Good afternoon, everyone, welcome to the conference call for the results of Q4 and full year FY 2026. We'll quickly run through the presentation to leave as much time as possible for the Q&A. Sorry. Customary disclaimers apply. We don't forecast the market. We have a lot of our capacity on the spot market, we don't give earnings outlook. We are discussing what we are seeing in the market, please take it as such. The highlights, of course, is that this is our best ever quarter in terms of profits. It is also the best ever year in consolidated profits. For the first time, we crossed INR 1,000 crores in consolidated net profit for a year. Some of it, as a result of the exchange rate movement during the quarter.
Our NAV continues to move higher, moving by about INR 200 between end of December and end of March, and we've also declared our highest ever quarterly dividend of INR 11.70 per share, taking the total dividend for the year to INR 35.10 per share. You've seen the results. I won't go too much into the results. Later on, if you have any specific questions, we can go to them.
Yes, sir.
Going to I already mentioned the net asset value. You can see on a standalone basis, we were at about just over INR 1,100 a share in March last year, and now we're at INR 1,422. That's a INR 300 improvement. We've had significant movement in asset prices. Of course, we have a lot of cash accruals in the group. Similarly for the consolidated NAV as well. Looking at what's happened with the business, the event, the big event, of course, which stole the headlines was the Strait of Hormuz issue. We'll not spend too much time on this.
Suffice to say that because of the disruption, trade patterns were all over the place, literally, which resulted in a tightness in the tanker markets. Therefore, we saw a spike in rates in March and April for crude and product tankers and also for LPG ships. However, markets were tight even before that. Tanker markets for the crude tankers were pretty strong from all the way from December to February, even before this issue happened. Because of the scramble to source cargoes, oil cargoes from wherever they were available, we saw a lot of long-haul trades replacing the Middle East to Asia trades.
We had sourcing from the Atlantic Basin, which is the swing provider of barrels and which had to then come long haul all the way to Asia. That resulted in a big spike in demand for ships, therefore a big spike in the freight rates. As a result, asset prices also went up. We're looking at about 10%-20% increase during the quarter. The order book continues to be at around 20%. We've seen the crude tanker order book build up a lot in the last 3-6 months. Dry bulk was, while not seeing the excitement of the tanker space in March, was steady and had an unusually strong quarter, if only in the context of Q1 of the calendar year being seasonally, traditionally very weak.
The rates were quite remunerative during the quarter, across the board, especially for Capesizes. Going to LPG. Again, LPG rates have been pretty strong, and they got stronger towards the end of the quarter. Again, the marginal provider of LPG barrels is the United States, and so a lot more demand for LPG to move long haul from U.S. to Asia. I already mentioned what happened to asset prices during the quarter, and you can see that in the charts. The order book I already mentioned. We are at around 20% for crude tankers and product tankers, plus or minus a couple of percent. LPG continues to be high at 27%, and dry bulk is at 13%.
This is just a comparison of the order book to the scrapping potential, which is how many vessels have become overage. You can see that for the tankers, it's pretty close. Tankers and dry bulk. It's only the LPG where the order book is very heavy as compared to the old ships. This is just a year-wise depiction of this. The supply is actually kicking in for crude tankers in Cal 2027 and Cal 2028. Scrapping again. As one would understand, nobody's scrapping ships really because markets are so strong. Coming to the drilling business, this is the data on jackup utilization. The March 26th data includes data of all the rigs which are on contract in the Middle East, where rigs were put on standby.
They have been taken as continuing on contract. Also this is what is called this is the simple utilization. We have another measure called marketed utilization, which is rigs which are being marketed actively for contracts. That utilization continues to be somewhere around the 84%-85% mark. This is the usual sheet that we show. There is very little new building activity in the rig space. Therefore, there's a very large old fleet which is an overhang for the markets. This is the shareholding pattern. I won't go into it too much. Also the fleet data and the TCE wise. Return on equity continues to be strong. Return on capital employed continues to be strong.
You can see what's happened with the EPS for the last four years, so in excess of INR 150 per share. Of course, cash generation has always been strong in our business. Even when the markets are very weak, it's a cash flow generating business. The chart on the bottom left-hand corner shows the movement in net asset value over the last five years, just to depict how much of a contribution has come from cash flows and how much actually from fleet change. We keep emphasizing this because when we say NAV, the first thought is this is because of the hot market where it's a mark-to-market gain. If the market goes down again, all of this can again be lost.
This is to emphasize that a lot of the NAV change has come from cash profits, from cash flows from the ships, and not much of it is actually from the fleet value change. This is on a five-year basis. Share prices, to net asset value, we were at 0.8 or so, on a consolidated basis. We continue to pay dividends. Even in the weak markets, we were paying some dividends, we have, of course, upped the dividends significantly in the last four years. We continue to be heavily net cash, $500 million standalone, on net cash basis. We are doing our switch transaction, you would have seen that in the S&P transaction. We are selling some of our older ships, replacing them with similar ships of a newer similar ships.
Those are what we call the switch transactions. We still have some debt because we can't prepay it. These are the repayment schedules for our debt. As of March 31st, we had INR 157 million of debt in the group. That will be out within the next two years or so. The repricing of offshore assets and the orange bars are what interests a lot of you. These are our rigs which have to come up for repricing. We have three rigs coming up for repricing in this financial year, one of which has already completed her contract. It was a short-term contract. She is awaiting her next business. We have two which will come off in the second half of the financial year.
We will have to look for business for those rigs. On the vessels front, most of our capacity is locked in for this year. We have, I think 80% of our days for this year have already been locked in on the vessels side. The rest is data for you to look at at your leisure. This is not specifically related to this quarter. I'm happy to take questions. I have Rahul Sheth with me, and we are happy to take any questions that you may have. Thank you.
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 option available on the toolbar. You may also post your text questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from Vaibhav Badjatya from Honesty and Integrity Investment. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Can you hear me, sir?
Yes, we can hear you.
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot for providing the opportunity. Firstly, you know, address the important things that are geopolitically. I know you know the outcome of whatever is happening, nobody can predict. In both the situations, like in one probable outcome where everything normalizes whenever it happens, how do you think the markets will are likely to pan out in terms of whether these inefficiencies might continue for some time or do you think do you think the, you know, the situation can normalize pretty quickly? In the other scenario where things couldn't normalize, how do you think the markets will behave?
Because ultimately, you know, slowly, the inefficiencies will come out in the sense that there will be tankers who will find ways to come out of Strait of Hormuz to be available on the other routes slowly and steadily. Do you think the rates will might behave after some time if the situation continues on the other routes rates might go down? What's your assessment in both the scenarios, whatever way it happens?
Okay. If I can just recap your question so that we've got it correct, because you were not very clear at the start. You want to know what can happen under different scenarios of a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, right?
Yeah. If it doesn't open also.
Okay. Yeah
What's the outlook? How do you judge the outlook? How it's going to pan out?
You know, to provide an outlook on exactly how the markets will behave in either situation is very complicated. As you can imagine, we are also witnessing this probably for the first time, you know, since maybe the 1980s. You know, to just give you a bit of a perspective, the closing of the Strait where a large percentage of, especially the oil trade and the LPG trade comes from, has resulted in a lot of disruption in the market because countries that relied on the cargoes coming from the region have to now source cargoes from other regions.
Just to give you a simple example, if India was procuring LPG or oil from the Middle East, if they have to procure it from either U.S. or Latin America or some other region, the distances go up significantly, which is what led to a tightening of the market after the strait had shut. Even if you look at it, if even if you take a scenario where the Strait opens up, you will have a flurry of Middle Eastern cargoes. Lot of the ships are not in the Middle East anymore because they've moved out to get cargoes from elsewhere. Generally, the rates will have to strengthen to pull ships back into that region. All of this is difficult to really forecast because as you can imagine, there are many, many factors to consider to give such a scenario.
Therefore, we believe that giving this, you know, exact scenario analysis and saying, If it remains shut, this will happen, if it opens up, this will happen, is honestly a very difficult game to predict. I think we will not be able to provide such a, you know, maybe the kind of accurate answer.
Yeah
Outlook that you wish to see.
It's in the nature of guesswork really.
Yes.
Everybody's guess. You mentioned inefficiencies when you asked your question.
Yeah
This is going to be very inefficient. Now, how that plays out in terms of rates, it's tough to say.
You know, I can just give you one more perspective. After sourcing a lot of LPG cargoes from the U.S., there are so many LPG vessels, and not just for India, for many other countries. There were so many LPG vessels and other category of vessels that were trying to pass through the Panama Canal, that the congestion in the Panama Canal has gone up because now everyone needs to pass through to get American cargoes to come to the East because, you know, it's the shorter route to go through the canal.
Now, all these factors to forecast, you know, which one will play out to what level of strength or negative is very difficult to, you know, actually put down and give you, Okay, this is exactly what may happen. Eventually, like how Shiv mentioned, this is in the area of just guesswork and, you know, our guess will probably be as good or bad as yours.
The way we approach it, while you have not asked the question, the way we approach it in such a volatile situation is we are prepared for whichever scenario happens. We have a very large proportion of our fleet in the spot market as always, so we are in a position to take advantage if there is market strength. As we have collected so much cash and we are waiting to invest, if the markets go the other way, we are there to invest as well as an opportunity.
Got it. Connected to this, let me ask you one more specific question. In terms of the capacity of, you know, crude and product tankers that are stuck in Hormuz and not able to sail, versus the barrel that has been cut out from the market because of the supply going off, I mean, do they match or there are larger I mean, the cargo that the vessels can carry that are stuck is much-
The-
larger than the barrels that are
The capacity of crude tankers which is stuck inside is about 5%. The capacity of product tankers stuck inside may be 2%, and similar for LPG. The proportion of cargoes which are stuck because of this closure is much higher than this. While it reduces the impact slightly, it is not similar in numbers.
Okay. Got it. Understood. Okay. That's it from my end. Thank you.
Just remember one thing, you know.
It's not just on supply-demand, you have to also look at ton-mile impact, which is what I was alluding to earlier. 'Cause now ships are sailing much longer distances to get the cargoes from further away. Remember, because of the changing trading pattern, at least up until now, we have seen a lot of inefficiencies in that, which is what had supported the market.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Dhruv Jain from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot team for the opportunity. I had, you know, two questions. The first question, you know, with respect to shipyard capacity. If I'm not wrong, there was news flow around, you know, at the start of the war with respect to shipyard, delaying the delivery of ships, which could obviously, you know, help on the supply side. A, you know, is that true? B, you know, how should we look at the shipyard capacity now versus what it was earlier? What this order book, you know, could look very high, to think about the slippages that could happen, it would be very good to hear your perspectives.
At least as of now, we have not seen any significant data on the slippages. You know, many yards have taken a lot of orders and it, and, you know, they're still to be delivered, and it is possible, slippages do happen. At least as of now, we don't envisage such big slippages that it may change the dynamic of the market. Was there a further question to this, or when you were talking about the?
No, that was. Yeah. The second question that I had was, with respect to, you know, the oil demand stock that's there with various countries. You know, given-
Yeah
the fact that, we've seen, you know, so much cargo actually being stuck in Strait of Hormuz. Even whenever it opens, right, is it safe to say that, because most of the countries are at the lower end of their inventory of, crude, we will see a continued demand through the year? Whichever the scenario, it's only gonna be for some time.
Meaning for stock building?
Yes.
You know, again, we can just guess that countries may want to replenish their stocks. Having said that, you know, the U.S. SPR, which has been talked about a lot, you know, it used to be at the 700 million mark. It had come down to maybe 450 million just before this current war. Now they're drawing down on it, you know, but they never took the 400 million back to 700 million. Counter to that, countries like China had built up stock. You know, one would have logically expected U.S. to go back up and China not to build more, you know, because they already had a lot of stock. U.S. didn't go back up, but China built a lot more stock.
you know, just to use common sense, I would assume that countries will go back to stock building, but we'll have to see how they play it.
Got it. Okay.
You know.
Yeah. Yes, please go on.
Yeah, you know, when the container.
No, sure.
squeeze happened in 2021, just after COVID, people were saying that consuming countries will move from just in time to just in case, so trying to build resilience maybe that's something that commodity consuming, areas will want to do as well.
Got it. No, thanks a lot for this, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Amit Khetan from Laburnum Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. If I look at your Slide 25, right, where you have the revenue days, that looks about 5%- 6% lower than what it should have been. I'm guessing we've lost some revenue days on account of our ships being stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. Is that correct? What is the situation correct, currently?
Just one second.
One moment. Yeah. We had revenue days also as a function, a little bit of a dry dock.
We have a similar revenue days.
Yes.
Are you looking at this data, Amit?
Is this a slide?
Yeah. I'm talking about this data, the own tonnage, number.
Yeah. I think this is just fleet changes during the period. Because the fleet might have changed a little bit during the period.
Okay
also, you could just have timing differences in dry dock.
Yeah
a couple of extra dry docks this year versus last year, that could be I mean, one extra dry dock can easily account for this 20 days. We haven't really grown in capacity, right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah
That extent you will find some changes.
Yeah.
You'll find these movements on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
Got it. Currently, do we have any ships stuck in the Gulf?
We. Yeah.
Yeah. We do have, two ships that are waiting to come out. One is an owned ship and one is an in- chartered ship, that are waiting to come out.
Okay. Would these be earning revenue or not?
We don't want to One of them is on voyage charter, one is on time charter. Some of these are sensitive, so we won't go into that. Typically, time charter ships will continue to earn revenue because it depend on the time. A voyage charter ship, the time is on our count.
Okay. Okay, fair enough. Secondly, given the rates that we've seen, especially on the product tanker side in April, have we done any sort of period fixing or the time charter hasn't moved as much as the spot rate?
The time charter rates did move, but we have not done any period fixing because the time charter rates were very different from the spot rates.
While we've not done it in the month of March and April, our product fleet does have a certain amount of coverage on them.
Okay. Got it. Lastly, you know, three rig pricings coming up this year. Given the situation in the oil market where prices have gone up substantially, what is the current day rates on in the market looking like, any recent fixings in the market, what day rates they have to come at?
We haven't had any recent fixings happening here in our market. Not in since the oil price went up, obviously, because these are long lead tenders. The fixing that we have seen recently in Nigeria seems to indicate that pricing remains firm. We saw a recent contract of one of the international drilling companies there. The rates remain firm. Again, each market is to be seen by itself, so we'll just have to see what happens in the next tender.
Got it. Got it, got it. Lastly, just one question on the LNG segment. Now, we've not operated historically in this segment, but given the destruction in LNG infrastructure that has been seen in Qatar and there could be a potential oversupply of ships when the market sort of normalizes, is this a segment that we could be looking at?
Mining, honestly, I don't think we will look at this segment.
Is that got to do with the large sort of capital allocation needed to operate in this segment?
Yes. Generally, you know, the ticket size is quite large. You know, when you get into this business, you'll do a few ships. I think it'll take too much capital from us. I think we've got, at least for the sectors we are looking at, I think we'll be better placed. Also, you know, these projects are generally, you know, backed with long-term charters, so the returns on these kind of projects tend to become more like project financing.
It's sort of the other end of the spectrum from what we do in shipping, which is we like to run in the spot market. Highly liquid assets operating in the spot market, rather than in a long, you know, pipeline-type assets which are long-term contracts, cost of debt-based projects.
Got it. Got it. All our LPG tankers are currently on fixed on time charter, right?
Yes, that's right.
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Vikram Suryavanshi from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead. Vikram, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead with your question. Since there is no response, we'll move on to the next question from Siddharth Chauhan from 360 ONE Capital. Siddharth, please go ahead with your question.
Hi, Shiv. Hope I'm audible.
Yeah.
Yeah. Loud and clear, Siddharth.
Perfect. First of all, congratulations on good set of numbers. Now, two questions I have. Firstly, how are the day rates shipping up currently versus the previous quarter, both in the shipping and dry bulk segment?
The dry bulk segment remains very strong. LPG also remains extremely strong. The crude, even if you look at the crude segments, while they've come off a bit, you know, as an absolute level they are still at a very strong level. Our products have come off a bit more, you know, again, you know, the thing is in products it's very volatile. You know, I think it would be too much to just draw a conclusion from just looking at today's rate.
Again, everything, while it's come off from very high numbers, so there's a very big spike in March, April, and I think it's settled down from that spike, but still at very high numbers.
Yeah. Historically, all of these.
Understood
are very, very high.
Any sense particularly in dry bulk, because I, it seems that they have firmed up in the last few weeks.
Yeah. You know, now there are multitude of factors. If you just certain buying, there's been, you know, more coal trade because certain countries in Southeast Asia have been trying to buy more coal because the Strait is shut and there's less LNG, there's less oil. Iron ore has also been decently strong. Grains have been very, very strong because China has been continuing to buy. Yeah, you know, bauxite. I think all the commodities across the board have just been tightening up. The strait has not really affected the dry bulk trade much. It's a very small percentage of the overall trade. We're seeing certain delays also at ports, so congestion has also been built up a bit.
Understood. Thanks. Secondly, on the offshore segment, what's your sense on the overall ONGC tender cancellation situation? Because we were also reading reports that ADES Shelf Drilling is evaluating whether they want to keep their assets in India or, you know, take it back someplace else. What's exactly happening as per you?
On Shelf, that's a different thing, you know, because Shelf has now merged with ADES, they've now become a very large company of jackup rigs. You know, they also do run a fair bit of old rigs, so they, you know, they're probably looking at it at a corporate level. I wouldn't read into them removing the rigs from India to what ONGC is doing. I can't comment on their corporate strategy, though. In ONGC, they have not processed a few tenders, but we have seen the number of rigs that they have currently employing come down to one of the lowest levels they've ever had. We would assume that now at certain point they will now process all these tenders. We currently have an active tender going on.
Understood
else that's in the world right now, you know, oil is to secure your own supplies is quite in the focus right now of everyone's radar.
Understood. No, no, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. This was very helpful.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you, Siddharth.
Thank you. Next question is from Himanshu Upadhyay from SteadFort. Please go ahead.
Hi, am I audible?
Yeah. Yes, Himanshu. Hi.
Yeah. We have this two in chartered ships. If I remember correctly, both are Suezmax. What is the time?
One is a Suezmax. Sorry, Himanshu, just to correct you. One is a Suezmax, one is an MR tanker.
Okay. When does the period end?
We've still got some time, between one and three years, depending on which charter.
Is the lease rates also increased quite dramatically? Means because at one point of time the thought was, Okay, we would like to have more leased holder tankers where the fleet is pretty low. How is the one-in-three-year lease rates have moved in last three months or two months?
It hasn't moved anywhere near as dramatically for these kind of vessels. It hasn't moved anywhere near as dramatically as the spot rates did. Maybe a few thousand dollars a day, while the spot rates probably moved $30,000-$40,000 a day. It hasn't really moved that much at all. Maybe in the Suezmaxes a little bit more for some time. In the MRs certainly not. It hasn't moved much at all.
One more thing on the LPG, where generally we have been on the period charters. With spot rates improving, would we like to whatever repricing or renewals are to happen in this year, would we like to be on spot or we like to maintain our LPG focus on period only?
Yeah, we would like to run more on spot. We have made a small step in that direction with an floating rate, part floating rate charter, on one of our vessels. That will start this month sometime.
Okay. One more thing on the offshore space, logistics space, I think we have around eight ships getting repriced this year. How is that repricing on the offshore support vessels moved or is the strength continuing in that market or some thoughts on that because that space has done pretty well for us in last two years?
Yeah, as of now all the offshore rates are broadly very strong. I think for FY 2027 we still have about 80%, 85% of the days covered, so some of those repricings will be more closer to the end of the year. What's also happened, and you're right, that the space has been pretty strong because that business has shown its best profit since FY 2016. That's mostly contributed by the offshore vessels business, yeah.
One thing on the jackups, okay. See, one of the liking or preference for us for Indian market was that we get period charters, okay, and two-year, three-year type of contracts, okay. See, on the order cancellations, what ONGC has stated that the price has moved quite high and hence, we are canceling the orders, okay.
The thought process still remains with that, in last two years we have seen continuous cancellations. Two, three years four cancellations have happened, okay. Is it really making sense to be in this market only or we would like now to move outside of India also?
Yeah.
in good times we don't have the rates or ONGC does not give long-term rates, and on the spot we are already losing out. How does it look or how are you thinking about that segment now?
See, as of now out of our four rigs we've not really idled any of the rigs, you know, sometimes between contracts. We actually had two out of the four rigs with parties other than ONGC. We still see that the market is going to or at least as of now remain strong and there is a focus on it. I think it is worth holding onto our expectations.
You're right that, you know, ONGC canceling, et cetera, is causing a little bit. It requires a little bit of change in our strategy of just focusing on getting those three-year contracts. That's why last year we consciously took two short-term contracts for two of our rigs. These were in India itself, and we have done very well on those contracts also. Again, these are new relationships that we are building, and if these customers have more work, we are sure that they will come to us because of our track record with them.
One more thing, the private contractors or private companies which are giving shorter- term contracts on the jackup rigs.
Yeah
Are those pricing near to international spot rates or they remain depressed in India market, the spot rates and charter too?
No, no, I think they are reasonably good. The international spot rate is difficult to assess because each region is, you know, has its own cost structure, very different cost structures. These are just not comparable at all. At least for, say, a three-year contract you can assess the cost structure and you can make those adjustments. On short-term contracts it is very difficult to do that comparison, we won't even try. All we say is that these are decent rates and they're quite remunerative. Not high, they are reasonably remunerative.
Means, would they be nearer to the global rates or something like that or they remain?
No, I mean, that's the point I'm making. Sorry, that's the point I'm making, Himanshu, that we can't. There is no global rate. For say, first of all, the liquidity in the short-term contracts is not very high, of, you know, number of fixings. Sometimes they don't get reported. Our contract itself may not have been reported elsewhere. And the second thing is, even if you get a rate reported, it's very difficult to know what is the cost structure in that contract on the mob and demob, et cetera.
You know, sometimes in those local markets you have to share some of the top-line rate with local partners. Sometimes there is, you know, you have to prep when you get onto these contracts globally or even in India, there are certain specific requirements by the charters, so you have to spend some money upfront to get those rigs ready for those contracts. Every time you get into that, you have to look at that entire process to really understand what does that headline rate lead to a comparable rate for India.
One small question. Are all the logistics ship on the offshore site in India only or they are few outside India also currently? How are they positioned?
There are a few ships outside India and a few. Most of them are in India. We have four. We had five.
We now have four vessels operating outside India, and this is all across the world really. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Himanshu.
Thank you. Next question is from Vikram Suryavanshi from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Hope I'm audible now.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Please go ahead.
Have it.
Okay, great. Yeah, thanks. sir, what we are seeing is that, the order book has now started building up. How is that shipyard capacity available for further ordering? Probably are we seeing that cycle of order book increasing going again because the way the kind of money shipping companies have made in last 3- 4 years and probably the situation what we are looking in terms of continuous demand destruction. If you could comment on, I think, that in terms of order book and changing capacity would be helpful.
Yeah. The order book is building up, especially for crude tankers in the last, and that too especially for VLCCs in the last few months. The yard capacity has not grown that much, it's just that the slots are getting filled up. You know, the slots were not available for building these ships in this period for, I think, 3- 4 years because all the slots were, or the large slots were getting taken up by the big container ships and by LNG ships. Now that that ordering is not as extreme, these slots are becoming available. It's not a huge increase in shipyard capacity, it's just a movement that more of it is available for these large crude tankers. It's Yes, it is building up.
There is, as we showed, there is still a significant part of the fleet which is old, so that's something to consider. Yes, having more of an order book versus six months ago makes you maybe a little more concerned about what can happen to the market balance. This is again 2027, 2028 kind of deliveries.
Yeah, it's, uh, quite-
you probably need in 2020, you'll get a ship in 2029.
Right. In the offshore side, are we seeing like some cold stacking fleet is coming back?
Not really. Not yet. Cold stack fleet? No. No, not really.
We've not seen any real movement on that.
Okay. Just a last, on clarification on one of your comment because I think our preference is always to keep capacity more on spot. However, are we open to short the market at some point in the time or our preference will always be through play through the cycle in which market-
Preference always remains Sorry.
Yes, sir.
Could you please continue?
Because I think probably the way we are seeing the ship supercycle, probably asset play could come with a much longer lag. That's the reason I was asking.
We predominantly remain spot. Of course, opportunistically we do take time charters, but from what we have seen, that even when the markets are very high, generally when you go for a time charter rate contract, they end backwardation. Which means that, just as an example, if the spot market is earning 100 and you want a time charter, say for one or two years, the longer you go the lower the rate becomes. You may get it for 80 or 70 or some lower number. Upfront you're giving up something to take that cover. We generally don't prefer to take that.
As we have mentioned, you know, on these calls, the markets, especially in shipping, are so volatile that very often, you know, you can believe, you know, that maybe 100 will average 60, and so you should take the cover at 70, and eventually the market ends up at 120. You know, when the markets are this volatile, I think sometimes shorting it can maybe do more harm than good.
Understood, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We have a text question from Divya Agrawal from Ficom Family Office. The first question is, Could you help us understand the reason behind it, and also what is the fleet exposure between spot market and time charter contracts? Second question is, Should we expect the benefit of higher freight rates to be reflected more meaningfully from Q1 FY 2027 onwards?
We are generally, you know, we, our time chartering activity will be below 20%. Like I just mentioned, we always prefer to remain spot and, you know, still a long quarter to go. We're not going to forecast, the Q1, numbers.
Thank you. Next text question is from Harsh C, an individual investor. What parameters does management take into account while doing the switch transactions? The vessel value seems to have increased when compared to last year. Despite that company acquired higher amount of ships. How much impairment would have to be recognized on new vessels as market corrects?
We look at the timing of the switches is dictated by the ships that need to be sold. When the ship needs to be sold, that is, we cannot use it to service our customers in the international market, we look to sell the ship. If we are looking to sell a ship, we will also look to replace the ship with a more modern vessel, which can be used to trade in the international market with our customers. The timing is more decided by the ship that needs to be sold. The price is actually just a function of how many transactions we did last year. If you're looking at how much we spent in FY 2025 versus FY 2026, it's because two bulk carriers which we sold last year, we did not replace in FY 2025.
We actually replaced them in FY 2026 because it was just a question of timing the purchase of those ships and getting some good ships to buy. That's one factor which can happen, which is just a timing mismatch between two years. As to the impairment, we don't know whether we will have to recognize any impairment at all, because this is a function of what happens to the market price of the ship. It is also measured by the earning capacity of the ships. There are a lot of factors which get into the impairment, into the impairment calculation, it's difficult to comment on whether we will have at all and how much, if we do, how much will have to be recognized.
Thank you. We'll take our next live question from Rajesh Sheen, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. I just joined late, so if the question is already answered, you can let me know. I mean, I can go through the recording again. I just wanted to know that when the ships got stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, did GE Shipping lose any revenue for the stuck days, or was the trip on a per day basis and it continued to earn for the stuck days?
Okay. We have one ship which is not on a per day basis, and which where the time is on our account, so the lost days are on our account, so we lose revenue on that ship.
Okay. That is on one ship, but I believe there were a few other ships which were stuck for a few days.
All other ships Yeah, all other ships are on time charter, so they continue to earn in that time.
Okay. They would have continued to earn on per day basis even for the stuck days for the time charter.
That's right. Yeah, that's correct.
Okay. I have a strategy question. If the company wants to be in spot market, which is your preferred mode, right?
Yes.
That would be to take advantage of the disruptions or volatility, right?
Yes.
Shouldn't you be more positioned on the longer haul routes instead of the regional routes? I think the longer routes give more volatility and more upside and are more prone to disruption, right?
No, no, there's no pattern between the short and long haul routes. It all depends on how the trade is evolving, and then based on how the trade is evolving, we evolve our trading patterns accordingly.
Also, it is not that we trade only on short haul routes. We do long haul trades as well.
Yeah.
Yeah
We are agnostic to which route we take. We change it based on our view on what, which routes would be better to trade in.
I was looking at your fleet composition. For example, you own, let's say, maybe two Capesize, but you own a number of Kamsarmax or, you know, the shorter distance type of vehicles, right? You are positioned more on the shorter routes. By looking at your fleet profile, I got that impression basically.
No, it's, you know, you're seeing the size of the ships, right? Because there's.
Yeah
Kamsarmax is 80,000 and Capes are 180,000, but that doesn't mean that they do shorter routes. Kamsarmaxes, for example, do routes from China to Latin America and back. That can be 100 days. Capesizes can do those routes for different cargos, but they can also do Australia, China, which is about 30, 40 days. You know, even Capes can do shorter routes.
Okay.
There is no linkage between the size of the ship and the route size. If you take on the Suezmaxes, which are large crude tankers they can do routes from Middle East to Jamnagar. Those round voyages are 20 days.
Okay.
Right? There's no linkage between the size of the ship and the length of the route.
Okay. In this, I mean post-Iran War, were the tanker rates attractive enough to from the clean to dirty switchover? Did it actually happen? If yes, did GE Shipping actually do the switchover from clean to dirty? Was it a profitable proposition?
We have seen ships trade, Many ship owners have converted a lot of the LR2s into Aframaxes. Generally the switching only really happens on this sector, where the LR2s and Aframaxes are switch between clean and dirty. We also have switched a couple of vessels to dirty.
Okay. I believe the time when you want to switch back from dirty to clean, there is some cost of that, right? I mean, overall, it is a very profitable even after accounting for the cost of switching back, right?
Yes, that's right.
Okay. Fine, sir. Just one more question. Now your consol NAV is close to INR 1,800. Do you feel it is sustainable for the next few quarters? Even if the fleet value drops, okay, your earnings will keep propping up the NAV, right? At a very high level, the NAV should not drop significantly even if it doesn't increase, right? I mean, the chances are more of increasing the NAV, but even if the cycle turns or these disruptions go away, still the NAV would more or less sustain at least the current levels, right?
Let's look at this. It depends on how a drop in value of ships, whether it happens in a short period or a long period. What you're describing is when the drop, let's just say a drop of INR 200 million happens in the fleet value.
Now, you know what our earnings were in the last year. Our cash earnings were more than $300 million. Okay?
Right.
Therefore it can absorb this drop of $200 million in a year. This, we're talking about a year.
Right.
If the same $200 million drop happens in 1 quarter, you cannot absorb that if your run rate is $75 million a quarter.
Right
The advantage in our business is this NAV, and the point you identified is correct. The NAV keeps converting into cash because a ship earns cash. Therefore a significant portion of the ship price or the NAV will keep coming in as cash flows, which is a point we made in the presentation, that a large part of it is NAV improvement is actual cash earnings itself.
Okay. Fine. My last question. I was going through the con calls of some U.S.listed shipping companies, Scorpio Tankers, and there are quite a few more, okay? They're also trading at a similar price to NAV, okay, maybe 1.1 or a similar range. But they have announced very large buybacks, okay? I think, you know, the last quarter they did buyback of $100 million, and I think this quarter they have announced $500 million, right, if I'm not wrong. When they see value in announcing buybacks at a similar price to NAV, why does GE Ship not see value in announcing buybacks at a similar point? Yeah, this is my last question.
I won't comment on because different companies have different approaches. Our approach is of a value buyer. There are also companies. First is I don't know who's done this, $ 100 million and $500 million buyback. I haven't really seen. Different companies have different approaches to investment. Our approach is a fairly conservative investor, where we buy at certain levels. This goes for whatever it is. Whatever capital allocation we make, we buy only at certain prices, even in ships. Different companies, some companies will just keep buying irrespective of the market. Buying ships, I'm talking about. Everybody has different investment philosophy, and we really wouldn't like to get into whether ours is better or theirs. This is something which has served us well over many decades, and we stick with this.
Okay. Can I squeeze in one more question or should I let others ask?
Sure, a quick one. Quick one, yeah.
Compared to March ending rates, I mean, we have been hearing in or reading in the industry that tanker rates subsequently shot up significantly in April and May. Even the dry bulk, the entire spectrum of ships across the dry bulk, they have also, you know, started participating in this, in this, you know, freight movement. Your comment on that and whether gas based ships, okay, they are the only ones which have not participated in this freight increase, and have all other sectors seen significant increase compared to the March rates?
No. In fact, actually, LPG has done one of the best. The rates are still extremely high. LPG has done.
Okay.
Yeah, close to all-time highs.
Close to all-time highs. No, probably all-time highs.
Yeah. Oh, that's great. Okay. The tanker and the dry bulk, they are also at a higher levels compared to March and significantly higher levels, can I say that?
Dry bulk is. Crude and our products are not as high as the peak we saw in March and April, but they're still very, very strong.
Okay. All right, sir. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Anuj Sharma from SteadFort Investment Managers. Please go ahead. Anuj, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Yeah, hi. Am I audible now?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah. My question is on the offshore rig. Is there a possibility that ONGC comes out with a tender, but due to our short-term engagement, our rigs are not available for those auctions?
Yeah, it's certainly a possibility. It is not so currently. We have a rig available. Generally ONGC gives a 180-day period for delivery of the rig into the contract. That's not something which is likely to arise. I mean, it could happen.
Okay.
Because it's a short-term contract, by definition it'll hopefully get over in 180 days.
My next question is on the jackup rigs. The order book continues to be low. Is it due to uncertainty in demand or the shipyards are not ready with capacities to deliver? What's more of the probability?
Maybe a bit of both.
Yeah, a bit of both. yard capacity has got completely crunched.
Curtailed.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, since 2014 we've not really seen any real orders for the jackup, you know. Having said that, we've always seen in our business that if there was sufficient demand for those jackup, someone will come to build it. They could be yards which we've not heard of, you know, China does a lot, have a lot of other capacity, and I'm sure someone would build it. At least as of today, we've not seen a lot of interest in trying to even go and ask those yards to build. I think the rates would be substantially higher before that level of optimism comes to go and build more rigs.
All right. Just on ONGC auctions, any timelines, any new timelines for the auctions or nothing?
No, they've not given. We have an ongoing tender, but how long it takes to be processed, we are not sure.
Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have a text question from Nirav Sheth from Emkay Global. What is a better option, first, running ships on long-term time charter with debt, or second, running ships on spot without debt? Over the long term, what gives better ROE?
This is a good question. We have actually, you know, studied our history and tried to see that which model would work better. We've always found the latter to be better. It's not without debt, it's with less debt, so it just depends on, you know, your level of debt. We have shipping companies, you know, if you look at global shipping companies they, you know, a lot of companies run largely spot, but the amount of debt they take varies, and one can always, you know, debate what that level of debt should be. If you want to compare that to the first model, you know, what we have seen and what I mentioned earlier on this call, that we have seen spot rates tend to outperform the time charter rates for a variety of reasons.
To compensate for that, you would have to take a lot more debt. We find that a riskier strategy, and I think we're just better at playing the second option.
Thank you. Next question is from Meet Parekh from Mihir A. Shah & Company. Previously management had guided that the buyback was not tenable due to adverse taxation. Now that the tax norms have changed, why not consider a buyback?
It's a function of the price really. As with everything, in this capital allocation as well, it's a function of the price. You're right that one of the biggest impediments has been removed. Again, everything is at a price, and when appropriate.
Thank you. Next question is from Alok Yadav. He's not mentioned his company name. Can the management confirm the outstanding loan from GESCO to GIL for March 26? As per financials, there was a loan provided from INR 425 crore and repayment of INR 125 crore, but the outstanding loan seems to be more than INR 425 crore, which was the original loan. What's the timeline by when GIL plans to become debt-free?
There were two loans. One was INR 65 crores and one was INR 425 crores. As of 31st March, the loan outstanding was INR 392 crores. There were also an old preference share which was subscribed by the parent, which is INR 272 crores as of March 2026.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Rajesh Sheen, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir, thanks for the follow-up. Any particular reason you have never bought in the last few years since I started tracking your company, you have never purchased a VLCC, because we keep hearing in the news, a very sharp spike in VLCC sometimes? They are probably the major beneficiary of some freight increases compared to the other vessels. You have never owned a VLCC till now. Can you comment on that?
We have owned a VLCC in the past, and there is no particular reason that we have chosen not to stay out of that segment, and I'm sure that in the future we will be in that segment. If you see, you know, from 2022 when the Russian war took place and the market significantly tightened, that was a Suezmax and Aframax story. For the first few years, you know, from 2022 till maybe 2025 end, the Suezmaxes and Aframaxes have outperformed the VLCCs considerably. The VLCCs really came into their own, maybe in the last 6-9 months.
December.
Yeah, something like that. Since then those rates have gone up a lot. If you take over this 4-year period, it has been better served to be in these, the other two segments.
Again, this is not to say that we don't want to own VLCC.
Yeah, I'm sure in the future we'll get into it. Again, it depends on, you know, getting the liquidity of the ship and what you're buying. If you know, get better deals on the Suezmaxes, we may buy more Suezmaxes.
Okay. But by not owning a VLCC, don't you lose out on? I mean, I just wanted to correct my understanding. Are there certain routes on which VLCC are more suitable and you lose out on or you don't participate in those trips because you don't own a VLCC and no other, you know, ship type can fulfill that trip, basically? Is it like that or not?
No, not exactly like so. Say, for example, VLCCs do a large amount of trade from the Middle East, but the Suezmaxes also do trade on the Middle East. If you're taking cargos from the Middle East to India or, you know, somewhere else, the Suezmaxes also, maybe the VLCCs do more of that trade than the Suezmaxes. You know, what you've seen over a long period of time, you have to look at the price at which you've entered each one of those sectors. That is more relevant than saying, "Okay, I need to be participating in one particular trade over the other.
What also happens in the case of VLCCs is that they hit the headlines more often.
Yes
Suezmaxes also tend to move in tandem with VLCCs because typically a VLCC carries 2 million barrels of crude oil, while a Suezmax carries 1 MMbbl . If there is too much of a differential between the two, customers will try to split the cargo between from one VLCC to two Suezmaxes. The price will become more or the pricing, the freight rates will become closer then. It can't be too dislocated for too long.
Okay. So two more short questions. When are the gas carriers coming up for repricing? I believe all your gas carriers are on time charter, right?
That's right.
Yeah.
One I mentioned earlier on this call, we have fixed and she'll be delivered shortly. The other one is in the next few months, so we'll have some time to decide.
Okay. Is it safe to say that they will be repriced at least, you know? I mean, assuming current rates, they will be repriced at least 50% higher than the earlier time rates?
We can't comment on what rates we will get once she's free.
No. Okay. In other words, are the current time rates, today, 50% higher than the time rate they were contracted for earlier?
No.
No.
No.
Okay. They're lesser than 50%? Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
They were contracted at very good rates.
Very high rates, yeah.
Oh, okay. Nice. Okay. That's great. Any detail you can give on your in-chartered ships, because we see that line item but that's a black box, you know. What are the ships you have in-chartered, okay? What are the categories and what are the tonnages? I mean, any details on the in-chartered ships. Do you plan to grow this, yeah, this segment?
We have two ships on in-charter, both are tankers. one is an MR product tanker, one is a Suezmax crude tanker. There are only two vessels on in-charter. It was done to because there was a certain opportunity as part of a switching strategy. Instead of buying a ship, we in-chartered. Yes, we could look at it. We used to have a significant in-chartering operation 15+ years ago. If the opportunity arises, certainly we'll look at doing more. Everything is subject to price, of course.
Your operating margins on owned ships versus in-chartered ships, obviously they will be quite different, but can you give some idea of what is the operating margin on in-chartered ships?
There is no number here. Let's say you in-charter a ship at $30,000 a day. The ship.
could earn $25,000 or it could earn $35.000 Or it could earn $50,000 a day. Because we don't have a fixed. It's not that we have a cost.
No, No. No, I'll rephrase, I'll rephrase my question. Sorry to interrupt you. I'll rephrase my question. I was asking about the actual operating margins, let's say, for the March quarter.
It'll be much, much lower for an in-chartered ship because in the operating margin of an owned vessel, basically you only deduct the operating expenses. Correct?
Correct.
When you are looking at the operating margin. When you're looking at an in-chartered ship, you have to deduct not just the operating expenses of the owner, but also his capital recovery, his interest, his depreciation, maybe his loan repayment cost as well, and therefore the cost base itself becomes much higher. The quick answer is the operating margin profile of an in-chartered ship is very different. The operating margins will be much lower than for an owned vessel.
Yes.
Because by definition they would not be chartering to us at OpEx.
Correct. For example, your operating margin for the owned vessels was, let's say, 58% or 60%, something like that. For in-chartered ships, would it be, like, 15%, 20%?
It, again, it depends on the rate. If you in-chartered it in one quarter, it could be in-chartered at $30,000. One quarter it could earn $25,000, in the next quarter it could earn $40,000. There is no so it is very difficult to put a number to answer your question.
I'm asking only about the actual numbers of the March quarter, not a projection.
Yeah
or a fixed-
They are positive. One minute. They are positive. Let's say that you have a Suezmax.
In our own Suezmaxes, so let's say we have an in-chartered Suezmax, we have a, an owned Suezmax. The owned Suezmax operating expenses could be maybe between $6,000 and $8,000 a day. The in-charter rate is not $6,000-$8,000 a day. They would earn very similar rates. It's not very different. One is an eco ship, so there may be a marginal difference in their earnings. Let's say both of them earn $60,000 a day. In the case of the owned vessel, the operating margin is $60,000 minus $8,000 a day. In the case of the in-chartered vessel, and I cannot mention the actual rate at which we have in-chartered the ship, but let's call it $30,000 a day. So your margin is only $30,000 a day on the in-chartered vessel.
That's the difference between the two, because the cost base of an in-chartered vessel, by definition, is higher than the cost base of an owned vessel.
Yeah, yeah. Okay
for the operating budget purpose.
Sir, I was going through the cash breakeven level of some of the U.S. companies, U.S.-listed shipping companies. They disclose it was close to $11,000 per day for their entire fleet.
Can you disclose your cash breakeven levels for your entire fleet today?
Our book breakeven levels are probably around $12,000 a day, between $11,000 and $12,000 a day. Our cash breakeven is probably in the $9,500 a day, something like that.
Okay.
Maybe $9,000 a day, because we also have a lot of other income, from the treasury. Yeah.
Anything beyond that $10,000, $11,000, $12,000 a rate, I mean, primarily it flows to the bottom line, right? I mean, yes.
Yeah.
It-
Yeah. This is cash breakeven.
Uh-
It'll flow to cash flows. Yeah, book breakeven will be maybe $12,000 a day for the fleet, across the fleet.
Okay. beyond $12,000
Yeah
the entire number flows to the bottom line?
That is correct.
Okay, sir. Okay. That is across the entire fleet, right?
That is a blended rate for the entire-
Yes
fleet.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Karan Bhatelia from MAIQ Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Congratulations for great set of results.
Thank you.
Sir, you have reached a significant cash position this quarter. We are also seeing, you know, the freight rates staying at multi-year highs and which, in turn, has also increased the vessel prices. Given the parts of the fleet are aging, I'm just trying to understand your philosophy as to whether you are comfortable to buying tonnage at these levels to capture the current deals, or do you feel the IRR is too thin? If you decide to wait for a correction maybe, what is the plan for the excess cash which you have generated?
Right. See, if it is a question of switching where if we had to sell a ship and replace it, then we will do it because we have a certain market presence which we have to maintain. That is something that we will continue to do. Your question, I take it, is on buying an incremental ship, that is, for growth. Is that right?
Yeah.
Switching we will do, because we have decided not to go below a certain level.
Okay. Either way, Shiva, either increasing or maybe replacing it. I mean, we have been replacing a lot, at least.
Replacing we will continue to do.
Yeah. Any incremental-
Increasing we will not do for current yield.
Yeah.
You know, when you're doing a switch, it's a very different thing from doing incremental. When you're switching, you're buying at a high level, but you're also selling at a high level. When you're buying incremental, you're just buying at a high level. You have to look at them very, very differently.
Correct. Sir, don't you think we also have the opportunity to capture the current yields?
Yes, you know, current yields can change. You have to look at the business from a more longer- term point of view.
Typically current yield is a bit of a trap.
Yeah.
we've seen-
Yeah, that-
cycles. Yeah.
You have to see what best serves you more in the long- term.
We've bought, I think we've done best on the projects where we bought when current yield was close to zero.
Got it. Got it.
Yeah.
Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take 1 text question from Meet Parekh from Mihir A. Shah & Company. At what level of discount to NAV would the company consider the value of buyback to be attractive? Would a lower fleet age lead to better TCE-wise?
We can't comment on the first part of this question. The second one, would a lower fleet age lead to better TC wise? No, not really. There is something on the fuel economics, but I think the price at which you enter and the segments at which you, which you enter, I think that's the most important.
Thank you. We have Meet on the line. Meet, has your question been answered?
Yeah, my question has been answered. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. There's one more text question from Harsh C, an individual investor. I would like to understand the management's thought on reasons because of which the spot market outperforms time market over longer period. Is spot market better suited to be the vessel to marginal commodities traded, which usually balances demand and supply and hence have better pricing power?
A bit of a difficult question to know why it outperforms. It's just that, you know, in the spot market, because our business is driven by a multitude of events, and sometimes those events can take up the market up significantly. As you can see, you know, when the Russian War took place, you know, the freight rates changed 2, 3X. When you can have that kind of change in the underlying market, then, you know, when you are generally taking a time charter activity, they will be within a narrow band. If the market moves that dramatically, then you'll be caught short. Of course, you know, like, we can't say that every time that happens.
If you look at a longer period of time, when it does happen, because the markets move up that significantly, then over a longer period of time you see the spot outperform the time chartering market.
On a slightly more philosophical note, maybe because the person, who's fixing out on time charter is taking less, the charter is helping him to reduce his risk, maybe then that leads to slightly lower returns overall. We see that in very long-term charters. Now, whether it's true for one-year charters is a different matter. The spot market operator typically tends to be taking more risk.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Ms. Anjali Kumar for closing comments. Over to you.
Thank you everybody for joining in and for those very insightful questions- and- answers. As usual, the transcript of the both the audio and the text transcript will be there on our website very shortly. Thank you so much for joining us. For any future questions, please feel free to email to us and we'll be happy to answer them. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you. On behalf of The Great Eastern Shipping Company, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now exit the meeting.