Korean or Japanese yards?
You should just know that now China has become the largest builder in the world by a substantial margin.
In China, you've got very high-quality yards where the operational costs will not really differ. The lower-quality yards in China could have more operational costs than the Korean-Japanese yards. Of course, our company, if we buy Chinese carriers, Chinese-built ships, they will tend to be always at the best of the yards.
Thank you. There's one text question from Rajesh Kattar. Have you lowered your IRR expectation to 10%? Earlier, you used to mention 15%, if I'm not wrong.
Yes, that's correct. We have not lowered our expectations, but we realize that 15% is a very high bar. Therefore, we have kept this as a bare minimum that we would like to see as the year.
Thank you. There are no more text questions, sir, or live questions.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody, for joining in today and asking all your queries.
In case any of you have any further questions or you feel your questions were not answered today, do feel free to reach out to us, and we will be happy to help you with them. The transcripts of this particular call will be uploaded very, very shortly. Thank you all again for joining.
Thank you, members of the management team. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of GE Shipping, you may now exit the meeting. Thank you for joining the call today. Thank you.