Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2023 DHT Holdings, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Laila Halvorsen, CFO. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining DHT Holdings third quarter 2023 earnings call. I'm joined by DHT's President and CEO, Svein Moxnes Harfjeld. As usual, we will go through financials and some highlights before we open up for your questions. The link to the slide deck can be found on our website, dhtankers.com. Before we get started with today's call, I would like to make the following remarks. A replay of this conference call will be available at our website, dhtankers.com until November 14. In addition, our earnings press release will be available on our website and on the SEC EDGAR system as an exhibit to our Form 6-K. As a reminder, on this conference call, we will discuss matters that are forward-looking in nature. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations about future events as detailed in our financial report. Actual results may differ materially from the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements. We urge you to read our periodic reports available on our website and on the SEC EDGAR system including the risk factors in these reports for more information regarding risks that we face. We retained a very strong balance sheet represented by low leverage and significant liquidity. At quarter end, financial leverage was about 21% based on market values for the ships and net debt was some $15 million per vessel. Leverage has had a marginal increase compared to the second quarter due to an adjustment in market values for the vessels in addition to a new loan related to the acquisition of the DHT Appaloosa. The quarter ended with total liquidity of $292 million, consisting of $74 million in cash and $218 million available under our revolving credit facility. Now over to the P&L highlights.…

Thank you, Laila. As addressed during the last quarter, we acquired a 2018 built VLCC for $94.5 million. We took delivery of the vessel in late July, and she immediately entered the shipyard to undertake her first special survey and dry dock. The purchase was funded with a combination of cash at hand and a new competitively priced loan facility in line with the DHT style financing. She is named DHT Appaloosa and is now trading in the spot markets. We are pleased with this acquisition, both from a value and quality perspective and acquisition that is expected to be accretive to our earnings and to further improve our fleets efficiency. As per normal, we maintain our focus on robust breakeven levels and here a few update on the levels for 2024. The estimated P&L breakeven for the year for the fleet as a whole is $27,500 per day. When adjusted for the fixed income that we have, the P&L breakeven for the spot fleet is $25,000 per day. Further, we estimate the cash breakeven for the fleet as a whole to be $21,400 per day with the spot ships requiring to make $17,300 per day for the company to be cash neutral. Repeating our earlier messaging and if you set out to compare these numbers with our peers, you should keep in mind that our cash breakeven numbers include all two cash costs, i.e., OpEx, G&A, cash interest, debt amortization and maintenance CapEx. We will now go through the fourth quarter outlook. We expect 420 days to be covered by our term contracts at an average rate of $36,000 per day. We expect to have a total of 1,790 spot days for the quarter, of which 1,280 days, equal to 71% have been booked at an average rate of…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Omar Nokta from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, guys. Good morning. Good afternoon. Just wanted to -- first off, thanks for the update. And I wanted to ask about the DHT footprint today. You just discussed kind of your outlook at least for the next few years, things are looking pretty solid. And have DHT overall, you've got a pretty solid track record, I would say, over the past 10 years of effectively buying at the right time of the cycle and also selling at the right time. Where do you think we are at the moment in terms of the DHT platform itself, are you encouraged to put capital to work? You obviously bought the Appaloosa recently, how do you think about where DHT is now given your liquidity, the flexibility you have, the outlook you have and yeah, just any color you can sort of give a big picture on that, please?

Thank you, Omar. We do think we are at the early innings of what can be a very exciting cycle and longer than what we have seen for quite some time. And part of this, of course, is given the non-existing order book basically and an aging fleet. When it comes to investments, the Appaloosa was, we think, a very attractive opportunity. And as you saw then our balance sheet and liquidity allows us to capture these opportunities on very short notice when they appear. This does not mean that in general, we are sort of trying to hover the market for any ship that's for sale, far from it. But we are very constructive on the next few years. If the right opportunities come along, we will try to capture them. But I don't think you should expect it to sort of follow any market development in terms of asset prices. So we think investors should focus on stocks, and we will focus on making as much money as we possibly can. But of course, you should not exclude us picking up assets if the right sort of deal comes along, right? But it's harder to find now than what it was just a couple of years ago.

Yeah. Thanks, Svein. And then maybe just a follow-up. Obviously, leverage has been very low for quite some time, roughly, I would say maybe 20% or below on a net LTV basis. Is that basically kind of where you want to have it long term? Do you see bumping that up to the 30% range 40%? What do you think about sort of the leverage ratio going forward?

Well, the current leverage ratio is also by design, enabling us to pick up assets, if we want to without really distorting what we think is sort of sustainable levels over time. So if that means we increase leverage a bit. We don't really have a fixed number on that. But if it goes to 25% or 30% in combination with some very meaningful and attractive opportunities, we think that's okay. But beyond that, I don't think you should have any expectation.

Got it. Okay. Thank you. I’ll turn it over.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Frode Morkedal from Clarksons. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, Svein.

Hi, Forde.

My first question, I have noticed that brokers recently had marked up time charter rate ideas. Well, I just wanted to know what do you think are realistic time charter rates now for, let's say, two, three year contracts? And at this point, what's your preference for spot versus contracts?

I think there is a bit of a spread between EBITDAS on charters, but I think today, you will have customers potentially willing to pay, say, 50$ for three years and 45%, maybe 46% for five years. And I think for one year, it is a bit of a challenge given the spot market, but it will at least start with the 600, I think. But again, it also depends on the ship. So -- at some point, we will start to build more visibility on earnings, but we think it's a bit early in the cycle to do this. We might pick up the right deal at the right time for the right ship for the [indiscernible] as better explanation. But it will not be like we did in 2020, when it's pushed out the two-thirds of the fleet in a very short time frame and capturing a fantastic earnings over a period of 12 months to 18 months when the market sort of fell apart. So I think now there is going to be a very rewarding time also in the spot market, but it also means that there will be opportunities to build true long-term cash flow at some point. So you will see that gradually taking place over the next two to three years.

Yeah. Thanks, Svein. Just a follow-up on Omar's question on the cyclicality, which I agree you have navigated quite well. And I also know that you have this, let's say, action plan on what to do at the different phases of the cycle. And yeah, I guess the dividend policy you have speaks a lot of where you think we are in the cycle. But maybe you could just talk about a little more -- bit more about how you positioned DHT to capitalize on this strong markets ahead of us?

Well, we do have the vast majority of our fleet on the dance floor, as we said last quarter, right? So, available to capture these rates that we expect will be available going forward. And that, of course, is going to be a massive value creator and the majority of these moneys will be paid out to shareholders. So this is, I think, is a clear message to where we think we are to the owners of the company. So -- but we do generate some additional cash flow after net income. So that will be allocated to general corporate purposes as one would say. But as you've seen in the past, now we picked up a ship we've been buying back some stock. All of these things are just to try to further tune the business and make it even more rewarding for owners, either primarily to increase earnings per share for the owners.

Sounds good. Thanks you, Svein.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. So I'll hand the call back to Svein for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you to all for being interested in DHT and for attending. So we're seeing you a good day ahead. All the best. Bye.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.