Good day, and welcome to the StealthGas Second Quarter 2017 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Harry Vafias. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter 2017 earnings call. This is Harry Vafias, CEO of StealthGas, and joining me shortly will be our Finance Officer, Mrs. Sakellari, who will cover our financial review for the period examined. Before we commence our presentation, I would like all of you to be reminded that we will be discussing forward-looking statements which reflect current views with respect to future events and financial performance. At this stage, if you could all take a moment to read our disclaimer on Slide 2 of this presentation. It’s noted that the risks are further disclosed in StealthGas’ filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I would also like to note that all amounts quoted, unless otherwise clarified, are stated in U.S. dollars. Slide 3 summarizes our key highlights for the second quarter of 2017. Despite of the seasonal effect and the persistently low oil prices, demand for our vessels were strong this quarter, allowing us to achieve an operational utilization of about 95%. This is the best second quarter utilization percentage marked since 2012, i.e. five years ago. In addition to this and compared to the second quarter of 2016, we managed to reduce our commercial off-hire days by an astonishing 42%; again, a strong sign of an improved market. Our solid earnings visibility continues where we have about 83% of our fleet secured for the remainder of 2017, with a total of $180 million in contracted revenues. Following our fleet renewal strategy, we proceeded with the sale of two of our older ships, the Gas Icon and the Gas Emperor, both for further trading. In addition to this, we further delayed the delivery of two of our 22,000 cbm LPG semi-refrigerated newbuilding vessels at zero cost. In terms of our financial performance, our revenue…

Thank you, Harry, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter of 2017, demand stood strong despite of the seasonally weak period and, therefore, our financial performance was enhanced. Let us move on to Slide 7, where we see the income statement for the second quarter of 2017 against the same period of the previous year. Voyage revenues came at about $40 million, a record number for our company, increased compared to the second quarter of 2016 by 10%. This increase is attributed to the high utilization of our fleet as our operational utilization was close to 95% compared to 91% in the same period of last year. In addition to these market rates, marked a slight rise, thus contributing positively to our revenue stream. Voyage costs amounted to $4.5 million, marking the 24% increase compared to Q2 2016. This increase is mostly attributed to the increase in bunker costs due to higher consumption and higher oil prices. Net revenues that is revenues after deducting voyage costs, came at $34.7 million, corresponding to a gross profit margin of 88%. Running costs at $14.4 million, marked a $900,000 decrease compared to Q2 2016 in spite the same number of vessels operating in both periods and fewer vessels on bareboat charters. The decrease in operating cost is mostly an outcome of improved operating efficiency and a reduction of store costs by more than 10%. With regards to drydocking costs, this amounted to approximately $1.2 million, given three scheduled drydocking taking place in the quarter compared to four drydockings that took place during the same period last year. In terms of non-cash items, this quarter, we incurred an impairment loss of $3.2 million for three vessels, two of which are classified in the second quarter’s financials as held for sale. Our EBITDA for…

Let us proceed now to the market update in Slide 11. Global LPG trade has grown by an average of about 5% per annum over the last decade, driven largely by the growth in the U.S. export to Asian destinations. Indeed, the LPG exports from the U.S. have shown a strong escalating trend, increasing by about 35% per annum over the last 10 years. This growth is expected to persist well into the next decade as NGL output from natural gas processing continues to grow. Production of LPG is dominantly in the U.S. and the Middle East. U.S. export volumes, most of which are directed to Asia, are the key drivers of the LPG trade growth. Many Asian players have signed long-term supply deals with U.S. producers. Asian destinations, mainly Japan, China, South Korea and Singapore, made up of around 40% of U.S. LPG exports in 2016. In the Middle East and with the lifting of sanctions, countries like Iran have raised the LPG trade. Iran accounts for 17% of the LPG trade in the area and this is expected to grow to 40% by 2020. In terms of LPG demand, China, Japan, South Korea are the key players in Asia. We also see growth in other areas in the Asia Pacific, such as India, culminated from the government’s aggressive promotion of LPG penetration in rural areas. Focusing on our segment fundamentals in Slide 12, we see that during Q2 2017, rates demonstrated an upward trend across all categories, marking the highest quarter-on-quarter increase realized in the past two years. We perceive however that pool oil prices do not assist rates to pick up, just to further leverage earnings. West of Swiss, the spot market for pressurized ships, has held up better than the last year though what is a…

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from Mr. Brandon Oglenski from Barclays. Your line is open.

This is Van Kegel on for Brandon. Just a quick question here on the dynamics at play, I guess, among the different vessel size portions of the market. Obviously, a lot of the supply that’s come online over the last few years has been from the larger vessel sizes. How insulated are the 3.5 to 7,000 cbm vessel sizes from the broader pricing issues and the larger segments of the market?

Good question. Good morning, first of all. There is no connection and no correlation between the two. You can say that there’s a correlation between the VLGCs and the 22K ships. But there is close to zero correlation between the VLGCs and the larger vessels, generally with the small vessels, and that we have seen both in the good times and the bad times. For example, two years ago, the VLGCs were making $100,000 a day and we were making six. And now, they’re making $9,000 a day and we’re making $8,000. So there’s no correlation.

Got it. And then in terms of just kind of a ceiling for the smaller vessels, is there any connection there? I mean, obviously we sort of see a little bit of a recovery in the smaller vessel segment, which is good to see. But with the larger vessel earnings still falling, is there kind of a limit to how much of a recovery we could see in the smaller segment?

Again, there is no correlation. So we are not worried at all about what’s happening in the big ships. We worry about our fleet. We try to make as much money as we can with our fleet. And we are happy that despite being in the summer, which is a seasonally weak period, we have proven that when the market is showing encouraging signs, we can improve our numbers drastically.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from Mr. George Berman from IFS Raymond James. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, Harry, and congratulations. Looks like, we’re finally going in the right direction.

We’re not popping the champagne bottle, George. But we’re having them in fridge.

Right. Quick question. If we look at the current rates and assume that sooner or later, there will be a significant uptick with no new ordering, limited availability at various shipyards. If rates rise significantly, how long would it take for a new entrance or existing shippers to, say, order LPG ships and then actually take delivery? Is it usually about one to two year or longer timeframe?

Minimum two years, I would say.

Okay. So if ordering would really start to pick up in the 2018, the earliest you would see any new supply coming in is then around 2020, 2021, and by then the fleet would either be older than it is now?

I would say 2020 to be conservative.

And availability on shipyards recently has also been reduced quite a bit, yes?

The shipyards that build those ships are not the shipyards that build the very big ships. These are the small family-owned yards in Japan that cannot build 10 and 20 ships per year. So even if you want to order there, maybe you can, but again, it won’t be a big number of ships.

Yes, yes. And the LPG trade, overall, you still see continued growth there now, not only from exports to the U.S. that go all over Asia and then have to be redistributed, but also in Africa, you point out?

It’s not yet, of course, in the volumes we’re seeing in the other locations, but it’s an up-and-coming continent.

Okay, great. Any do have any thoughts – I see your newbuild program now is essentially fully funded. Any thoughts about we opening the stock buyback program given the 20% or – trading at 20 times net asset value?

Sorry, I didn’t understand the question.

Since you’re trading at only 20% of book value, are you possibly thinking about reopening the stock buyback program?

Sorry, yes. This is something that we discuss in every Board meeting. As you know, up to now, we have bought in excess of $20 million worth of stock. The Board wants all the new buildings delivered first, especially the big ones that are quite expensive, and depending on what the market does, when these get delivered, then we will make a decision on buying more stocks. So I guess, this is a decision for Q2 2018, as the last newbuild delivers April, May 2018.

Yes. Fair enough. Well, we look forward to continued progress.

Thank you, George.

[Operator Instructions]

I guess, there are no more questions.

There are no more questions over the telephone, sir.

Okay. So we would like to thank everybody for joining us at our conference call today, and we look forward to having you again at our next conference call for Q3 2017 in about November time. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.