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DATE

Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer — Alexander Saverys
• Chief Financial Officer — Ludovic Saverys
• Chief Commercial Officer — Enya Derkinderen
• Head of Market Research — Joris Daman

TAKEAWAYS

• Net Profit -- $368.8 million for the quarter, supported by lower net finance expenses and capital gains from vessel sales.
• Net Finance Expenses -- $81 million, down from $113 million sequentially from Q4 2025, reflecting deleveraging and refinancing at lower margins.
• Liquidity -- End-of-quarter liquidity was above $0.5 billion.
• Capital Gains -- $267 million in Q1 2026 from vessel sales, with an additional $127 million capital gain expected in Q2 from further asset disposals.
• Contract Backlog -- Increased by $200 million, including a new 5-year Suezmax charter and one-year extensions on two 9-year charters; $1.9 billion of backlog relates to dual-fuel vessels.
• Dividend Distribution -- $0.64 per share, split as $0.20 interim dividend and $0.44 from share premium, with 70% exempt from withholding tax.
• Newbuilding and CapEx -- Seven newbuildings delivered in Q1; remaining CapEx at end of April is $1.2 billion, of which $184 million is unfunded, and $740 million remains for shipyards in the next three quarters.
• Spot Exposure -- For 2026, approximately 80% of 53,000 shipping days are spot; 36,000 open dry bulk days indicated (10,000 Kamsarmaxes, 26,000 Capes/Newcastlemaxes).
• Dry Bulk Average Rates -- Achieved $28,000 per day on Newcastlemaxes (Q1) and locked $44,000 for 80% of Q2 days; Capesizes at $26,000 in Q1 and $37,000 for 75% of Q2 days; Kamsarmaxes at breakeven $14,500 in Q1 and nearly $20,000 for 75% of Q2 days.
• Tanker Rates -- VLCCs earned $180,000 booked for 80% of Q2 days; Suezmaxes at $91,000 in Q1 and $122,000 for most Q2 days.
• Average Fleet Age -- VLCC/Suezmax fleet average age is now about 13-13.5 years, near historical highs.
• Order Book Dynamics -- VLCC/Suezmax order book approaching 30% of the fleet, with deliveries skewed to 2027-2028; Capesize/Panamax vessel order book now at 14%-15% of the fleet, with high potential for scrapping due to aging vessels.
• Dry Bulk Demand Upside -- Revised 2026 base-case growth for Capesize ton-mile demand to 3.5%, with potential to 5.2% if coal imports rise significantly; for Panamaxes, updated demand growth base case is 5%, potential as high as 7.5% in a high coal import scenario.
• Operation Epic Fury Impact -- Closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut daily tanker transits, with 115 VLCCs and 24 Suezmaxes trapped; 40% of these are "dark fleet" vessels.
• Shipping Flows Compensation -- Shift of crude oil exports from the Middle East to the U.S., Brazil, Guyana, Canada, and Angola has resulted in net transportation loss of 5.3 million barrels per day but a ton-mile balance due to longer shipping distances.
• Windcat Segment -- Third CSOV delivered; four additional offshore supply vessels on order; CSOV rates averaged $65,000 per day in Q1 and are fully fixed at $62,000 in Q2; CTV utilization above 90% with average rates of $3,400 per day.
• Dividend Policy -- Management stated, "we have made clear that once the leverage targets are more into play like we are today, then we can start allocating more of the free dollars to shareholders ... we will see how the market continues, but we'll definitely analyze the distribution to shareholders with a full focus."
• Other Operating Income -- $20 million of Q1 income driven by vessel claim wins, lawsuit settlements, and investment revaluations, described as "mostly one-offs".
• Profit From Equity-Accounted Investees -- $12 million profit attributable to small participations, roughly half from one-offs in Q1.

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RISKS

• Alexander Saverys explained, "If the market comes down and if owners are under duress, they will have to sell their ships at a lower price. And it is clear that the breakeven of the whole fleet has gone up, not only because of the high newbuilding prices, but also because of the higher secondhand prices. So it will be indeed interesting to see when the cycle turns, how the market will react and how distressed sales could potentially come to the market."
• Management noted, The order book has really shot up. We are now looking at a combined 500 VLCCs and Suezmaxes on order, which we believe is a lot of ships, obviously, very much skewed towards the second half of 2027 and 2028. But you can see the numbers there. In 2028, already more than 200 VLCCs and Suezmaxes are on order. Even though theoretically, the age profile of the fleet would be able to absorb these vessels, i.e, older vessels should be scrapped and the newbuildings could replace them, we are a little bit concerned going forward looking at the order book. But in the short term, of course, not that many vessels are coming on stream, and this is, of course, translated in good freight markets.
• Chemical tanker spot earnings softened to $21,500 per day versus $25,000 in the prior year, with management stating, "it has to be said also chemical tanker markets are much less volatile than other markets. So when we say softening and you look at the numbers that we are."
• Operational disruptions cited for two FSOs with Qatar Energy due to conflict, as Alexander Saverys disclosed, "We have had some operational disturbances, but we are trying to get everything back on track. As you know, the safety of our people on board is the most important one."

SUMMARY

Management reported a material net profit and enhanced liquidity, enabled by disciplined deleveraging, asset sales, and strong spot market performance across dry bulk and tanker fleets. The backlog increase was anchored by major charter wins in dual-fuel shipping, while dividend policy was recalibrated to accelerate shareholder returns, with 70% of the payout exempt from withholding tax. Strategic review emphasized a pause in additional fleet investments given elevated asset prices, and the company noted a well-covered CapEx plan through asset sales, positioning for reallocation of free cash flow after 2026 newbuild deliveries.

• Order book inflation in key segments was flagged as a longer-term threat, with management explicitly wary about future vessel oversupply especially in VLCC/Suezmax and container markets.
• Q1 marked notable dry bulk and tanker rate performance, with 80% of Q2 shipping days in these segments pre-fixed at historically high levels, signaling visibility into near-term earnings.
• The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and Middle East turbulence reduced crude shipment volumes, but management's granular ton-mile analysis demonstrated how alternative longer-range trade flows sustain utilization, with 5.3 million barrels per day in lost Persian Gulf flows essentially rebalanced by new export routes.
• Windcat's CSOV fleet expansion coincided with rates fixed into Q2, supporting division-level growth and signaling market confidence in offshore energy segment fundamentals.
• The company intends to continue a flexible, discretionary approach to dividends, with the board reemphasizing the historical 50%-60% net profit payout range as a future guideline, subject to leverage and CapEx needs.
• No binding commitment has yet been made on the Namibia green ammonia terminal FID, and management deferred substantive disclosure to subsequent quarters.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• VLCC: Very Large Crude Carrier, a class of large oil tanker typically able to carry around 2 million barrels of crude oil.
• Suezmax: The largest tanker size capable of navigating the Suez Canal, usually about 1 million barrels capacity.
• Kamsarmax: Bulk carrier vessel named for its maximum length—about 229 meters—to accommodate Port of Kamsar in Guinea's bauxite trade.
• CSOV: Commissioning Service Operation Vessel, specialized for offshore wind or energy sector support during installation and maintenance phases.
• CTV: Crew Transfer Vessel, a ship designed to transport technicians to and from offshore installations.
• Dark Fleet: Vessels that operate outside established maritime transparency practices, often evading sanctions or reporting.
• FSO: Floating Storage and Offloading unit, a ship or barge used as a floating storage facility for hydrocarbons.
• FID: Final Investment Decision; the company's formal commitment to move forward on a major capital project.
• TEU-mile: A unit combining Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (container) volume with transported distance, reflecting effective shipping demand.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Alexander Saverys: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the CMB.TECH Q1 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Alexander Saverys, and I'm joined by my colleagues, Ludovic Saverys, Enya Derkinderen and Joris Daman. We will present to you the highlights of our first quarter and the title of this call is Firing On All Cylinders. We had a very interesting quarter, a very good quarter, and we would like to start with some financials and highlights, and I will hand it over to Ludovic.

Ludovic Saverys: Thanks, Alex. As usual, we will start with a high-level overview of our company. We're active in 5 different segments from dry bulk crude tankers, containers, chemicals to offshore energy. We had an interesting quarter, as Alex mentioned. Compared to last quarter, our total fair market value has increased. Our market cap has increased. We've reduced our leverage. We've reduced our CapEx commitments and increased our contract backlog. Next slide, please. If we zoom in on the Q1 financials, we've ended the quarter with a net profit of $368.8 million. Notable in these figures are obviously our increased revenue, but we have been able to, while the quarter passed, delever quite a bit and reduced our margins with the banks.

And so our interest -- our net finance expenses decreased from $113 million from last quarter to $81 million this quarter, delivering a very nice profit. The liquidity of the company end of Q1 stands a little bit above $0.5 billion. And our equity on total assets value adjusted is below 50%, which is our through-the-cycle target. Further zooming in, we have delevered. We are paying dividends, and we're strengthening the balance sheet while we are optimizing our fleet through well-timed S&P. Notable on the contract backlog, we have signed 1 5-year time charter on a Suezmax charter -- Suezmax vessel and extended two 9-year time charters by another year.

The Board of Directors has decided they would like to distribute $0.64 per share as distribution. This will be managed by $0.20 interim dividends and $0.44 distribution out of share premium. That's quite interesting because there is no withholding tax on that part. So 70% of our dividends will be exempt from withholding tax. We took delivery of 7 newbuilding vessels, which Alex will discuss a little later on, and we have sold quite a few ships that were announced already on 2 Capesizes and 8 VLCCs. One additional vessel, the Suezmax Sienna has been sold and will be delivered in Q2. So the capital gains of the first quarter were $267 million.

And in Q2, we're expecting a capital gain of $127 million. We are a diversified platform. However, we have a large spot exposure on 2 of our promising markets, which is dry bulk on the one hand and tankers. If you look at full 2026, we have roughly 53,000 shipping days from which 80% is spot. And from those spot days, we have 36,000 open dry bulk days, which is roughly 10,000 on the Kamsarmaxes and 26,000 on Capes and Newcastlemax. These are increasing markets, and hence, we are favorably positioned to enjoy those in the coming quarters. On this slide, we have shown a hypothetical free cash flow for our company in 2026.

This is including the free cash flow from the first quarter, but putting some rate assumptions on the right bottom side, where you could see that actually, if we take the market today, we are in the plus 20% case compared to our market assumptions, and we would have an operational free cash flow of over $1 billion. This is excluding vessel sales, but it is also excluding the remaining CapEx, which we will discuss a little later on. On the CapEx, we've come a long way. We have a remaining CapEx end of April of $1.2 billion, from which roughly $184 million is unfunded.

If you have followed our story, you know that with the vessel sales, this is more than double covered for the unfunded CapEx. But this slide shows that 2026 will be the last heavy newbuilding delivery year with the remaining $740 million to be paid to the shipyard in the coming 3 quarters, whereafter, obviously, our free cash flow could be used on other topics than CapEx. Contract backlog. We've increased our contract backlog roughly by $200 million, as mentioned. There is a gradual repayment. The contract backlog reduces by roughly $100 million per quarter, but we've added $200 million of fresh charters.

Of these long-term contracts, still $1.9 billion is on dual fuel-related vessels, and we have quite strong counterparts, most of them investment grade, as you can see on the right side. I'll then hand over the discussion topics to Alex to talk about the markets.

Alexander Saverys: Thank you, Ludovic. So I'll start with our normal slide overview slide in all the segments. We are, as you can see, still positive on the dry bulk market, the tanker market and the offshore energy market. We are and have been over the last 2 quarters, cautious on the container and the chemical market. High-level dynamics. We see in dry bulk ton-mile growth for major commodities that we are transporting in our Capes and Newcastlemaxes like iron ore and bauxite. But also on other commodities in dry, we see some growth. Looking at the supply side, we will see a growth of 1.7% of the fleet in Capes today, a tick under 5% on Panamaxes.

But we still believe that in balance, and we'll dig in, in the following slides more in detail that the supply/demand is actually positive for freight and positive for our market. The same can be said on tankers. Of course, tankers is a more complex story with what is happening right now in the Middle East. In terms of ton-mile, it's very difficult to predict. But as it stands, analysts are expecting a small reduction in ton mile for crude oil this year, some growth next year.

What is interesting on the tanker market is that the supply side, even though in the short term, the fleet is not growing that much as from 2027 and particularly in 2028, we will see a big growth in the fleet. So the order book to fleet in VLCCs and Suezmaxes is coming closer to 30%. This being said, in the short term, the tanker market dynamics are positive. We'll definitely zoom in on that a bit later. On the container side, not a lot has changed.

I would say that in kind of the more negative story that we have been seeing over the last quarters, the Middle East turmoil has given some support to the market, but with a large order book and an expected contraction in TEU-mile demand, we are cautious on the container side. As you know, all our ships are fixed, so we are not really exposed on the spot market. On the chemical side, it all feels a little bit softer. Chemical market is less volatile. But there we see there are some new vessels being delivered to the fleet. There is a little bit softer growth in demand for chemical tankers. So on balance, we are a bit more cautious.

And then last but not least, we remain positive on the offshore energy markets. After 2 slow years of wind installation, we're expecting an increase this year and next in, for instance, the important North Sea market. But also on oil and gas, we are seeing a lot of demand for offshore energy supply vessels like our ships. And so all in all, we're expecting good markets going forward in that segment. I want to zoom in on the largest segment and the market that is most important to us right now, which is dry bulk. On the left side of the slide, you can see our fleet. We have 36 Newcastlemaxes on the water.

We're adding this year another 10, maybe 1 or 2 will deliver beginning of next year. But so in the next 6 months, we will have 46 Newcastlemaxes, big armada of Newcastlemaxes on the water. We have performed very well during the first quarter, which is traditionally a slower quarter. You can see that we reached levels of $28,000 a day. But what is even better is that looking forward for the second quarter, we have fixed most of our days, 80% already at $44,000, which is very good for that segment. Capesizes is a big fleet as well. We have 37 Capesizes on the water.

We achieved rates of $26,000 in the first quarter, have already fixed roughly 3/4 of our days at $37,000 for the second quarter. With the amount of ships, the amount of days, this is all very supportive for our results going forward. And then last but not least, our Kamsarmax Panamax fleet of 30 ships. The first quarter was satisfactory. We reached kind of a breakeven level of $14,500, but we have seen in recent weeks a market uptick, and we have already been able to fix very good levels, close to $20,000 for 3/4 of our days in the second quarter.

When you look at the main drivers in dry bulk, it's a mixed picture, some very positive signals, some not so positive, but we will dig into some of the elements in the next slide and slides. Let's first start on the supply of the vessels, which is the newbuildings, the order book and then the age of the fleet. When you look at the new buildings, the order book to fleet has increased over the last 3 to 6 months. There have been more orders for dry bulk tonnage. And specifically on Capesizes and Panamaxes, you can see that we are now reaching a level of 14% to 15% of the fleet.

If you put that against the age of the vessels, and you can see that we've reached kind of an all-time high average age of the fleet, there is a lot of potential for scrapping. There's a lot of potential for all these newbuildings to replace the aging fleet. And actually, as it stands, there should normally be more ships leaving the fleet than being added to the fleet in the next 2 years at least and even going forward in 2029 and 2030. So on the supply side, we are still believing that this is supportive for our market going forward.

If we look at the demand side, we are zooming in on important commodities for the Capes and important commodities for the Panamaxes. On Capes, it's, of course, iron ore, bauxite and a little bit of coal. But you can see that the numbers are adding up very nicely definitely compared to last year. We are in all segments above. Coal is a little bit below. But all in all, it's a supportive picture in the first quarter and in the month of April. The similar story can be said on the Panamaxes. The typical cargoes at Panamaxes transport coal and grain have been growing. And so we are seeing this being translated in, of course, better freight rates.

So I would say that Q1 has surprised us to the upside, has been less slow than usually and has underpinned the freight market. Now if we look at the total year, so what to expect for the next couple of months, the picture remains supported for our Capes with the iron ore trade. The bauxite trade is a bit of a question mark. If we see some export caps out of Guinea, then this could be a negative for our market. In the numbers, we don't see it yet. But it is, of course, something to watch.

Interestingly, something that could underpin our market is the coal trade, and I'd like to zoom in on that on the next slide. We have added on this slide as well the rate forecast for a regular [ 180,000 ] Capesize for this year, including the first quarter, we are now at $31,500, which is actually a very good rate and definitely in a profit-making territory. Operation Epic Fury and the gas-to-coal switching. We've tried to analyze based on the information that is available, what the impact would be if certain countries that are powering their countries and are making electricity with oil and gas would shift more to coal.

And this gas to coal switching is basically sketched out on this slide. Initially, on the coal side, all the analysts and including ourselves, were expecting a relatively soft market for seaborne coal, definitely going into the second half of the year. And we were looking at our base case scenario of coal power generation in Europe and in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to go down. Now obviously, the war in Iran and the turmoil in the Middle East, which have led to an increase in gas and oil prices have changed the situation.

And what we are now taking as a base scenario is that over the course of this year, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will increase their imports of seaborne coal by 27 million tons, so increase the utilization of their existing coal infrastructure. And on Europe, as it stands, expecting 12 million tons of coal to be added to the trade and increasing utilization from 40% to 55%. Now there is further upside to that if Europe would import in a high case, another 60 million tons of coal.

And we've tried to map this out on the right side of the slide, where you can see in green, the supply of ships and in blue, gray and light blue, the different scenarios on the demand. You can see on Capes, we were looking at 1.7% increase in the fleet and a 3% base case increase in ton-mile demand. We have revised that to 3.5% ton-mile demand. Now if you get this extra kicker on coal to Europe in the high case, this could go all the way up to 5.2% increase in demand. And the same goes for Panamaxes, and I think that's very interesting because obviously, that's -- coal is a very important commodity for Panamaxes.

We have a pretty high delivery schedule this year of close to 5% increase in the fleet. The base case, we were looking at a bit under 4% demand growth for Panamaxes. In the current new base case, we're looking at 5% growth, but in the high case, this could even go to 7.5%. So this Epic Fury, the war in the Middle East could have a significant positive impact on the dry bulk markets, and we're seeing some of it already now. And then basically, to conclude, what we've mapped here is the new base case, so not the high case in numbers of volumes from Q1 to Q4.

What we wanted to highlight here for those who are not very familiar with the dry bulk market is that the first quarter is always the lowest quarter in terms of volume. Usually, volumes then ramp up in the second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter, which, again, we think bodes very well for our dry bulk market going forward. And of course, CMB.TECH is very well positioned with our large fleet of Capesizes, Newcastlemaxes and Panamaxes. I want to talk about Euronav and the crude oil markets and probably where most of you have a lot of questions on what our view is on what is happening in the world.

Let me first start with a quick overview of what our fleet has done. After the sales of our VLCCs, we are down to 6 VLCCs, 4 are on the water, 2 will be delivered during the course of this year and in January of 2027. We achieved very good rates in the fourth -- in the first quarter and even better rates for the bookings that we have done in the second quarter. You can see we're at $180,000 of rates booked for 80% of our days. Of course, we only have 6 VLCCs left. But nevertheless, this will, of course, contribute very positively to our profits going forward.

The sale of the 8 ships, we have communicated on that already. We did a very nice capital gain of in total, $360 million on the sale of these 6 older VLCCs, which have been reflected in our first quarter results and will partly be reflected in the second quarter results. We have 18 Suezmaxes on the water. We recently took delivery of the Cap Grace and Cap Joseph. So we have 18 ships in our fleet. We achieved rates on the spot market of $91,000 in the first quarter, $122,000 for most of our days in the second quarter. Again, excellent rates in the current circumstances.

And we have sold one of our older Suezmaxes, the Sienna, which is a 19-year-old Suezmax, which will deliver in the second quarter, and this will give us a capital gain of $30 million. You can see on the right side, all the indicators. Again, these need to be taken with a big pinch of salt because the real impact of these numbers is, of course, influenced a lot on the sea going side with what is happening in the Middle East and what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz. First, before we talk about that, I wanted to show you the slide on the order book and the supply of ships and the age of the vessels.

The order book has really shot up. We are now looking at a combined 500 VLCCs and Suezmaxes on order, which we believe is a lot of ships, obviously, very much skewed towards the second half of 2027 and 2028. But you can see the numbers there. In 2028, already more than 200 VLCCs and Suezmaxes are on order. Even though theoretically, the age profile of the fleet would be able to absorb these vessels, i.e., older vessels should be scrapped and the newbuildings could replace them, we are a little bit concerned going forward looking at the order book.

But in the short term, of course, not that many vessels are coming on stream, and this is, of course, translated in good freight markets. Average age of the fleet, you can see there, is getting to historical highs. We are at 13, 13.5 years. Again, this is a positive as and when and if we would need to scrap some vessels. I want to talk about the Strait of Hormuz situation, operation Epic Fury and the impact on shipping in general and on the oil supply. On the left side, you can basically see the number of transits through the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis. We are talking anywhere between 110, 150 ships a day.

We are down now between 5 and 20 transits a day. In terms of tankers, we see that 115 VLCCs and 24 Suezmaxes are still trapped in the Persian Gulf. Of that fleet, 40% are dark fleet vessels, so not really vessels that we would compete with, but it's still a significant amount of ships that are trapped there. On the supply side of oil, my colleague, Joris Daman has made a very interesting analysis on the right side of the slide. And because it's his analysis, I want to hand it over to him so that he can explain to you what he is seeing in the numbers.

Joris Daman: Yes. Happy to run through it. So the right-hand side graph really starts by showing the baseline. The baseline was 15 million barrels per day of crude oil. This is only crude oil traversing the Strait of Hormuz, so being exported out of the Persian Gulf. Now that's closed. The Strait is de facto closed. So we made the assumption that's lost. And then we are going to look, okay, what is the actual impact on crude tanker flows. We have a selective passage of 1.2 million barrels per day. That's the actual passage over the last 2 months divided by 60 days. That's 1.2 million barrels per day.

So it's actually 1 Suezmax a day or every second day, 1 VLCC. Then we have some pipeline capacity, which came upstream and is today roughly around 5.5 million barrels per day. It's Yanbu, Fujairah and then the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. Then we had a temporary effect of floating storage release or reversal of floating storage and also some Russian sanctions being lifted and actually being able to be added to the tanker market.

And then the real interesting part comes, and that's on one hand, the export growth out of the U.S., which is a combination of additional volumes, but also SPR, strategic petroleum reserve releases, roughly 1.4 million barrels per day and then also other countries stepping up the game: for example, Brazil, Guyana, Canada, Angola, and they are additionally bringing 1 million barrels per day capacity to the market. So if you go from the 15 million, we take all those steps, we end up with a loss of 5.3 million barrels per day capacity lost to be transported on board of crude oils. Now it's really important to see here that we are actually increasing longer mile transportation.

So we get a ton-mile kicker because of the exports out of the U.S., but also Brazil, Guyana are actually further away than a typical Middle Eastern China transportation, and it's 2 to 2.5x more. So if we take the 2.4 and we multiply that by 2, 2.5 and we compare it to 5.3, we are actually quite balanced from a ton-mile perspective. And that's really the reason why the utilization of the tankers are still healthy and that [ remains ] for U.S. Gulf China transportation are actually still quite healthy.

If you go one step further and really look, okay, what could be the potential impact on the barrel price, there, it's really important to understand that we started the operation Epic Fury in a global situation where there was a large oversupply. So there was a bigger supply of crude oil to the market than a demand. So we had actually an oversupply of 2.6 million barrels per day, meaning that in the end, today's market is only undersupplied by approximately 2.7 million barrels per day of crude, which will have an impact on demand destruction or any other means to have the balance again in the market.

Alexander Saverys: Thank you very much, Joris. So after that analysis, what we just wanted to add is basically the consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is that we see a lot more ballasters going towards the Atlantic to pick up the oil where it is still available. And this obviously also has an impact on rates. You can see the rate from the Middle East to China, which we think is much of a theoretical rate, not that many ships are being fixed at these kind of levels.

The more interesting one is, of course, is the TD22 route at the bottom in green, where you can see that rates were very high, but then gradually started going down as more ballasters, more VLCCs were coming towards the U.S. Gulf to pick up the oil there. Now when I say gradually going down, we are still at a level around $100,000 a day, which is very, very healthy for our market, but it shows you the disruption that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz also has on the positioning of the vessels. I'd like to finish with our 3 slightly smaller divisions: Delphis, Bochem and Windcat. On Delphis, we can be relatively short.

All our ships are fixed on long-term time charters. We still have one newbuilding coming this year, delivering in October, which has been fixed on a 15-year contract. The bottom line on the container market is that the order book is very high. We still see a huge TEU mile disturbance with the de facto closure of the Red Sea. If no container ships pass by there, it's basically 12% of demand kicker. So if that falls away, including the big tsunami of new container vessels that will come on stream in the next couple of years, the market should continue to go down.

But very short term, we have seen a little uptick because of the disturbance around the Strait of Hormuz. And so rates, both on the spot market and also on time charter rates have gone up a little bit in recent days and weeks. But we believe fundamentally, this should normally go down again as soon as certain things resolve themselves and as the order book starts delivering to the market. Chemical tankers, I was mentioning a slightly softer market. That is reflected in what we are earning in the spot pool. Now most of our vessels are fixed on time charters, so we're not really affected by that.

But it has to be said also chemical tanker markets are much less volatile than other markets. So when we say softening and you look at the numbers that we are achieving on the spot market of $21,500, that is compared to around $25,000 last year. We still believe these rates are very healthy. Finishing off with Windcat, exciting times for our division Windcat because we have taken delivery now of our third CSOV, which is our large offshore energy supply vessels. We still have 3 that will be delivered plus 1 larger CSOV and MP-ASV as we call it. So still 4 ships on order. We have seen very healthy rates for our CSOVs.

You can see an average of $65,000 a day in the first quarter. Second quarter already fully fixed at $62,000 a day. And we have further vessels delivering and are in talks with customers for both short-term and longer-term employment. Our CTVs are doing well as well. After the traditionally slow winter period, we are now coming into the peak period of spring and summer. And you can see that our utilization is above 90%, and we are earning good rates of an average of $3,400 a day. We're expecting, as I said before, this offshore wind market, offshore oil and gas market to remain supported in the following months.

This wraps up the market update, and I will now hand it over to Enya for the Q&A.

Enya Derkinderen: [Operator Instructions] We will now start with the first question, coming from Frode Morkedal.

Frode Morkedal: This is Frode at Clarksons. My first question is on capital allocation. So you basically reached the 50% net loan-to-value target. So you've been deleveraging the balance sheet. You have plenty of liquidity and the newbuild program looks fully funded. So basically, how should we think about capital allocation from here? Specifically on the dividend, you raised it from $0.16 to $0.20 on the interim dividend. Is this a level that you would like to maintain? Or should we think about dividends as variable quarter-to-quarter?

Ludovic Saverys: Yes, Frode, let me take this one. Indeed, we are, I think, working on all sides, the deleveraging the balance sheet, especially with the bridge loan that we had, which was quite expensive. We were able to repay that fully, but we also reduced our margins on -- close to all our financings with our banks. And I think that was visible on the net finance expenses. The CapEx program is coming to an end. And I think on the dividend, which is -- as every quarter, the Board decides what to do, whether it's paying -- accelerating down payments on debt capital, potential M&A or distribute to shareholders.

And I think we have made clear that once the leverage targets are more into play like we are today, then we can start allocating more of the free dollars to shareholders. Yes, we do have a full discretionary dividend policy. So we'll continue to keep that. Historically, as I mentioned on the previous earnings calls, we've always paid between 50% and 60% of the net profit distributed to shareholders. And after announcing the 50% distribution on the vessel sales, which was in December, we announced it, the Board decided that we would actually rather pay 50% on the whole profit of Q1. Going forward, I think there's definitely -- every quarter now, this is going to happen.

But the less leverage we have, the less CapEx that we have, less opportunities that could arise. Like we mentioned on new builds, there's nothing really interesting in the core markets, dry bulk and tankers today. I think distribution to shareholders will definitely continue to be a full focus on our side. To your question, we didn't go from $0.16 to $0.20. We actually went from $0.16 to $0.64. I think the part, the $0.44 on share issue premium, it's a different way to a more fiscal optimized way of reducing the withholding tax for mostly the retail shareholders and then the foreign shareholders to do that.

But I think going forward, we will see how the market continues, but we'll definitely analyze the distribution to shareholders with a full focus.

Frode Morkedal: Okay. And that's interesting. So 60% looks reasonable. That's what I heard from you?

Ludovic Saverys: That's what also historically we paid to the shareholders, yes.

Frode Morkedal: Okay. Next question I had was just started thinking, I mean, the Golden Ocean acquisition. That looks quite well timed now. Clearly, dry bulk asset values have moved higher. So I just had like a quick question. Do you have any sense of how much you are up on that investment so far?

Alexander Saverys: Frode, can you not do the calculation for us?

Ludovic Saverys: Let's say that based on the acquisition price, obviously, we've done, but you have to take the full cost because we did a semi-levered buyout. Yes, we paid 50% with shares, but we did pay 50% with full financing. It is true that the returns on paper today look good. But as always, I think we need to ride the cycle fully before we can claim victory on that. But the market has picked up somewhat faster than we were expecting on the medium term. And I think the spot strategy that we've entailed is definitely setting us up to reap the benefits on the short term.

Frode Morkedal: Yes. I did actually do the calculation. I think you're up at least 20%, but yes.

Ludovic Saverys: Only 20%, Frode. Oh, you are selling upfront.

Frode Morkedal: But maybe I'm wrong. Could be. As a follow-up, I mean, given where asset values are today, do you still see value in further investments? Or is this becoming a more market to sell further assets?

Alexander Saverys: It's a good question, Frode. I can repeat what I told you last time, I think, or I told someone else. Everything is pricey today. Let's not lie about the facts: newbuilding secondhand, everything has gone up. There will always be opportunities, I'm sure. We will analyze these opportunities. But right now, having sold most of our older vessels, we still might sell some ships of older vintage or sell some ships if we see a very good price. But what we want to do now is really ride the cycle definitely on dry bulk and see what comes after this high cycle because obviously, for us, the story doesn't end when the cycle turns. That's when the story begins.

Enya Derkinderen: The next question is coming from Climent.

Climent Molins: I wanted to start by following up on your finance expenses, which declined significantly as you reduce debt and refinance some facilities. Did the $82 million expenses for the quarter include any one-offs due to refinancing? And secondly, is the G&A for Q1 a good proxy for the remainder of the year?

Ludovic Saverys: Yes. No, it's 2 great questions, Climent. On the net finance expenses, I think in the $82 million, there were maybe $3 million one-offs, but so it's insignificant, I would say. So it is definitely on the current optimized debt situation, but not yet take into account some of the margin reductions we're actually executing on roughly $2 billion of financing, which will only come into play end of Q2. So there's more room to reduce the net finance expenses. On the SG&A, with the $51 million we had in Q4 compared to $27 million in Q1, I think Q4 was definitely exceptional.

I think we mentioned that on the last earnings call, Q1 is definitely better, but we are, as management, we keep on optimizing and looking at that. Integrating companies is often harder than we think, but we're well on the way to reach our targets on the SG&A.

Climent Molins: Okay. That's very helpful. Could you talk a bit about whether you've had any impact on the operations of the 2 FSOs contracted with Qatar Energy on the back of the conflict?

Alexander Saverys: Yes, Climent. We have had some operational disturbances, but we are trying to get everything back on track. As you know, the safety of our people on board is the most important one, and we are in a very close collaboration with NOC, who is our customer to make sure that we can restart the operations in a safe way.

Climent Molins: Makes sense. And final question for me. You got a $12 million profit from equity accounted investees. So what does that refer specifically?

Ludovic Saverys: Good question. It's reflecting the proportion of profits that we made, at least that's the companies where in which we have small participations made. This is, I would say, half of it is one-offs from these companies. And since it's a very diverse slew of small participations from ammonia logistics to basically Japanese joint ventures, but there is, I think, good smaller companies that deliver profit quarter-on-quarter. So there's definitely some of that to stay in the coming quarters.

Enya Derkinderen: The next one is Petter Haugen.

Petter Haugen: This is Petter Haugen from ABG Sundal Collier in Oslo. First, well, I would like to put some emphasis on [indiscernible] on Slide 25. The slide showing the shortfall and the partial refillment of what was lost is a very, I think, instructive way to think about this. And one question in this context. Would it be positive or sort of if adjusted for distances, the same slide just on ton-miles, so to speak. Would that be still in a negative territory? Or is it in positive territory?

Alexander Saverys: Joris can take that question.

Joris Daman: It's fairly balanced, and that was the main message here that if you not only look at tons, but at ton miles, the situation is actually up until today, a balanced situation whereby that the lost volumes are being balanced out by the additional distance. Of course, that only holds as long as U.S. exports keep the same levels and the other countries like Brazil, Guyana, Angola keep on the, let's say, the higher volumes than what we saw in the first 2, 3 months of the year. That's the big assumption of this slide. Okay.

Petter Haugen: Okay. So very balanced ton-mile wise. Just one further question. In Q3, you ordered CSOV, the large [indiscernible] and also had options for 5 more. Is there any progress on those options in terms of, well, either striking them or losing them?

Alexander Saverys: Yes. We still have time to lift the next option. But right now, if you ask me, it looks very interesting. There's good demand for these assets. But as long as we don't need to lift the option, we will still wait. The market can still change. But it is definitely one of the segments that we are watching closely for potential new buildings because we still see value and the value at which we hold the options is interesting.

Petter Haugen: Okay. Could you elaborate a bit on what sort of employment you would potentially do on a newbuild order and also the delivery schedule for those options?

Alexander Saverys: Would be in 2028, and we would lift the option most probably without any employment attached. We have decided on the CSOVs that we would operate on the spot market. And if we see long-term business, we would go for the long-term business. That's exactly what we've done with the first 2 ships, what we're doing with the next vessels, always be a mix of spot employment and longer-term employment, if it makes sense. You know that in this offshore wind market, if you order some of these CSOVs with a charter attached, usually, the returns are very, very low.

So if we lift the options, we will most probably -- I mean, never say never, we might find some customers before we're lifting the option, but it will most probably be without any employment, and then we will work on the employment as we go.

Ludovic Saverys: And just to add to Alex, as the spot market today, both international winds, but also regional and international oil and gas is actually very good. For us to do long-term charters, it really has to be great rates. Otherwise, we just stay in the spot market and enjoy the rates we've shown on the slides.

Petter Haugen: Understood. And just then finally, the options, all 5 of them, could you elaborate on when those lapses? I think the first one is in a couple of months from now, end of the summer, that's the first one. And then we still have time for the following ones, which is always with a couple of months interval.

Enya Derkinderen: We received some questions in the Q&A. So I will go to those questions. The first question, the premium of NUCs to Capes in Q1 seems quite low. Any particular reason for this? What premium would you expect over time?

Ludovic Saverys: I think I'll take it from a financial point of view. Alex, you can take it from operational. It was -- as we are delivering quite a bit out of the yards, there's a lot of repositioning on the ships ballasting to Brazil, for instance. And so it's more IFRS look to discharge. I think the Newcastlemaxes on a discharge-to-discharge basis would have been higher. But since we had a relatively much higher repositioning of ballasters, that impacted the results.

Alexander Saverys: Yes. And I would say in a premium, it also depends, of course, on the height of the market, but you would be anywhere between 15% and 30% depending on the market and of course, depending also on the fuel prices.

Enya Derkinderen: Moving on to the next question. Do you have any plans for the 25 million treasury shares you hold reissued to outside holders as dividends used for acquisitions, retire? I assume they do not receive the dividend.

Ludovic Saverys: So the treasury shares, to be clear, do not get dividends. They cannot vote either. So our company has 290.2 million shares. That's what you really have to look at. Retiring them, for us, there's part of the authorized capital. So it's at the Board discretion to use them to dividend to shareholders or for M&A acquisitions or other instruments. But today, we don't have any plans. We bought them quite inexpensively, if you see, over the last years. So I think this was a good investment from a long-term investor, but we have no plans right now.

Enya Derkinderen: Then next one, with the cost per ship massively increased, when the cycle turns, the recently purchased ships will have a much higher breakeven level. That could indicate what if rates do come down, there will be a lot of for sale signs at much lower prices?

Alexander Saverys: Is that a statement or a question?

Enya Derkinderen: It's a question.

Alexander Saverys: Yes. If the market comes down and if owners are under duress, they will have to sell their ships at a lower price. And it is clear that the breakeven of the whole fleet has gone up, not only because of the high newbuilding prices, but also because of the higher secondhand prices. So it will be indeed interesting to see when the cycle turns, how the market will react and how distressed sales could potentially come to the market.

Enya Derkinderen: Then the next one, could you please clarify whether any CMB.TECH vessels are currently blocked in the Persian Gulf. If so, how many and what type of vessels are involved?

Alexander Saverys: So there's a couple of ships that are indeed in the Persian Gulf right now. We don't communicate about the details of the vessels, the vessels names out of safety concerns for our crew, which is on board.

Enya Derkinderen: Then the next one, what is the ambition with respect to your green ammonia terminal project in Namibia? What is the latest status? What are the time lines and CapEx requirements?

Alexander Saverys: So right now, no FID has been taken on that project. We are assembling all necessary information for the investment, and we hope to be able to say something more in the next quarterly call when we have a better view on that file. So have a little bit of patience with us, but we will definitely mention that in the next quarterly call.

Enya Derkinderen: And then moving on to the last question. This one is referring to Slide 25. It's the slide that Joris explained from Euronav. How much crude oil, if any, is coming on to the world market from Venezuela?

Joris Daman: So Venezuela crude oil for April was roughly 1.2 million barrels per day. It increased with 150,000 barrels compared to March because of, let's say, the political changes in the country. Exports are being increased. It's not the increase, which is interesting. It's rather that those barrels are now being transported on compliant vessels and no longer on any, let's say, dark or gray fleet vessels. So it's a net positive for crude tankers.

Enya Derkinderen: We have one last question. Can you explain what the $20 million in other operating income booked in Q1 is?

Ludovic Saverys: Yes, sure. That's a series of -- it's an amalgamation of all smaller profits we took. It goes from claims we won from lawsuits or vessel claims we have over the last couple of years. It's liquidated damages that we deliver ships and then they deliver earlier or later with shipyards as well. So it's a whole slew of, I would say, smaller one-offs. There's -- half of it roughly is a revaluation of some investments we hold in smaller companies. So nothing meaningful, mostly one-offs, but always nice to have when you can book that on your balance sheet.

Enya Derkinderen: And I think that concludes the questions.

Alexander Saverys: Thank you very much, Enya. Thank you, all of you for joining in this quarterly call, and I'm looking forward to talking to you either at our general assembly on Thursday or on the next call we organize during the summer. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Ludovic Saverys: Bye-bye.