Hello everyone, and welcome to the Scorpio Tankers Inc. Commercial Update Conference Call. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to James Doyle, Head of Corporate Development and IR. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the Scorpio Tankers Commercial and Market Update Call. On the call with me today are Emanuele Lauro, Chief Executive Officer, Robert Bugbee, President, Cameron Mackey, Chief Operating Officer, Lars Dencker Nielsen, Commercial Director. Earlier today, we issued a press release which is available on our website, scorpiotankers.com. The information discussed on this call is based on information as of today, December 14th, 2022, and may contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainty. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in such statements. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, you should review the forward-looking statement disclosure in the press release, as well as the Scorpio Tankers SEC filings. Call participants are advised that the audio of this conference call is being broadcasted live on the Internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes.
An archive of the webcast will be made available on the investor relations page of our website for approximately 14 days. We will be giving a short presentation today. The presentation is available at scorpiotankers.com on the investor relations page under Reports and Presentations. The slides will also be available on the webcast. After the presentation, we will go to Q&A. For those asking questions, please limit the number of questions to 2. For any modeling questions, please reach out to Brian or me after the call. I would like to turn it over to our President, Robert Bugbee.
Hi. Thank you ever so much. First of all, thank you to our shareholders and thank you to, you know, the supporting analysts that we have. Look, we enter the holiday season, we enter it in good cheer. I think that for all of you boys and girls who've been good this year and own STNG, I think that you're going to have lots of presents at the end of the year. I think that for those few of you who have been a little bit naughty and are short STNG or don't own STNG, you know, you're clearly not going to be having so many presents. I'd like to look at the actual press release itself and just go through the table related to rates quickly. I think it's very important.
On the left-hand side, we see the rates that we've booked so far this quarter. Those by themselves are, you know, they're a confirmation really of what we were saying in October. They're solid. They're, you know, going to beat most analysts' expectations and, you know, beat consensus. They may not by themselves show what is actually going on out there in the market right now and what could happen. As we can see that basically there's about 10% of open days left. On the right-hand side, up until, let's say, last Friday, these are the fixes between December 1st and last Friday. We can see a tremendous gain in rates. Right now, those rates themselves, up until Friday, have been surpassed by what we're fixing in the market and what we're seeing in the market.
That last 10% could have quite a high delta, and that could be so high that it could materially affect the, those bookings for fourth quarter, even though the actual fixes that we're doing at this time of year are starting to really be put in the book for the first quarter. What you have here is a market that's strengthening beyond what we've got here on the table, and we have a market and we have fixes that are closing fourth quarter higher than the averages you're seeing here, and opening the first quarter at simply extraordinarily outstanding numbers that are. You know, we are already at all-time highs. These numbers that are coming in for the first quarter right now are huge. There's no other way to say that, and which you'll see through the presentation.
We don't see this market backing off at the moment. We're in a real seasonal strength. We've got real cold coming into the northern hemisphere. We have very strong underlying fundamentals that are being respected by increases in the time charter rates. The one-year charter rates have moved very strongly. You know, that's how I'd like to introduce this, pass it to James to start going through the details, and then we'll get into some Q&A with Lars. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Robert. Well, not as exciting as LR2s at $90,000 per day, but it's been an exciting year for the company, and we wanted to provide a brief update on recent events before the commercial discussion. If we could please go to slide six. Strong cash flows are transforming the balance sheet of the company and improving the quality of Scorpio Tankers as an investment. In December, we gave notice to exercise purchase options on six more vessels under sale-leaseback.
In total, since August, we have given notice to exercise the purchase options on 29 vessels under sale-leaseback financing, which when completed, will reduce debt by close to $500 million. So far, lease repurchases have been financed with cash flow. With two new credit facilities for up to $166.5 million that were announced today, we can accelerate the repurchasing of more expensive lease financing and replace it with less expensive commercial bank financing. The new facilities bear interest at SOFR plus a margin of 1.9%-1.925%, which is substantially lower than the 3.2%-5.4% lease financing it's replacing.
In December, we repurchased 28.6 million of the company's shares at an average price of $51.20. Since July, we've repurchased 3.7 million of the company's shares for approximately $149.3 million. Lastly, we entered into a time charter agreement for an LR2 at $37,500 per day, which is subject to final customer approval but reflects the continued improvement in outlook and rates from our customers. Slide seven, please. Well, with the conversion of the convertible bond and six additional lease repurchases, the company will reduce its indebtedness by approximately $1.3 billion this year. The last time the company's debt was below $2 billion was December 2017, with a fleet of 78 owned vessels. We're very excited with the progress we're making. Slide eight, please.
Far in the fourth quarter, the fleet has booked an average TCE rate of over $45,000 a day. On an annual basis, this would equate to $1.3 billion in free cash flow or a little over $22 a share. Despite extending this sensitivity chart to $60,000 per day, as you can tell from the December fixtures, current rates are well above that. In the event rates were to average, say, $60,000 for the year, the company would generate almost $2 billion in free cash or $39 per share. Slide 10, please. Since March, the refined product tanker market has been resilient. Rates have oscillated between $30,000 and $60,000 per day, even during seasonally weaker periods such as refinery maintenance. Recently, we've seen a substantial increase in rates.
The confluence of factors and degree to which those factors are impacting our markets is unprecedented. Slide 11, please. Global inventories remain at record lows, with demand continuing to outpace supply. Over the last 2 years, the US has drawn over 471 million barrels of crude oil and refined products. At the same time, globally, distillate inventories have decreased over 240 million barrels. Post-refinery maintenance, runs have increased, and over the last 2 weeks, US Gulf refineries have operated at 98.2% and 97.3% utilization, and these barrels are very much needed. Higher refinery runs are needed both now as winter approaches, and as Robert mentioned, but also next year with demand expected to increase through 2023. Slide 12, please. Seaborne refined products at exports have reached record levels.
Product exports are averaging 25.3 million barrels per day over the first 2 weeks of December. With inventories near historic lows, refining capacity closures and demand increasing, product tankers now more than ever are being used to supply more immediate demand and from further afar. The impact of refinery closures in places like Europe and Australia is apparent. Both regions are experiencing record levels of refined product imports, as you can see in the graph. Since lifting its export quotas, China's refined product exports have increased significantly. As COVID restrictions ease and domestic demand increases, it's unclear if China will be able to maintain their current levels. What is clear is that the barrels are needed. Trade routes are changing, exports are at record levels, and ton-miles are increasing. The incremental barrel continues to become more difficult to find.
Next year, new Middle Eastern refining capacity additions will be critical to meet incremental demand, especially if there's an impact to a change in Russian refined product flows. Slide 13, please. Last week, the EU implemented its Russian crude oil import ban, stating that any vessel transporting Russian crude sold at a price above the $60 price cap is prohibited from European insurance and finance. While 1 week is a small sample size, so far, seaborne Russian crude exports have declined by almost 50%. China and India have been the incremental buyers since the invasion of Ukraine. On February fifth, the EU will implement a similar ban for refined products. We have yet to see a major shift in refined product flows, and actually, over the last 2 months, Russian product exports have increased, and most of the imports have gone to Europe.
In the event Russian exports are rerouted to different regions after February fifth, there would be a substantial increase in ton-mile demand. If Russian exports decline, refined products will need to be sourced from further afield, leading to a substantial increase in ton-mile demand. Every replacement scenario requires sending a barrel a longer distance, tightening vessel supply and increasing ton-miles. Slide 14, please. Next year, we expect yearly quarter-over-quarter increases in refined product demand, driven by increases in gasoline, jet fuel, and naphtha. With regional imbalances expected to persist due to refinery dislocations, demand increasing, and the potential impacts from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, seaborne product exports are expected to increase almost 1 million barrels a day and ton-mile demand over 9% next year.
Since 2000, seaborne exports of refined products have increased in 19 of the last 22 years, even during the global financial crisis. Lower freight rate environments have typically been due to oversupply. Today, this is much different. Supply could be the most attractive part of the equation. Slide 15, please. The order book is at a record low with 4.8% of the fleet on order. Yards are booked until 2025, and using minimal scrapping assumptions, the fleet will grow less than 1% over the next 3 years. Using higher scrapping assumptions due to fleet age and upcoming environmental regulation, the fleet will shrink over the next 3 years. Seaborne exports and ton-mile demand are expected to increase 3.6% and 9.7% next year, outpacing fleet growth.
The confluence of factors in today's market are constructive individually, historically low inventories, increasing demand exports and ton-miles, structural dislocations in the refinery system, potential changes to Russian product flows, limited fleet growth and upcoming environmental regulations. Collectively, together, they are unprecedented. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Q&A.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touch-tone telephones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. To withdraw your questions, you may press star then two. Once again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. Our first question today comes from Omar Nokta from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you. Hey, guys. Good morning. You know, thanks for the update. Clearly a lot of positive things are happening, both in the market and your earnings and your balance sheet. As you highlighted, Robert, 4Q now looks to be the top quarter of the year, and 1Q starting off here at an exceptional or extraordinary level. Wanted to ask basically, if you could just maybe frame what's been going on in the product market recently, you know, especially the six weeks or so since you reported earnings. You know, what's happened to cause rates to get to this point where LR2s are earning, as you show here, $90,000 a day and $75 on the MRs?
Lars?
Yep. I'll give it a good stab. Yeah. Hi, Omar. To be honest, the market back then was also very strong. You know, what we have seen is just a continued improvement of this sustainable strength. One of the things that we can see now as a ship owner is that we enjoy, you know, fronthaul economics even on backhauls as well. When you look at the TC1 index as a market, you know, it will probably print today at $70,000-$75,000 a day, and at that time, it was probably $55,000-$60,000 a day.
The fact of the matter is that, you know, because of this huge export out of North Asia, where the destination optionality has really kind of presented itself with a lot of kind of chances and options for the owner. We are moving LR2s now, you know, out of North Asia down to Singapore at, let's call it $100,000 a day. We're moving it at $110,000 a day, $120,000 a day into Australia. We can reload out of Australia with condensates, which is also a nifty thing for the LR2s, which, you know, with backhaul economics into the AG, is also presenting itself with about $80,000 a day.
What we've also seen, as we moved into the back end of the fourth quarter, has been an increase in exports as well coming out of the Mediterranean. There has been an active market of light ends moving from the Med, going back to Asia. As we have been fixing our ships with distillate into the continent or into Mediterranean, we have been able to quite successfully being loading vessels as well out of the Mediterranean and the continent back to Asia. What we've seen here is an elongation of positions. If you look at a position as today, on the 14th of December in the Middle East on LR2s, you are seeing probably the tightest position list that we have seen for a very long time.
You know, it is my view that we're gonna start seeing that market to react as well, even more positively. Today, it's probably printing at a Worldscale 305, trading $85,000 on a pure round voyage. In reality, you know, because of all this capacity that we can see in terms of triangulation, rates are gonna be substantially higher from that.
Thanks, Lars. Yeah, it sounds like that 90 and 75 are low relative to what you're seeing today. I guess I wanted to make sure, you know, James mentioned this, but is any of what we're seeing today, coming as a result of the Russian ban, of at least some products coming in February? Or is that still a catalyst to come?
I believe it's a catalyst that's gonna really show itself as we move past the 5th of February. We have obviously seen a lot of the same molecules moving from the Baltic and the Black Sea into the same European destinations. That is still continuing. As James said, we've seen an increase in volumes as we're ramping up the stocks as much as Europe can do up to the 5th of February. The fact of the matter is, this is really important, is that it doesn't matter what market you're in. You can be in the, you know, Far Eastern market, you can be in the Middle Eastern market, you can be in South America or in the U.S. Gulf. All markets on all sizes are ramping up.
You don't have any weaknesses where, you know, you could say that positions are being moved from that area to another area. You know, you've got good market or very, very good markets in all areas at the moment, irrespective of what's happening with Russia. Clearly what we have been seeing over the last couple of months has been this increase in imports into Europe of distillates in particular. You know, as we go past that fifth of February deadline, replacement products will ultimately have to travel further. The ton miles will certainly also increase for the LRs and also for the MR product carriers. One thing, of course, you've got refineries that are running even harder. You've got, you know, high utilization rates across the board.
You know, the potential of some of these tripping over will increase due to the way they run them so hard, which, of course, it will also increase the dislocations and the arbitrages start moving up even further. There's certainly plenty of product that we've seen to move. We can see increase in volumes both in China and also in the Middle East, and also products out of West Coast India, all of it going long haul. It's not now, not necessarily only going to Europe, but we're seeing also stuff going to West Africa, to South America, and so on. We're seeing this optionality on destination, which certainly for a ship owner who wishes to triangulate very effectively, is very good news.
Got it. Yeah, well, thanks for that additional color, Lars. One final one for me, just on the three-year charter on the LR2, that $37,500 is the new high, at least I think from what we've seen in the market recently. You noted that this is on a forward delivery basis. Just wanted to get a sense from you guys, like, you know, how far forward is that deployment? Any thoughts on why the charger doesn't take that ship today?
Well, I think with on that one, it is still subject position. I think we just say first quarter, somewhere first quarter. Right? I mean, the why is not the charter, the why is partly it's two as well. I mean, obviously, when the market is hot, you're not necessarily, even if it's a great rate, like $37,500 for three years, you're still not anxious to, you know, we're not there anxious to fix our tonnage out. We've got a very high spot position. We're very confident in the present market. I would leave it at that.
Got it.
I think I'll just add-
Thanks, Robert.
I think I'll just add to that, Omar, that, you know, in terms of activity in the, in the time charter market and the inquiry levels that we're seeing in our projects department, it certainly has not abated. Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of interest from top-tier customers wanting to take long-term charters going forward.
Very good. All right. Well thanks, guys. I'll turn it over.
Our next question comes from Frode Mørkedal from Clarksons Securities. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you. Hi, guys. Yeah.
Hi, Frode.
The market is really strong. Hi. Yeah.
It is.
So-
Yeah.
It is strong, yeah. $90,000 per day for LR2s in December. You know, considering that the market is improving by the day, could you tell me what's the outlook in the near future?
Hold on just one second. Lars has already said that he's fixing it higher than the 90, now fixing in the hundreds on the LR2s. I'd first sort of, you know, I know you stuck your neck out and said that a while back, and it was quite controversial at the time, that, you know, we would see, you know, $150,000-$200,000 a day on LR2s this winter. I would just like to comment that you're going to see $150,000-$200,000 a day on, you know, most probably this winter. You're probably actually gonna see that on Handysize vessels first. We'll give you credit for your what was at the time thought to be by some as a very extravagant call.
Lars, I don't know if you want to add to that?
It would not surprise me that this winter we will see over 100,000 on Handys or MRs or LR2s, which obviously LR2s is already doing. I think all segments are on fire.
Perfect. That's great. I guess my next question is, you know, in order to explain this, because February fifth hasn't happened yet, right? Have you seen any unusual pro-product arbitrage movements, in recent months? In connection with that, are maybe ballast lengths, increasing?
I would say, Frode, to answer your last question, ballast legs at the moment are decreasing. We're seeing a lot more triangulation on LR2s than we've ever seen. We are seeing a lot of triangulations on MRs as well. You know, it certainly is not increasing. When it comes to the first part of the question, we're seeing a lot of product, as I mentioned earlier, coming out of the Middle East. They're certainly, you know, ramping up in Jizan, they're ramping up in Al-Zour. They've also kind of increased their production in West Coast India. Of course, you know, with the high processing that we've seen in China, you know, I think the exports going to Europe has trebled just this year alone.
You know, we're seeing a lot of volume. It's not only going to Europe, it's also a lot of it's going down to Australia, as we mentioned before. A lot of it is also going to South America. We're seeing volumes going long haul, longer haul than we've seen before going into Western Africa as well. In terms of ton-miles, it's not only is it defined by the fact of preparing ourselves for the ban post 5th of February, but it is, you know, fundamentals around the globe that is kind of pushing this market into this great strength.
Yeah, that's good color. I guess on the ballast leg, I guess at least the Russian products could be argued to be have to be moving on more inefficient round voyage basis. Wouldn't you think?
Well, come the 5th of February, and obviously this is, you know, this is what we assume, is that the dark fleet, as what's been called now, will be moving, this product, further afield as well. They would, because they're only gonna be doing Russian, they'll be ballasting back.
That is inefficient utilization of that particular fleet, which of course, suddenly means that your utilization of the normal fleet will increase and will fundamentally contract the supply overall.
Perfect. Thank you. That's all. Our next question comes from Ben Nolan from Stifel. Please go ahead with your question.
Hey guys. good update. Appreciate it. Robert, you'd mentioned that at this point, you guys are already beginning to fix spot into 1Q. I was curious if you could maybe frame in how much of 1Q you already have booked and are they at the kind of the rate levels that you have laid out in the press release there?
Well, the rate, we haven't guided to how much, so I can't do that. The rate what I could say is we could infer that they would be at the up until Friday, because we closed down on Friday, that you would infer that basically a lot of the fixes that were done between like December 1st and last Friday, at those averages you can see of 90, 75, 65 would be the, let's say, the starting rates of Q1. Right now, this week, you know, if you're talking about an LR2 that fixes kind of longer voyages further forward, you know, they're gonna be starting, you're starting now putting fixes in the books for this week that aren't in those calculations there, because those calculations only went out to last Friday.
As Lars is saying, you know, some of the fixes are going in at plus 100. And as you chop through each week, more and more of that, the voyages go into Q1. You know, basically by the end of December, end of this year, you would have definitely had, let's say, the first three weeks of Q1 booked, which on, you know, the present rates, just think what those first three weeks could be. You know, at present rates, those three weeks you could virtually earn what you earned in the third and fourth quarter in the first three weeks. By the time you get to everyone comes back on January the 10th, you'll have 33%-35% of the entire first quarter booked.
That I think is what's super exciting, is that these rates are so, you know, high and have such depth and breadth that they have an immediate effect related to your earnings and your cash position on your balance sheet. I would just say, you know, you can count it backwards. If it's 33% by, let's say, January 10, then, if you chop back a week, then take away 8% from that, chop back a week again, another 7%, 8%. That's how to approximately calculate bookings forward.
Okay. That's, that's helpful color. As it relates to just sort of the market and appreciating that as Lars, you laid out, the February sanctions date could be a catalyst or create inefficiencies that effectively shrink the size of the fleet. How should we think about next year's refinery maintenance season or turnaround season that sort of coincides with or pretty close to when these sanctions are coming in? I mean, how does that... I don't know, how do you square the circle on how all of those things are going to operate simultaneously?
Well, you know, if we look at 2022 in terms of what that seasonality meant when it comes to refinery turnarounds, you know, we had full steam ahead in the second quarter, third quarter, which tends to be the strongest part of refinery maintenance period. You know, I think we're down to 2.2 million barrels that's outage in December for this month. You know, compared to October was 7.6, you know, in October, the market was also just as strong. I think that the underlying element of what we're seeing today with capacity utilization theoretically is so high now that, you know, with no kind of extenuating type of bottlenecks. You know, this is structural.
In terms of saying that there's a refinery that has to go and into turnaround, they will have to supply that with a you know, with a smaller fleet of ships available to them and take that further afield. I only see that this market will kind of ride through any kind of seasonality in terms of refinery maintenance and maintain its strength.
Okay. All right. I appreciate it. Thanks, Lars.
Our next question comes from Ken Hoexter from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead with your question.
Hey, great, congrats on finally getting to this point, working through what was certainly a longer downturn than you thought. You know, I guess, Robert, does the interest, if you're getting so much interest in time charter outs and you keep pushing it off and rates keep going up to... Does that ever turn into orders from the major? Maybe talk about the cost of new build details. I know there's not much of an order book, but what's going on in the market now? I guess I'm, you know, in our analytical view, you know, when things are too good, something, you know, typically goes wrong.
Yeah, I think, you know, that's a great question. I think at the moment it's sort of in a, it's in an okay place. It's actually in an okay place for a major. They've been able to take. There's a, you know, there's enough of a discount in the time charter rate, whether it's one year, I mean, one year LR2, I think Lars was telling me this morning, is in a, in a $50,000-$55,000 a day. At all points, the $50,000-$55,000 or the three-year rate, et cetera, the charter is getting kind of a profit on the first part of it. That's kind of a comforting thing. They secure tonnage for a period whilst getting a profit on an extremely strong market.
They're able to get coverage when they are, you know, short tonnage at some kind of present cash flow. Whereas if they were to translate that into a new building, they're not doing anything. They're not getting that ship for years. Doesn't do anything to alleviate their problem at the present, and they have cash out. You know, you know, the further down the curve you get, the more uncertain you get, the more everyone were discounted, and they've just left themselves massively exposed at the front.
You know, unless Lars has anything else to add, having worked for a major, the calculation right now is, you know what, we're happy to do a 3-year charter if we can. Why would we go upstairs and order something at record prices for something in the future that does not help an extremely stressed position in the present?
Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. James, you talked about the, you know, the opportunity to take down debt faster. Obviously, I think you originally were, I think something like $300 million. Now you're talking the cash flow can be up to $1.3 billion. Are there any constraints as you look into next year on what you can draw down? Robert, we typically... You always tell us to wait until Thanksgiving and see what's going on with rates. Obviously, this looks just completely different than a normal calendar. Maybe is there anything on the horizon that seasonally, you know, switches this, or is it just going into refinery maintenance that you were just talking about? What changes the kind of run here seasonally?
James, if you wanna go first and then Lars.
Yeah.
Wanna take the second.
Sure. Ken, we did 6 more leases for the end of this year. We still have probably 60 vessels or more that are under leases, so there's definitely more to do. Recently we've been doing it through cash flow. Obviously over the next year we'll have new loans as these vessels are unencumbered, and we can draw down on those loans and then accelerate those repurchases. Obviously the financing in terms of the commercial bank loans are really attractive. We're gonna continue to look to do that. You know, at some point next year you'll start to see the impact on kind of lower interest and principal break evens, which we're really looking forward to.
Well, when it comes to, you know, the rates right now. You know, when I look at it's very hard to. You can think of things that are going to push the rates even higher, such as the February 5th situation. Because in products it's kind of maybe even more wacky than crude because there isn't so much of a dark fleet in products. The dark fleet itself is likely to be. It's not like they're gonna be taking products to China or products to India in the same way the crude oil market is. They're going to be taking products to, you know, South America or points in Africa, so huge long, you know, distances that's going to occur. These are all things that, you know, we can just create even more bullish constructs.
You can see from what we're talking about now, we kind of don't need that. The market is already... You know, it's moved from... I mean, bullish is now too weak a word for it. I mean, I don't know how to describe something that's moved from, you know, bullish to very bullish to red hot, I mean, white hot. I don't know what's after that. It's very hard now you've got winter. We actually got a winter now in the Northern Hemisphere. I think that that's putting a check in too, because we've seen the attempt of inventory building, we've seen gas being built. We've seen some form of energy complacency despite the fact that world inventories are low, and then suddenly you're getting this shock coming in with extreme cold.
Because of the season itself, nothing to do with Russia, because of the season itself and the actual capacity of the supply side capacity at the moment, it is hard to think that this market is going to be anything but strong, you know, for this sort of, you know, during its normal seasonal period, which would normally last all the way through to, you know, with a little bit of a hiccup with refinery maintenance through to, let's say, early mid-June.
Wonderful. Hey, Robert and team, thanks so much for the time. Appreciate it.
Our next question comes from Greg Lewis from BTIG. Please go ahead with your question.
Hey. Thank you. Thank you, and good morning, everybody, and thanks for the update. James, I did have a question around the fourth quarter, % of days fixed. Kind of really what I'm looking for are, like, as we think about, you know, planned days and maybe some unplanned days for the quarters, is there any kind of guidance you can give us there in terms of as we think about total revenue days for the quarter? Then, you know, also with that, you know, sometimes we see like a ballast leg of a vessel. We see that a lot in crude where, you know, maybe it's not ends up being like some zero revenue days.
Could you provide us any color around that just as, you know, just, I think that would be helpful.
Yeah. There was some additional off-hire days, and those were updated in the MRs. Those came down, and that's 'cause the dry docks are taking a little bit longer due to COVID restrictions in China. In terms of rates, generally, I think, you know, what we see, which is probably a little bit different than crude.
Yeah
and probably mutes this a little bit more is the triangulation. The triangulation on the MRs is obviously pretty well known. Where it's very surprising now is what Lars and his team has been able to do on the LR2s, and I'll let him speak to that. What you have is an incredible amount of distillate that needs to go from Asia to the West. It's creating some very, very nice backhauls, and it's also benefiting the MRs as well. That's really when you look at kind of benchmark rates and where we are, how we're benefiting from that. I think if you look at, you know, what we're doing now in the current update, you're seeing the benefit of that triangulation. That's probably the biggest difference compared with crude.
Great. Then I did have a question. As we see more, realizing that the MR market in the Atlantic Basin tends to really be, you know, we fix it and we get to work. As we see more cargoes or loadings out of the Middle East as their refinery volumes increase, is there any way, and I think, Robert, you touched on a little bit, a way to like as we think about fixing forward, i.e., or, you know, we look at today on today's mid-December, is kind of the actual loading time for that vessel that's fixed today, is that kind of 7-10 days? Is that like a 7-10 days ahead of its actual loading and starting to realize that rate?
Is that kind of a fair or rough way to think about it?
Lars, why don't you discuss a little bit about.
Yeah. I'll start with.
Great. Thank you.
I'll start with. Yeah. Look, Greg, on an MR, it's 7 to 10 days. It can vary a little bit depending if it's east or west or if it's the U.S. Gulf, but the U.S. Gulf tends to be even shorter than that, could be 3 to 5 days.
Sure.
When it comes to LR2s, it tends to be anywhere between 2 weeks to 3 weeks out, depending on where that particular load port is, but mainly for the Middle East, it'll be 2 to 3 weeks out, probably 2 weeks when it comes for North Asia. It is a little bit more tricky when it comes to loading out of Australia with the condensates, where that can be also even further out, and you need to make sure that you have enough ships there to kind of maintain the laycans. That's about right.
Okay, great. I just did have one other question, you know, just as we think about it. Everybody's seeing the impact of the crude oil embargo in the Turkish Straits and the locking up or, you know, I guess the authorities are trying to prove out, you know, where that crude on those vessels is, you know, was originated from. As we think about the product market and the upcoming embargo of, you know, that's taking hold in early February, it, you know, everyone knows the headline numbers of Russian refined products, seaborne exports. Any kind of rough guidance or you could talk about in terms of what's coming from that region as opposed to what's coming out of the Baltic?
First of all, there's more product coming out of the Baltic than out of the Black Sea.
Understood.
The first point in terms of the issues around Turkish Straits, it is at least to my knowledge now has been sorted out where with the P&I clubs, with a wording that has been adapted or adopted by the different players and ships are now transiting through. The funny thing is, it was more because of the vessels loading out of CPC with the Kazakh crude, which of course is not sanctioned, making sure that that P&I coverage was in place. We have seen now that that has now been sorted out. When it comes to the volumes out of the Black Sea post fifth of February, it's a very, very good question.
It certainly is all down to what supply of ships is available in the dark fleet to be able to move it because they will try and do whatever they can to maximize that, but I think they're gonna have an issue with finding enough ships to do so.
Okay. Super helpful, everybody. Thanks. If I don't talk to you, have a great holiday.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Robert Bugbee for closing remarks.
Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. I'd just like to cover something that wasn't covered. I mean, you know, we've been bullish. We've been very bullish and, you know, we even talked on the last conference call about, you know, $82 NAV by, you know, the end of March. You know, clearly we haven't been bullish enough. I mean, this is, you know, we just wanna sort of, in a way, comfort you guys that, wow, this is, you know, especially now with the cold coming in and the various governments' policies of just continuing to run down the inventories and not implement, you know, either driving speed limits, et cetera, you're creating an amazingly tight market here. That $82 a share in EV is no longer optimistic. It's no longer even, you know, that bullish.
It's fast becoming a reality and very quickly becoming a reality. I know we haven't talked about it much on the call, but you've got two things coming in. It's not just the earnings, it's the value too. It's a great position. We wish you all a very happy holidays, and thank you again very much for, you know, your support and your trust. Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.