Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Tsakos Energy Nation Conference Call on the 4th Quarter 2015 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Taka Sara Poglou, Chairman of the Board Mr. Nicholas Tsakos, President and CEO Mr. Paul Durham, Chief Financial Officer and Mr.
George Saroglou, Chief Operating 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. I must advise you the conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, 15th March, 2016. And I now pass the floor to Mr.
Nicholas Bornosos, President of Capital Link, Investor Relations at Weiser of Tsakos Energy Navigation. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, and good morning to all of our participants. This is Nicolas Bornales of Capital Link, Investor Relations Advisor to Tsakos Energy Navigation. This morning, the company publicly released its financial results for the Q4 and full year of 2015. In case we do not have a copy of today's earnings release, please call us at 212 661-7566 or email us at 10 10capitallink.com, and we will email a copy to you right away. Please note that parallel to today's conference call, there is also a live audio and slide webcast, which can be accessed on the company's website on the front page at www.tentenn.gr.
The conference call will follow the presentation slides, so please, we urge you to access the presentation on the webcast on the website. Please note that the slides of the webcast presentation will be available and archived on the company's website after the conference call. Also, please note that the slides of the webcast presentation are user controlled, and that means that by clicking on the proper button, you can move to the next or to the previous slide on your own. At this time, I would like to read the Safe Harbor statement. This conference call and slide presentation of the webcast contains certain forward looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Investors are cautioned that SAG's forward looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which may affect TEN's business prospects and results of operations. Such risks are more fully disclosed in TEN's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ladies and gentlemen, at this point, I would like to turn over the call to Mr. Takis Arapoglou, the Chairman of the Board of Tsakos Energy Navigation. Mr.
Arapoglou, please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Nicolas. Good morning, everyone. The 2015 full year results we published today are really outstanding in all fronts. Massive organic earnings growth, reduction in operating costs, a solid balance sheet, historically low leverage, high liquidity, fully funded newbuilding program, accretive sale and purchase activity optimizing asset allocation, and 33% dividend increase to be further boosted by our measured stock buyback program, just to name a few. With a pro form a revenue of $1,500,000,000 and an average contract duration of over 2.7 years, excluding new buildings, TEN is perfectly positioned to continue offering shareholder value to its investors.
Above all, 10 greatly benefits from the stability and long term perspective offered by its solid anchor investor and the hard work and commitment to excellence of its management team and people. We are certain that all these unique attributes distinguishing Penn from its peers will be appreciated and rewarded by our shareholders accordingly. Once again, congratulations to Nikos Tsakos, his management team and the company's people for a spectacular performance. And over to you, Nico.
Chairman, thank you very much. Thank you for your good words. And I have to say we're all very glad to be back here. It's our beginning of our 23rd year. And we continue to grow the company from 4 ships to where we are today.
And it's really rewarding that the underlying business is strong. And as we speak today, we are able to also notice a significant, again, a rebound, positive rebound on our spot rates. So we are seeing VLCCs again approaching the close to the triple the 6 figure figures. And I think this is all very positively
going forward.
10 is, as we said, it's a company that has a simple, stated and tried strategy and vision. And this is something we have been continuously following and it has served us right. We are not the flavor of the month on every quarter and we are certainly not everybody's cup of tea for investors because we are a diversified large growing traditional long term operator, but I think our results make us gives us the satisfaction and we hope that also the long term long value investor who also appreciates a significant return and a dividend will identify this. In the meantime, the management, the anchor investors are always very supportive of the company by continuously buying our shares. And we're looking forward for 2016 to be another year.
It is going to be for us pivotal
year. We're going
to have the largest growth we had for since the inception of the company 23 years ago. And we believe that this will also be finally reflected on our share price. If we have to choose, I think as long as our underlying business is going from strength to strength, I think the share price will find its own way. If it was the opposite, I would be very worried having a ballooning share price and a very negative underlying business. So I think it's a luxury problem to have right now.
And let's hope that our business will continue to grow and I'm sure the share price will catch up. And with that, we'll ask Mr. George Saroglou to give us the details for the last quarter, of course, which has been another very exciting quarter and for the highlights of 2015. George?
Thank you, Nick.
The company reported today another strong quarter and profitable year, the best year since 2009. We're coming strong after outperforming the recent market downturn. 2015 was another profitable year, the 20th in the company's history since inception in 1993. For those of you who are connected to the Internet and our website, there is an online slide presentation, which format we will follow during the call. Let's turn to Slide number 3.
In early November, we took delivery of the 2009 Bill Suezmax Pentathlon and immediately took advantage of the strong spot freight market environment. This vessel partially replaced 2 of our older tankers, 2,002 built Suezmax and a 2,004 built Handyside Product Tanker, which were sold during the year during last year. A sister vessel to Pentathlon, the 2010 built Suezmax Decathlon was also acquired and delivered to 10 in early February 2016. Decathlon also commenced trading in the spot market. During the year, we also acquired 2 new building VLCCs that will deliver to 10 later in 2016.
Overall, 10 operated on average 48.6 vessels during the course of last year. As a result of this transaction, we have a pro form a fleet of 65 vessels, excluding the option for a 4th shuttle tanker. Thanks to the modality of the fleet and the balanced employment strategy, we continue to operate the fleet at a very high utilization rate, 98% for the year, which is effectively full employment considering that all vessels in the fleet and in any fleet have to periodically undergo scheduled repairs. We should highlight that in order to capture the healthy rates that are currently available for time charter business as a result of a sustained strong spot market, Sten has gradually fixed more vessels on time charter with or without profit sharing. With the newbuilding vessels that will enter the fleet during the year, we expect the annual contracted coverage of the fleet to increase to 60%.
This number can increase further with those vessels whose charters will come up for renewal during the course of the year. To compare, at this time last year, the secured coverage was 45%. This 60% forward employment coverage for 2016 translates to $1,500,000,000 of minimum secured revenue. The low oil price environment continues to impact the crude sector and tend in a very positive way. World oil demand continues to be robust.
2015 has seen the strongest growth since 2010 at 1,800,000 barrels per day. For 2016, global oil demand is expected to grow another 1,200,000 barrels per day, which is 100,000 barrels per day higher than the average demand growth the world has experienced between 19,90 and 20 15. The growth in 2016 is expected to come mostly from non OECD countries, China and India being having the biggest part in the growth, while the U. S. Demand is expected to grow another 100,000 barrels per day.
On the supply side, in February 2016, OPEC produced 32,100,000 barrels per day, which is a figure higher than their stated quarter. This is a high production number in support of the tanker market. Iran's production is slowly coming back to pre sanctioned levels. Iran has set a 4,000,000 barrels per day as their production target. In February, they produced 3,100,000 barrels per day.
OPEC and non OPEC producers continue to discuss a production freeze, not a production cut, based on the current production levels that are high. When or if that happens, it will not necessarily have a negative impact to tanker demand since the production freeze will cap the current high supply levels, which continue to provide healthy tanker returns. Fleet growth is manageable for the next few years. Let's not forget that natural fleet replacement as we have 17% of the fleet, which is currently over 15 years with the order book as it stands right now until 2019, also at about the same level. The part of the fleet that is over 20 years currently stands a little over 5%.
At the current market, we should not expect all 15 year old vessels to be phased out, but scrapping will take its toll, especially on those vessels closer to their 5th special survey anniversary. With the main shipyards in financial distress, which could lead to restructuring and capacity cuts and financing of new orders, especially speculative in the current ship lending environment being restricted, the current order book cannot grow fast. For all these reasons, we feel supply of tankers is manageable and as long as the oil keeps flowing, the freight markets should stay in healthy levels. The next slide has the main financial highlights of our press release, which Paul will present in more detail. I would like to highlight the strong profitability for both the Q4 and the year.
So $158,200,000 net income for the year, which represents a 5 volt increase from 2014. EBITDA for the year of $292,100,000 versus $179,500,000 for 2014, which represents a 63% increase and strong cash reserves at year end of 305,000,000 dollars and balance sheet with net debt to capital at 43.6%. The next slide, we see the company's pro form a fleet of 65 vessels, which includes currently 50 vessels in operation and strong fleet growth, thanks to the company's newbuilding program, which is already financed and built against long term business as 12 out of the 15 newbuilding vessels the company is constructing are fixed on time charters with minimum 5 year duration excluding any optional period. The next slide lists the clients of 10, which are all blue chip names whom the company is doing repeat business over the year, thanks to the quality of service, fleet modernity and the safety record of the enterprise fleet. List 10 client names continue to account for over 75% of the 2015 revenue.
Slide 7 shows the low cost base of 10 that has been built since most of the fleet was basically built before the rise of the newbuilding price. The freight market has been strong and this is expected to remain strong during the year. On the left side of the slide, we see the all in breakeven core. On the right side of the slide, we see the average for last year in the spot market. And clearly, you see the profitability that one can very simply produce based on the all in breakeven cost that is listed on the left.
Next slide shows the employment slide. We continue to have a balanced employment strategy with a mix of spot charters, COAs and pooling arrangements and period charters with fixed rates and minimum rates with profit sharing arrangements. Including the 9 vessels that will be delivered to 10 during the course of the year, 10 will have a fleet of 27 vessels on time charter with fixed employment, 9 vessels in time charter with profit sharing, 2 vessels under COAs and 21 tankers taking advantage of a strong spot market. If we consider just the operating fleet in the water today, we have 31 vessels with secure employment in excess of 2.7 years and $857,000,000 minimum expected revenue. The next slides tell us what we see in the market and I think we have discussed it in the opening slides.
Oil demand continues to be strong And even the forecast going forward to 2020 by the International Energy Agency, they discussed that over the next 5 years, the growth is expected to average 1,200,000 barrels per day year over year, which is a very good number in support of the current tanker market. On the new building on the order book and the fleet, as we said, we feel that it's very much manageable as the current order book more or less is balanced with the part of the fleet that is getting closer to 20 years plus the issues that the main yards have, which are currently under restructuring and the scarcity of ship lending. The next slide is basically the track record in the sale and purchase activities that we have since 2003. As we said, the company sold for a profit and further trading 2 of its older vessels, 1 Suezmax and 1 Handysize vessel and acquired during 2015 to resell new building VLCCs and 2 modern Suezmaxes. We continue to have interest to sell more and more of the 1st generation vessels we have in the fleet, vessels built up and until 2007.
Slide 12 shows the history of our cash dividend distributions. We increased the dividend distribution in 2016 from $0.06 to 0 point 0 $8 per quarter. This represents a 33% increase. We paid in total $0.24 in 20.15 and we will pay in total $0.32 in 2016. The first dividend for 2016 will be paid on April 7.
The next dividends for the year will be paid in July, September and December at dates that will be announced later. The company likes to reward shareholders with sustainable and growing dividends. In total, since 2002, TEN paid $10.12 in cash dividends on the common shares for approximately $422,000,000 and this compares with a listing price in our IPO of $7.50 In addition, the company has a $20,000,000 buyback program in place that so far has repurchased 1,100,000 common shares at an all in cost of $5.66 Next slide has the most recent NAV calculation and list the analyst covering 10. The management vision is to continue growing the company responsibly and at the same time have this reality being reflected in the company's surprise. At the same time, believing in the company's value and the business in which we operate, management continues to increase their holdings in the company.
That concludes the operational part of our presentation. Paul will walk you through the financial highlights for the Q4 and the full year. Paul?
Thank you, George.
Well, quarter 4 represented a robust ending to an outstanding year for the tanker industry and especially for TEN. TEN achieved net income of $39,600,000 3x more than in quarter 4 2014. 2015 net income, including $2,000,000 gains on the sale of 2 vessels, was over $158,000,000 as George has mentioned, a 5 times increase over the previous year. Low oil prices kept tanker demand up and resulted in a 50% decrease in bunker prices, which contributed to a significant reduction in voyage expenses. Revenue after voyage expenses was 13% from the prior quarter 4, despite the sale of 2 vessels.
In the year, dollars 109,000,000 more net revenue was generated than in 2014. Quarter 4 daily average TCE per vessel was $26,000 a 17% increase over quarter 4 2014. While 2015 average rates increased 31 percent to $25,940 Our Aframaxes, mostly on spot, earned average daily TCE rates in quarter 4 at nearly $28,000 a 22% increase over quarter 4, 2014, while our Suezmaxes earned average TCE rates at nearly $35,000 a 32% increase. Panamax, Handymax and Handysize daily TCE were in approximately the same range as in the previous quarter 4 and generated for the most part respectable earnings unless undergoing drydock. Quarter 4 generated $75,000,000 EBITDA, 35% up from the prior quarter 4.
All vessels had positive EBITDA apart from 2 product carriers in dry dock. In the year, EBITDA increased by 63% to $292,000,000 Quarter 4 OpEx fell by 15% due to a 16% appreciation of the dollar against the euro, the sale of 2 vessels and savings achieved by our technical managers. Daily average OpEx per vessel for quarter 4 was $7,500 down $900 from the previous quarter 4, an 11% reduction. For the year, daily OpEx per vessel fell by 3% to $7,900 Finance costs fell by $7,000,000 in quarter 4 and for the year fell by $13,000,000 in both cases mainly due to the reversal of negative bunker swap valuations that were incurred in the prior quarter 4. In quarter 4, we repaid $82,000,000 debt and grew $112,000,000 including a $52,000,000 loan to refinance matured loans and $40,000,000 for the acquisition of our new Suezmax spend up loan, bringing total debt at the year end to exactly $1,400,000,000 Nevertheless, our leverage levels were at historical lows with net debt to capital at below 44% and leverage based on actual vessel values at 47.5%.
We've now arranged finance for all our new buildings and acquisitions, all at competitive terms. We aim to sell certain older vessels in 2016, which will further release cash and reduce leverage. 2 of these vessels are already being accounted for as held for sale within current assets and the related loans transferred from long term to current liabilities. Depreciation on those vessels has ceased. We remain in a comfortable position to cover with expected cash flows, remaining equity contributions on our newbuilding program and to finance share buybacks and quarterly dividends.
And this concludes my comments. And now I'll hand the call back.
Thank you, Paul. Thank you. I think this is a very good messenger for the results. And as I said, we are glad to say that whereas 2015 was a very strong year, it seems like 2016 is shaping to be another strong year this week. The markets in almost all segments are going from strength to strength.
And with this, we would like to open the floor for any questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much indeed, gentlemen. Now we have some questions in the queue for you gentlemen. And your first question from Wells Fargo comes from the line of Mike Webber. And your line is now open.
Good morning. This is Donald. Congrats on the quarter and thank you for taking my questions. I'll kick it off with a question on the market. You mentioned this briefly earlier, but looking at the very sharp run up in VLC rates moving from about $38,000 a day to close to $90,000 a day, Do you think this run up is purely seasonal on the back of the unwind of refinery maintenance or are there larger more structural factors at work here?
I think that what George mentioned before, it proves the point that the market is very well balanced. I don't think that anything structurally happened in the last couple of weeks. Other of course that more exports coming out of places like Iran, so there's more oil. However, it shows that every small change is goes straight into the market. So I think the market is well balanced.
The market is taking absorbing any new supply quite healthily. I mean it takes any new supply of tonnage in. So I think overall, we are in a well balanced market. We are seeing more storage coming up in China. So that's another we have delayed imports there.
And of course, that's another factor that will help the market. Plus, we're getting finally a cold spell here in Europe, which I think we didn't have and that also helps.
Thanks for the color on that. And then just a follow-up on the balance
sheet. You have about $3,000,000
to $5,000,000 in cash. Can you comment on your cash flow optionality moving forward as you think about your toolkit consisting of further deleveraging, additional growth distribution increases or additional share buybacks? Or I guess, is there a preference for one option above the others?
Well, I think we feel quite we should never say never, but we feel quite satisfied right now that we have reached a level of growth with the new ships. I mean, 20 16 is going to be our most active year in new vessels of almost most of them with long term accretive employments and the rest being the 2 VLCCs, of course, are going to be, I think, right now very there's a huge appetite for them in the market and we're negotiating deals. So I think unless some opportunities might arise in the secondhand market, I think we have reached our growth. We are where we wanted to be at this stage. Of course, we are looking to deleverage our balance sheet.
As you've seen, we have I think the lowest leverage ever at around 43.5%. However, we have our preferreds there and that's the way buying back our common shares, buying back our preferreds. And of course, our preferred distribution is the dividend. So as long as the market maintains this momentum, we would expect to see some of these actions be taken by the Board.
All right. Well, thank you for that color. Congrats again on the quarter.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, sir. Now from JPMorgan, your next question comes from the line of Noah Parquette. Your line is open, Mr. Parquette.
Thanks. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about charter coverage. You said that pretty high at 60% this year. When you're looking forward to 2017, do you have a target rate that you want to get to in terms of charter coverage?
And then I guess what are you seeing in your discussions? Are there you have some competitors saying there's not much liquidity for periods after 1 year, but what are you guys seeing? Thanks.
Well, I think Noah. Well, yes, there's no magic number, but historically we were always, I would say, 2 thirds with long employment and 1 third spot. I think we will go close to that. I think we will be approaching that level, perhaps exceeding it a little bit. But our aim is always to have long term employment.
There is long term employment out there. And I think if we are I think in the next couple of days, we will be announcing another major strategic transaction. We're waiting for subjects to be lifted. And I think that will add to that percentage. So I hope that before we see you next week in New York to have those good news also.
So that will further increase our bring us closer to our target.
Okay. Looking forward to seeing that. And then I guess on the LNG, your vessel and the new build, can you give some update on where you are in terms of chartering that and how that fits into your strategy? Thanks.
Yes. I think we are looking for delivery in the beginning of later part of Q3 and beginning of Q4. As you know, this market has is going through, I would say, difficult period. But of course, our delivery gives us time to look forward. We are believers in the long term prospects of gas.
We are I think satisfied that we have not overstretched ourselves and we only have 2 vessels in that part of the business. But we will be looking to expand when the time is right. Right now, we are discussing for flexible contracts for jet delivery. There is a lot of requirement for vessels like our vessels starting in 2017 2018. So I think our aim is to bridge the gap between our delivery and the period that most of the trains, the infrastructure projects come online and the demand for shipping will be there.
So we are believers. However, we are glad it's still a small percent of our diversified fleet.
Okay.
That's very helpful. Thank you. That's all I had. Thank you.
Thank you very much indeed. Now from Morgan Stanley, your next question comes from the line of Tareq Almagrabi. And your line is now open, sir.
Yes. Hi. Congratulations on a strong quarter. I think you touched on my first question earlier, but with such a large cash balance and as you fix more of your fleet on these long term contracts, have you given any thought to another dividend increase this year or a special payout, perhaps even transitioning to a floating model similar to some of your peers or is the repurchase program your primary avenue for returning capital?
Yes. Well, as I said, we are we have a strong cash balance, but of course, we have one of the largest newbuilding programs in the company's history so far. So I think we will be using part of it. We're already using some of it in taking over our ships because our we are conservative and we do not want to over leverage ourselves. And so we're using quite some equity together with very, I would say, competitive terms.
We're getting very competitive terms in bank finance, and for us, this is important. Being the major shareholders, an increase in dividend when the time is right is always our preference. And I think we have we will be looking after the half of the year to see how the year is going. But it's something that we always consider in February.
Okay. And just a follow-up, What's your total remaining CapEx and how much of it is equity CapEx?
All right.
So at the moment, we are looking at paying another $700,000,000 towards our new building program. But much of that over $600 will be paid by already arranged debt. Our equity exposure at the moment is about $100,000,000 including estimated extras.
All right. That's very helpful. Thanks. One last question. You talked about in the press release, you talked about the sale of your 1st generation vessels.
I was wondering if you think vessel values have already passed their peak and where you see them going from here. It seems that the price doesn't really reflect what these vessels have been earning.
Yes, I think as I said, those ships are serving us very well as we speak. They are well depreciated. We look at anything which is 10 years or older as I would say 1st generation. And we are discussing with buyers for the sale of those ships. It's true that because of the limited finance and the problems that are very evident in most of the segments of the shipping business other than tankers, which is dry cargo and container.
The appetite for shipping from banks and investors is not there. But of course, our aim is to find the right channels and renew our fleet.
Okay, helpful. That's it for me. I'll turn it over.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much indeed, sir. And your next question from UBS Securities comes from the line of Spiro Dounis. And your line is now open, sir.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Just want to follow-up. Nicholas, you mentioned an accretive deal, I guess, coming in the next few days. And sorry if you touched on this, but in terms of the form it's going to take, is it something that maybe it's going to be new builds backed by a contract or is it that you're chartering vessels that you already own?
Chartering vessels that we already own.
Got it. That helps. And then just maybe sticking on that point, you're obviously out there talking to all the oil majors and big trading houses. And I guess I'm just wondering in terms of inbound calls that you're getting, maybe what vessel class are you seeing the most interest in right now broadly speaking?
I think right now Suezmaxes and VLCCs seem to be the vessels that come first in line, but of course having a diversified fleet, we are able to talk to them on all segments. But I would say today it's VLCCs and 1st Match is where the biggest interest for long term business is.
Got it, Got it. Okay. And then just 2 last housekeeping ones. I think just piggyback on Noah's question on the LNG carriers. I think you mentioned Maria, but maybe just addressing Neo Energy, I think comes off charter, I guess this quarter, maybe what the plans are there to recharter that vessel?
Yes. I think the Neo has been performing very good since we build the ship, has been almost on its entire life on a long term very accretive business. I think right now we are discussing again with the more flexible businesses, which means perhaps a conversion chartering conversion of the vessel into FSRUs FSRUs because there is quite an appetite for vessels like this.
Yes, certainly, that's interesting. And then last one for me, I see is obviously on your top list of customers, I guess their tanker division. Just wondering with the financial difficulties going on there, we're hearing they're trying to cut charter rates. Just wondering if you're impacted by that at all?
Well, we have a long relationships with We are not seeing any effects. I mean, we are on a long term employment with a minimum and profit shares with them. And I think right now there is so much in the money, I don't think they are bothering, but we never had any issues with it.
Yes, makes sense. Just making sure. Thanks guys. Appreciate your time.
Thank you.
Thank you very much indeed, sir. And your next question from Axia Capital Markets comes from the line of Robert Perry. Your line is now open, sir.
Gentlemen, good quarter. Congratulations on a good quarter. Spiro just sort of took over one of the one questions I wanted to ask you. But I guess just quickly, you mentioned that I know someone mentioned it before, but all the vessels are financed now. The big one being the LNG carrier.
Is there any terms you could disclose on that now? Or is it something you can't talk about at this stage, the financing for that vessel, the new one coming on?
Well, as I said, we try to always finance our vessels with conservative profile. So it's going to be we're not looking for 70% or 80% finance. We have always tried to be conservative in financing. But in exchange of that, we get very good terms in the duration of on the duration of the finance and of course on the pricing. So we have other companies that are, I would say, more aggressively financing their fleets.
They might go up to 70%, 75%. We are not we have never been even if you look at in our presentations, even in the worst times when the market was very poor, we were still, I think, always under 60% debt to equity finance. So that's the reason we keep a little bit more extra cash because I think it carries us a long way.
Understood, understood. And I guess just touching on that briefly, I mean, what are you seeing from the lenders these days? Granted, I know you guys have always been very good customers, but is it tougher out there do you think nowadays or is it finally leveling off?
For us, we've lived in a kind of privileged situation over the past few years through the bad times and the good times. There are a certain number of banks, and we're talking about as many as a dozen or more that recognize us as payers. We service our debt. We've got a perfect record in that respect. And therefore, whenever we announce that we're looking at a project or we're going to build a ship with a charter, they're knocking on the door and offering us very good turns.
So I know it's sounding a bit over proud in that respect, but I think that's the situation we're in, that we are very fortunate to have excellent banks who recognize our qualities and are prepared to provide debt with us at very good terms. And when I talk about terms, we're talking about a reasonable tenure in this day and age. The days of the 12 year centers have gone, but we're still getting 6, 7 years. We're getting margins which are very, very reasonable. And it keeps our overall cost of debt.
I mean, it's still around the 2.5% mark. So I think in that respect, we're in a very good position.
Yes. I appreciate the color there. That's all from my end. Good quarter, guys.
Thank you very much indeed, sir. As there are no further questions, sir, I shall pass the floor back to you for closing remarks.
Well, thank you very much. Looking forward to visit with a lot of you in next week in New York. I think we have to look forward to the CMA, the Capital Link and the Deutsche Bank Conference and the management will be there on the back of the results and answering any questions. In general, I think it has been a very good year. It looks to be shaping up to be another positive year.
We are placing the company for to be able to take advantage of that situation. And as I said, I mean, we are really and I think like most tanker companies, as we mentioned in our press release, not happy or I would say disappointed with the performance of our shares. But we'd rather have that rather than have and have the underlying business going from strength to strength rather than the opposite. I think that at the end of the day, the investors who are right now most of them recovering from low oil prices, many of them being long and many of them investing in other segments of our industry. I think they will identify that the tanker market still have legs and it will give its dues.
But in the meantime, our aim is to keep a tight ship literally, keep costs under control, make sure that our vessels are utilized, as George said, at least 98% for the year. And I think the results will talk for themselves. Looking forward to see all of you next week or as many of you next week in New York. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much indeed. And many thanks to all our speakers today. That does conclude the conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.
Thanks to Arapoglou. Thank you, gentlemen.