Thank you for standing by. Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Euroseas conference call on the second quarter 2022 financial results. We have with us Mr. Aristides Pittas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Tasos Aslidis, Chief Financial Officer of the company. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question- and- answer session. At which time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for the automated message advising your line is open. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. Please be reminded that the company announced their results with a press release that has been publicly distributed.
Before passing the floor to Mr. Pittas , I would like to remind everyone that in today's presentation and conference call, Euroseas will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Matters discussed may be forward-looking statements which are based on current management expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that may result in such expectations not being realized. I kindly draw your attention to slide number two of the webcast presentation, which has a full forward-looking statement, and the same statement was also included in the press release. Please take a moment to go through the whole statement and read it. Now I'd like to pass the floor to Mr. Pittas. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for joining us today for our scheduled conference call. Together with me is Anastasios Aslidis, our Chief Financial Officer. The purpose of today's call is to discuss our financial results for the six-month period and quarter ended June 30th, 2022. Let's turn to slide three. Our income statement highlights are shown here. The second quarter of 2022 was another great quarter for us, producing the best results since our inception. With an extremely high charter coverage for the remainder of the year through to 2024, we expect to be able to deliver a robust profitability for the next couple of years regardless of market developments.
For the second quarter of 2022, we reported total net revenue of $48.5 million and net income of $30.7 million or $4.24 per share diluted. Adjusted net income attributable to common shareholders was $29.6 million or $4.08 per share diluted. Adjusted EBITDA for the period stood at $34.2 million. As part of the company's common stock dividend plan, our board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share for the second quarter of 2022, which will be payable on or about September 16th, 2022 to shareholders of record on September 9th, 2022. This annualized corresponds to a yield of about 7%.
As of August 10, 2022, we had repurchased 40,000 shares of our common stock in the open market for about $900,000 under our share repurchase plan of up to $20 million, which was announced in May 2022. Tassos will go over the financial highlights in more detail later in the presentation. Please turn to slide four where we discuss our recent chartering and operational developments. During the second quarter, we took delivery of motor vessel Emmanuel P and motor vessel Rena P on May 24 and June 27 respectively. Both vessels have a capacity of 4,250 TEU each and were built in 2005 and 2007. There were no new charters this quarter, as all our vessels are fixed until the fourth quarter of 2022.
Regarding repairs and dry docking, here it recommends the second scheduled dry dock, which was completed in the first quarter of 2022. There were no idle vessels during this quarter. Please turn to slide five where you can see our fleet profile. Our current fleet consists of 18 vessels, including 10 feeder and eight intermediate container ships with a cargo capacity of close to 60,000 TEU and an average age of 17 years weighted by size and TEU. Turning to slide 6, we present our vessels under construction which consist of nine- feeder containerships which are expected to be delivered in 2023 and 2024. The nine- feeder containership new buildings will have a capacity of 22,000 TEU. After the delivery of these new buildings, our fleet will consist of 27 vessels with a total carrying capacity of approximately 81,000 TEU.
Slide seven shows our vessel employment schedule. As you can see, fixed rate coverage as of the end of Q2 2022 stands at approximately 98% for the remainder of 2022. 78% for 2023 and almost 54% for 2024. Please now turn to slide nine to review how the 6- to 12-month time charter rates have developed in the last decade. Charter rates were low across all segments until mid-2020. Since the onset of the pandemic, they have dramatically improved, posting all-time highs. Even though rates started retreating towards the end of 2021, they jumped to new highs during the first half of the year.
In the last few months, rates appear to have decreased due to a number of reasons, including a lack of demand for longer-term charters, meaning three years plus, partly due to the limited availability of vessels and partly because of the wait-and-see approach of charterers, as well as lower demand for the transportation of finished goods, which is triggered by the uncertainty surrounding the ongoing geopolitical and global economic events. Nevertheless, rates still remain at record highs by any historical comparison. Please turn to slide 10, where we summarize the containership market highlights for the second quarter of 2022.
Time charter rates across all segments declined slightly over the past three months, but are still higher than at the start of 2022, more than four times higher than at the end of 2020, and still well above the historical median of the last 12 years. Even though the second-hand price index decreased on average by about 3% in the second quarter of 2022 over the previous quarter, second-hand prices remain very high historically. Generally speaking, the market softened a bit in the second quarter as the war in Ukraine raised uncertainty and diminished appetite for any investments. In the meantime, the newbuilding price index increased by about 2.6% in the second quarter of 2022 over the past quarter.
In fact, newbuilding prices for containerships rose even further in the second quarter against the backdrop of decreasing slot availability at yards, rising building costs, manpower costs, and energy costs. The containership fleet has grown by approximately 2% year to date without accounting for idle vessels reactivation or idling. The idle containership fleet as of July 18th, 2022, stands at about 0.9% of the fleet and has remained stable during the last year at the lowest levels. However, this number includes Iranian sanction ships and ships that were involved in blank sailings due to lockdowns in China during May and June, bringing the actual number of ships really idle and inoperable to a very low number.
With containership market conditions still being exceptionally strong, no containerships have been sold for recycling so far this year, and none are expected to be recycled by the end of the year. By and large, it has been the quietest period for containership scrapping since 2006. Scrapping prices fell sharply to about $600 per lightweight ton in the second quarter of 2022. The prices were clearly impacted by currency depreciations and the softening of the steel markets locally. In addition, these prices are based on a very shallow market with no transactions reported and only available bids much lower than what owners are willing to accept. Please turn to slide 11. The global GDP growth forecast has been further reduced for 2022 according to the IMF's latest report, as several global events have hit the world economy already weakened by the pandemic.
The ongoing geopolitical conflict between Russia and Ukraine added to existing inflationary pressures that had already started building up due to the economic stimuli that were provided during the pandemic, which triggered stricter monetary policies, including a series of aggressive interest rate hikes to help address inflation. With elevated energy prices mainly due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and lingering supply chain issues, as well as additional slowdowns due to sporadic COVID-19 lockdowns and the property sector crisis that may further suppress Chinese growth, the IMF lowered its global GDP estimates from 3.6% to 3.2% for this year and to 2.9% for 2023. GDP growth for the United States was revised downwards to 2.3% for 2022, 1.4 percentage point lower from April's forecast due to lower growth and tighter monetary policies.
Similarly, European growth has dropped to 2.6%, resulting from the Russia-Ukraine conflict and tighter monetary policies. Due to major global spillovers caused by its various regional issues, China's growth was also revised down to 3.3% for 2022, a 1.1 percentage difference from the April forecast. Growth in emerging markets and developing economies is also expected to sharply decelerate, and India's forecast has been revised down to 7.4% for 2022 and 6.1% for 2023, while the only country with better forecast this quarter seems to be Brazil with an anticipated growth of 1.7% in 2022 from 0.8% previously. Due to the robust recovery in Latin America.
From the developed economies, Japan and the ASEAN-5 have also been revised downwards for 2022 and 2023 due to concerns about slowing economies following the U.S. interest rate hike and ongoing inflation. Looking at the containerized trade and according to Clarksons Research, demand is expected to decline by 0.6% in 2022 compared to 6.5% growth from the previous year. For 2023, containerized trade is projected to grow by 2.3%. Rate and growth projections are being continuously revised as the effects of the lockdowns in China and geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine on world growth and trade are being continuously researched. Please turn to slide 12. The container ship fleet is relatively young, with most vessels under 15 years old and only 9% of the fleet over 20 years old.
The right-side chart shows the delivery schedule of the current container ship order book, which is expressed as a percentage of the fleet. The Clarksons figures for 2022-2025 reflect the anticipated fleet growth before any scrapping and slippages. Clarksons expects new deliveries of about 4.5% of the current fleet to be delivered in 2022, 9.5% in 2023, and 9.7% in 2024. Currently, the total container ship order book stands at 27.8% of the fleet, and the majority of the deliveries are scheduled for the second part of 2023 onwards. Please turn to slide 13, where you can see the fleet age profile and order book for ships from 1,000-3,000 TEU.
As can be seen here, the number of vessels in this size range that are older than 20 years is 22%, much larger than the 9% for the average of the fleet shown in the previous slide. Also, the total order book in this size bracket is under 14%, about half of that for the whole fleet. In other words, the supply dynamics for the smaller sizes are much more favorable than for the bigger ships. This was one of the prime reasons for us structuring our newbuilding program around these sizes. Please turn to slide 14, where we discuss a rapid summary for the container ship market. Charter rates have dropped by about 10%-20% from recent record highs, while freight rates are currently circa 20%-30% below historical highs. Nevertheless, they both still remain spectacular.
Pressure on container trade has increased as macroeconomic headwinds, lockdowns in China, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, inflationary pressure on consumers, and a shift back towards services spending have impacted volumes. Ongoing disruption caused by port congestion remains extremely supportive to the charter market despite trade volumes in 2022 having come under pressure. Charter rates have shown no material sign of softening, edging down only marginally, but charterers appear reluctant to fix longer periods or fix forward. With port congestion likely to take time to ease, demand remains above pre-COVID levels despite the mix of headwinds and the moderate fleet expansion. Container market conditions look likely to remain positive in the short term. Consequently, we expect the remainder of 2022 to remain strong. However, in 2023, increased deliveries, easing of port congestion, and demand destruction should take their toll, and charter rates should decline significantly.
Looking beyond 2023, fundamentals are complex, with a range of factors likely to have an impact, including the direction of global growth rates, which may move in either direction depending on the fight to control inflation in the outcome of the Ukraine-Russia war. Continuing supply pressure from 2023 onwards, which may overtake demand growth. Lastly, new environmental regulations, which will probably result in even slower steaming by 2023 to 2024, effectively removing capacity from the market. Let's move to slide 15. The left side of the slide shows the evolution of one-year time charter rates for containers with a capacity of 2,500 TEUs since 2010. According to Clarksons, as of August 5th, the one-year daily time charter rate for 2,500 TEU container ships stood at $72,500 per day.
The right-hand side of the slide shows the historical price range for a newbuilding and the 10-year-old container ship with a capacity of 2,500 TEU. As you can see, second-hand price has increased significantly in terms of its charter rates during the last two years. However, the increase in prices for newbuildings was muted. This was the second reason that prompted us to invest a significant part of the proceeds we have secured in newbuilding vessels. The first being the underinvestment in smaller size vessels, as already discussed. The third, and probably the most important reason for putting in place our newbuilding program, was the fact that due to environmental concerns, the world will need new, more economical vessels. These ships, which consume nearly half the fuel that elder vessels do, will assist the transition to a greener environment.
We are confident that this will be appreciated by the markets, too, in rewarding our vessels with higher charters than for older ships. Indeed, this has been the case for our first two vessels that have been forward chartered for three-year periods, starting upon their deliveries in first half of 2023 at $48,000 per day. A rate which repays the full investment in just three years. Given our chartered fleet between now and the end of 2024 at very profitable rates that are to generate significant cash flow reserves, we intend to use the cash flow we are generating, not only to fund the equity portion of our nine-vessel newbuilding program, but to also reward our shareholders via our ongoing dividend and share repurchase program.
Notwithstanding the above, we will still have a significant war chest to pursue other investment opportunities which can be accretive to our shareholders when such opportunities arise. With that, I will now pass the floor to our CFO, Anastasios Aslidis, to go over our financial highlights in further detail.
Thank you very much, Aristides Pittas. Good morning from me as well, ladies and gentlemen. As usual, I will now take you through the next five slides of our presentation and give you an overview of our financial highlights for the second quarter and first half of 2022 and compare them to the same periods of last year. For that, let's turn first to slide 17. The company reported total net revenues for the second quarter of $48.5 million, representing a 165% increase from total net revenues of $18.3 million during the second quarter of 2021. The increase being the result of the increased time charter rates our vessels earned in the second quarter of this year compared to last.
Also, due to the increase in the number of vessels, we own and operated in the second quarter of this year, again, compared to last year. The company reported a net income, a net income attributable to common shareholders for the period of $30.7 million, as compared to a net income of $7.9 million. A net income attributable to common shareholders of $7.6 million, respectively, for the same period of 2021. Interest and other financing costs for the second quarter of 2022 amounted to $1.1 million, compared to $0.7 million for the same period of 2021. This increase is due to the increased amount of debt and the increase in the weighted average LIBOR rate that we pay in the current period compared to the same period of last year.
Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2022 was $34.2 million, compared to $10.3 million achieved during the second quarter of 2021, an increase of 231%. Earnings per share attributable to common shareholders for the second quarter of 2022 were $4.26 and $4.24, basic and diluted, calculated on about 7.2 million weighted average number of shares outstanding. As compared to basic and diluted earnings per share of $1.12 and $1.11 respectively for the second quarter of 2021, calculated on 6.8 million approximately basic and diluted weighted average number of shares outstanding.
Excluding the effect on the income attributable to common shareholders of the unrealized gain in derivatives, the amortization of below-market time charters acquired, and the depreciation charge due to the increased value of the vessels acquired with below-market time charters, the adjusted earnings attributable to common shareholders for the quarter would have been $4.1 per share basic and $4.08 per share diluted, respectively, compared to adjusted earnings of $1.12 per share basic and diluted for the quarter ended June 30th, 2021. For that quarter we excluded the unrealized loss in derivatives. Usually, securities analysts do not include the above items in the public estimates of earnings per share. That's why we are making the adjustment. Now let us look at the numbers for the six-month period.
For the first half of 2022, the company reported total net revenues of $93.9 million, representing a 188% increase over total net revenues of $22.6 million for the first half of 2021. We reported a net income attributable to common shareholders for the period, the first half, of $60.7 million compared to a net income of $11.7 million and net income attributable to common shareholders of $11.1 million for the first half of 2021, an increase of 435%. Interest and other financing costs for the first half of 2022 amounted to $2.1 million compared to $1.4 million for the same period of 2021.
This increase again is due to the increased amount of debt repaid and the increase in the interest we paid for the period. Adjusted EBITDA for the first half of 2022 was $65.3 million, compared to $15.9 million for the same period, the first half of 2021. Earnings per share attributable to common shareholders for the first half of 2022 were $8.04 basic and calculated on 7.2 million average number of shares outstanding and $8.36 per share diluted, calculated to 7.3 million average weighted number of shares outstanding compared to basic and diluted earnings per share of $1.65 and $1.64, respectively, for the first half of 2021.
Excluding the effect on the income attributable to common shareholders for the first half of this year of the unrealized gain on derivatives, the amortization of below-market time charters and the depreciation charged, the increased value of the vessels acquired with below-market charters, the adjusted earnings per share to the common shareholders for the six-month period would have been $7.81 basic and $7.77 diluted compared to adjusted earnings of $1.58 per share basic and $1.57 per share diluted for the same period of 2021. Subtracting for that period the unrealized gain on derivatives and the loss on the sale of the vessel. Let's now move to slide 18 to review our fleet performance.
We will start our review by looking first at our fleet utilization rates for the second quarter of 2022 in comparison to 2021. As usual, our fleet utilization rate is broken down to commercial and operational. During the second quarter of 2022, our commercial utilization rate was 100% and our operational utilization rate was 99.7% compared to 100% commercial and 99% operational for the second quarter of last year. On average, 16.43 vessels were owned and operated during the second quarter of this year, earning an average Time Charter Equivalent rate of $33,714 per day compared to 14 vessels that we own and operated in the second quarter of 2021, earning an average of $14,853 per day.
Our total operating expenses, including management fees, D&A expenses, but excluding dry docking costs, averaged $7,732 per vessel per day during the second quarter of this year, compared to $6,860 per vessel per day for the second quarter of 2021. If we move further down in this table, we can see the cash flow breakeven rate for the second quarter of 2022, which in addition to the operating costs mentioned above, takes into account interest expenses, dry docking expenses and loan repayments, excluding our balloon repayments, if any.
Thus, during the second quarter of 2022, our daily cash flow breakeven rate was $13,561 per vessel per day, compared to $9,937 per vessel per day for the same period, second quarter of last year, with a big part of the difference being accounted by the higher loan repayments made during this period. Next, let's go over to our utilization rate and remainder of the figures for the first half of the year and compare them again to the same period of 2021. During the first half of 2022, our commercial utilization rate was 99.8% and our operational utilization rate 99.6% compared to 100% commercial and 98.3% operational utilization rate for the same period, the first half of last year.
We owned and operated 16.23 vessels in the first half of 2022, earning an average time charter equivalent rate of $33,846 per day compared to 14 vessels earning $13,523 per day during the first half of 2021. Our total operating expenses, again including management fees, G&A expenses, but before variable costs were $7,534 per day during the first half of this year, compared to $6,887 per vessel per day for the same period of 2021.
If we look further down in the table, we can see the cash flow breakeven rate for the first six months of 2022, and that amounts to $13,805 per vessel per day, compared to $9,638 per vessel per day for the first half of 2021. The difference, mostly accounted for by the higher loan repayments during this year. Let's now move to slide 19. This slide provides our shareholders and investors a tool to assess the earnings potential of our fleet in the coming periods. The table shown here, we call it the EBITDA calculator, there are two parts. The first part refers to our current contracts in place.
Starting with current available data, the fleet shows the available fleet days and, after making some assumptions for days budgeted for any scheduled dry docks. It shows the number of contracted days as a percent, the percent coverage and the average contracted rate in each period. By making an assumption for the operating expenses and other G&A expenses and the dry-docking costs, we can estimate the EBITDA contribution of the contracted portion in our fleet. The second part of the table, and for future periods, we can see the difference of the available days and the contracted days, what we call the remaining open days of our fleet. To complete our EBITDA calculation for the entire fleet, we need to make an assumption about the average rate that will be earned by our open days.
Here one could make his or her own assumptions. Indicatively, if we assume that the open days in the second half of 2022, 2023 and 2024 will earn the same rate as the average of the current contracted days, you can see, you can get the estimates of EBITDA that we see at the bottom of the table. Furthermore, knowing our open days in each period, we can easily calculate the sensitivity of our EBITDA estimates to charter rate changes. The note below the table provides the sensitivity of our EBITDA to such rate changes. For example, if our 2023 open days are assumed to earn $20,000 per day instead of $33,218 shown in the table, our EBITDA for the year would be approximately $143 million.
Let's now move to slide 20 to review our debt profile. On the top of this slide, we can see our scheduled current debt repayments over the next several years. Our loan repayment schedule without balloons for this year stands at about $27.4 million, with our debt repayments of the current debt going down over the next couple of years. We have a number of balloon payments coming due in 2023, which we expect to routinely be able to refinance if we choose to go, to do so. Please note that our debt profile does not include any new debt that we expect to assume to finance our newbuilding program. A quick look on the slide, on this slide about the cost of our debt, which is related to the loans outstanding at the end of the last quarter.
The average margin of our debt is about 2% and assuming a LIBOR rate of around 2.8%, our cost of senior debt would be on average about 5.8%. If one includes the cost of our interest rate swaps, which are on average about 1.7%, the overall cost of our debt is coming down a bit to about 4.7%. Looking now at the bottom of this table, we can see our cash flow breakeven level expectation for the next 12 months in dollars per vessel per day. You can see the various components that make up our cash flow breakeven level and we just reviewed. The final breakeven rate for the next 12 months we expect to be a little less than $13,000, 13,993.
Of which about $4,027 per vessel per day is a contribution from loan repayments. In conclusion of this presentation, let's now move to slide 21 to provide some highlights on our balance sheet. As of June 30th, 2022, our assets include cash and other assets amounting to about $17.1 million, advances for our new buildings of about $37.8 million and, of course, the book value of our vessels of about $233.6 million, resulting in book value for our assets of about $288.5 million. On the liability side, our debt as of June 30th, 2022 stood at $155.2 million, representing about 36.5% of the book value of our assets.
We said on our liability side, we record the value of our recently acquired below-market charters, which was estimated in order to record the recent vessel acquisitions and their fair value of $42.7 million or 13.8% of our assets and other liabilities amounting to about $7.4 million or 2.5% of our total assets, resulting in about $133 million book value of our shareholders' equity. However, the market value for our fleet is much higher than its book value.
Based on our own estimations, using the charter-adjusted market value of our vessels in newbuilding contracts, our vessels are estimated to be worth about $538 million as of the end of June 2022, which translates into a net asset value of $439 million or about $66 per share. Recently, our shares have been trading in the range between $22-$29 per share, thus representing a significant discount to our net asset value and offering good appreciation potential for our shareholders and good investment opportunities for our investors. With that, I would like to close my presentation and pass the floor back to Aristides Pittas to continue the discussion.
Thank you, Anastasios. May I now open up the floor for any questions you may have? Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. One moment please while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Tate Sullivan with Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. Good day. With your comments about no scrapping this year, but then with the rates, the potential for rates to decline meaningfully in 2023 and then taking delivery of nine new builds over the next threears, three and a half years, what's the balance you look for? When would you decide to start to scrap some of your older ships? Would we have to see rates decline for those ships to below break-even levels? Or would you look for some other factor, please?
Yeah, thanks. Of course, everything will depend on how the market develops, right? So we're not taking any decision now about what we're going to do in 2024 when essentially most of these charters end. We've got a couple of years left for most of the ships which are under employment, so we will take the decision much closer to the time. If at that time the market is terrible, then probably we will scrap them. If the market is still holding well and the ships are worth passing the next survey and can still contribute, we will keep them. It's a decision for the future, not for now.
Okay, thank you. With what you commented on the new builds and three-year rates, well, in general in the market, three-year rates no longer available currently. I mean, are you still trying to target potentially one or two-year rates or even shorter, or it will just depend on how severe the decline is in 2023 for the new build contracts?
Again, this is not a decision that I think will be taken this year except if we see a sudden strengthening in interest and in demand for longer term charters. We would prefer to fix longer term, but we've got a lot of time to wait till then because the next, the third vessel to be delivered to us only comes in the third or fourth quarter of 2023. Fourth quarter, actually. We've got more than a year's time till that ship delivers, and we will wait and see.
Thank you. I see a hand.
Even if the rates decline, and if you look at the market, term structure of charter rates, you can see that there is a decline assumed there. The levels are way above, what our newbuildings would set as breakeven and would be significantly profitable anyway.
Yeah, great point. Also just a quick one on the capital ratio based on the NAV. I mean, are you still on a fully delivered basis potentially? I mean, with your NAV ratio below capital ratio below 20% based on a fully delivered basis, so are you targeting 30%-35% capital ratios?
I think you mean the leverage ratio, right?
Yes. Yes.
The newbuildings we intend to finance on the order of 50%-60% of the contract price as a base, and we see what other options we get. If you blend the current leverage, which is below 20% on the basis of market values and the, let's say, 60% leverage of the newbuildings, we will be, I think, comfortably below 40% of the leverage.
Okay.
Even assuming some decline of values or aging of investments.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, both.
Thanks, Dave.
Thank you. Our next question is from Poe Fratt with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon, Tasos Aslidis. Good afternoon, Tasos Aslidis. Several questions, first of which is a housekeeping item. It looks like over the last two quarters, your commission rates have dropped into the 3.5% range from closer to 100 basis points higher. Have commission rates declined, or is that just something that is something else going on there?
No. Commission rates really depend on who the charterer is and through which channels we are able to fix them. There's been a few fixes with very little commission rate charge, which affects the average. I wouldn't consider this as a norm. If you look at the three lists that we have on our website, Poe Fratt, you will see at least in one case, there is a marked case indicating that the rate is sort of net of commission because the way that deal was developed, we were billed a much lower commission rate because it is paid before it reaches us. We don't record it, and that money really is what reduces the average.
Okay. Yeah, I'm just using 4.5%, so I just wanted to, you know, fine-tune that. Then secondly, if you could talk about, you know, the updated EBITDA calculator on page 19. It didn't look like 2023 and 2024 changed much from the bottom-line total EBITDA number. The EBITDA number versus the first quarter went down just about, you know, almost $7 million. You know, it looks like, you know, some of that was dry docking expenses, but can you just talk about the changes in the second quarter EBITDA calculator versus the first quarter EBITDA calculator?
Yes. These are meant to be used as tools to put your own assumptions. The assumption that is put on both tables is just to repeat the existing contracted rate to avoid making an explicit assumption, if you want to put that way. If the rates were achieved or were different than what was the existing contract, that would result in a difference in the EBITDA. Or it could be the other way as you mentioned, a little higher operating cost which we did get in this quarter, or higher drydocking cost or a shift of the drydock from one quarter to another. Those could be reasons that might change the EBITDA, the margins.
It looked like, Tasos, the average contracted TC rate, you know, went down from $32,000 to about $31,200, you know, down by about $800. You know, why would that have gone down if it's already contracted?
I mean, I need to get back to you on that to see.
Okay.
Mainly it means that a certain vessel that say the drydock was shifted and changed the others or something like that. I need to get back to you on that one.
Okay. Yeah. It didn't look like the 2023 drydocking, nor the 2024 drydocking estimates changed at all. You know, just nitpicky, but just wanted to check that out. If you look on page 20, you know, your drydock expenses are up over the next 12 months. Your interest expenses. Your breakeven's up, you know, about $750 on a, you know, pre-debt amortization schedule. What, other than what you've already talked about, is there anything else going on as far as pushing those numbers up? I mean, higher.
Which numbers? The drydock?
Yeah.
Which numbers are those?
It is dry docking or the interest expenses. The interest expense seems to be going up, you know, pretty materially relative to the last quarter. You know, it's your debt expenses or debt load shouldn't have gone up that much and your, you know, your capital structure hasn't, shouldn't change much over the next 12 months. I was just trying to figure out, you know, why that would be up, you know, $380 relative to the first quarter.
Our rates were higher obviously recently, so that contributed to some expense. Secondly, the interest expense, it might include an assumed debt that we might take on a couple of vessels. That might reflect a debt level that is about 20% higher. Already over the next two years or over the next four quarters, we will carry at least a quarter of the newbuildings delivered. There will be debt interest on that debt as well.
Okay. You sort of talked about the, you know, the contracting environment right now, you know, more on the new builds, it seemed like more versus the existing fleet. Can you just talk about some of the upcoming fixtures that you're looking at? You know whether it's the Akinada Bridge or the EM Hydra or others that are coming up over the next, you know, six to nine months.
Yes. Well, I'll let Nick talk.
Yes. We're not discussing currently any potential charter for the next vessels. We are having some preliminary discussions on the Akinada and what its future will be. Really nothing to report yet.
We are four months before that. The next one is, I believe, Joanna, which opens sometime in January of 2023. Those are the two vessels that we might be looking in over the next quarter.
Okay. Sounds good. Then can you talk about the stock buyback program and just the cadence and, you know, whether, you know, it seems it's good to see the stock buyback, but, you know, I'm surprised the amount wasn't a little bit larger given the context of where the stock was. Can you just talk about sort of the cadence on, you know, that $20 million program, and there's a lot left and just any color you can give us on the stock buyback program would be helpful.
Sure. The issue is that you cannot use the stock buyback program during a period, a quiet period. The last month and a half when the stock was really depressed, we could not use it because of this constraint. Therefore, we didn't have the opportunity to implement more which we would have done at, you know, the levels that you saw that we bought the $1 million worth of stock that we did.
Great. Good example.
We stopped using the program around July 10th.
July 10th? Great. Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from James Jang with Univest Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon, guys.
Hi, James. Nice to hear you.
Yeah, it's been a while. I'm glad everything's going well for you guys. Just a couple of quick questions here. I probably know the answer to this, but I do have to ask. Since you have three new builds coming in in 2023, and you've got the two, the Akinada and the Joanna coming off charter this year, would you look to possibly sell those vessels after the charters are completed since rates are pretty strong and 2023 could be a little more challenging for long-term rates and charters?
It's always under consideration. It's in our minds. We are conscious about that possible path as well. We're looking at that too.
That's part of the.
Amongst, you know, the options of waiting, amongst the option of chartering, it's continued. It's monitored continuously.
Okay. With the dividend, you know, just it looks like with the contracted vessels, even though let's say you it'll be hard to contract out the vessels are coming off through the first half of 2023. Would you say the dividend is safe at $0.50?
The dividend we decided to repeat the previous dividend. We consider the yield that is made on the stock quite satisfactory. We will see next quarter what we will do and if it will remain the same. The main assumption it remains is that it remains the same until it's changed.
We didn't institute the dividend only to take it away in a couple of quarters. I think although a lot depends on the market and of course our board may decide anytime differently. As Aristides mentioned, the underlying belief is that it would be here for a while.
Okay. Excellent. Just on an operational front, the Akinada and the Joanna when they come off charter, where will they be positioned? Will they be in the Pacific, the Atlantic?
I think they are both in the Pacific, but I don't think that is that important. Charter rates are quite similar today in the various positions.
Okay, have you seen any big discrepancies between, you know, charter rates between the two halves, Pacific or Atlantic? Or is it just because the market's strong right now it doesn't matter and there's no real repositioning fees or anything else?
Yes, I would say that at this point there isn't any real, big differences.
All right. Excellent. All right. Those are all the questions I had. Thank you guys.
Thanks, James.
Thank you, James.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Aristides Pittas for any closing comments.
Thank you all for standing with us and listening to our presentation today, and we'll be with you in three months' time for the next quarter's results. Thank you.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.