Joining us to discuss MPC Container Ships second quarter earnings. This morning, we have issued a stock market announcement covering MPCC's second quarter results for the period ending June 30th, 2023. The press release, as well as the accompanying presentation for this conference call, are available on the investor section of our website. Please be advised that the material provided and our discussion today contain certain forward-looking statements and indicative figures. Actual results may differ materially from those stated or implied by forward-looking statements due to the risks and uncertainties associated with our business. Before we start with today's presentation, a few words from my side, reflecting on the second quarter of the year. We are pleased to present another solid performance and a strong second quarter financial result.
Our consistent positive performance, despite a gradual decline in the container market, is a testament to our robust backlog, successful chartering activity, and sustained good operational performance, owing to the unwavering dedication and great efforts from our entire team onshore, as well as the crews on board of our vessels. We continue to distribute dividends to our shareholders in line with our distribution policy. For the second quarter, the board declared a dividend of $0.15 per share, totaling roughly $66.6 million. This brings dividends paid year to date to $231 million, reflecting a dividend yield of 34% for the year so far. Our flexible balance sheet and agile operations and portfolio management has also enabled us to capitalize on attractive market opportunities. We will elaborate on that in the presentation.
Given the prevailing uncertainty in the container market outlook, our focus remains on maintaining proven capital allocation and enhancing long-term shareholder value, as we remain in an, what we think, ideal position to balance strategic and selective fleet optimization efforts with continued accretive shareholder returns. We will now guide you through a more detailed review of the second quarter, provide a market update, as well as a company outlook during today's presentation. On this note, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Moritz Fuhrmann, to run us through the first agenda point.
Thank you, Constantin. Now moving to some of the highlights in Q2 of 2023. We're very happy to deliver yet another strong financial quarter, characterized by high utilization of, of our fleet. The net profit came in at $101.5 million, and the board, as just mentioned, has declared another recurring dividend of $0.15. While we continue to deliver on our operational excellence, we have been quite busy on executing on a number of transactions, driving further our fleet optimization, while at the same time retaining a low leverage on balance sheets. As part of the fleet optimization, we have sold a number of older ships in the fleet, while being able to acquire a smaller fleet of five modern eco-deck vessels for what we believe is an attractive price.
In addition, we will continue to invest into the existing fleet through retrofits to enhance, to enhance the commercial profile of our vessels. Looking at the market, for the moment, the global macro picture remains somewhat unclear going forward. However, and despite the negative sentiments, box rate rates have seen an upward trend as of recently, where time charter rates have been more or less moving sideways since the last quarter and moving around above historical, historical leverage levels for the time being. Going forward, our revenue backlog stands at $1.2 billion as of 30th of June, with 94% of open days, of days fixed for 2023.
Based on the most recent portfolio optimization, and we will get to it later, we intend to revise our financial guidance for the full year to $675 million-$690 million in terms of revenue, and from an EBITDA perspective, to $490 million-$510 million. Moving to the next slide, looking at some of our KPIs. Again, gross revenues up from last quarter and year-over-year, reflecting the commercial settlement of AS Nadia, that has been recognized in the second quarter in the amount of $32.4 million.
The net profit is also reflecting a book loss of $18.4 million that is associated with the recent sale of the AS Emma, which will be delivered to the buyers and her new owners in November of this year. The adjusted net profit, which is also the basis for our recurring dividends, comes in at $87.7 million and is in line with last quarter, and again, the basis for declaring a dividend recurring of $0.15. Looking at the balance sheet, total assets are up from last quarter, primarily driven by newbuilding installment paid in relation to our four vessels on order in Korea and China, while at the same time, leverage ratio continues to go down and now stands at 13.3% as we continue to repay under our relatively steeper payment profile.
On the operational side of things, topics have slightly increased relative to the last quarter, which is essentially a function of shifting effects from the first quarter, but also some startup costs in relation to the acquisition of the five vessels, the modern vessels that we announced over the summer. Obviously, also happy to report that utilization is trending upwards since our fleet in Q2 has been commercially fully utilized. Looking at the commercial activities in a bit more detail. On the chartering side of things, we continue to fix our vessels at rates above historical levels, as well as decent durations. Just one example to mention is the AS Claudia, that we could fix for $16,000 for close to 12 months with a redelivery window of three months.
Notably, since our Q1 reporting, we have conducted two commercial settlements with the respective charter of AS Nadia, as just mentioned, but also, most recently, on the just acquired AS Anne. Both vessels will continue trading on their sub charters with MSC and CMA. Since the AS Anne settlement has always been conducted in July, it will be reflected in the Q1 figures. One additional comment to be made. On the most recent picture on the list, as you can see, AS Roberta is one of our smallest vessels in our portfolio, which has just been fixed on a very decent rate with, however, a relatively short duration. However, this was done in order to keep maximum commercial flexibility on this particular vessel.
On the S&P side, moving to the next slide, we have continued on our portfolio optimization path as we acquired five modern eco vessels at attractive prices, of which four vessels have already been phased into our fleet. The remaining five or the remainder of the five vessels is expected to join our fleet in August 2023. The acquired vessels, including AS Nina and AS Claudia, which have been phased into our fleet earlier this year, have an average age of 7.5 years, and hence enhancing the overall fleet age. At the same time, we will continue to invest into our existing fleet through retrofit measures that will improve the carbon footprint of those, of those respective ships. On the flip side, we have divested five vessels in total.
These were either owned in our joint venture structure or are considered non-strategic from an MPCC perspective, and the average age on those ships is actually more than 18 years. Consequently, we have achieved a net fleet growth from a TEU perspective, while adding significantly younger vessels to the fleet. Looking at the cash flow bridge, as you can see, quarter-on-quarter, our cash has gone down, now standing at a healthy level of $93 million. Main driver for the cash reduction was the takeover of AS Anne, the first Lomar ship that we have taken into our fleet on the 30th of June, which we acquired for a total consideration of $41.75 million, which was initially, I should say, initially fully funded all equity.
The respective tranche and the acquisition financing was only drawn after quarter end. As earlier mentioned, the settlement of the AS Anne in the amount of $20+ million was also only recognized after the quarter end. Looking at the next slide, especially our dividends, we continue on our path to return substantial capital to our shareholders, as the board has declared yet another recurring dividend of $0.15, or talking in nominal numbers, $66.6 million. That brings us to a total number since Q4 2021 of $670 million in a combination of recurring dividends, but also event-driven dividends.
As we are, as we are entering a market phase, which is probably characterized by somewhat uncertainty for the time being, the board has decided not to distribute further event-driven dividends. However, this is obviously not affecting our recurring dividends, which are driven by operational performance. If we, if we look on a year-to-date basis in terms of capital distributed, and assuming you were, you were acquiring the stock in January 2023, you would have already achieved a compelling dividend yield of 30%-34%, and the same for investing into stock in early 2022, you would have achieved a very compelling dividend yield of 60%. I mean, needless to say, going forward, we will continue, and it's our clear intention to continue with the return of capital to shareholders.
On that note, I'm handing over to Constantin, who is giving a little update on the markets.
Thank you, Moritz. I would now like to continue with a brief market update, so please turn to slide 10. Looking at the global economy with high inflation and high interest rates, it is certainly more difficult to take a positive view in the short term, despite the IMF describing the global economy as robust and slowly recovering. In general, growth prospects are polarized between developed countries with a slightly weaker growth outlook, and emerging market or developing countries with a stronger growth outlook, which obviously will have an impact on also on containerized trade. However, on a macro level, GDP growth forecasts have recently been slightly upgraded. The IMF's latest outlook in July has now foresee 3% growth for 2023.
Some of the key parameters are not too negative. Continue with some observations from the container freight market. Here you can see that on the left-hand side on this, on this chart, the graph on this slide shows the key indicators for the ocean freight, namely the freight index or freight rate index and the annual world seaborne container trade volumes as the red line. Looking at current freight rates, one can observe that just recently, spot freight rates have risen during the last couple of weeks on the back of general rate increases, most pronounced on the Transpacific. The increase also starts to be reflected in the CCFI, which is the dark blue graph that we have illustrated here.
Since August, the freight rate index has increased by, by around 1.5%. Looking ahead, obviously, is always a very challenging exercise. Some of the market research, experts expect spot rates, for the three main lane trades to bottom out, over the next couple of quarters, reaching pre-COVID levels, before starting to rise again towards the end of next year, or early 2025. Having said that, it's always very difficult to predict, obviously, rates and volumes going forward, but that is at least, the expectation. We share the view that, over the next couple of quarters, certainly on the freight side, we will see, a bit more choppy waters.
In terms of liner profitability, which is obviously a very important ingredient for, for our very own analysis, because those are our customers, average freight rates have come down for, for basically all carriers. On a global level, volumes seem to be increasing again, and operating margins, whilst down from, from the, the very highs of, of last year, we are still well above pre-COVID levels. We will probably see one of the two or three most profitable years for, for, for the liner industry. That's just to sum up the freight market. If we then turn to page 11, please. We are now looking at both the S&P market as well as the charter market dynamics in a bit more detail, both in terms of rates, periods, and values.
Looking at the chart on the left-hand side, it becomes apparent that S&P prices and charter rates have also come down, quite significantly from the historic highs of last year. Looking at Q2 in particular, it is fair to say that the quarter has started quite promising, with time charter rates slowly and steadily increasing across all sizes and segments, and charter periods also starting to increase again. The availability was, and still is tight. However, the picture has changed, over the last couple of weeks with a bit more volatility in the market, both when it comes to rates and periods. The HARPEX as a good indicator, is basically down by around 9% in mid-August from the end of June levels, illustrating a slightly softer market over the last couple of weeks.
Charter durations have decreased as of late, as also for the 1,000-5,000 TEU container segment, the segment in which we are mainly involved. We're currently looking at somewhere eight to nine months on average, versus 11-12 months in April, May. Second-hand prices, the market has shown continued strong interest. We have seen almost 180 deals closed in 2023 so far, versus around 280 in the full year of last year. There's still quite some activity. Secondhand prices stayed relatively stable at elevated price levels over the last couple of months, but a decline in line with the volatility in the charter market can be expected going forward.
Looking at the idle fleet as a key indicator as well, it's still at historically low levels. We are currently at an idle fleet of around 1% in terms of TEU, compared to the total fleet at of, as of end of July. That compares with 3.3% back in February 2023. We are in a fairly good state when you look at the overall idle fleet. On the right-hand side here on this chart, you can see the availability of charter vessels since 2020 and to 2023 forecast, including a rough estimate for 2024 as an indication only. As you can see, vessel availability in the market is reduced compared to historical averages.
Yet, we expect more vessels being available to the charter market, as we have seen shorter charter fixtures being concluded as of late. We expect a higher number going into 2024. Overall, or summing up kind of the, the charter and S&P market, during the first half of 2023, we have observed a bit of a up and down in the charter market. The market at this stage is somehow lacking a very clear direction. Having said that, charter rates are still well above historic average levels, yielding positive cash flows across all sizes in the container market. Let me continue with slide 12 and some demand and supply dynamics. We have taken a bit of a closer look here.
On the left-hand side, you can see the supply and demand dynamics for the, for the total market, and on the right-hand side, we have looked at it through the intra-regional lens, by looking at the supply growth up to 5,000 TEU, as well as the demand growth for intra-regional TEU throughput. It's worth noting that both graphs, whilst they include, you know, net fleet growth, accounting for delivery, slippage, and, and scrapping or scrapping assumptions, they do not account for any other wild card factors or special factors influencing supply, such as slow steaming, yard capacity utilization, or adjustment of trade rotations or cascading. Nor do they cater for certain demand dynamics, triggered obviously by geopolitical and macroeconomic impact factors.
Hence, the supply demand pictures shown above could potentially be distorted depending on multiple wild card factors. Having said that, there's no clear line in the sand between the total market and the intra-regional market. However, there's certainly a different driver. At the aggregated level, as you can see on the left-hand side, excess supply must be expected at least until, you know, early 2025. That is the expectation of the market. Again, taking or not taking into consideration wild card aspect. If you look at the more intra-regional with the more intra-regional lens, we can see that, you know, demand forecast is expected to outperform supply growth on intra-regional trades over the next couple of years. Due to, amongst others, the relatively strong demand growth expected.
Having said that, obviously, those markets are somewhat interlinked, and we will see some degree of cascading, and it doesn't mean, you know, one market, the bigger market is, is not performing once the, the, the smaller market is performing. One has to look at it in a bit more nuanced way, that those markets obviously work in tandem. We'll drill a bit deeper now on the next slide, which is slide 13. Looking at specific supply dynamics, and the order book, as well as the current yard situation. We have included the analysis of the age profile of the segments as well.
On the left-hand side here, you can see, left part of the left chart, TEU on the water, by age, and by size from top to bottom. The largest ships at the top with a way younger fleet profile than the slightly smaller vessels by virtue of history, basically. On the right-hand side, on, on this chart, or right side of this chart, you can see the order book, including the deliveries ranging from 2023, 2024 to 2025. Overall, order book is sizable, with around 30% of orderbook-to-fleet ratio. However, and that becomes transparent in this chart, the order book is geared towards the very large vessels.
Limited scrapping potential for larger vessels is expected as most units above 12,000 TEU have only been built from 2010, 2012 onwards. In the smaller sizes, it is a different picture. The order book is less pronounced, whilst the age profile is, or the fleet is way older. As an example, more than 1,000 vessels below 3,000 TEU are about 20 years of age, illustrating a replacement need. At least from, from our assessment, we believe that in the smaller size segment, the order book is not sufficient to replace the aging tonnage over the next five to 10 years. That doesn't mean that we will see a great or perfect market over the next two years, but certainly structurally, we believe this is a very interesting development.
In addition, we think there is quite a scrapping potential of vessels around 1,000 TEU and below, as these vessels will find it a bit more challenging to comply with new regulations in the long term. The whole retrofit investment case appears less promising, and that's why we expect to see quite a bit of recycling in the very, very small sizes. On the right-hand side, you can see global shipyard capacity that is basically maxed out into 2026. I mean, if you want to order a ship now, you can be very, very lucky and maybe get one or one slot still in 2025. However, that window is closing as well.
Adding to the picture that I've just explained in terms of the order book, especially in the smaller sizes, we see also the, the yard capacity, being a constraining factor when looking at, further, new orders going forward. Let me wrap up the, the market section, with a bit of a summary. On the left-hand side, you see a graphic that we have used in the past. Basically, on the Y-axis, we have, in %, the orderbook-to-fleet ratio for, illustrated. And on the X-axis, we have the % of the fleet on the water in the specific segments being above 20 years of age.
As an example, the 12,000-17,000 TEU segment, you basically have zero vessels above 20 years of age. You have 70% order book compared to the fleet on the water. The more you move towards the bottom right, you can see that. Basically, resulting from some of the assessments that I have alluded to on the previous slide, you can see that in the smaller sizes, we have a significantly older fleet, whilst we have a significantly enhance higher replacement needs, whilst we have a significantly lower orderbook-to-fleet ratio. As such, combined with the demand outlook for intra-regional trade, we believe we are still in the right spot, in the right, let's say, segment, sub-segment in container shipping.
We believe that structurally, this is a very attractive field to be in. Going forward, I will not read out all the wild card factors, but just to name a few, there are a number of considerations to be made when looking at the future. We have seen also when looking at our very own fleet, that regulation has led to slower speeds. We've probably, you know, been roughly 1 knot down in speeds from end of last year. There is a meaningful reduction in speeds, having effect on capacity. We have-- we're also seeing certain shifts in trading pattern, increasing to mild demand, in particular Southeast Asian countries, but also Mexico, Turkey, and new trade lanes being opened.
Of course, we also see a good demand shift in intra-regional trade as people want to diversify their supply chain from the, the previous bottleneck that they have experienced, in particular during the COVID crisis in China. On that note, I would like to now move back to the market update, sorry, from the market update to the company outlook. Please turn to the next page, and I would like to hand back to Moritz, who will further present some details on the outlook for MPCC.
Looking ahead, our backlog in terms of revenue and EBITDA remains robust. Revenue backlog currently stands at $1.2 billion, with the contracted EBITDA projected at 0.9 %, $0.9 billion. As you can see, the remainder of 2023 is almost fully fixed, with almost 6% of open days. However, also going forward into 2024, we have a decent coverage at around $30,500 per day, with close to 60% of days already covered. In connection with the backlog, and looking at our counterparties, and looking at the resilience and credibility of our backlog, 85% is covered by the top 10 liner companies, as well as cargo box operators.
While at the same time, the average duration currently stands at 1.8 years, giving us a fairly good visibility on our cash flows. Just reiterating what we have said before, liner companies are in, in very good shape these days, especially relative to a decade ago, with strong balance sheets and net, net debt free positions. Hence, we feel relatively comfortable with our backlog despite the softening in the market since the peak levels seen in, in, in 2022. Looking at some of our positions in 2023 and 2024 in more detail. For the remainder of 2023, we only have 10 open positions, whereas in 2024 we will have 35 open positions.
In 2024, the exposure is evenly distributed across below 2,000 TEU ships and 2,000-3,000 TEU vessels, allowing for both size but also geographical diversification. Looking ahead, also spending some time on, on MPCC, we continue to believe that MPCC remains an attractive value proposition. First of all, the current enterprise value is fully covered by the contracted backlog, completely disregarding any steel value of the fleet, which is currently valued at around $1 billion, based on the most recent charter-free valuation.
Second of all, when sensitizing open days going forward, on the right hand, on the right-hand side of the slide, going forward, into 2024, but also 2025, using historical average rates as well as current market levels, we would still show attractive double-digit dividend yields on the basis of our recurring dividend policy. However, historically, we have also proven right timing when it comes to the S&P market activity. On that note, I'm handing back to Constantin, running us through the history, but also most recent transactions.
Thank you, Moritz. I would like to continue on, on slide 20, in order to put some of the measures taken in Q2 2023, as alluded to by Moritz, and also some of the strategic measures over the past quarters into context in terms of MPCC's overall strategy. For a ship-owning company, value can be generated by entering the market at the right price levels, certainly also by executing the right chartering and portfolio strategy in different times of the cycle. We have illustrated here on slide 20, and let me explain the graph. The gray line is basically the S&P, or secondhand index, over time. The green line is the newbuilding price index.
Then you can see at the very bottom on the x-axis, the columns represent. The blue columns represent vessel acquisitions, and the red columns represent vessel sales in terms of number of ships. At the same time, the circles represent. The blue circles represent acquisitions, the red circles represent divestment, and the green circles represent investment in new buildings and, or eco vessels. What you can see that, over time, it is important and to kind of do the right thing at the right point of the cycle.
From my point of view, it's, it's really about being disciplined in allocating the capital, including returning capital to investors at the right point of the cycle, but at the same time, also achieving a long-term value proposition for the company and its shareholders. The initial phase, certainly until 2020, was, was more the growth phase, where we have deployed a lot of capital, and since, you know, Q3, Q4, 2021, we have entered into a phase where we have slightly adjusted our capital allocation priorities towards returning capital to investors, but, not without, you know, constantly optimizing our portfolio. Moritz gave some examples of those measures earlier.
Over the last couple of years, we have acquired 88 vessels for around $1 billion, so roughly $10 million-$12 million per vessel, and we have sold around 26 vessels for around $500 million, or around $20 million per vessel. Recently, we have focused on divesting slightly older, less efficient vessels, and investing firstly in our existing fleet by upgrading certain vessels, and that will continue for the next couple of quarters in any event, but also to acquire eco vessels that we believe will receive premium earnings going forward. Let me illustrate that in a bit more detail on slide 21, which is kind of zooming in on the execution of our portfolio measures and, you know, capital allocation strategy over the last couple of quarters.
We have shown, different examples from, you know, relating to the fleet, to distributions, and also to leverage. On the left hand, or the left part of the graph is basically Q3 2021. The beginning of our fleet optimization and, and distribution phase. We have started with 66 ships. We have, in the meantime, replaced certain ships, bought new ships, sold ships, and have now increased the overall fleet size to 69 ships, of which nine are eco or newbuilding vessels. We have been able to optimize towards a more modern, younger, and more fuel-efficient vessels.
At the same time, we have commenced with our-- with the implementation of our distribution policy, so we have dividended out over the last roughly 18 months, $670 million in dividends, underscoring our commitment to returning capital to investors. From a debt standpoint, we have also optimized the balance sheet coming from debt outstanding in Q3 2021, $350 million. On a pro forma basis, and pro forma means assuming the takeover of the eco fleet that we announced to have acquired in, in, in June. A pro forma debt basis, starting from end of Q2, adding the additional leverage, we would be at a $256 million at debt outstanding.
We would-- that would translate also into 21 unencumbered vessels, as well as a leverage ratio pro- on a pro forma basis of 25%. Overall, we have been able to improve the quality and the number of our vessels, still distribute out the significant dividends over the years or over the last quarters, and will continue to do so. Thirdly, we have further optimized our balance sheet for the years and quarters ahead. Let me, let me wrap up the presentation and hopefully enter into a discussion with everyone. We are very happy with this quarter. We have had a very solid operational and financial performance.
We will continue our path, that is a combination of, you know, optimizing our fleet, operating on a low leverage, and at the same time, optimizing the fleet, whilst obviously keeping a very close eye on demand and supply. Going forward, we would be a bit more selective on growth, on acquisitions. You would probably rather see us on the selling side, selectively on a few assets. We believe, maybe not in the next three to 12 months, but in the next, you know, two to three to five years, we see a structurally very attractive dynamics in the intra-regional trade when it comes to supply and demand.
That basically, with a very solid backlog, as Moritz has explained, high visibility on earnings in 2024, we see ourselves very, very well positioned going into the future, and we are excited about the quarters ahead and to continue to return capital to investors. On that note, I'm happy to hand back to the operator, in order to take questions through the line or through the web.
Thank you so much, dear participants. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question over the phone, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Alternatively, you can submit your questions via the webcast. Please stand by, we'll, we'll compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now, we're going to take our first question over the phone. Just give us a moment. The question comes from line of Frode Mørkedal from Clarksons Securities. Your line is open, please ask your question.
Thank you. Hi, guys.
Hi, Frode. Hey, how are you?
Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on that slide you had. I think you called it 20, but it's 19, I think. Anyway, it's the cyclical chart. Right, it's about capital allocation going forward, right? MPCC have been clearly been through an impressive growth phase, right? You acquired the initial fleet that Lomar went to recycle. I remember the whole equity story was about, you know, asset values closing the gap to new build parity, and then the market obviously took off, and you basically were able to build up this huge backlog, and it's been all about harvesting and dividend out that, since that time. Right, now, of course, the cycle is turning lower. How, how do you see this going forward?
You know, it, I sense that you are more about growth going forward. Obviously, you still have a backlog that's been divvied out, but it seems like you favored growth again. Is that correct?
Oh, I would actually, it, we would be selective on growth. I would say the direction of the market. We have, we have done a strategic acquisition with the Lomar fleet, a, a deal that, that we think is, is extremely attractive. We could basically, you know, we, we have agreed on a settlement on part of the charters for, for one of the vessels, and, and we could basically sell the fleet today at a, at, at a premium. So that has been a strategic move into what we felt was a very attractive package of, of vessels. At the same time, we have also sold a number of ships. I think, you know, we are now in a phase where, where one should consider both, right?
Sales, optimizing the portfolio by way of sales and potential purchases. On purchases, I would be a bit more cautious at this stage, unless it's, you know, a really attractive strategic acquisition. We would rather want to kind of optimize the portfolio, but also possibly divesting a few more ships. It's not, certainly not all about growth, it's about disciplined growth. It's about the being disciplined about the portfolio. I think over the last couple of years, we have shown that it's not necessarily, you know, going one way or the other, i.e., only being a seller, only being a buyer, but rather trying to optimize the fleet in a way that is long-term supportive to our distribution policy.
Sure. Understood. On that note, how, how much weight do you put on, like, a countercyclical approach in terms of investments? You just said that you don't see, i t's not the right time at the moment, but at some point, maybe, it, it is, right? And how, how important is, is it to make acquisition accretive, right? Obviously, that would need a charter attached in this period or at this point, I guess. How do you balance that then?
Yes. I mean, currently, you know, the market is trending. I mean, maybe not quarter on quarter, but I would say over the last, you know, nine to 12 months, is, is certainly becoming a bit softer. At the moment, you know, if, if you, if you look at vessels with charter attached, you basically pay the cash flow. We, we don't think that that is necessarily the right thing to deploy capital at this stage. Having said that, I do expect that the market next year will be a bit more choppy, choppy waters, and we might see opportunities buying ships at lower prices next year.
To just price or to just buy a vessel at today's face value pricing is something that we would, we would rather not do. Again, if, if there's a special feature like, you know, an eco-fleet that we believe will, will pay off over time, it's definitely something to consider. But we would want to be disciplined in deploying capital in a market that somewhat lacks direction and still is certainly in terms of asset prices, but also in terms of charter rates above historical averages. We would want to be disciplined, but at the same time, we also want to renew the fleet as we have done. It, it's really a bit of a, you know, optimizing the fleet step by step and not rushing anything at this stage.
We should, on the acquisition side, wait and see. Certainly the, the out of 2023 and going into 2024 brings.
Okay. Next question I have is on the integrity of the backlog, charter backlog. Obviously-
Mm-hmm.
There's been a few redeliveries, but you got full-
Mm-hmm.
backlog paid up on front, right? How, how do you, have you been approached by liner companies yet, or, or do you anticipate them to come and ask for a renegotiation at some point, or?
No, not, not really. Not really. I mean, we, we have the, the, the, the charters that we, that we kind of agreed on a commercial settlement is, is, has been very unique constellations with a, with a cargo back charter, right? I'm unable to disclose the, all, all the details and all the names, obviously. Those commercial settlements, in our view, have been extremely attractive, for us, because we have been able to recharter the vessels. Some actually were sublet already. The vessels were continuously deployed in the market, and we were able to bring forward some cash flow. That was a, a very unique constellation, a very unique constellation when it comes to the charter and the contract.
Other than that, we have not had any talks with anyone about adjusting any charters. Having said that, you know, and, and Moritz alluded to that, the, our counterparties are still, you know, while the market has come down for liner companies, we'll probably still see the second best year in history for liner shipping companies. At least for most of them. I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be negative. I mean, our counterparties are all net cash, and I don't see on what basis rates should be renegotiated. In addition, you know, our charter backlog has on average 1.8 years in remaining duration left, and that with most counterparties that are still net cash.
Great. That's good to hear. Just a final question, if you may, on the market. How, how do you see the impact of cascading, let's say, from old Panamax coming into the feeder market? Are there any restrictions, physical restriction, I guess, like water depth, et cetera, that might preclude cascading hitting the feeder segment?
I mean, cascading is always happening, right? I mean, it has always happened. It, it will always happen, I'm not saying there's no, no cascading. Having said that, if you look at the intra-regional market as such, the Baby Panamax vessels or the Panamax vessels that have moved into those trades have rather taken away incremental growth than pushing out kind of vessels in the, in the smaller sizes. Overall, you know, in the intra-regional trades, 98% of the vessels deployed are below 5,000 TEU. We're actually seeing and continue to see growth in, in intra-regional trade.
The only time over the last years where we have seen stronger growth in the mainland trades have actually been, you know, basically post-COVID, when we saw all the catch-up effects on the mainland trades and the significant consumption figures in an export into the U.S. We see intra-regional trade being pretty healthy in terms of growth rates. That's why, you know. Well, there might be a bit of cascading, reshuffling of trade, but don't forget that, you know, in order to maintain the same schedule, and we're talking container shipping, it's logistics. It's not commodity shipping like tankers and dry, where you go point to point.
Here you have a basically a bus service, the customers of our customers want to have their goods on time, on a, let's say, twice a week, departure at Shanghai or, or the like, right? You really need to maintain the same schedule, you cannot simply upsize every single trade. It's not going to happen. You need to have also or consider a port turnaround times, for example. You have longer port turnaround times with larger ships. To replace a trade for a 2,800 TEU ship with a baby Panamax is possible, but then you would usually have to add a port here, there, or have to take out a port. It does not necessarily mean that you will see less demand for smaller vessels.
Yes, cascading is happening. Am I extremely concerned for smaller vessels? Not really. I would probably argue that, you know, vessels below 1,000 TEU, and there are quite a few of them, they have a different, commercial trend when it comes to, for example, retrofitting and keeping those vessels compliant with new regulations over the next three, five, eight years. I expect a bit, a bit more scrapping in the, the very small sizes, but I don't see cascading being a game changer here, over the next couple of quarters.
Great. That's a good color. Thank you.
Thanks, Frode. Take care.
Thank you. The speakers are done for the questions over the phone. I would now like to hand over to our management team for any written questions.
All right. Let's have a look at the questions here, and I will start, and Moritz will then take over a few. There's a question from Jakob Vallant regarding market outlook. I would say question ranging around the uncertainty and whether or not we expect headache for the next year with a huge surplus of ships. Well, obviously, and we, we alluded to that in the presentation, there are certain, there are certainly a significant order book that will come into the market over the next 12, 24 months. That is something that will, that will lead certainly to a shifting in, in, in certain trades.
I, I would think we might see a bit more choppy waters next year, when you look at the, the overall market. Maybe also going into early 2025. Having said that, and I, I mentioned that when I went through the order book and the yard capacity, and certainly the age profile, I think in the smaller segment, we, we have a slightly different dynamic when it also comes to, to scrapping, and to, to the need to replace the existing tonnage. Do I expect choppy waters over the next couple of quarters? Probably, yes. Am I concerned about that? Not at all.
Firstly, we have a very solid backlog, and secondly, that might be a market to follow this question earlier, where it could again, be interesting also to deploy capital and buy ships anticyclical at a low market. So that's the first question here through the web. There is another question here from Frode Mørkedal, relating to the webcast that we hosted on June 18th, regarding the portfolio measures. That was an extraordinary webcast, where we alluded to the acquisition of five modern, of the five modern eco ship designs. Missed that, he missed that call. Is it possible to hear the webcast now? Now, it's not possible. I mean, we made some points with regards to those ships.
I think as a rule of thumb, these ships are probably 30% more efficient than conventional propulsion ships. We believe that going forward, they will earn a premium. We see a very high interest from liner companies for those eco-design vessels. We want to continue to selectively renew the fleet and optimize the fleet, as we believe that that will pay off and, and basically support a sustainable dividend capacity for MPCC going forward. That's with regards to the announcement in June 18th, and if you have further follow-up questions for the, there is a presentation on the web that sets out all the dynamics of these transactions.
There is another question related to that from Frode Mørkedal, with regards to the proceeds, for example, from the settlement of AS Nadia and AS Anne, and vessel sales, what can be expected? He is raising extraordinary debt repayment or potential share buybacks or event-driven distributions. As Moritz has mentioned during the presentation, we would at this stage, also in light of the high interest costs, we would allocate some of the capital or large part of the capital also to reduce debt and save interest costs. We have two revolvers that we intend to repay, leaving us with the ability to redraw those revolvers, but that would probably be the first priority in terms of use of proceeds out of those sales.
That doesn't mean we would not use proceeds from the sale for potentially event-driven distributions going forward, for the time being, we would want to make use of this by reducing our existing revolvers. There is a question, last question from Frode Mørkedal, then I would... Well, he's asking about the difference between the eco-design and features like scrubbers. Well, eco-design, as I said, is 30% more efficient, scrubbers is just a way to comply with certain regulation and being able to burn a different fuel type, which is slightly less costly. There is a significant benefit.
There's a U.S. dollar per day benefit for our customers, depending on, obviously, the consumption and the fuel price, but we clearly see eco-designs being favored by our customers going forward. There's a question about the contract with Pasha Hawaii. I alluded to that. We felt that that is a very attractive way to bring forward cash flow and to reach out to the vessel at good terms. That vessel is the AS Anne, is currently on charter with CMA. We believe that there will be continued interest for these eco vessels. There is a question by Norbert Schmidt. Congratulations on the outstanding results. Do you consider to engage in the bulker market, as announced it recently? Thank you. No, we will not.
We will continue to operate in the market that we know, in the market that we have successfully managed to establish and build the company and operate the company, and generate significant shareholder returns, and that is in the container market focused on the intra-regional segment. We will continue to walk the talk as we have done since day one of MPC Container Ships, continue to stick to our recurring distribution, and continue to operate container vessels and not bulkers. There is many, Moritz, you want to take the next one?
Yep. We have a question from Garth Tulo. Investors must be prepared to lower their expectations in the future with regards to dividend yield. When do you think we will experience a significant drop in dividend yield? Will it be from 2024 or later? I mean, that, that question obviously goes hand in hand with the future market development. Since the vessel is rolling open, we will fix at the prevailing market rate. Sitting here right now, it's impossible for us to predict exactly what the market will be. What is clear, the rates that we see now, but we also have an expectation going forward, will certainly below the rate that we have been able to fix in 2021, 2022, and maybe also 2023.
Those, those levels have obviously been unseen before, and we don't expect to be coming back anytime soon. Yes, the answer to the question is, we will, we will experience a drop in dividend yields. However, I believe a dividend yield year to date of the +30% and not taking into account the potential dividend for Q, for Q3 being paid in Q4, but also going forward, as you could see in the analysis that we have in the earnings call back, you know, running some potential sensitivities on open days, we're still showing a very, very healthy double-digit dividend yields, which I think speaks for itself and is quite compelling from an investor perspective. Next question is from Fredrik Platou.
Would you please be able to guide on dry docking CapEx for full year 2023 and full year 2024? For the remainder of 2023, we are calculating with dry docking CapEx of between $5 million and $7 million. Not much left. The number for 2024 is relatively high, given the number of dry dockings that are coming up next year. We are budgeting with a number of around $60 million overall for 2024. The next question is from Trond Fidje. What was the rationale behind the divestment of Emma, given the fact that this divestment has been recognized as a loss in Q2, and this ship is rather young compared to fleet average?
I think we, I think we have mentioned before that, from an MPCC perspective, this particular ship design, the Panamax, is, is not considered, a core asset. That was one of the, one of the reasons why we have decided for divestment despite the book loss. In terms of, the book loss itself, it's, it's, it's a rather unique situation, given, the Emma was part of the former Songa transaction, where the vessel was acquired by a combination of cash and shares. There has been a, a period where the, the market cap of MPCC during this transaction went up, eventually leading to a relatively high book value, of this vessel, and now resulting in a book loss of $18.4 million.
Needless to say that this is non, non-cash effective, and as you can see, we have normalized this event out of the dividend calculation, so it's not impacting investors from, from a, from a dividend perspective.
I'm happy to take over the next one. There's a question by Anders Gedde with regards to a fixture for us, Roberta. Roberta was fixed to $10,500 today for a short duration, 1.5-1.8 months. Is the hope for an increase in the rate in one to two months time? Can you give some more information on MPCC decision on this charter? First of all, you know, you have seen in, in, in our presentation that we have also fixed quite a number of vessels for 12 months plus just recently. I think it is fair to say that a fixture that is shorter is, can be related to market circumstances, but also can be a strategic decision, possibly to keep the optionality to also sell the vessel at some stage.
Especially shorter fixtures have always to be seen in that context, without obviously us talking openly about selling ship A, B, or C. You can rest assured that in case of AS Roberta, that was also linked to a strategic decision to keep the charter short in this market environment. There's certainly potential to also get longer charters for similar vessels in today's market environment.
Next question is from Peter. The orderbook-to-fleet ratio looks okay for feeders compared to bigger ships, but if you look at absolute numbers, is it not true that 23 and 24 is at all time highs regarding new builds in the feeder segment as well? Well, if, if we look at the, at the nominal numbers in the up to 2,000 TEU bracket, 2,000-3,000 TEU, but also 3,000-6,000 TEU, and draw a comparison between right now and, and what has been the order book from a nominal perspective, pre-Lehman Brothers in 2006 and 2007, it's fair to say that the order book at that time was almost twice as, twice as much as the current order book from a feeder perspective.
The answer to the question is that right now, we're both from a relative perspective, but also, also from an absolute perspective, we're looking at a significantly lower order book relative to the years before the Lehman crash.
There's the next question by Palmer Zhang on EEXI, whether EEXI is getting stricter per year and by how much? No, EEXI is not getting stricter. That is a design measure that is being applied. That is already in effect, and the vessels have to comply throughout this year. That is not getting stricter. What is getting stricter is the so-called CII. The second part of this question is, in general, is the engine power limitation having an effect of the sailing speed, or is there a headroom between the current sailing speed and the maximum speed? Smaller vessels, you know, previously have been designed to run fast. Quite a large chunk of our existing vessels have a design speed above 22 knots.
There has been headroom because they have usually not operated at 22 knots, so there has been a headroom between current sailing speed. On average, our fleet currently runs between 13.5 and 14 knots. Some run as hard as 18, and others run as low as 12. We're somewhere in that vicinity, and very limited implications from the EEXI in itself on trading pattern. At this stage, the CII is different, but that we will see how that plays out over the next couple of quarters and years. There are a number of questions around the Panama Canal, and whether or not that, that will affect the charter market.
I mean, first of all, I think just to put the Panama Canal into perspective, about $170 billion in cargo volume passes through the Panama Canal, which is, which is 40% of the U.S. container traffic. It's a, it's a very relevant part of the containerized network, obviously. Usually, you know, the draft, in normal conditions, draft, is, is probably 15.2 m. Currently, the draft restrictions in locks is 13.4 m, which is significant and, and reflecting obviously of the, of the conditions currently locally. The, the transit days per day, or the vessels transiting per day is, is limited to roughly 30-32 vessels at the moment, which is usually more high 30s, so 36 or 38 possibly.
As of, as of today, more than 100 ships are still queuing up. No easing is observable, and the canal authorities have just recently extended the limitations due to the draft until the beginning of September. Yes, it will impact charter durations of round voyages. It will possibly also impact freight rates to that matter. The exact implication remains to be seen. It, it certainly has a has an effect on the market, and the longer the situation lasts, the more relevant that will be for the overall market. At least leaves no further questions open from our standpoint when looking at the at the list here in the web. I don't know, moderator, if there are any questions through the phone line?
No , there are no questions.
Okay. Also on behalf of Moritz, I would like to thank everyone, for participation, for supporting us. We look forward to the second half of 2023 and beyond. Thank you very much for your attention, and take care. All the best. Bye-bye.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.