Hello, and welcome to the Diana Shipping Inc. First Quarter 2023 Conference Call and Webcast. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Ed Nebb, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ed.

Thank you, Kevin, and thanks to everyone who is joining us today for the Diana Shipping Inc. 2023 first quarter conference call. With us today to lead the call from management is Semiramis Paliou, Chief Executive Officer, who will introduce the other executives of the company and begin the presentation.

Thank you, Ed. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Diana Shipping Inc.’s first quarter 2023 earnings call. My name is Semiramis Paliou, the CEO of the company, and it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to present to you today. As mentioned by Ed earlier, I'm joined by our esteemed team, Mr. Anastasios Margaronis, President of Diana Shipping; Mr. Ioannis Zafirakis, CFO and Chief Strategy Officer; Mr. Eleftherios Papatrifon, Director of Diana Shipping Inc.; Ms. Maria Dede, the company’s Chief Accounting Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone to review the forward-looking statements applicable to today's presentation, which can be found on Page 4 of the accompanying first quarter 2023 presentation. Q1 2023 has proven to be a profitable quarter for our company, despite less robust conditions prevailing in the market. Our disciplined chartering strategy, once again, have largely insulated us from the market weakening and has allowed us to generate positive free cash flows. In line with the guidance provided during the company’s end of year earnings call, we are pleased to declare the distribution of a dividend for this quarter amounting to $0.15 per share. We aim to continue rewarding our shareholders when the conditions allow us to do so. Turning to Slide 5, I will provide an overview of the company's snapshot as of today. We currently own and operate an extended fleet of 42 vessels in the water with a carrying capacity of approximately 4.7 million deadweight tons. Our fleet utilization has remained consistently high reaching 99.4% for the first quarter of 2023. Additionally, we employed 1,013 people at sea and the shore by the end of the first quarter. Moving on to Slide 6 and 7, let's review the highlights of the first quarter and recent developments. In…

Thank you, Semiramis. All in all, I think this has been a good quarter. As we have already said, our time charter revenues for the quarters stood at $72.6 million compared to $65.9 million in the same quarter in 2022. Of course, you understand that this is mainly because of the increased number of operating days, i.e. number of vessels. The time charter rate was at (ph) compared to 22 -- almost 22 something thousand per day in 2022 for the same quarter. This is showing the market -- the current or the previous quarter's market conditions. An important point to pinpoint someone for this slide is the daily operating expenses where we are at similar levels like a year ago or even a little bit lower. Moving to Slide number 11. The important point on this slide is the earnings per common shares diluted, as we have already said, we managed to have $0.22 per share compared to $0.31 for the previous year's quarter, same quarter of the previous year. Moving to Slide number 12. Again, we have kept our balance sheet at a very healthy condition. You can see the cash and cash equivalents and time deposit to be at the level of $115.7 million and the total debt only at $630 plus something. If you do the math, this leaves the company with a net debt position of only $523 point something million. Slide number 13. As we have mentioned many times, managing our amortization profile is very important. Taking into account the two last loan agreements, the last two loan agreements we did the one for $100 million and another one for $22 million, we have successfully managed not to have maturities for the remaining of 2023 and the entire 2024 and 2025, the entire 2025.…

Thank you, Ioannis. And welcome from me as well to the participants of this conference call on Diana's Q1 financial performance and the look at the industry outlook. I'd like to start by looking at recent bulk carrier earnings developments. The bulk carrier sector has experienced softer earnings recently across all size range. Average bulk carrier earnings are down to around $12,000 per day, amid limited inquiry in key cargo loading regions and weaker sentiment. Looking at the indices, we observed the following trends, which help us put into perspective the present state of the market. The Baltic Dry Index started the year at 1,250 and closed yesterday at 1,250. The 2022 high was 3,369. The Baltic Cape Index moved from 1,635 on January 3 of this year to 1,758 yesterday. The 2022 high was 4,602 and the five TC route earnings peaked at $38,169 per day. The Baltic Panamax Index started the year at 1,438 and closed yesterday at 1,141. It reached the high of 3,416 in 2022 with the five TC average earnings peaking at $30,746 a day. The Baltic Supramax Index stood at 968 on January 3 and closed yesterday at 980. The 2022 high was 3,033 and the 10 time charter average earnings peaked last year at $33,366 per day. The 12 months’ time charter rate for Cape stands at around $15,000 per day. For Panamaxes, the rate is a low $12,500 per day, while for Ultramaxes, it stands at around $11,500 per day. Now let's try to explain the reasons behind these rather wild movements in earnings and indices. On Slide 19, we can have a look at macroeconomic development. According to the latest forecast published by the IMF, world GDP is expected to grow by 2.8% this year and 3% in 2024. Uncertainties which…

Thank you, Anastasios. Before we open up the call to questions-and-answer session, I would like to summarize the key points from today's presentation. Firstly, we continue putting emphasis on generating and securing positive free cash flows. Since November 2021, we have consistently distributed substantial cash and in-kind dividends. Additionally, we have provided clear guidance of our intention to declare a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share for the next two quarters of 2023. Secondly, our company maintains a strong balance sheet, allowing us to pursue creative growth opportunities and fleet renewal initiatives. Third, we remain committed to our strategy of providing stability in a cyclical business, while maximizing long term shareholder value. Thank you all for joining us today, and we look forward to addressing your questions during the Q&A session.

Thank you. We’ll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If there are no questions at this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any further or closing comments.

Thank you. Once again, thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to talking to you on our next earnings call. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today. End of Q&A: