International Seaways, Inc. (INSW) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Thank you for standing by. My name is Christina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to International Seaways, Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the floor over to James Small, General Counsel. James, the floor is now yours.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to International Seaways Earnings Call for the first quarter of 2026. Before we begin, I would like to start off by advising everyone with us today of the following. During this call and in the accompanying presentation, management may make forward-looking statements regarding the company or the industry in which it operates, which may address, without limitation, the following topics: outlooks for the crude tanker and product tanker markets; changing trading patterns, forecasts of world and regional economic activity; forecasts covering the production of and demand for oil and petroleum products; the effects of ongoing and threatened conflicts around the world, including in particular, in the Middle East; the company's strategy and business prospects; expectations around revenues and expenses, including vessel charter hire and G&A expenses; estimated future bookings, TCE rates and capital expenditures, projected dry dock and off-hire days, newbuild vessel construction, vessel sales and purchases, anticipated financing transactions and plans to issue dividends; economic, regulatory and political developments in the United States and globally, the company's ability to achieve its financing and other objectives and its consideration of strategic alternatives; and the company's relationships with its stakeholders. Forward-looking statements take into account assumptions made by management based on various factors, including management's experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected and future developments and other factors that management believes are appropriate to consider in the circumstances. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those implied or expressed by the statements. Factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ from expectations include those described in our annual report on Form 10-K for 2025, in our Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2026 as well as in other filings that we have made or in the future may make with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Now let me turn the call over to Lois Zabrocky, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Lois?

Thank you very much, James. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining International Seaways earnings call for the first quarter of 2026. On Slide 4 of the presentation, which you can find in the Investor Relations section of our website, net income for the first quarter was a record $286 million or $5.75 per diluted share. Excluding special items, adjusted net income for the quarter was $194 million or $3.90 per diluted share and adjusted EBITDA was $244 million. Today, we also announced another record with the declaration of our largest quarterly combined dividend of $4.55 per share, more than doubling last quarter's record of $2.15 per share. The declared dividend is comprised of two main elements: one, a new payout ratio of 85%, which you can expect from us going forward as a practice. Secondarily, a discretionary amount this quarter that we added due to the outstanding performance of the company and current market conditions, as you can see in the upper right section of the slide. We are very proud to have passed the milestone back in March of $1 billion returned to shareholders since 2020. We are even more proud that we will reach more than 20% of that mark when we pay our dividend in June. It took 6 years to achieve the $1 billion in returns and 1 quarter to get to $1.3 billion. We continue to believe in building on our track record of returning to shareholders as part of our consistent and balanced capital allocation strategy. On the lower left part of the page, we sold 7 vessels with an average age of 17 years for $216 million as part of our ongoing fleet optimization. We have consistently demonstrated throughout our 10-year history, we actively upgrade the portfolio throughout the cycle. Standing still in this business is effectively moving backwards. These transactions enhance our flexibility, and you should expect us to continue redeploying capital in a disciplined manner, including reinvestment in our fleet, in-line, again, with our balanced capital allocation strategy. Our LR1 newbuilding continue to join our fleet with 2 deliveries thus far in 2026 and the remaining 2 coming in the third quarter. From our prior call, Tankers International continues to enhance its status as not only a leading VLCC pool, but has expanded into Suezmaxes. As our ships continue to integrate into the Suezmax pool, we have also gained a new pool participant. We are quite excited about the opportunities in front of us as sole owners of Tankers International. One last comment in this section relates to our time charter coverage. We added another Suezmax onto our list for the next 3 years at $40,000 per day, which is great, and we like to have profitable long-term charters. We continue to work the time charter market with a keen eye towards the longer-term rate environment. This market opens and closes like any other arbitrage opportunity. We have $918 million in total liquidity, which includes almost $380 million in cash and $540 million in undrawn revolver capacity. Jeff is going to walk you through the cash flows of the quarter, but our vessel sales, the market environment and our disciplined balance sheet management over the last few years have all combined to put INSW where we are today. Turning over to Slide 5. We've updated our standard set of bullets on tanker demand drivers with the subtle green up arrows next to the bullet represented as good for tankers, the black dash representing a neutral impact and a red down arrow meaning the topic is not good for tanker demand. I won't read those bullets individually, but we believe demand fundamentals are solid and continue to support a constructive outlook for seaborne transportation. The current tanker market is as volatile as it has been in some time, particularly in reaction to the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz. Over the past few months, the market has been adapting to a new status quo, similar to what we saw during the Red Sea disruption and following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This situation however, is even more significant. As shown in the lower left chart, roughly 15 million barrels per day of crude, nearly 40% of seaborne volumes transit through the Strait. Some of this disruption has been offset by alternative flows, including increased Red Sea exports as Saudi barrels move west to Yanbu, draws from inventories and the release of Russian barrels that have accumulated on the water. That said, these sources have not fully replaced the volumes typically moving through the street. In the near term, the market is benefiting as it works to adjust to this dislocation. However, as the Strait remains closed for an extended period, it could have broader implications for global energy markets until a resolution is reached. As you can see on the lower right, Western markets earnings strengthened meaningfully after the onset of the conflict, so much so that MRs and VLCC rates can now be shown on the same scale, quite an exception. Looking ahead, we believe that the longer the disruption persists, the more meaningful the eventual rebalancing could be once conditions stabilize. Particularly if inventories continue to drop, which could support tanker demand and earnings in the future. On the supply side, on Slide 6 of the presentation, with the aging of the world fleet and the sustained strength in tanker earnings, it is natural to see that the order book is creeping up. In the graph on the left, the order book has grown since the end of 2023, rising to about 16% of today's fleet. The industry needs even more. If you look at the chart on the right-hand side that shows the ratio of removal candidates, which are 18 years or older by the time the order book is fully delivered at 3x the size of those vessels entering the fleet over the next few years. This continues to be the largest story for tanker shipping and is likely to look its way in the near term. These fundamentals should translate into continued up-cycle over the next few years, and Seaways remains well positioned to capitalize on these market conditions. We will continue to execute our balanced capital allocation approach to renew our fleet and to adapt to industry conditions with a strong balance sheet while returning to shareholders. I'm now going to turn it over to our CFO, Jeff Pribor, to provide the financial review. Jeff?

Thanks, Lois, and good morning, everyone. On Slide 8, net income for the first quarter was approximately $286 million or $5.75 per diluted share. Excluding special items, our net income was $194 million or $3.90 per diluted share. On the upper right chart, adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $244 million. In the appendix, we provide a reconciliation from reported earnings to adjusted earnings. While our revenue and expenses were largely within expectations, our G&A expenses were reduced by about $5 million in the quarter due to a commercial settlement where we were reimbursed for legal expenses incurred over the last 2 years. The lightering business in the first quarter had around $6 million in revenue and expenses. Turning to our cash bridge on Slide 9. We began the quarter with total liquidity of $724 million, composed of $160 million in cash and $557 million in undrawn revolving capacity. Following along the chart from left to right on the cash bridge, we first had $244 million in adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter, plus $14 million of debt service, another $15 million of dry dock and capital expenditures as well as an $81 million use of working capital. We therefore achieved our definition of free cash flows of about $133 million for the first quarter. We received $223 million in net proceeds from the sale of 7 vessels in the first quarter, of which about $6 million was paid to the pool for positioning of one of our VLCCs. We spent $28 million in LR1uilding installments, including financing proceeds and costs and $5 million to acquire the remaining ownership stake in TI. The remaining $106 million represents our second largest ever dividend of $2.15 per share paid in March and topping the $1 billion milestone in returns to shareholders. In summary, the result of our activity this quarter yielded a net increase in cash of $210 million, roughly in line with the proceeds from our vessel sales. This equates to ending cash of $377 million, with $541 million in undrawn revolvers for total liquidity of about $918 million. Moving now to Slide 10. We have a strong financial position detailed by the balance sheet you see on the left-hand side of the page. Liquidity is strong at $918 million. We've invested about $2 million in vessels at cost on the books, which are currently valued at nearly $4 billion. And with approximately $225 million in net debt combined with rising asset values, our net loan-to-value is below 7% at the end of the first quarter. In the lower right-hand table, we have included a summary debt profile. Gross debt at the end of the first quarter was $650 million. Mandatory debt repayments through the end of 2026 are about $21 million. Our debt is almost entirely fixed or hedged, which contributes to our total cost of debt below 6%. We continue to enhance our balance sheet to maintain the financial flexibility necessary to facilitate growth as well as returns to shareholders. Our nearest maturity in the portfolio isn't until the next decade. We have 25 unencumbered vessels, and we have ample undrawn RCF capacity. We continue to explore ways to lower our breakeven cost even more and share in the upside with substantial returns to shareholders. On the last slide that I'll cover, Slide 11 reflects our forward-looking guidance and booked-to-date TCE aligned with our spot cash breakeven rate. Starting with TCE fixtures for the second quarter of 2026. I'll remind you that actual TCE during our next earnings call may be different. But in the second quarter so far, we currently have a blended average spot TCE of over $100,000 per day fleet-wide on about 45% of our second quarter expected revenue. On the right-hand side, our expected breakeven for the next 12 months is about $14,900 per day. So based on our spot TCE book to date and our spot breakeven, it looks as though Seaways can continue to generate significant free cash flow during the second quarter and build on our track record of returning cash to shareholders. On the bottom left-hand chart, we provide updated guidance for our expenses in 2026. You'll notice that we've added a few million dollars per quarter to our projected G&A. These increases represent the impact of consolidating Tankers International into INSW's financials. I would also like to note that we've added guidance for what we refer to as other revenue, which are TI commissions that offset this. We also included in the appendix our quarterly expected off-hire and CapEx. I don't plan to read each item line by line, but encourage you to use these for modeling purposes. Now that concludes my remarks. I'd like to turn the call back to Lois for her closing comments.

Thanks so much, Jeff. On Slide 12, we have provided you with Seaways investment highlights and encourage you to read them in their entirety. Summarizing briefly, over the last almost 10 years, International Seaways has built a track record of returning cash to shareholders, maintaining a healthy balance sheet and growing the company. Our total shareholder return represents over 28% compounded annual return. We continue to renew our fleet so that our average age is about 10 years old and what we see as the sweet spot for tanker investments and returns. We've invested in a range of asset classes to cast a wider net for growth opportunities and to supplement our scale in each class by operating in larger pools. We aim to keep our balance sheet fortified for any down cycle. We have nearly $1 billion in total liquidity to support our growth. Our net debt is under 7% of the fleet's current value, and we have about 40% of the fleet that is unencumbered. We only need our spot ships to earn less than $15,000 per day collectively to breakeven in 2026. At this point in the cycle, we expect to continue generating cash that we will put to work, creating value for the company and for our shareholders. We thank you very much for joining us. And with that said, operator, we would like to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Liam Burke from B. Riley Securities.

You have some older MRs in the fleet and there's significant demand. Are you seeing charterers -- willing to charter the older vessels? Or are you looking at elevated asset values to maybe divest them?

Well, I would say that we have had great success in clearing out our oldest MRs. And while I was thinking about you, and I was noodling out, if you're able to earn the types of rates that we are locking in. For example, in the second quarter, your free cash flow thrown off per MR in that quarter is going to be over $5 million. So we are constantly looking at high grading, and we've had great success on that front. And having available ships and prompt positions moving oil today is worth a lot of money.

Fair enough. And if you look at spot rates, obviously, they're having elevated rates just [putting it] mildly. How much thought have you given to moving some and locking in on the time charter front?

I can -- I'll start that, and I'll flip it over to Derek. And what we're seeing is that everybody that has a time charter now is certainly eager to hold on to it. And then you can get a healthy rate for a shorter period. But as you go longer, I think the volatility starts to come in and people are a little bit anxious to fix 3-year deals. What do you think, Derek?

Lois, I agree with you. I think, like Lois said in her remarks, we're eager to look for longer-term charters. Longer than a year, certainly in this kind of spot environment. And so the 2- or 3-year numbers are considerably lower than what we're seeing for the 1-year number and in the spot market. So our preference until we see stronger rates in the longer run would be to stay where we are in the spot for a while. When we do see -- outside the market, we do see rates that we like for longer term, like Lois mentioned in her remarks, Suezmax for 3 years at a pretty healthy number.

And your next question comes from the line of Greg Lewis from BTIG.

Great quarter. I did want to talk a little bit about the dividend. I mean that was eye-popping. Lois and Jeff, over the last couple of years, you've done a good job of the balance sheet looks great. We've sold some older vessels. We've kind of positioned the company very well, realizing that we're definitely going to keep part of the special dividend as part of the return of cash to shareholders. Are we looking or have we thought about maybe potentially increasing the kind of the small, I guess we refer to it as the permanent dividend. Has there been thoughts with the Board about potentially raising that up just given the fact that we've kind of put the fleet on a much, I don't know, firmer or better footing?

Greg, this is Jeff. We were just reflecting the other day as we got ready for this release and call that, that dividend started at $0.06 a quarter and then we raised it to $0.12. And that was in a year where there wasn't much net income, but we said, let's put out an amount that is, as you say, permanent that we're confident through the cycle. And then we've had a fortunate circumstance of being in the market that's allowed us to pay a lot more than that. And what we've really focused on this variable component where we wanted to be consistent and consistently raising it. And what you saw this time there is a message that we are at 85% of net income on a 25-year basis. Anecdotally, that's probably close to 100% on a 20-year depreciation basis, but we're at 85% on a 25-year basis. And you should expect that. Now I think you raised a good point. That $0.12, no one is really thinking about it right now when you have such a high amount of income that 85% is way more than that, right? Obviously, $4.55 right now. But over time, I think that's something we'll look at as the company gets bigger and we feel that what we can afford permanently because there will eventually be a down cycle, right? So I think you raised a good point. It is something we think about. But this quarter, we didn't want to confuse the message. We want to stay on message, 85% is the expectation. But because of market conditions and because of our strong balance sheet, thank you for mentioning it and then the liquidity that we have, we have the ability to pay some more. So we thought this is a market where you should share with your owners. So we want -- we didn't want to go away from the 85%. We want to be consistent there. The expectation is clear. But because we're in good market condition and excellent balance sheet liquidity, we have out of discretionary. So -- but your point is valid, all stuff we think about.

Okay. Great. And then, Lois, maybe on the market. I mean, clearly, the market is good or great. I was kind of curious, though, around kind of maybe what you're hearing or seeing regarding the dark fleet, right? I know that the U.S. removed or temporarily lifted a ban on some sanctions of like vessels that I guess were previously in the dark fleet. Is there any way to kind of track or think about those vessels in terms of -- I guess, a couple of things. One is, as the Iran war has happened and maybe some of these vessels sanctions are lifting, have those vessels -- have we -- I mean, have there been maybe better utilization or efficiency of those vessels? And then -- and maybe it's still too early to be talking about this, but in -- eventually, this war will be resolved and when this war is resolved, just given the fact that the waived sanctions, has there been any thoughts around what happens to those vessels that have been consistently in the dark fleet?

So I'm going to start that reply, and then I'll have Derek jump in. So for sure, we put a lot of thought into the dark fleet and getting them to go away, right, from the market entirely. You're certainly seeing heightened interest from our administration on the dark fleet. And I think this temporary relief to deliver cargoes to reduce the impacts of the Hormuz closure is very temporary. We still think there's a very high inefficiency rate on those -- on the dark fleet. And Derek, correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the VLCCs, which there's more than 150 now that are sanctioned, which are largely due to the Iranian situation are over 20 years.

A good portion of them are over 20 years. So to your question on are we seeing increased utilization of the dark fleet, that answer is still no, right? One, like Lois just said, they're a lot older. So their efficiency rate -- their utilization rate is quite low. And two, now there's increased pressure from the U.S. administration on these ships. So they're not getting a lot -- even before they Iran war. So we haven't seen them -- they're active, but they're not running at the utilization that the tankers international, right? And then what happens to them long term? It's an easy way to say they'll all quickly find their way to be recycled. That will probably take some time, but they'll run out of work. right? If the sanctions fight harder, the U.S. administration pays more attention to the VLCCs or if the EU pays more attention to sanction ships in some of the smaller fleet, smaller segments, they'll run out of work to do. So from a -- where they enter us on a competitive basis will be -- will have less impact on our markets.

Super Helpful.

And your next question comes from the line of Chris Robertson from Deutsche Bank.

Just have a question around as ships reposition and ballast from the Mid East over to the U.S. Gulf to load some cargoes here, especially the larger ships and VLCCs and such. What's your view around your own lightering business and activity prospects there? But just general thoughts about lightering operations that could be impacted here as a lot of ships come over this way and what types of inefficiencies could be brought into the system because of that?

I'll flip to Derek on that. I would say Q1 was somewhat negatively impacted by the incredible volatility and changing -- the scramble for what kind of -- where is the crude going to go, what ship is it going to go on? And we're seeing that change in Q2.

Yes, that's right. So Chris, at the start of -- the kickoff of the Iran war in March, there was this scramble for barrels, right, to replace everything that was coming out of Hormuz. So STS activity in the Gulf actually suffered a little bit because you wanted to -- the charters wanted to get oil as fast as they could onto any hole that they could. So this concept of trying to wind up several Aframaxes and the VLCC for lightering, for instance, there was no time for that in the immediate aftermath of the war. But just like you said, as things -- hard to say they've calmed down, right? But as we're starting to get a new sense of normal in this war -- in this current war, now you're starting to see the lightering line up. In Q2, it's early May, we already have more jobs booked for Q2 than we had for Q1, right? And we still have more than half a quarter to go. So exactly to your point, we're seeing a lot more lightering inquiry and a lot more work for our lightering LLCs [ since January ].

Got it. That's helpful. And then do you have any thoughts just around -- we always talk about barrel substitution, obviously, as a starting point, but there's also congestion that happens in the system and ton mile impacts and all these types of things. So on this front, as there's more lightering business and as these larger ships get lined up and there has to be this process, what does that do in terms of removing some effective capacity from the larger system?

That's a great question. Thank you. So when we start to line things up in terms of logistics and STS, you don't want it to become too efficient or that whole process, it doesn't make sense, right? We're seeing delays in other ways, though, not necessarily just not to STS right now, but just as you said, general port congestion. And we're seeing that now, but when we're -- in terms of loading ports, when we're really going to see it in terms of congestion and utilization is when hormes opens and a lot of those ships that are laden with oil make their way to Asia, that will be ultimately a good thing for the economy and for the world. But it's going to take a long time for all those ships to discharge. So that inefficiency that you're speaking about, I think we'll see actually a lot more post-war than we're seeing today.

And your next question comes from the line of Omar Nokta from Clarksons Securities.

Maybe just perhaps maybe to you, Derek, on this kind of you brought up that point about a reopening scenario. I did want to ask maybe just on that. How do you think in a potential reopening? And I guess it's probably not so simple to assume we'll go back to how things were, at least not initially. But as we kind of think about the reopening scenario for Hormuz and your fleet makeup, how do you see the segments kind of getting affected? Is there a clear winner in terms of vessel class? And then how do you prepare for that?

That's a great question. So if I were to start, Omar, I'd say the start of this war has impacted every vessel class separately, right? It started on the VLCCs running up massively as soon as Hormuz closed as anybody in the Atlantic would get or anybody outside of the AG was getting any barrel that they could. Then the scramble went down to the smaller crude segments where you saw the [Aframaxes] and the Suez really start to run because nobody wanted to wait for a 2 million barrel step. And then it really hit the MRs really really well, and you see the kind of numbers that the MR market and International Seaways is putting up. As Hormuz starts to open, I think we'll see a little bit of a saddle, right? So right now, we're in the high part of it. And then as Hormuz stays close, then we start to see fewer Atlantic Basin barrels, that can start to trend down. But when it opens back up, Omar, I think that's going to be really good for us. You've got more ships able to call AG and you've got a lot more barrels flowing out of there. That's a good thing. You've got this sort of inefficiency when all the ships start to get to Asia that we just talked about on the previous question. And prior to the war, the kind of thing hanging over the tanker market was heavy stocks. We've eaten into that stock -- into those stock levels now because of the Hormuz closure. And given this push for supply chain resiliency, I think we'll start to see people build up stocks quickly. So I think that will benefit the crude market, most in the beginning once Hormuz opens.

I appreciate that. I know it's a very complicated dynamic, but it seemingly makes -- that makes sense. And I guess we could think about could the Middle East then be offering a premium, right, to drag those ships away from the Atlantic. I guess the other question I had is kind of on the operational or commercial performance. The MRs especially look very strong at 76,000 here in the second quarter for the first 43%. It's a bit better than what we have seen, I guess, in terms of, say, peer averages or market indexes. How -- what would you chalk that up to? Is that a result of some kind of triangulation? Is it actually possible to triangulate in this market? Is it how your fleet is deployed? Any kind of color you can give on such a strong result so far on the MRs?

I mean Omar, it's where were you available? Where do you concentrate your trading and we were advantageously positioned.

That's right, Lois. I think a lot of it in the kickoff of the war was where were you when it started and when did you load. With our MR pools, one of them is heavily focused on the Americas trade, and that was very beneficial post Iran war to be in the Americas where the market is completely skyrocketed. I mean we had fixtures with demurrage at over $150,000 a day for an MR tanker, right? So the Americas is where it started on the MR side that brought up the European trade as well. And funny enough, even now, Europe -- sorry, Asia is starting to come up on the MR market, which we kind of thought would just be a sink of product. Now China has approved some exports. And from an MR market standpoint, a lot of the ships left Asia to come over to the Americas. So now they're undersupplied in tonnage. So having a strong base starting in the Americas is very, very beneficial for us. I think having that diversification in our other pool will be beneficial as the months take on.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Stephanie Moore from Jefferies.

I want to -- I appreciate the color on the dividend and your priorities here, but maybe taking a step back and looking at general capital allocation priorities, I would love to get your thoughts in terms of appetite for buybacks here? And then also any thoughts on M&A? There's some movements in the space or rumor movements. So just curious, general appetite as well.

Well, first, Stephanie, we'd like -- both I and the team would like to welcome you to the research coverage universe for International Seaways. So happy to have you on board. Pun intended. So capital allocation, our favorite topic. Yes. I mean we have -- we are -- to recap, we have, over the course of this good market period, de-levered as much as we want to de-lever. -- values keep going up. So even without paying down additional debt, we de-lever a little more. Now we are taking on some really high-quality debt this year with the ECA financing for LR1. So we'll probably tick up a little bit. But that's one of the reasons we were able to have such a high dividend with the discretionary piece this quarter was that we de-levered enough. We also found ourselves with the other pillar of capital allocation is fleet renewal. That -- the principal pillar of fleet renewal for us in 2026 is the LR1 -- the 4 LR1 -- the 6 LR1 program delivering this year. But as mentioned, they're really well financed. And so the capital allocation in the second quarter that we need for that is only $6 million. So therefore, we were able to think about and to announce today additional returns to shareholders on top of that consistent 85% that we're telling the market to expect. Do we look at share repurchases as well? Yes, we have a share repurchase program. We use it from time to time. I would say that the levels of share price where we are, NAV keeps moving up, but we're grateful that our share price is moving up with it and perhaps beyond it. So I think that -- I know that we -- when we looked at a discretionary additional return, we lean to more dividend rather than share repurchase, although the tool is always there. So I think for the fore for right now, that's what we see is probably the consistent payout ratio and with additional cash, it's optionality. We're high returning -- if there's a return on that cash in terms of growth, whether you call it M&A or share purchases that meets our criteria, that's an option or other additional returns to shareholders. Now I don't know if you just about M&A generally -- always looking for good M&A, Stephanie.

And with no further questions, I'll turn the call back over to Lois Zabrocky.

We want to thank everybody for joining International Seaways call today. And I'm just going to conclude with -- in our 10-year history, our first major focus during leaner market times was getting bigger, getting more modern, and we paid down debt along our journey and focusing on that. And all of that has brought us to today where we're declaring $4.55 per share for our shareholders, and we really appreciate everybody for sticking with us. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And this does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.