Good day, welcome to the Euronav's second quarter 2023 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the Star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press Star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Gallagher. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning and afternoon to everyone, Thanks for joining Euronav's Q2 2023 earnings call. Before I start, I'd like to say a few words. The information discussed on this call is based on information as of today, Thursday, the 3rd of August 2023, and may contain forward-looking statements that may involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements reflect current views with respect to future events and financial performance, and may include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events, performance, underlying assumptions, and other statements which are not statements of historical facts.
All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or to persons acting on its behalf, are expressly qualified in their entirety by reference to the risks, uncertainties, and other factors discussed in the Company's filings with the SEC, which are available free of charge on SEC website at www.sec.gov, on our own company website at www.euronav.com. You should not place undue attention or reliance on forward-looking statements. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of the particular statement, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Please take a moment to read our safe harbor statements on page 2 of the slide presentation. I will now pass on to our Interim Chief Executive and CFO, Lieve Logghe, to start with the content slide on slide 3.
Lieve, over to you.
Thank you, Brian. Good morning or afternoon to wherever you are, and welcome to our call. I will run through the Q2 highlights and financials before passing back to Brian, our Head of Investor Relations and Communications, to provide some further wider market thoughts. I will return to summarize the outlook. The current year continues to confound tanker market convention. It would be more usual to be discussing Q2 in context, in context of seasonal slowdown in freight activity and refinery maintenance programs. However, the freight market for Q2 was very similar in outcome to Q1. This included a spike in rates towards the end of the quarter, reflecting a relative tight dynamic between supply of vessels and demand for crude movements. What these results also underline is the value of the Euronav platform and its striking ability to harness this market dynamic for the benefit of shareholders.
This was our best ever Q2 operating performance outside the COVID pandemic. I'll say a bit more about operating leverage in a minute. With a new supervisory board in place, a strong balance sheet, and good visibility on very positive medium-term fundamentals, Euronav investors stand to continue benefiting in dividend terms. A Q2 dividend of $0.80 per share reflects board's confidence in the Euronav platform and the strength of the current and upcoming tanker cycle. Turning now to the financials in more depth. This slide reflects the strength of the Euronav platform financially, operationally, and strategically. Operationally, the operational leverage is reflected in strong returns with a net profit at $161.8 million, similar to Q1 results. Finan cially, balance sheet leverage is at 47.5%.
The finance team has further boosted our liquidity with a new facility to $742 million. Last but not least, strategically, the Euronav platform continues to grow. During the first half, we have added three brand new VLCCs with maximum optionality to deal with the challenges of fueling tankers going forward. Last month, we took delivery of a new Suezmax and look forward to adding four more such vessels in the next 12 months, at the start of what we have consistently said over the past year, is what we believe to be a multi-year upcycle for the large crude tanker markets. With that, I will now pass it over to Brian to give some further thoughts on the current market cycle.
Thank you, Lieve. Tanker markets, as always, remain very dynamic. In our sense, also very constructive. Forecasts for oil demand have continued to grow consistently over the last 9-10 months. This is illustrated on slide 8. The IEA forecasts consistent upgrades to this number. This has supported tanker markets along with positive ton mile development. On the left-hand side, you can see the loadings west of Suez, and therefore heading to the Far East, have continued to grow at the expense of those coming in the other direction.
Put very simply, crude is traveling much further than it was previously, and that's helping to drive a higher demand for shipping, even if consumption and production are at sort of similar numbers. On slide now, slide 9, we now move to a project which we've been involved with over the recent months, and operationally will continue to be engaged with, off the Yemeni coast. The salvage of the FSO Safer off the Yemeni coast, is a critical mission that Euronav has provided a VLCC to the UN in order to take the excess 1.2 million barrels of oil away from this particular site. This careful exchange is currently ongoing, with Euronav continuing to provide operational support and staff to the wider salvage operation. We have been proud to be involved in this operation and hope it will conclude successfully in the coming weeks.
We now turn on slide 10, to an issue which continues to arise in the minds of oil market and tanker investors alike, Iran. On slide 10, we refer to the recent speculation that again resurfaced in May regarding Iran and a potential deal involving the nuclear talks and a return to a more normal oil market engagement for the country. We believe it is important to remind investors of the outsized effect this would have on the tanker markets, should this event occur either in partial or for total terms. As the chart on slide 10, on the left-hand side shows, Iran has ramped up production to a 5-year high at around 1.5 million barrels per day. Most of this production is being exported via the Dark Fleet.
If, and it remains a very big if, Iran were to return to the world economic order, and is permitted to export crude via commercial tonnage, this would imply around 1.5 million barrels per day of export opportunity that is currently denied commercial players like Euronav. This is likely to expand, as the right-hand side of the chart shows, as Iran has recently, as of 2017, been producing up to 3.5 million barrels per day of crude. Iran remains one of the few nations capable of expanding production relatively quickly. Whilst it remains a big if, the world is already consuming this Iranian oil. Any production uplift from here would increase the net supply for global consumption.
However, the shipping, the out, the effect is far larger, as this would benefit from the 1.5 million barrels per day currently being consumed that it cannot access, and any increase on this would also benefit tanker markets exponentially. Clearly, some of this shipping would come from Iran's own fleet, but Iran's return remains a potential seismic positive for tanker markets and should not be forgotten. With that, I will turn it back to Lieve for any summary, summary comments, and I'll focus on the traffic lights. Lieve, back to you.
Thanks, Brian. Q2 was the second best quarter for rates since 1990. In VLCC terms, it was the seventh best. This gives context to how well underpinned and strong our markets are. Demand continues to remain robust, supported by ton mile growth. OPEC cuts are beginning to gain traction, but the impact needs to be seen against stronger seasonal demand, which we expect from later this current quarter. We've made no change to our traffic lights, but anticipate a positive seasonal trading pattern to emerge for this winter. To sum up, the Euronav platform is in a robust shape. We are positioned for further growth and have a balance sheet to support further strategic opportunities as they arise. In the meantime, the platform is delivering returns to shareholders via dividends. All of this means that we can look to the future with confidence.
With that, Brian and I will be very happy to take your questions, so I'll hand it back to the operator for the Q&A.
Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from John Chappell from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning or good afternoon. Lieve, a first question for you. I'm sure the answer is, it's a board decision on a quarterly basis. However, noteworthy that the payout ratio moved up to 100% this quarter, not just within the context of your liquidity being so strong and the market being as robust as it is, but also within, with the new board members in tow. Should we read this into being a 1 quarter anomaly and we'll take it as it goes? Or is this maybe the view of the new board that given the market strength, the payout ratio could be above the 80% threshold?
Hi, John. Good to hear you. Good morning or good afternoon. Indeed a very good question. We don't know if, if it's a one-off, but the, the, the supervisory board clearly has made a decision based on our current LTV, which is 30%, and they don't see bad days coming. Based on that, the Q2 payout ratio was 100%. If this continues, it's something that we have to see and have a look at, indeed, in Q3. As you rightfully mentioned, in the past, it was an 80% payout ratio. To be looked at, what Q3 brings. Absolutely, it's like you say, it's a supervisory board decision. We propose, but it, it's in the end, supervisory board representing the shareholders who are taking the decisions.
There you have our dependent shareholders, but you also board members, but also your, our independent board members who are representing the minority shareholders. It's a common decision which is taken each quarter.
Mm-hmm. Okay, thank you. For my follow-up, Brian, as it relates to the back half outlook. These Saudi cuts, it seem, seems like they're finally biting from an output perspective, but maybe not so much on the tanker rates. How much of this is what's called substitution, as you laid out kind of on, on slide A? How much of it is more of the fact that just the demand is improving at a greater pace than, than people had expected, and there's probably a little bit of inventory build ahead of the winter in the Northern Hemisphere?
I think it's, it's both of those, John, but I think I fact, we'd factor in another situation, which is we felt there's been some buyers of the dark trade who've been warned off. There's been some sort of crackdown at moment, every now and then in China and in India, and that they've come out back into the commercial fleet, as it were. They're, they're buying barrels from a more conventional sources and being shipped both from commercial players like us. They were, they were not trading with us, obviously, and we, we've not been doing those trades anyway, obviously, as you know. Those, those buyers of the dark trade, I think, has been a third factor, which has offset that.
You've had ton miles and those two factors that you said, along with this sort of people jumping across the fence from the dark trade. I think it, that's, that's really negated almost the, all of the, the cuts that we've seen so far.
Hmm. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Lieve.
Thanks, John.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Amit Mehrotra from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, Lieve and Brian. This is Chris Robertson on for Amit. How are you doing?
Hi, Chris. Good to hear you.
Yeah, you as well. A question for either of you. This is just around the cash breakeven levels currently, for the company. If you could just walk through that.
Yes. So I'm the number cruncher here. So just the numbers to give you an, an, an insight and discretion. So our Suezmax cash break even for the time being, is $16,000 and VLCC, $19,000. So this is what we are currently having as a cash break even. The PNL break even was in the presentation, $18,000 Suezmaxes and $23,000 for, for VLCC.
Okay, great. Yeah, that's straightforward. Thank you. Brian, this might be a question for you. Over the past few days, we've heard from the, some of the product tanker companies talking about their aging fleet, especially as it relates to LR2s, and they've mentioned a few times about 15-year-old twos potentially going dirty and coming into the crude trade at some point. Just wanted to get your thoughts around that, and is there any worry from your end? I know you guys don't operate in the Aframax segment, but is there any worry on your end that that supply could be coming?
Not on duly. I think we've always had the strong view that we've never really understood the view that there'd be a lot of jumping between the two segments. Of course, it's quite costly and operationally, you still have an asterisk against your name when you do flip between the two sectors. It's always some of the product guys that talk about more than the crew guys. We don't really see any of that, and I still think the, whilst we, as you rightly say, we're not involved in the Aframax, you know, you've got this potential another leg of growth for Aframax coming from the Canadian export market with some of the pipelines potentially opening there on the Pacific Coast.
No, it's not something that keeps us awake at night, far from it. We've always felt that any, any switching between the products and the crude is, is reasonably marginal and reasonably specialized. The, and the trends are too great, really, that we're seeing to give us any sort of concern on that front.
All right. Got it. Yeah, thanks for that. I'll turn it over. Thank you.
Thanks, Chris.
The next question comes from Chris Tsung from Webber Research. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, Lieve and Brian. How are you?
Good, thanks.
Good. Thank you.
I wanted to just ask about your fleet renewal. You guys have a few 17-year-old plus V's and Suezmaxes. Like, how do you think about that, in, you know, in, in an era of, like, firming asset prices?
Here we, we continue on our strategy. Indeed, if there is an opportunity, we, we will grasp it and indeed continue the pathway we had previously. Indeed, selling and then taking opportunities for new builds to come in. For your information, you have read, we still have four to come on the water, Suezmaxes, after the Brugge, which has been delivered in July. We continue that strategy going forward, and if there are opportunities, we remain interested, and absolutely we'll propose this to our supervisory board.
Okay, fair enough. Just as my follow-up, I noticed the G&A fell significantly. Is that more of an outlier, or how should we think of it on, like, a runway going forward?
Oh, yeah, good question. Indeed, we touched upon it also last time. Our G&A is still a bit loaded with what we call corporate costs. In the first quarter, we still had those legal costs, which were kicking in, and also in Q2, we still have some extra load there. Indeed, it goes into the good direction. It's absolutely a very clear focus for us, to have that cost under control as much as possible. Good, good shot.
Okay. All right, fair enough. Thank you so much. That's it for me. I'll turn it over.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Chris Wetherbee from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys, this is Madeline for Chris. Thanks for taking my question.
... If we could just go over to the red light, green light chart, just thinking about the demand for crude, specifically as, you know, you think about the state of the global macro playing out. Just wanted to get your sense of the puts and takes, you know, about the remainder of 2023, regarding any incremental changes that you might see specific to China, you know, as they attempt to emerge from a little bit of a, you know, a, a weaker economic period. I know you noted in the past that China's a crucial swing factor. Just wanted to hear any thoughts there, as, as well as, you know, how, how Iran, Iran could play into the scenario.
Yeah, good question. I mean, I mean, there's three things on the China side, is that, clearly, from our perspective, we don't see the Chinese just buying from an economic GDP perspective. That's clearly a very important part of what they're doing. The second factor, which we think is not being, probably focused on, partly because it's very hard to get some numbers, is they continue to buy from our rationale from a strategic perspective. They're still, they're building reserves. The third element is, obviously there's a very strong chain of refinery expansion in that country, which needs the crude as a feedstock to be then, repatriated as diesel and other product back into the global markets.
There's a diversity to the Chinese angle, which we think gives it a certain amount of resilience. Again, your guess is as good as ours in terms of if they're gonna have a substantial slowdown from here. We're not seeing any entity of that, and we get a lot of confidence from those three factors. I think all of us, well, in the call from six months ago, are surprised how resilient the global GDP background has been. Again, that's been sort of reasonably well documented and has underpinned, and you've seen that in our presentation with the IEA upgrading almost consistently since November, and I've noticed a number of investment banks have upgraded this the last few weeks.
With regard to Iran, it's not something that we, we, we are sort of hanging our hats on. It was just it's just the fact that it's a story that refuses to go away. We were surprised than anyone a few weeks ago, and we saw it sort of being talked about. Of course, because it's a source of, of, of quite rapid production growth, potentially, and then that turning into exports, that it could happen. There could be some sort of a, a deal which would mean Iran would come back into, into the fold. I think it just We needed, we wanted to retest investors and commentators, to make sure that they're aware of, of, of how outside the impact would be on tanker markets.
It would have a much bigger impact on our market than it would on oil markets. Round trip, yeah, we, we feel that there's, there's, there are a number of resilient themes with regard to the outlook for, for crude demand, and that's been reflected short term in the, the pricing of, of crude, but also in particular, as we see from our specific market, you know, very good freight rates in what is traditionally a very, very quiet time of the year.
Fantastic. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. Then just following up on the Iran comment. You know, is there, is there sort of any type of timeline that, that you guys would be, you know, sort of eyeballing in terms of, you know, when that potential benefit could come online? Then, you know, how, how exactly would that translate for Euronav specifically?
No, no, we've got no timeline. I mean, I, I don't want anyone on the call to think we've got a hotline to Mr. Biden or anything. No, it's more to flag the potential change that could happen. It's obviously the fact that there are very relatively few sources that can be tapped to immediately increase the supply of oil. If it, you know, with the, with the war on, against inflation, that could become a very important sort of factor. In terms of timelines and backgrounds for that, no, there's, there's, there's no, no sense of when it would happen, how it would impact on, on Euronav and other commercial players in the quoted space like, like ourselves, is that you're opening up barrels which are currently not available to us.
If they're available to be shipped by Iran, sorry, if we're able to ship from Iran, then that, you know, that's 1.5 million barrels per day of potential market, which is completely boxed away from all of us on the commercial side at the moment. That's the reason to flag it. Look, it's a black swan, if you like, a positive one. One which we don't have any more, any greater visibility than anyone else. We felt it was worth flagging, given it had been a story which had sort of risen out of nowhere earlier on in Q2.
Ah, understood. Okay, thank you very much for the clarification. Very good.
Not at all.
I'll turn it over.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Omar Nokta from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi, good afternoon, Lieve and Brian. I just wanted to ask about, you know, how things are kind of operating from a, from a corporate standpoint. Clearly, from the results today, things look like they're running quite well. Just wanted to ask, you know, given all the changes that have been taking place, you know, with Hugo gone and the new supervisory board in place, have there been any changes in how the business at CMB.TECH is running day to day? Really, how involved is the new board with management's decision making?
Well, Omar, indeed, good afternoon. To tell you indeed, there, the focus of the current team remains very well on the strategy as always run in the past. This is at least very, very clear for everyone working at Euronav, also for our stakeholders in there. The new supervisory board currently gives us a positive dynamic. I think it's professional and, and contributive in the sense that the current or the new supervisory board is challenging us in terms of costs, fleet renewal, and for sure, they are wanting us to be the best compared to competition. This gives us a positive dynamic, making us very focused on the way forward. Hence, you saw the results, and saw them robust, and even beating expectations there.
From that perspective, I think it's very, a positive, a plus that we could mention here.
Okay, thanks, Lieve. That, that's good color, 'cause I, I was gonna ask just sort of strategically about, about where you see CMB.TECH heading. You, you, you obviously you mentioned the, the, the strategy and, and whether it's disposal of assets, looking at new buildings. I did wanna maybe ask, is there some kind of, is a restructuring of CMB.TECH a foregone conclusion, do you think? Or can the business sort of operate as it is, and is there perhaps maybe a strategic big picture that's gonna be announced here in the next, perhaps few quarters or few months, that says, "Okay, this is what CMB.TECH plans to do going forward.
here's our new strategy. Is there anything like that, that's on the horizon based off of your conversations, with the management team and the board? How would you kind of characterize where Euronav is strategically here in the coming, in the coming months?
Omar, seen from that perspective, and I can understand the question, because this is, I think, a lot of shareholders and stakeholders here having that question on the top of their mind. Here I can confirm to you that apparently currently there is absolutely no change in strategy. We run the vertical integrated platform, it's delivering, and this is where we continue our journey. In case I could imagine, if there is a change, we will be informed and everything will be announced directly to the market. For the time being, no changes. We continue, and we enjoy the current upcycle. This is where we're standing for, and I cannot say more here than the, than we continue the, the journey with the teams we have and the strategy which is in place.
No, that. Thanks, Lieve. No, that's helpful color. I just. I'm obviously very sensitive questions and sensitive dynamic-
Yeah.
overall, and just wanted to hear, yeah, how, how you viewed it. Thank you. I'll, I'll pass it over.
No, thank you, Omar.
The next question comes from Frode Mørkedal from Clarksons Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi, everyone,
Hi, Frode.
Could we discuss the... Yeah, thank you. Could we discuss the impact of Russian crude exports? You know, how are the cuts from August affecting the market, and what's your outlook for this situation going forward?
Hi, Frode, it's Brian here. Yeah, as we mentioned before, we've seen some evidence that there's been some, during Q2, buyers of what would previously been sort of dark trade or, or sanctioned trade, from Russia, and also India, who've jumped over into the commercial play, and engaged commercial tanker companies like ourselves, and taking some barrels from Shu- more likely from the Atlantic than anywhere else. There has been, as Jonathan said earlier, maybe a bit of a substitution effect. The, that preceded any sort of real cuts that we'd seen in, in production and exports from Russia. That's only sort of strengthening that trend. It's not a trade we're doing ourselves, obviously, as I'm sure you're aware.
Of course, with the pricing now with the crude underlying where it is against the Urals pricing, we think that pressure is gonna continue. I think what we would expect to see is that the dark fleet's gonna sort of have to sort of shoulder more, more exaggerated elements of that trade disappearing. Partly because they've been doing most of it themselves, but also partly because it's an inefficient trade. We think a lot of those players will just sort of park their ships for a period of time. We, we actually think there's gonna be a reasonably muted impact on the commercial players like ourselves for the time being, unless those cuts become very, very profound, and we don't really see that outlook either.
For the moment, we think it's going to be a relatively limited impact on us.
Okay. Are there any other reasons for the weaker Aframax and Suezmax rates you're seeing now? You know, how do you see that, those relative to VLCC? They used to trade with a premium to VLCCs, right? You know, they... Do you expect a comeback with a premium, or is that now behind us?
Over time, we would expect the, if you like, that, that longer term, as you say, or medium term, market, sort of structure and profile to return, where the VLCCs would be more leading. We felt the VLCCs has been, if like, fighting back as a, as a sub-sector. They've been more and more involved in the STS trades, ship-to-ship transfer trades, and taking some of that oil ultimately to China and into India. We would expect to see the fact that we're seeing very long-haul trades beginning to develop on a substitution basis from the Atlantic to the Far East, that that would reestablish itself. We're still gonna see pockets, as you mentioned before.
The Aframax still feels reasonably well positioned to us, with some new growth opportunities, in particular for, coming from Canada. The Suezmax will be somewhere in between. This isn't gonna be an instant sort of reestablishment of that orderly market. I think it's gonna take we think it's gonna take another 6-12 months before we see that. We're very comfortable in the view that the Vs will sort of reassert their preeminence, probably more likely in 2024.
Okay. Sounds good. Thank you.
Thanks, Frode.
The next question comes from Ben Nolan from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. I have a couple. The, the first is, I believe that there has been an expansion of Corpus just recently, an expansion of some of the Corpus Christi export capacity that enables greater loading for VLCCs.
which removes a little of the reverse lightering dynamic. Just trying to think through, Brian, if, if you guys have considered sort of what, how we should think about or how, how you think about the impact of, of that. Is it draw in more V's and thus help the, the market, or does the inefficiency of reverse lightering sort of offset that?
No, I think it's the same as before, Ben. In particular, from where we were, if we go back to the ancient times, the sort of 2017, 2018, when there was like an arms race between each of the locations down there, with Corpus Christi being one of the most prominent ones. We think it's sort of reestablishing itself now as a theme. I mean, we're consistently now in the high 4s, low 5 million barrels per day of US exports. So now we think it's gonna become a new growth mode. The good news for commercial sector and, in particular, in those quoted companies, is that, as you know, it's a reasonably focused market, and the players that can enjoy that, that market are those big commercial players like ourselves.
No, we feel, we feel that's a trend that's really beginning to re-reassert itself again, and as we know that the marginal export or marginal, sorry, production of U.S. crude is, is being exported. No, it's, it's a bit of a reheating, and we actually did a paper on this in one of our annual reports. I think it was in 2017. A lot of that was obviously taken away with COVID, but a lot of those things we wrote about then, we are, are relevant today again.
Hmm. Okay. Then, as it relates to the advisory board, I appreciate that, you know, A, there's some degree of just we'll see how it plays out. In thinking about the fleet and acknowledging that it's business as usual, Do you Is it fair to assume that in the near term, there's probably unlikely to be any material changes in the fleet mix between, other than the new buildings? You know, just you're, you're not really being active in buying or selling anything. Is that a fair assumption?
Ben, again, I have a bit to repeat myself. Our board members, and this is really a plus, have a strong understanding of our business. They have an interest in maximizing value for Euronav and all its investors, including themselves, for sure. Here we are confident that if we come with good files, good, good things, that there will be ears and eyes and a decision taken. From that perspective also, I only can reiterate what I'm saying, is that having the supervisory board currently, that if we come with good, good topics, they are absolutely supportive and will contribute to the net bottom line.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Thanks, Ben.
Thank you, Ben.
Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Thijs Berkhout from ABN AMRO - ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Congratulations with the beautiful performance, especially you, Lieven, showing well as interim or of interim CEO. Can you maybe give us a bit of an update on, on how we should look at the procedure of finding or appointing a new CEO, and whether you are part of that procedure?
Well, Thijs, thank you, first of all, good afternoon. Indeed, for your information, the interim position continues. Honestly, we don't ask the question or raise the question. We have now a bit of confidence because of the good results and thanks to the team. This isn't only me, but this is the full Euronav team. But for the time being, there is no urgency in one or the other direction. The team continues to be focused on the platform, delivering results for all shareholders. Seen from that perspective, there is no urgency. Let's see where it brings us. We need to give a bit of reasonable time to all stakeholders to settle in and see what comes. There is nothing on the horizon in one or the other direction, Thijs.
It, but it's not that, let's say, recruiters have been hired to find someone else or so?
Not that I'm aware of, eh? I think. Not that I'm aware of, Thijs. No.
Okay. A follow-up question on a potential change in strategies. Is it possible or happening already right now, that you propose vessel CapEx in other vessel classes than VLCC or Suezmax?
Thijs, to be, to be clear on this, eh, we are Suezmax VLCC, so there we have absolute expertise. You could imagine that if we go with files, that this will be primarily oriented towards Suezmax VLCCs. You never know that there is an interest in doing something else, but for the time being, we continue with our expertise, what we have with the teams, and which is very much focused on Suezmax and VLCCs.
Okay, very good. Have a good day.
Thank you, Thijs. You too.
The next question comes from Sharif El-Maghraby from BTIG. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about forward bookings. Almost half of Q3 has been fixed at about $45,000 for scrubber-fitted VLCCs. Can you remind us how much of your VLCC fleet has scrubbers? Is there a program to outfit the rest of the fleet over time?
Currently, ay, I, I see it as one Suezmax as well as VLCCs. We will have 20 scrubber-fitted vessels on a total of about 70. This is currently what we target. A good diversification, well balanced from that perspective. All our new builds having scrubbers, and we do indeed, for, for some VLCCs who are below 10 years old, we have done some retrofitting with the scrubber. In total, 20 on the total fleet for the time being.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Lieve Logghe for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Jason. Thank you to give me the opportunity to thank Brian and Inga, to stand by my side for this call. I would like to thank the whole CMB.TECH team for the quarter, which has been run very, very well and looking forward to what comes next. I would like to thank all the listeners to this call for this, for their interest in CMB.TECH. I think as a concluding remark or a conclusion, I can say the CMB.TECH platform is well positioned to continue its journey for all its shareholders and taking advantage of the upcycle. Wishing you all a very good day, and hear you next time. Thank you. Bye-bye.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.