Scorpio Tankers Inc. ($STNG)

Good day, and welcome to the Scorpio Tankers Inc First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to James Doyle, Head of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the Scorpio Tankers first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. On the call with me today are Emanuele Lauro, Chief Executive Officer; Robert Bugbee, President; Cameron Mackey, Chief Operating Officer; Chris Avella, Chief Financial Officer; Lars Dencker Nielsen, Chief Commercial Officer. Earlier today, we issued our first quarter earnings press release, which is available on our website, scorpiotankers.com. The information discussed on this call is based on information as of today, May 5, 2026, and may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainty. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in such statements. For a discussion of the risks and uncertainties, you should review the forward-looking statement disclosure in the earnings press release as well as the Scorpio Tankers' SEC filings, which are available at scorpiotankers.com and sec.gov. Call participants are advised that the audio of this conference call is being broadcasted live on the Internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. An archive of the webcast will be made available on the Investor Relations page of our website for approximately 14 days. We will be giving a short presentation today. The presentation is available at scorpiotankers.com on the Investor Relations page under Reports and Presentations. The slides will also be available on the webcast. After the presentation, we will go to Q&A. [Operator Instructions] Now I'd like to introduce our Chief Executive Officer, Emanuele Lauro. _

Thank you, James, and good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I would like to start this earnings call by saying thank you. And thank you to all the stakeholders who have supported us in bringing the company to where it is today. When Robert, Cameron and I started this business in 2009, I cannot say that we envisioned every detail of what the company would become. But in our most ambitious plans, I remember looking at something like this. So we have built a platform that can return capital through the cycle whilst preserving the flexibility to invest countercyclically. And this would not have been possible without the trust of our shareholders, the partnership of our customers and most of all, the commitment of our people. So thank you. Now focusing on the business front. In the first quarter, the company generated $214 million of adjusted EBITDA, $151 million of adjusted net income. For years, we have focused on what we have under control, on what we can control, strengthening the balance sheet, optimizing the fleets and reducing our cash breakevens. Today, the discipline is fully reflected in the model. Our cash position stands at approximately $1.4 billion, and it is bound to hit the $2 billion mark early in the summer with a daily cash breakeven of around $11,000 per day. To put that into perspective in today's market, we generate, of course, substantial free cash flow, but in a stressed environment similar to the debt of the COVID 2020 market, we remain at or above breakeven. That is a structural advantage. Our recent financing further reinforces this. We reduced our cost of capital through 1.75% convertible bonds and a new bank facility at 120 basis points. These are the lowest margins in our history. These were proactive and opportunistic actions that were executed from a position of strength and not necessity. We are applying the same discipline to the fleet -- since the start of the year, we have sold 12 of our older vessels at prices above their original purchase levels more than a decade before. So this is value realization is not only fleet management. The balance sheet strength and fleet optimization together create a powerful foundation for sustained capital returns. In April, we repurchased 1.4 million shares for around $100 million. Today, we are going further. We are announcing a new $500 million share buyback authorization and a quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share. This is deliberate capital allocation. And by any measure, this was one of the strongest quarter in the company history, not only in earnings, but also in execution. Rates have improved for 6 consecutive quarters, and that momentum actually not only continues, but has strengthened further into the second quarter. While the timing of geopolitical developments in the Middle East remain uncertain, we remain constructive on the underlying fundamentals that are driving the tanker market. We expect restocking and demand reassert themselves as disruptions normal -- the disruption normalized. Critically, our low breakeven model allow us to perform across all environments, as mentioned before. We can be resilient in a weaker market and highly levered in stronger ones. We believe Scorpio Tankers is exceptionally well positioned to continue generating meaningful cash flow and deliver long term shareholder value. Thank you again, and I will now turn the call to James.

Thanks, Emanuele. Slide 7, please. Today, product tanker rates are at unprecedented levels with average clean tanker earnings over $70,000 per day. It's unclear when returns to the Strait of Hormuz will normalize. But what we do know is this, global inventories, commercial, strategic and floating have been significantly drawn down. The system will need to rebuild inventories globally. And given the scale of these draws, that process will take time. This creates a constructive setup for product tankers as refinery utilization and seaborne flows increase to support restocking in global demand. More importantly, product tanker rates were strong prior to these disruptions as a result of robust global demand driving higher seaborne exports, refinery dislocation increasing ton-mile demand and modest fleet growth constraining supply. We remain optimistic that those fundamentals support a constructive outlook in the short and medium term. Slide 8, please. Last year, over 18 million barrels of crude and refined products transited the Strait of Hormuz. Approximately 90% of the crude oil and naphtha volumes transiting the Strait were destined for Asia. West of Suez, roughly 75% of jet fuel flows go to Europe and 45% of diesel moves to Africa. The temporary loss of these volumes has forced global rerouting of trade flows on an unprecedented scale, reshaping supply chains across regions. Slide 9, please. We are seeing a rebalancing of flows with increased exports from the U.S., Africa and Europe partially offsetting reduced volumes from the Middle East and Asia. Voyage distances have more than offset lower volumes, tightening effective supply and supporting a strong rate environment that we're seeing today. Slide 10, please. Despite the scale of the disruption, demand has remained quite resilient. In the second quarter, refined product demand is expected to decline by approximately 1.5 million barrels per day year-over-year before rebounding by roughly 2.4 million barrels per day in the third quarter. And this aligns with what we're seeing on the water with seaborne exports down approximately 1.9 million barrels per day in April compared to last year. As transit through the Strait of Hormuz normalize, we expect demand to recover. Slide 11, please. Importantly, the recovery in demand is expected to occur alongside a period of significant inventory restocking following recent draws. High-frequency refined product inventories have declined by more than 80 million barrels since the start of the year. U.S. refined product inventories have drawn 12 out of the last 13 weeks. Taken together, these data points highlight the scale of the drawdown and reinforce the magnitude of the restocking cycle ahead. Slide 12, please. Product tanker newbuilding activity has slowed meaningfully over the past 18 months. Only 37 vessels have been ordered year-to-date and approximately half the product tanker order book is LR2s. As we've highlighted, a meaningful portion of LR2s operate in the crude market. Today, roughly 57% of the LR2 fleet is trading crude oil. As a result, the effective product tanker order book is smaller than it appears, reinforcing the view that future fleet growth will remain constrained. Slide 13, please. Today, the order book is 18% of the existing fleet, which may seem high, but context matters. As you can see on the left, 21% of the product tanker fleet is already older than 20 years old. By 2028, it will be 30%. Roughly 25% of the Aframax LR2 fleet and 9% of the MR Handy fleet are sanctioned, averaging 20 to 21 years old. In a normal market, much of this tonnage would have likely already exited the fleet. Slide 14. When adjusting for aging vessels sanctioned capacity and LR2 crossover, effective clean product supply fleet growth is materially lower than the headline order book implies. We expect fleet growth to average approximately 3% over the next 3 years, but potentially lower. As refinery utilization and seaborne flows increase to support global restocking and demand normalization, the market should tighten further. Longer term, refining capacity remains constrained, while the fleet is aging faster than it can be replaced. Overall, we expect ton-mile demand to outpace fleet growth. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Chris.

Thank you, James, and good morning or good afternoon, everyone. Slide 16, please. This quarter, we generated $214 million in adjusted EBITDA and $216 million in net income on an IFRS basis. This includes a $66 million gain on the sale of 4 vessels during the quarter. We sold another 2 vessels in April and have reached agreements to sell another 9 vessels, all built in 2014 or 2015 and all at cyclically high prices. Additionally, we declared a $0.45 per share dividend and replenished our securities repurchase program to $500 million. The chart on the right shows the evolution of our net debt position since December of 2021. Our capital allocation policy over this period has been headlined by debt reduction and balance sheet fortification. As you can see, this approach has resulted in a reduction of our net debt position by $3.8 billion from a net debt balance of $2.9 billion at the end of 2021 to a pro forma net cash balance of $876 million as of today, which reflects our actual net cash balance of $479 million adjusted for the sales of 9 vessels that are pending closing. Slide 17, please. The chart on the left breaks down our outstanding debt by type. As you can see, our capital structure keeps evolving as we continue to pursue opportunities to lower our cost of capital. First, we have $368 million in secured bank debt with a lending group exclusively comprised of experienced shipping lenders, and this debt all carries margins below 200 basis points. Further to this, $198 million of this amount is drawn revolving debt, an important tool that we can use if we want to repay the debt but maintain access to the liquidity in the future. Next is our $200 million 5-year senior unsecured notes, which were issued in the Nordic bond market in January of 2025 and are currently trading at above 103 to par. Last is our $375 million convertible notes due 2031, which were just issued under a month ago. These notes have a coupon rate of 1.75% and are convertible to common stock only under certain circumstances at a conversion price over $100 per share. As part of the offering of our convertible notes, we repurchased 1.3 million or 2.6% of our outstanding common shares for $100 million. The chart on the right shows how we continue to pursue ways to reduce our cost of capital. Over the past 4 years, we have transitioned our vessel related borrowings out of expensive lease financing into lower cost, higher flexibility secured bank debt. And our efforts to pursue lower cost, longer tenure structures are ongoing, as you can see with our recent announcement of a $50 million secured credit facility with Bank of America at just 120 basis point margin and a 7-year tenor. As you can see, this strategy, coupled with our aggressive prioritization of debt reduction has transformed the company's credit profile, thereby unlocking these opportunities in the unsecured markets. Now around 60% of our debt structure is unsecured and not due until 2030 and 2031. Slide 18, please. The chart on the left shows our liquidity profile. We had $1.4 billion in cash as of May 1. And if we consider the sale of 3 vessels that were pending closing as of that date, the cash balance is $1.8 billion on a pro forma basis. We also have an additional $712 million in availability under revolving credit facilities for a total of $2.5 billion in available liquidity. Since November of last year, we have signed contracts to purchase 10 newbuilding vessels, and the chart on the right is a waterfall reflecting our commitments to purchase these vessels. Our disciplined capital allocation over the last 3 years has afforded us the financial flexibility to enter into these newbuilding contracts. Our remaining newbuilding commitments totaled just over $641 million as of today after the payment of $59 million towards these vessels in the first quarter of 2026. Hypothetically speaking, we could pay for all of these vessels today in cash without incurring any new debt. Importantly, approximately 80% of these remaining installment payments are not due until the years 2027, 2028 and 2029. With a low cash breakeven rate currently at approximately $11,000 per day, we are well positioned to build cash prior to delivery. Moreover, the age and specifications of these vessels make them attractive financing candidates, which has the potential to open opportunities for us to further optimize our capital structure and lower our cost of capital. Slide 19, please. Our cash breakeven rates are at the lowest levels in the company's history. As shown on the left, these levels are below our achieved daily TCE rates dating back to 2013, with the closest point occurring during COVID-19 when global oil demand saw its largest decline on record. And just to add, the cash interest on our convertible notes only raises our cash breakeven levels by a modest amount and is more than offset by the interest we currently earn on our deposits. To illustrate our cash generation potential at these cash breakeven levels, at $20,000 per day, the company can generate up to $260 million in cash flow per year. At $30,000 per day, the company can generate up to $548 million in cash flow per year. At $40,000 per day, the company can generate up to $836 million in cash flow per year. And at $50,000 per day, the company can generate up to $1.1 billion in cash flow per year. This concludes our presentation today. We'd like to thank everyone for their time and attention. And now we'd like to turn the call over to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Greg Lewis of BTIG.

I guess this first question is either for Chris or Robert. Could you kind of walk us through the decision on the convertible bond? Clearly, you laid out how strong the balance sheet is, and you kind of touched on it, but just kind of curious, a lot of cash on the balance sheet. How are we thinking about the liquidity and the opportunities for STNG post the convert?

Chris, you'd like to start and I'll follow?

Sure. Thanks, Greg. As we said, it was opportunistic. The convertible markets are strong right now and we have a strong credit profile. So it made for a good opportunity to execute an instrument that we view as a low cost of capital: 1.75% coupon and a high conversion premium. We're mindful of the fact that we have a lot of secured debt maturing in a couple of years, say 18 to 24 months. So our debt position is not static and we're just going to continue to look at opportunities to execute on low-cost transactions, and this is just one of those.

I don't have anything else to add to that, Greg.

And then the other question, just on the market as we think about it, James, you touched on ton miles expanding, maybe volumes not being where they need to be, maybe volumes being a little bit light. I guess, roughly a little over 2 months into the conflict and more of the war in Iran. Have we started to see pockets of hoarding or anything that is kind of just -- I mean, I imagine there's lots of things out of the ordinary that you're seeing. But just kind of curious how that's translating into maybe new trade routes or expanding ones, replacing others? Just kind of curious on what you're seeing there.

Lars, would you like to take this one?

Yes, sure. I'll start off. Yes, that's for sure. We have seen a lot of what you would consider to be genuinely unique voyages and instances. Ton miles have obviously elongated across the board. We have seen a huge amount of increase in the U.S. Gulf Coast exports very much further afield than what we would have seen before. From a pre-conflict into conflict level being the stuff with Iran, we had ships that were trading and transporting towards the West. And then before they even came to the Cape of Good Hope, they were asked to will you go to the Middle East. And then one day later, can you please go back to Asia where they actually had loaded from. The fact is that the price of oil and price of product has made such that the price of freight has become insignificant. So we're not seeing any issues of freights being curtailed because of the price of freight because the oil underlying is so valuable and it's also so important for the security of supply. So that also obviously goes into the structural reshuffling of product in the United States. We've seen, obviously, the headline of the Jones Act being waived for a brief moment in time. That has obviously also kind of moved your needle to anything that we've seen in the past. So yes, there certainly has been a lot of change.

The next question comes from Omar Nokta of Clarkson Securities.

Clearly, things are moving in a really nice direction for Scorpio, certainly from a financial perspective, going deeper into net cash. You just re-upped the buyback to $500 million. And I just wanted to get a sense from you, does this signal a pivot in how you're viewing uses of capital from here? And is there any preference at this point in terms of the interest looking either at the shares or the unsecured notes or the converts?

I don't think it creates a pivot in strategy. I think this creates a point where we feel ready enough to give ourselves the largest ever buyback the company has ever had if it decides that that's the right thing to do. So there's no pivot. The idea is just developing a strategy. The first thing is to deleverage. The second is to start to renew the fleet and take advantage of backwardization in the curve. And the third is to -- as Chris says, is to then start to use that balance sheet in getting very effective cheaper finance and being able to put up the largest ever buyback the company has had, which is a continuation of strategy, which is we'll watch and we'll act and we'll react when and if we see the opportunity. So to me, we kind of, in a funny way, seem to sort of develop like a hammer and anvil here. We got the tremendous cash position that the company has in one sense and its ability to get debt cheaply. And underneath it now, we're developing the anvil there so that if you had a wobble in the stock or we just see a continuing lack of dislocation between NAV and stock price that we can come in and take advantage of that because we believe very much in the long term development and continued health of the company.

And maybe just to follow up and touch on, I think you were mentioning the fleet and taking advantage of the backwardation there. Just want to get a sense from you on how you're thinking about the fleet as it is now. You sold a bunch of vessels this year. You've got $500 million or so coming in, in the second quarter from those vessel sales. Are we getting to a point where maybe the active selling, if you want to call it that, slows down? And is it more about fine-tuning the fleet? Is it looking at new buildings? How are you thinking about the fleet position from here?

I think we haven't -- again, we haven't changed on that. I mean we're there to take -- continue to take opportunistic sales, take opportunistic -- we're working longer term time charters too. And at the same time, we might continue to gently and responsibly where it's so clear that that financing is not changing our hammer as it were to engage in the renewal part of it that we've done gently. You're not going to see some massive great big order. You're not going to see some acquisition of a competitor. It's just going to be continuing to gently move each of the parameters we're looking at along the way here to be much of the same.

The next question comes from Jon Chappell of Evercore ISI.

James, I appreciate the presentation regarding the disruption. A lot of it seems to be focused around once the flows normalize. Can you help us just kind of with scenario analysis here? There's still a lot of uncertainty. It feels like the path may be changing by the week, if not the hour. What are some of the other kind of upside opportunities, but also downside risks as this unprecedented situation continues to evolve?

Maybe I can take a start at that one, if I can.

Sure.

I don't think we -- I'll say this very clearly. I just don't think we're in control of that. I don't think -- we don't spend much time in going through the hypotheticals or working out if A happens, if B will happen or even whether A will happen because it's information changes as to whether or not this Hormuz open, whether or not the Iranians, we're still selling international ships about 3 or 4 times just yesterday. So we'll pass on the hypotheticals, if that's okay, Jon.

Well, how about how your operations have changed? We see these headline rates. Are you fully absorbing them? Have you had to move the fleet around? So maybe do you have imbalance or maybe even better exposure to certain regions? Just how do we think about these headline rates that we're seeing, how it translates to you both from a top line perspective, but also from a potential disruption or cost/bunker perspective?

Lars?

I mean I think this is part and parcel of what we do every single day. We need to kind of assess where we anticipate the market to kind of react as the fleets are deployed. There's no doubt that when this happened, we made a conscious effort to move our ships west where we could see that the market dislocation was being kind of the greatest, and there was clearly at the margin, stronger market movements taking place. So we moved ships a lot both through the canal and also around the Cape of Good Hope, but we also made sure that the ships that we had opening in kind of New Zealand, Alaska, North Asia, making decisions to move these ships across. And that probably took a little bit of time, but it kind of paid off. You still see today even with the high volatility that is in the markets, rates are moving 15%, 20% intra-week. But structurally, it has been such that the West market has been benefiting from a rate perspective greater than you'd see vessels trading east of Suez.

The next question comes from Ken Hoexter of Bank of America.

Maybe can you talk about any increased interest in multi-year charters given the environment, maybe your thought on that? Do you want to keep same exposure to the spot market? And then any incremental developments from Venezuela? We've talked about that a lot in terms of short-haul moves.

I'll just take one of the bits first, Lars. So I think when it comes to looking at it, look, our reduced breakeven in all senses, the lack of debt, the low borrowing cost, is now opening up the situations where you can really look you can look quite favorably at 5-year charters, 6-year charters, 7-year charters as just very, very locked in simple, profitable, secure returns, adding to, let's say, stability of income, which has always been lacking really in tanker companies. So yes, we're not only looking at opportunities that arise, but also favorable to it because of the dynamics in terms of our own financial breakeven. Lars, would you like to go through the details.

Yes. I mean we obviously reported a couple of them within the quarter that we have done. Certainly, in my experience in the market, it's generational highs in terms of long-term charters. And this is long-term charters to very bankable first-class end users, which we have not seen before. We would always have a balance between spot and time charter, but we certainly have still a very large proponent towards spot. But clearly, the ships that we have on time charter all reflect the quality of the paper and also people that we strategically have aligned ourselves with in terms of the spot business that we also do for them so that the relationship goes up to a different level. And that has, over the years, been something that we can see has benefited the business. In terms of looking at charters for the future, we continue to look at charters every single day. There has been continued interest both in MRs and also in LR stroke Aframaxes as everybody on the call will probably appreciate that we today look at LR2s and Aframaxes as one segment. And there certainly has been a substantial interest in that market. Indeed, we have seen 1-year deals at extremely high and elevated numbers. We've seen 3-year deal interest, 5-year deal interest. Clearly, when it comes to 8-year deals that we have done one of, that are not that frequent to see. But it's clear to me that it's not only the shipowner that considers the market to look pretty good, but a lot of the people that we do business with are willing to put pen to paper and expose themselves for long-term charter.

If I can get maybe 2 rapid ones, right? It's just the -- are you seeing any shortages now at this point yet on some of the products, I don't know, jet fuel in different areas? I think you were talking about New Zealand. I was there not too long ago. It seemed like Australia was starting to ration some fuel. Maybe thoughts on where we are. James was talking about inventories. And then I think you mentioned the $2 billion in cash by the summer, but the $500 million buyback plan. Thoughts on the other $1.5 billion usage plans.

I'll start with the shortages. I think what we've seen in Southeast Asia is obviously methods to reduce travel. But what I think at a high level we've seen is so far it appears that it's more inefficient supply to meet demand. Demand has been quite strong. And when you look at the issues that are currently happening, a lot of it falls to this -- there's not a lot of spare refining capacity in the world. And we've been talking about this for years on the call, but you've had closures around the world, refinery capacity has moved further away from the consumer. And what you're seeing as a result of this is that. So I think going forward, you're going to see, like I mentioned, a lot of restocking. You're still going to see this refinery dislocation just because of how long it takes to build a refinery. And we'll see how the situation develops, but I think it's very constructive in the short to medium term based off this refinery dislocation.

To add to the future, I think you're going to see us continue to maintain a very healthy overall cash position. I think that we've said that we would even consider doing further sales of the old tonnage. So that would actually result in an even higher cash position than any forecast you guys to make at the moment. However, we also said that we'd be willing to explore opportunistically continuing our renewal, which would indicate that you might get a few newbuilding orders, not many, but just a few to keep a sort of steady position. And where you're keeping the vast majority of cash generated, but you're giving some of it out on buybacks like you've seen so far this quarter, dividend and newbuilding orders. We didn't raise the dividend this quarter, but not for any other reason. But look, it was a knockout quarter. It was fantastic. And we'd like to have a look at things when it comes in later in the year, July, September, whether we're likely to increase the dividend again as to how much, whether it continues to be in little smaller steps or whether we feel we could do one slightly bigger step will come. But overall, it's just a continuation of what we've been doing in the last 6, 9, 12 months that are steadily going along, taking advantage of the arbitrage on the curve, taking advantage of some great second-hand prices, which, in fact, there are indications that those prices are still increasing. We're seeing that in the market. And that's it, just a continuation. It seems to be working well so far.

The next question comes from Stephanie Moore of Jefferies.

I wanted to touch on fleet renewal. If you wanted to talk a little bit about if you have a preference, whether it's more LR2s or medium-range exposure in the fleet. Maybe just any general commentary you can have on general fleet exposure within fleet renewals would be helpful. And then I do have one follow-up.

Stephanie, you are welcome. Secondly, you've sort of seen us and we will continue again that we backed off the VLCCs in terms of expanding there. And so -- and the recent renewals have been in the product tankers, both in the MRs and the LR2s. And my expectation would be that that's where we will continue to concentrate and find opportunity.

And then just I wanted to follow up actually on the prior question on the dividend itself. So I guess just given the favorable financial position that you are in now, and I appreciate your stance on flexibility, but wanted to know if you did have any kind of quarterly targeted payout that we should be looking at.

We haven't yet reached that. I can tell you what we won't have. We won't do extraordinary dividends and we won't do these high payout dividends. We're all for what we would call a permanent a dividend that can be met through good times and bad, and that ideally can be improved on in good times and bad. And the payout dividends, high payout dividends, particularly that are tied to percentages of income or whatever historically, they work great in good times and are quite tragic in other times.

The next question comes from Chris Robertson of Deutsche Bank.

This might be one for Lars. This is just a question related to the bunker fuel market. I know initially, there was quite a bit of disruption and a huge spike in prices there. Can you talk about how is that availability going? And is it having any impact on where -- how you're thinking about positioning the fleet, which voyages you're taking? Has that situation gotten any better over the last few weeks?

The short answer is that we do not see issues today in terms of securing bunkers on any of our ships around the world. Prices certainly went very high and elevated place, and there was a lot of questions just as this conflict started, and we were obviously looking at this. But to be honest, this is kind of what we do every single day anyway. Bunker planning is a very important part of any voyage planning that we do. So these things are looked at any given time so that we can reflect the pricing of the bunker input to the output of the time charter equivalent, and that continues to be the case. But right now, we do not encounter issues that create additional issues for us in terms of supplying bunkers.

This is just a follow-up to many questions here related to the dividend. So apologies for retreading similar ground. But realizing this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation, Robert, if maybe you could talk a little bit more about the philosophy around the dividend. Is it a situation where you're looking for a certain amount of balance sheet strength or a certain breakeven level or a certain market type of environment and rate sustainability? Or what kind of would drive an increase to the dividend, realizing that the ultimate goal is to be at a sustained level throughout various parts of the cycle?

No, that's not the ultimate goal isn't to be a sustained level because what I hear from that is the sustain percentage of stock price, sustain percentage of earnings. That's not what it is. What we hope to do throughout the cycle is to be able to raise the regular dividend. And a dividend is not just being raised and regular and sustainable by us, but it's clear to the most conservative of long-only large institutions, hopefully income growth side too that we would like to develop. That we can pay it under any circumstances. So that's where you're starting to see in the actual presentation, a lot of concentration by Chris on cash breakeven, a lot of slides related to what happens if we re-live the worst market that we've ever lived in, which is COVID, can the company continue to pay and grow the dividend through that cycle. But that's how we're evaluating it. And I think at the moment, things are moving -- we raised it in the last quarters actually. I think this was just an unbelievably knockout quarter that we felt that what do we do? Do we raise it $0.01, do we raise it $0.05? It's sort of fairly unclear to us. We just left it aside knowing that we had an incredible quarter. We put steps into the balance sheet, a terrific guidance for the second quarter. I mean, extraordinary, even surprised us. So no one out there can possibly say they expected the guidance that we've given. And that will then later in the year, we can sit there and see what the next level is to -- that we're happy to move to on a sustainable basis, that's all.

The next question comes from Liam Burke of B. Riley.

Even prior to the tensions in the Mid East, the more -- the rates in the Aframaxes were higher, and there had been a lot of shift from clean to dirty. As we post tensions, is there anything that would flip that situation where the Afras would move back to the LR2s and start trading clean?

I mean we're in the perfect situation where you've got LR2s in north of $100,000 per day market, where the alternative in Aframax is trading north of $100,000 per day as well. If you look at the numbers themselves, we only have to go back a couple of years, I think, and we were trading 256 LR2s in the market. Today, we're trading around 170 LR2s in the market. Obviously, you've had a huge proponent of the LR2s back in the time, they had gone into the sanctioned fleet, the age part as well. And you suddenly have the element of crude also transporting itself longer field further afield. So you have a very strong Aframax market, which is not only now in the Atlantic Basin, you also have a strong Aframax market east of Suez as well. TMX, which is the market that goes from the Pacific Northwest to Asia, has been extremely strong. The market that goes down to the Pacific lightering area has also been very strong, in particular because of the VLCCs being very strong. But then you've got the Suez maxes being very, very strong. And you have every element within that kind of framework that is extremely strong. So to the question about switching, the last time we saw switching going the other way was when you had a very weak crude market, which had been going on and persisted for a while and the LR2 market, in particular, had ramped up. At that point in time, you had a delta of, I think, it was about $8 million between one to the other and you started seeing a huge amount of vessels going into the clean market. Today, whichever way you look at it, it's very strong. And then you say, well, what about Venezuela? That's also an Aframax market. TMX is 100% Aframax market. The stuff that goes out of Australia is 100% Aframax market. So the story is good in terms of where you are on a supply-demand perspective when you in aggregate look at LR2s and Aframaxes together, which is, of course, what you have to do today. So the element of the argument that was the case a while back saying, well, we've got all these ships being built. It doesn't really hold that much when you consider where the average age is of the fleet and also what ships are actually able to trade. So structurally, I think we're looking at a very decent supply-demand story on both Aframaxes and on LR2s.

I think this would be for James. James, you always highlight for the last several years the redistribution of global refinery capacity. Post conflict, a lot of that has been Mid East refinery. Would you anticipate any modification of that redistribution?

Liam, thanks. Good question. It's a challenge. I think the quickest you can probably build a refinery is 7 years. So if you're not starting today, it's not coming in that time frame. One of the things that I think we feel that's likely is people will view storage differently coming out of this. So how much crude and how much product are you keeping domestically. And I think that's going to be great for refinery runs. But in terms of major changes, I think it's going to be a challenge to do anything in a short time frame. But I'm sure certainly that people might look now and they might look at new pipeline opportunities.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Emanuele Lauro for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much, operator. No closing remarks of any substance apart from thanking everybody for your time and looking forward to connecting in the near future. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.