Good morning. My name is Antoniele, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Diana Shipping Inc. 2Q conference call and webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator instructions). Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Ed Nebb, Investor Relations Advisor to Diana Shipping. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you Antoniele, and welcome to all of you. Thank you for joining us for the Diana Shipping Inc.’s 2009 second quarter conference call. The members of the Diana Shipping Management team who are with us today are Mr. Simeon Palios, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Anastassis Margaronis, President; Mr. Andreas Michalopoulos, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Ioannis Zafirakis, Executive Vice President and Secretary; and Ms. Maria Dede, Chief Accounting Officer. Before management begins their remarks, let me briefly summarize the Safe Harbor notice which you can see in its entirety in the release we issued earlier today. Certain statements made during this conference call which are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, expectations, projections, intentions, and beliefs as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. For description of the risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause future results to differ from what is expressed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And with that, let me turn the call over to Mr. Simeon Palios, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Diana Shipping. Go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Ed. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to report that in the second quarter of 2009, Diana Shipping maintained a track record of consistent strong performance, despite the uncertainties and challenges of a global economic downturn. Our results for the period were distinguished by solid profitability, growing and substantial cash position and the balance sheet that is one of the least leveraged of publicly traded companies in the dry bulk sector. We delivered these achievements by continuing to pursue our time tested strategies, managing our fleet for maximum revenue visibility, pursuing relationships with high-quality charterers and maintaining a conservative approach with the respect to funding our business. Now I would like to point out some of the highlights of the 2009 second quarter. Then, the members of our senior management team will review our market outlook and discuss the financial results in greater detail. Net income was $30.4 million with Voyage and time charter revenues of $59.8 million for the second quarter of 2009. This compared to net income of $56.7 million and Voyage and time charter revenues of $86.8 million for the same period a year ago. Diana has continued to engage in profitable charters with top quality charterers. During the second quarter, we chartered the Oceanis with Bunge SA. And just last week, we announced a charter for the Naias with J. Aron, the principal global trading subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. Following these two recent charter agreements, we now have 100% of the fleet employed through the end of 2009. Our charters remain well balanced with delivery dates and our adjusting fleet ranging from 2010 to 2015. This provides both current stability and future upside opportunity. We achieved another daily time charter equivalent rate of $33,073 for the second quarter,…

Thank you, Simeon and a warm welcome to all who have joined us on this second quarter ’09 conference call. Second quarter of this year was certainly one full of excitement developments as far as world trade is concerned. Keeping our observations within the dry bulk shipping industry, we can start by saying that we have witnessed a dramatic raise in the Baltic Capesize Index, the BCI, from the region of 2039 on April 1st to a high of 7122 points on July 1st, an increase of some 349%. Correspondingly, the Baltic Panamax Index or BPI rose from 1293 points to 2984 points on July 1st, an increase of 230%. Looking at the latest forecasts for the world economy published by the World Bank, they believe that the global economy excluding China will shrink by about 3% this year, while China is estimated to grow by about 7.2%, some signs that the economy is doing better than expected, with the help of the general stimulus package announced a few months by the Chinese Government. In trying to find an answer to the all important question of whether or not the world industrial output is about to rebound, we have to look at Asia and the rest of the world separately. Excluding China, Korea and Japan, world industrial output is still contracting even though at the slower rate than earlier this year. However, as mentioned by Clarksons, in Asia, things look much brighter. China’s industrial production jumped to 10.7% in June and steel output reached 46 million metric tons equal to the June 2008 record. However in June 2009, world steel production excluding China was down 30% compared to a year ago and this makes it even more difficult to decide if the Chinese output numbers are sustainable or not. There…

Thank you, Stassis and good morning. I am pleased to be presenting today with you Diana’s operational results for the second quarter and six months ended June 30th, 2009 – second quarter 2009. Net income for the second quarter of 2009 amounted to $30.4 million and the earnings per share of Diana Shipping amounted to $0.39. Voyage and time charter revenues decreased to $59.8 million compared to $86.8 million in 2008. The decrease is attributable to decreased average higher rates and increased of higher days. Ownership days were 1,729 for the second quarter of 2009 and 2008, but operating days were 1,700 in the second quarter 2009 compared to 1,728 in 2008. Fleet utilization was 99.1% in the second quarter of ‘09 and 99.9% in 2008. The daily time charter equivalent rate for the second quarter of 2009 was $33,073 compared to $47,844 for 2008. Voyage expenses were $3.1 million for the quarter. Operating expenses amounted to $10.3 million, an increase by 4%. The increase is attributable to an increase in repairs which was partly offset by decreased insurance costs. Daily operating expenses were $5,962 for the second quarter of 2009, compared to $5,702 in 2008, representing an increase of 5%. Depreciation and amortization of deferred charges amounted to $11 million for the second quarter of 2009. General and administrative expenses increased by $0.3 million or 8% for the second quarter of 2009 to $4.2 million, compared to $3.9 million in 2008. The increase is mainly attributable to increased compensation cost on restricted stocks. Interest and finance costs decreased to $0.9 million for the quarter, compared to $1.5 million in 2008 due to lower average interest rates. For the six months ended June 30th, 2009 now compared to the six months ended June 30th, 2008, net income for the six…

(Operator instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Doug Mavrinac. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Company: Good afternoon everyone.

Hi Doug. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Company: Hi. I just had a handful of follow-up questions for you guys. First, kind of from a demand perspective, you guys have been one of the most consistent employers of your vessels over its course of the last several months. Obviously, your charter rates have improved over the time period. But my question is more of, has the level of demand by charterers improved or is it just the same guys out there, well on the pay is a little bit more given the improvement rate? So my question is more of, do you see more counter parties out there willing to put vessels away for a longer period of time now than you did, say, maybe a few months ago?

Well effectively there has been a brisk interest for chartering ships backed by the future forward contracts of course. It’ll always play a role as to the number of charters that would like to take a view as regards six, nine or 12 months forward charters. And all in all, we can say that it has been a healthier demand even though it has not been explosive in the sense that we have seen exceptional demand which we hadn’t seen earlier on. The problem as usual is to decide what is going to happen over the next couple of quarters. And there again, we will have to take a view on where the future forward agreement contracts are going to be head, and at the same time, where the views will be larger charterers and shippers will go from here on looking at the supply and demand situation. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Company: Okay, great, thank you Stassis. And then the second question, a lot of people have – it’s been well written about the order book and ship delays and what not, as it relates to Diana Shipping and the two Capes that you guys are taking delivery of one later this year and one next year, can you just provide an update as to the status of those whether you expect to receive those on time and just kind of, I guess overall, what the status of those two are?

Well as regards to – number is 1138. The vessel will be delivered to the owners on the 28th of October of this year, which is on schedule. And the other vessel, the 1107 will be delivered within February 2010, which again is on schedule. And we do not foresee any delays on those deliveries which are scheduled as of to date. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Company: Thank you, Mr. Palios. And then just one final question before I turn it over to others. You guys are in a very obviously enviable position with the amount of cash that you have built up on the balance sheet over the course of the last several months. My question is, given that war chest that you have essentially built up, are you guys seeing any acquisition opportunities yet that are of interest? And if not, at what level – do you have a level of mind of cash, so that you say, okay, well, we are comfortable maybe reinstituting the dividend or is it more of this you just kind of have to balance what do you expect to see with your dividend decisions?

We are starting to note some movement across the segments, and the key development over the last few months is aggressive pricing of Capes by a major Korean yard, which is now starting to infiltrate the decision-making of a broader spectrum of yards. Now, as in regards to the pricing, I would like to answer that by stating that our strategy is to take advantage of asset acquisitions without changing specific price targets, maintaining our high technical standards and age profile for the ships which we will be acquiring over the next few quarters. Now you also asked something about the dividend. As we have said in the past, as long as we are in the part of the shipping side cycle where we consider that line opportunities for vessels will arise, we do not plan to restate the dividend. We are convinced that investing in two (inaudible) is a must but a usual of our free cash flows and paying a dividend. However we strongly believe that when we face (inaudible) Diana will come out of which stronger and with very attractive dividends. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Company: Perfect. Very helpful. Thank you.

Three questions.

That was it. That was it. Thank you. It’s very helpful.

Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Lewis.

Yes, thank you and afternoon.

Hello, Greg.

Hi.

Just to follow-up on of your comments Stassis. You mentioned that shipyards are going to the process of building and owning ships and sort of train them as commodities. At this point, have you had – what types of discussions if any have you had with the shipyards about taking new vessels from members, is this something that’s going to take a little bit longer to play out?

We haven’t had any specific discussions with yards to buy ships that are owned by them. What we do know that there is a trend developing rather fast which is the second phase of this ship build or ship owning process which is effectively the yards taking over abandoned slots with the help and finance from major Chinese yards, but they have not approached us yet with a view of selling these or any of those.

Okay, great. And then just to follow-up on the potential acquisition of vessels. If we look at the track record over the last couple of years specifically when you were buying Capes, typically you would buy a cape and then it would come pretty much attached with like a long-term time charter. Being there is really not a lot of depths to the time charter market, but will that’s going to prevent you from going out and acquiring Capes or how do you think about that?

Well, I think we have to be very explicit there. When we are on the other cycle of these signs of (inaudible), I feel we have to use money from the capital markets. And it doesn’t really matter as long as you charter the vessel with a first class charterer and provided, of course, the vessel is new. Now when you are on the lower cycle of this (inaudible) then of course you have to use bank debt. And the bank debt is much, much cheaper than the dividend you were paying. So I think this is the key element behind buying high price vessels and low price vessels.

Greg, this is Ioannis. Regarding the chartering of those vessels to us, of course, when is prepared to buy cheap assets without time charter attached for a long period, because it is going to be an asset play rather than a cash flow place as it used to be in the past. We are prevented for buying assets because we don’t see long-term charters for them. We will buy as long as we feel that this is the right time to start buying vessels, regardless of the charter attaches.

Okay, great. And then my last question is – I mean clearly China has been strong over the last few months, I mean everybody is going with direct iron ore imports. But have you seen a pickup in cargos through any other regions or countries?

Well there are sporadically volumes increasing, yes. From South America to Europe, and as I mentioned earlier, we have a grain cargos moving to Russia. But we haven’t seen a major trends developing where we can identify them and say these will play pivotal role in the future course of the freight markets. Nothing to compare with the iron ore, two types of coal that we had mentioned and added to that the Chinese coastal trade. Chinese coastal trades, as I mentioned, there has been an increasing in volume. It has exceeded 600 million tons a year now and an increase of 5% of course is significant. We have obviously to keep in mind that most of this trade is carried in Handysize or Handymax ships and the Panamaxs are beginning now to be involved in the Chinese coastal trade and very few Capes.

Okay. Thank you very much for your time gentlemen.

You’re welcome.

Your next question comes from the line of Urs Dur.

Good morning, guys or good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Just in regards to Stassis’ comments about the market and then indicating that gradual acquisitions are possible, but then again the outlook for the order book, you’re more cautious. I guess where do you feel asset values are going to go from here. They have been fairly stable for a number of months now, although very liquid. Can you I guess comment on both things? Can you comment on the liquidity of opportunities today as well as where you think asset values are going to go maybe not with numbers, but maybe percentage points down from here.

Well, the liquidity in asset trades is going to increase unfortunately as the prices fall, because the prices are not going to drop unless earnings drop. When earnings drop, pessimism will set in and some owners who have been holding out in the hopes of getting either a profitable long-term charter or a better price for their ships are going to effectively start offering the ships for sale before deals happen that was marked down the value of their assets. So we expect, as I said, liquidity increase when prices drop. But we are not sure when this will happen, that’s why we are waiting patiently and we are going to stage our acquisitions over the next few quarters, because we don’t know exactly the timing when asset values are going to bottom out.

But do you feel, I guess, should I take that as the implication that you would look at it over the next few quarters as the high probability of acquiring some ships and that sort of identifying where you feel asset values may well bottom?

Yes, we intend to start buying ships within the next couple of quarters and continue for a few quarters beyond that until we feel that asset values have bottomed out.

Okay, great. Fantastic. Really everything else has been asked on my behalf. So thank you very much.

You’re welcome.

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Burk. Scott Burk - Oppenheimer & Co.: Hi, good afternoon, guys.

Good afternoon.

Hi Scott. Scott Burk - Oppenheimer & Co.: I had a question about just the charter – chartering policy going forward, you have got essentially the whole fleet locked up for the rest of 2009 and 50% coverage for next year, when do you start looking for new charters to the vessel that are rolling off in the first part of 2010?

Hi, Scott. As we have said in the past, the way we charter our vessel has to do with the portfolio approach to our chartering. We charter the vessel periodically meaning that we want to have a vessel to fix every now and then and position that vessel to afterwards for a delivery at a point where we do not have a lot of other vessels opening. So you should expect us to start fixing the 2010, the vessels that they open in 2010, close to those days. Scott Burk - Oppenheimer & Co.: Okay, and kind of what I expected. Wanted to follow up with the acquisition, so it sounds like you might actually be ready to pull the trigger on some vessels, some vessel purchases near-term, what – are you seeing some deals that have started to look attractive or what’s the kind of the (inaudible) actually started to looking upon in charter?

Well essentially, we are being approached by several brokers with opportunities and we are watching the prices. And now, the prices have been going as far as we have concerned, of course, in our acquisition policy, we are on wait during the last few weeks which effectively has pushed back the starting point of the acquisitions, because even though we haven’t set specific price levels for the acquisitions, we do not wish to buy into a market where values arriving. When our views are as I expressed in earlier on rather cautious if not pessimistic about earnings and evaluations. So essentially when we feel relatively comfortable that values are at a point where compared to maybe historical levels are appropriate for Diana to start the acquisition program, then we will do that. And we guess we are not certain that this will be towards the end of the year. Scott Burk - Oppenheimer & Co.: Okay. And so it sounds like you are going to average into the vessel prices at the times, so that implies that you will just be buying single vessels are you looking for fleets two to three, four, five vessels at a time when you do start doing purchases?

I think it’s better to go vessel by vessel, because by buying vessel by vessel, you don’t buy ships in one specific time with a lot of exposure. I think it’s better to even out your purchases. So one by one maybe is better or two at a time. Scott Burk - Oppenheimer & Co.: Okay. Thanks guys.

You’re welcome.

Your next question comes from the line of Anders Rosenlund.

Thank you. Have you considered buying assets in other assets than drawable [ph] vessels?

Could you repeat the question, please?

Will you consider buying assets in other assets (inaudible) drawable [ph] vessels?

We are of course watching the market in every segment and particularly the containers because that is an area which has been hit more than the dry cargo. But we would like to keep our philosophy of Panamaxs and Capes intact for the time being.

Okay. But you won’t rule it out.

No. Not completely, no, because it’s asset play.

For containers of course, because as we have stated in our various prospectuses what we look at these dry bulk market and container market. We are not considering the wide tanker market or anything of the sort.

Anders, let me say again something that we have said in the past. Even we have to do something in the containers market that would be a very short period and the most probably there will be a spin-off into a different company, because we don’t feel that shareholders like the idea of a diversified kind of a fleet in a company. So if we have do something in the containers, it is going to be through that, but very quickly spin out to a different entity.

Brilliant. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

And your next question comes from the line of Rob MacKenzie.

Good morning, guys. I am sorry, good afternoon.

Hello.

Most of my questions have been answered so far, but I just wanted to follow up on again on the acquisition front, where are you seeing the most attractive pricing, is it Panas or Capes and is that how do you weigh the price of the vessel here being an asset play versus the potential contracts that are out in the market right now?

Well the asset play is – it depends directly on the possibilities that we ascribe on a ship which we have acquired overseeing its value at relatively short – at this time over the medium term to go up. So at this point, we don’t know when values will go up, because we don’t know when they are going to bottom out towards the wall. So we are very, very far behind in this process unfortunately at least a few quarters. So when we see prices low compared to historical values we can be fairly certain that when we buy, we are going to buy a ship for the asset and value appreciation. If we buy at a very high value, we buy for the cash flow as Ioannis Zafirakis explained earlier. So now, knowing that we are not for sure at the upper part of the shipping cycle, we are at the lower part of the shipping cycle. Any acquisition by definition is going to be an asset play oriented which means that we will avoid for sure chartering the ship for long periods of time.

And I guess what I was asking whether our Panas or Capes more attractively priced from an asset standpoint right now?

You understand that in shipping market prevails. We certainly from the market that what you pay is what you get. The price of the Panamax and the price of the Capes to date are highly correlated to the rate that you can charter them at. So basically there is not such a thing as a better price assets, because if each one demands a different rate, what you pay is what you get. What Stassis was saying is as reason, we don’t feel that’s time wise, feel the time to start buying assets. If I wanted to be more blind [ph] about it, I would have said it you that it doesn’t really matter what you buy, when you buy cheap assets. What you buy is meaning either Panamaxs or Capes, because everything is included in the price that you pay at that time. Of course, technically the vessels has to be of some standards. But the asset appreciation and the return that you are going to have, the IRR that you are going to produce on those vessels is going to be pretty similar. Both the volatility in the rates and the price, the pick of the vessel is that more volatile.

Great. And you seem to indicate no interest in Handys, is that correct?

Not really, the only what we have said in the past is that whatever we do hear in Diana we have to be focused and we need a specific size to do it. Wouldn’t be interested in buying one Handymax vessel, but we need to have a fleet, then most probably a homogenous fleets of Handymax vessels in order to do something there.

Great. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

(Operator instructions). Your next question comes from the line of George Piccolo [ph].

Hi, thanks guys. Stassis, I may have heard you wrong, but towards the end of your prepared comments, did you say you thought that if all this new capacity comes on line that used older vessels would get breakeven charters?

No we are saying that the earnings of ships were going to quickly drop to breakeven levels or even below that which will at the same time cause their values to drop as well. Not now, we are away above breakeven levels.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I can answer that question with any degree of certainty, because it all depends on how aggressive yards will be in pricing the sales of new buildings or the re-sales of ships that they have ended up owning through cancellations.

Okay. But from the shipper side, you are not seeing any pushback from shippers demanding the newest vessel or looking for a discounted rate because it’s an older vessel.

Both for the time being, no, but as the rates drop, of course, shippers will have a larger choice of tonnage and they will go for the newer ships and ignore the older tonnage or alternatively demand much lower rates. But if we can get a modern ship at a low rate, they usually don’t bother with an older vessel. To reach that point, we have to be at pretty low levels, I mean a fraction of what we are seeing now.

Having close to running expense of the ships.

Yes.

Okay, thank you for that. All of my other questions have been answered. Thanks.

You’re welcome.

And there are no further questions at this time.

Before we go to the closing remarks with our Chairman and CEO, I would like to correct – my tongue slipped during the financial overview. And I said that the in the second quarter of ’09, we entered into a zero cost collar agreement evaluation of which as of June 30th, 2009 provided losses of $108 million. Of course this is not a $108 million, but the material amount of a $108,000 and that did not affect of course the EPS amounts of either the quarter or the six months ended June 30, 2009. Thank you very much. And now, we can go to the closing remarks with our Chairman and CEO.

Thank you, Andreas. Thank you again for your interest in and support of Diana Shipping. We believe that our company continues to be in a very strong position to take advantage of the opportunities that we see now in our market. We will pursue those opportunities in a prudent, responsible and selective manner. And we look forward to speaking to with you next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your participation. This does concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.