Ardmore Shipping Corp (ASC) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Ardmore Shipping's 2023 Investor Day, during which we will also be covering the company's results for the fourth quarter and full year 2022. I'm Bryan Degnan with the IGB Group. Just a few administrative points before we get underway today. The event is being recorded and broadly distributed via live webcast, which, along with today's slide is accessible at www.ardmoreshipping.com.

大家早安。歡迎參加 Ardmore Shipping 2023 年投資者日，屆時我們也將介紹公司 2022 年第四季和全年的業績。我是 IGB 集團的 Bryan Degnan。在我們今天開始之前，只需討論幾個行政要點。該活動正在錄製並透過網路直播廣泛傳播，您可以訪問 www.ardmoreshipping.com 並觀看今天的幻燈片。

An audio replay of the event will be available on the website from later today. The standard earnings press release was issued premarket this morning and is also available on the website. So later in the event, following prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A session, at which point, we will take questions from the people with us in the room today. For those joining remotely, please feel free to submit any questions that you might have at any time to Ardmore@IG, G as in girl, B as in boy, IR.com, so Ardmore@igbir.com. Throughout the event and for the benefit of those joining remotely, we would ask that all speakers and questioners utilize the provided microphones.

該活動的音訊回放將於今天晚些時候在網站上提供。標準收益新聞稿於今天早上盤前發布，也可在網站上查閱。因此，活動稍後，在準備好的發言之後，將有一個問答環節，屆時我們將回答今天在場的人們提出的問題。對於遠端加入的用戶，請隨時將您可能遇到的任何問題提交至 Ardmore@IG，G 代表女孩，B 代表男孩，IR.com，因此是 Ardmore@igbir.com。在整個活動期間，為了遠端參與者的利益，我們要求所有發言者和提問者使用提供的麥克風。

Slide 3 for the disclaimer here. Please allow me to remind you that our discussion today contains forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings release. Now moving to Slide 4, I would just like to briefly introduce you to the members of the Ardmore's leadership team, and we have the pleasure of hearing from today. We have with us Curtis McWilliams, Ardmore's Chairman; Anthony Gurnee, Founder and Chief Executive Officer; Bart Kelleher, Chief Financial Officer; and Gernot Ruppelt, Chief Commercial Officer. And with that, I would ask Curtis McWilliams, Ardmore's Chairman, to come up for some brief opening remarks.

此處投影片 3 為免責聲明。請容許我提醒您，我們今天的討論包含前瞻性陳述。實際結果可能與前瞻性陳述中的預測有重大差異。有關可能導致實際結果與前瞻性陳述中的結果存在重大差異的因素的更多信息，請參閱 2022 年第四季度和全年收益報告。現在轉到投影片 4，我想簡單介紹一下阿德莫爾領導團隊的成員，我們很高興今天能聽到你們的發言。我們還有阿德莫爾主席柯蒂斯·麥克威廉姆斯 (Curtis McWilliams)；安東尼·格尼 (Anthony Gurnee)，創始人兼首席執行官；首席財務官 Bart Kelleher；和首席商務官 Gernot Ruppelt。現在，我想請阿德莫爾主席柯蒂斯·麥克威廉姆斯上台致一些簡短的開場白。

I promise they'll be brief. On behalf of the Board of Ardmore Shipping, I'd like to welcome you to this our Annual Investor Day presentation. Now it's been 10 years since Ardmore became a publicly listed company on New York Exchange.

我保證他們會簡短地發言。我謹代表阿德莫爾航運董事會歡迎您參加我們的年度投資者日演講。如今，阿德莫爾在紐約交易所上市已有 10 年了。

Over this time, Ardmore has always been committed to the highest standards of both governance and transparency. Today's presentation is just 1 element of this commitment, and I hope you will find it both interesting and informative. As you saw in our earnings release this morning, as Chair, I'm enormously pleased with our 2022 performance, not only our strong earnings performance but as well our continued commitment to our allocation -- capital allocation policy, resulting in a very, very strong balance sheet, and our reintroduction of our dividend as we return capital to our shareholders. As you'll hear from the team today, we continue to believe that the prospects for our sector and more especially for Ardmore, remain very bright as 2023 unfolds.

在此期間，阿德莫爾始終致力於最高的治理和透明度標準。今天的演講只是這項承諾的一部分，我希望你們會覺得它既有趣又有益。正如您在今天早上的收益報告中看到的，作為董事長，我對我們 2022 年的業績感到非常滿意，不僅是因為我們強勁的盈利表現，還因為我們持續致力於我們的配置——資本配置政策，從而形成了非常強勁的資產負債表，並且我們在向股東返還資本時重新引入了股息。正如您今天從團隊那裡聽到的那樣，我們仍然相信，隨著 2023 年的到來，我們行業，特別是阿德莫爾的前景仍然光明。

In closing, I want to thank you, our shareholders, for your continued support of our company. Our focus as a Board is to ensure that Ardmore remains solely focused on the creation of sustainable long-term value for its shareholders. I truly hope that you will continue -- that we will continue to earn your trust as a steward of your investment. And with that, I'm happy to turn over the presentation to Tony Gurnee, our CEO.

最後，我要感謝我們的股東對我們公司的持續支持。作為董事會，我們的重點是確保阿德莫爾繼續專注於為股東創造可持續的長期價值。我真誠地希望您能繼續下去—我們將繼續作為您投資的管理者贏得您的信任。現在，我很高興將演講交給我們的執行長 Tony Gurnee。

That was really good. I think we can just stop right there. Thanks, Curtis, and welcome, everyone. First, I'd like to outline the format of today's call. So Bart and I are going to start off by presenting the results for the fourth quarter and full year. We're then going to pivot to the Investor Day part of the presentation. I'll begin with an overview of Ardmore strategy, and then Gernot will give his high insights on the commercial side of the business before going into some details on the market outlook. And then we'll conclude the presentation and open up the call for questions from the floor as well as remotely. And again, for remote questions, please send them to ardmore@igbir.com.

那真是太好了。我想我們可以就此打住。謝謝，柯蒂斯，歡迎大家。首先，我想概述一下今天電話會議的形式。因此，巴特和我將首先介紹第四季和全年的業績。然後我們將轉向演示的投資者日部分。我將首先概述 Ardmore 的策略，然後 Gernot 將對該業務的商業方面給出他的深刻見解，然後再詳細介紹市場前景。然後，我們將結束演示並開始接受現場和遠端提問。再次強調，對於遠端問題，請發送至 ardmore@igbir.com。

Turning to Slide 6. So for highlights. We're pleased to report our most profitable year thus far with adjusted earnings of $144 million or $3.74 a share. Fourth quarter performance continues to reflect the strength in the product and chemical tanker markets, with adjusted earnings of $54 million or $1.30 per share, equating to an annualized book return on equity of 46%. We highlighted in the chart on the upper right of this slide, our full year results were driven by a strong second half, which is needed into the first quarter. On a TCE basis, our MRs earned $43,175 per day for the fourth quarter. And so far, we're running at $39,500 for the first quarter of 2023 with 55% booked.

翻到幻燈片 6。以下是重點。我們很高興地報告，今年是迄今為止我們利潤最高的一年，調整後的收益為 1.44 億美元，即每股 3.74 美元。第四季的業績持續反映出產品和化學品油輪市場的強勁表現，調整後的收益為 5,400 萬美元或每股 1.30 美元，相當於年化帳面股本回報率為 46%。我們在這張投影片右上角的圖表中強調，我們的全年業績受到強勁的下半年業績的推動，這也是第一季所需要的。依照 TCE 計算，我們的 MR 在第四季每天的收入為 43,175 美元。到目前為止，2023 年第一季的營運成本為 39,500 美元，預訂率為 55%。

Chemical tankers on a capital-adjusted basis, earned $33,000 a day for the fourth quarter and are running just slightly lower at $31,300 for the first quarter with 70% booked. These rates emphasize the ongoing robustness of the market. And in fact, if the first quarter to date were to continue for the full year, although they're a little bit off the highs of last year, the resulting earnings would be about $4.60 a share. As a result of the strong performance and consistent with the capital allocation policy, we're pleased to declare a quarterly cash dividend of $0.45 a share, representing 1/3 of adjusted earnings.

以資本調整後計算，化學品油輪第四季的日收益為 33,000 美元，而第一季的每日收益略低，為 31,300 美元，預訂率為 70%。這些利率強調了市場的持續強勁。事實上，如果第一季的業績延續到全年，儘管與去年的高點相比略有下降，但每股收益仍將達到 4.60 美元左右。由於業績強勁且符合資本配置政策，我們很高興宣布每股 0.45 美元的季度現金股息，佔調整後收益的 1/3。

Further benefit of this performance, Ardmore continues to delever and strengthen its balance sheet, resulting in lower breakeven rates, higher quality earnings and much greater substance behind our net asset value. Overall, we feel that between our operating performance and the solid financial profile, Ardmore is exceptionally well positioned to continue benefiting from this market. One final important note on this slide, especially for those that are not fully familiar with our industry, is the operating leverage we have to charter rates were every $10,000 a day increase in rates results in an incremental $2.40 in earnings per share.

由於這一業績，阿德莫爾繼續去槓桿並加強其資產負債表，從而降低了盈虧平衡率，提高了盈利質量，並大大增強了我們的淨資產價值。總體而言，我們認為，憑藉我們的經營業績和穩健的財務狀況，阿德莫爾完全有能力繼續從這個市場中受益。這張投影片上最後一個重要的說明，特別是對於那些不完全熟悉我們行業的人來說，是我們對租船費率的經營槓桿，費率每增加 10,000 美元一天，每股收益就會增加 2.40 美元。

So turning to Slide 7. The market outlook remains very compelling, benefiting in particular from the current oil market volatility, which, of course, has a lot to do with the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In fact, the conflict continues to drive a further pronounced and likely to be persistent, reordering of global refined product trade, resulting in increased tonne-mile demand and supporting very high rates. Our first quarter-to-date performance was marginally off the peak of last year, due in part to the impact of extreme weather and early refinery maintenance in the U.S. Gulf. We believe this is now behind us with the Atlantic Basin recovering rapidly to the levels of East of Suez over the past week. So arguably, the market is back to around $40,000 to $50,000 a day on a global basis.

請翻到幻燈片 7。市場前景仍然非常引人注目，尤其受益於當前石油市場的波動，當然，這與俄羅斯和烏克蘭的衝突有很大關係。 事實上，衝突繼續推動全球成品油貿易進一步明顯且可能持續的重新排序，導致噸英里需求增加並支持非常高的運費。我們第一季迄今的業績略低於去年的峰值，部分原因是受到極端天氣和美國墨西哥灣煉油廠早期維護的影響。我們相信，這個問題已經過去，因為過去一週大西洋盆地的水位已迅速恢復至蘇伊士運河以東的水平。因此可以說，全球市場已回升至每天約 4 萬至 5 萬美元。

We're also seeing China reopening and set to strengthen global economic activity and thus adding a further layer of product tanker demand, for example, for jet fuel. Meanwhile, chemical tanker demand is also forecast to expand in 2023 supported by global growth. Added to all these near-term factors are the robust underlying supply-demand fundamentals, which Gernot will discuss in more detail later on.

我們也看到中國正在重新開放並將加強全球經濟活動，從而進一步增加成品油輪的需求，例如對航空燃料的需求。同時，受全球經濟成長的推動，預計2023年化學品船需求也將擴大。除了所有這些短期因素之外，還有強勁的供需基本面，Gernot 稍後將對此進行更詳細的討論。

So turning to Slide 8. We'll speak more about capital allocation later, but I wanted to highlight the dividend for the fourth quarter at $0.45 a share. The calculation is shown on the table to the right side of the slide, I'm equating to a current yield of 11%. The dividend will be paid on March 15 to all shareholders of record as of February 28. With that, I'd like to hand the call over to Bart.

請翻到幻燈片 8。我們稍後會詳細討論資本配置，但我想強調一下第四季每股 0.45 美元的股息。計算結果顯示在投影片右側的表格中，我將其等同於目前收益率 11%。股利將於 3 月 15 日支付給截至 2 月 28 日登記在冊的所有股東。說完這些，我想把發言權交給 Bart。

(technical difficulty) Moving to Slide 9. So Ardmore continues to build upon its financial strength. Net leverage at the end of December stood at 25%, which is down from 55% at the start of last year. We have a very strong liquidity position with $50 million of cash on hand and $170 million of undrawn revolving facilities at year-end. As Tony mentioned earlier, we've reduced our cash breakeven to approximately $14,500 per day driven by our reduced debt levels as well as our access to revolving facilities. As always, Ardmore remains focused on optimizing performance as we benefit from the positive market volatility in these elevated markets. We're also closely managing costs in this continued inflationary environment.

（技術難題）移至投影片 9。因此，阿德莫爾繼續增強其財務實力。 12月底淨槓桿率為25%，較去年初的55%下降。我們的流動性狀況非常強勁，年底手頭上有 5000 萬美元現金和 1.7 億美元未提取的循環信貸額度。正如托尼之前提到的，由於我們的債務水平降低以及我們可以使用循環信貸額度，我們已將現金盈虧平衡點降低至每天約 14,500 美元。像往常一樣，阿德莫爾仍然專注於優化業績，因為我們受益於這些高漲市場的積極市場波動。在持續的通膨環境下，我們也在密切管理成本。

Slide 10, for financial highlights, as noted, we're very pleased with our performance, and we report record full year results of $3.74 per share. We're corresponding reporting strong EBITDAR for the quarter and the year, and we continue to frame EBITDAR as an important comparable valuation metric for IFRS -- against IFRS reporting peers. So please note that there is a full reconciliation of this presented in the appendix on Slide 45. Although our very favorable floating-to-fixed interest rate swaps will roll off this summer, we're in a position to mitigate the impact of the higher interest rates due to the significantly lower debt levels. And please also note Slide 49 in the appendix has our Q1 guidance numbers as well.

投影片 10，財務亮點，如上所述，我們對我們的業績非常滿意，我們報告全年業績創下每股 3.74 美元的紀錄。我們報告了本季和本年度強勁的 EBITDAR，我們繼續將 EBITDAR 作為 IFRS 的重要可比較估值指標——與 IFRS 報告同業相比。因此請注意，在投影片 45 的附錄中對此進行了完整的調整。雖然我們非常優惠的浮動利率到固定利率互換將在今年夏天結束，但由於債務水準顯著降低，我們能夠減輕較高利率的影響。另請注意，附錄中的第 49 張投影片也包含我們的第一季指導數字。

Moving to Slide 11. (technical difficulty) continue to reinvest in the fleet to optimize performance. This year, we'll have 8 scheduled drydockings. And by the way, this reduces to 4 next year. In tandem with these drydockings, we're installing second-generation scrubber technology on an initial 6 of our vessels with the installations occurring within the time constraints of the normal drydocking. These modular units are fitted with the latest technology, which filters, neutralizes and reduces water discharge and also has carbon-capture capabilities.

移至投影片 11。 （技術難度）繼續對車隊進行再投資以優化性能。今年，我們將安排 8 次乾船塢維修。順便說一句，明年這個數字將減少到 4。與這些乾船塢同時進行的，是我們在最初的 6 艘船上安裝第二代洗滌器技術，安裝工作將在正常乾船塢的時間限制內進行。這些模組化裝置配備了最新技術，可過濾、中和並減少水排放，還具有碳捕獲能力。

As you can see highlighted in yellow on the picture, it looks like a great 20-foot container standing on end and attached to the back of the vessel stack, and by design, it's relatively quick and easy to install. Based on current bunker spreads, this project has an IRR of approximately 60%. Also noteworthy, we had on-hire availability of almost 100% for the fourth quarter from the continued close coordination of our team at sea and onshore.

正如您在圖片上看到的黃色突出顯示部分，它看起來就像一個巨大的 20 英尺集裝箱，直立並連接到容器堆的後面，並且根據設計，它的安裝相對快速且簡單。根據目前的燃油價差，該專案的內部報酬率約為 60%。同樣值得注意的是，透過我們海上和陸上團隊的持續密切協調，第四季度我們的租賃可用性幾乎達到 100％。

Moving to Slide 12. Here, we're highlighting our significant operating leverage. For every $10,000 a day increase in charter rates, as depicted on the left, our earnings per share would increase by approximately $2.40 per share on an annual basis. And shown on the right, even without vessel value increases and based on accrued cash generation, our net asset value would increase by approximately $1.60 per share annually post dividend. So on the right chart, you can see the current $35,000 per day run rate, NAV would increase by approximately $3.42 this year. And to conclude my remarks, I'd like to emphasize and put the current charter levels into further perspective.

轉到投影片 12。在這裡，我們強調了我們顯著的經營槓桿。如左圖所示，租船費率每天每增加 10,000 美元，我們的每股收益每年就會增加約 2.40 美元。如右圖所示，即使船舶價值沒有增加，並且基於累計現金產生，我們的淨資產價值在股息後每年也會增加約 1.60 美元/股。因此，在右側圖表上，您可以看到目前每天 35,000 美元的運行率，今年的資產淨值將增加約 3.42 美元。最後，我想強調並進一步闡述目前的章程水準。

So based on our Q1 charter levels of approximately -- run rate thus far, approximately $35,000 per day, we generate free cash flow of approximately $200 million per year, or approximately 30% of our current market cap of $680 million. This is why we're really excited about the outlook and find our position in compelling. With that, I'm happy to hand it back over to Tony and look forward to answering any questions at the end.

因此，根據我們第一季的租船水準（迄今為止的運作率約為每天 35,000 美元），我們每年產生的自由現金流約為 2 億美元，約占我們目前 6.8 億美元市值的 30%。這就是為什麼我們對前景感到非常興奮，並發現我們的地位引人注目。說完這些，我很高興將其交還給托尼，並期待最後回答任何問題。

Okay. So that concludes the earnings portion of the presentation, and we'll now move on to a more in-depth view of the company and the markets we operate in. I've just got 5 slides to cover here, and then I'll hand it over to Gernot. So turning next to Slide 14. So first, when it comes to strategy, we've been very consistent over the years with a focus on product and chemical tankers, and the overlap of the trades the ships operate in, along with a gradual increase in scale and organizational capability and a mix of patients and quick action with regard to major transactions. But our strategy has evolved with changing markets, above all, with the energy transition which we'll speak about later. At the moment, we feel that we have a very good fleet. You might even say a Goldilocks fleet, large enough to give us the scale needed to operate globally, modern enough and fuel efficient, yet relatively low cost and thus supporting excellent returns on capital and flexible enough to allow us to be nimble and targeted in how we operate.

好的。演示的收益部分到此結束，現在我們將更深入地了解公司和我們營運的市場。我這裡只有 5 張投影片要講，然後我會把它交給 Gernot。接下來翻到投影片 14。首先，在策略方面，多年來我們一直非常一致地關注產品和化學品油輪，以及船舶運營的貿易重疊，同時逐步增加規模和組織能力，並在重大交易中採取耐心和快速行動。但我們的策略隨著市場的變化而發展，尤其是隨著能源轉型而發展，我們稍後會談到。目前，我們覺得我們擁有一支非常優秀的船隊。你甚至可以說這是一個「金髮女孩」機隊，它足夠大，足以讓我們擁有在全球運營所需的規模，足夠現代化、燃油效率高，但成本相對較低，從而支持出色的資本回報率，並且足夠靈活，讓我們能夠靈活、有針對性地開展運營。

So turning to Slide 15. You might be surprised to hear a tanker company talk about philosophy, but all good businesses have one, and ours can be summed up as combining performance and progress. But we're very happy with our absolute performance. What we focus on is our performance relative to our peer group across key metrics, and what we think is possible on cost control and cost reduction. The whole organization is focused on this, which is evident in the returns that we've generated, and you could even say that this is our alpha. But in fact, a very important driver of performance is our focus on progress, which has resulted in a very diverse and capable team allows us to connect effectively with our sea fares and motivates our energy transition team to continue finding opportunities and overall give us meaning to what we do.

請翻到第 15 張投影片。聽到一家油輪公司談論哲學，你可能會感到驚訝，但所有優秀的企業都有哲學，而我們的哲學可以概括為將績效與進步相結合。但我們對我們的絕對表現感到非常滿意。我們關注的是我們在關鍵指標上相對於同業的表現，以及我們認為在成本控制和成本降低方面可能實現的目標。整個組織都專注於此，這從我們產生的回報中可見一斑，甚至可以說這是我們的阿爾法。但事實上，一個非常重要的業績驅動力是我們對進步的關注，這使得我們擁有一支非常多元化和有能力的團隊，使我們能夠有效地與我們的海運聯繫起來，並激勵我們的能源轉型團隊繼續尋找機會，並總體上賦予我們所做的事情的意義。

So turning now to Slide 16. So when I think about how the company has evolved over the past 13 years, there are clear phases, some where we got a lot done. Others were from the outside, we were just treading water and coping with weak markets. But in fact, we were working hard to develop our capabilities internally. Our financial capacity and preserving and even building earnings upside. I think we've arrived at a point where all this effort is now really coming through, and it feels as if we're just getting started as a company.

現在翻到第 16 張投影片。當我回顧公司過去 13 年的發展歷程時，我發現公司經歷了幾個明顯的階段，在某些階段我們取得了許多成就。其他人都是外部人士，我們只是在努力應對疲軟的市場。但實際上，我們正​​在努力發展內部能力。我們的財務能力以及維持甚至建立獲利上行空間。我認為我們已經到達了這樣一個階段，所有的努力現在都真正得到了回報，感覺就像我們作為一家公司才剛剛起步。

So turning to Slide 17. This slide discusses how we balance the energy transition with what you could call energy reality. The push for decarbonization and addressing anticipated regulation on the one hand, while on the other hand, the ongoing need for fossil fuels, along with the ships needed to provide the transport. We speak a lot and often enough about our energy transition plan in detail, so we won't do that here, but happy to do that in Q&A. Above all, we see the energy transition as an opportunity to drive performance and if you'll allow us to be a modest to be one of the companies that leads the way, shares knowledge and sets the example as to what's possible. Main effort so far has been investing in incremental fuel efficiency projects.

請翻到投影片 17。這張投影片討論如何平衡能源轉型與所謂的能源現實。一方面推動脫碳並解決預期的監管問題，另一方面，持續需要化石燃料以及提供運輸所需的船舶。我們已經多次詳細談論過我們的能源轉型計劃，因此我們不會在這裡談論，但很樂意在問答環節中談論。最重要的是，我們將能源轉型視為推動績效的機遇，如果您允許我們謙虛一點，我們會成為引領潮流、分享知識並樹立榜樣的公司之一。迄今為止，主要努力是投資增量燃油效率項目。

Our most recent such as shown here, variable speed drives, with an estimated IRR of 88%. Recently tallied up what we've done in this area, and so far, we've initiated 12 projects, 9 of which have been very successful with an average IRR of about 60% and that's not including the e1 Marine JV, which is a longer-term project, not generating immediate cash flow for Ardmore, but nevertheless, could be very accretive to value in the longer term. Same time, we still carry mostly clean petroleum products, 70% to 75% by volume. Over time, we will migrate more towards non-CPP cargoes, which will be largely driven by demand growth and acquisition opportunities that arise for assets, but that's where we see the long-term growth in the business.

我們最新的產品（如這裡所示）是變速驅動器，其預計 IRR 為 88%。最近我們統計了我們在這個領域所做的工作，到目前為止，我們已經啟動了 12 個項目，其中 9 個非常成功，平均 IRR 約為 60%，這還不包括 e1 Marine JV，這是一個長期項目，不會為 Ardmore 產生即時現金流，但從長遠來看，它可能會極大地增加價值。同時，我們仍主要運送清潔石油產品，佔體積的 70% 至 75%。隨著時間的推移，我們將更多地轉向非 CPP 貨物，這主要將受到需求成長和資產收購機會的推動，但這也是我們看到的業務長期成長的地方。

So this final slide is on capital allocation, which plays a very important role for us. And if we had to distill it down to one phrase, it's what anchors are ambitioned to reality. Our priorities are shown here, and they too have been consistent. The difference now is that given our financial strength, we can now pursue it them simultaneously if we choose. The point is that this is a highly cyclical business where financial strength can pay off hugely if it permits well-timed investment in growth, but we also must balance reinvestment in growth with returning capital to shareholders over time.

最後一張投影片是關於資本配置的，這對我們來說非常重要。如果我們必須用一句話來概括，那就是主播們對現實的追求。我們的優先事項在這裡顯示出來，而且它們也是一致的。現在的不同之處在於，鑑於我們的財務實力，如果我們願意的話，我們現在可以同時追求這兩個目標。關鍵在於，這是一個高度週期性的行業，如果能夠適時投資於成長，財務實力將帶來巨大回報，但我們也必須在成長再投資與長期向股東返還資本之間取得平衡。

Okay. So I'm going to hand over the presentation now to Gernot, and he's going to take us through how he runs the commercial business as well as his views on the market outlook. Gernot?

好的。現在我將把演講交給 Gernot，他將向我們介紹他如何經營商業業務以及他對市場前景的看法。格諾特？

Thank you, Tony, and good afternoon, everyone. It always feels very special for me to be standing here in New York and present to you. I left New York about 10 years ago exactly, of course, for good reason to join Tony on his mission to build a really great tanker company, but it always feels great to be back. And so also from a -- thank you for coming and joining us today. Key messages. Key messages are really shown here on Slide 20. No matter where we are in the cycle, we will always face volatility in our markets. Everything we do as a team and the way our platform has been set up, acknowledges this volatility. (technical difficulty) feature in our business, and it's an opportunity. We embrace this opportunity and we thrive in it.

謝謝你，東尼，大家下午好。能夠站在紐約這裡向你們致辭，我總覺得很特別。當然，我大約 10 年前就離開了紐約，離開的理由很充分，我加入了托尼的行列，創建了一家真正偉大的油輪公司，但回來的感覺總是很棒。所以也感謝您今天的到來和加入我們。關鍵訊息。關鍵資訊確實顯示在幻燈片 20 上。無論我們處於週期的哪個階段，我們總是會面臨市場波動。我們作為一個團隊所做的一切以及我們平台的建立方式都承認這種波動性。 （技術難題）是我們業務中的一個特點，也是一個機會。我們抓住這個機會並在其中蓬勃發展。

TCE optimization. We live and breathe it no matter what the market has to offer, how can we do better? The answer is multifaceted, of course. It's in how we trade our ships, how we explore new markets. The answer is in how we operate our voyages. But also importantly, it's about how we build organizational capabilities, how we learn and evolve as a team, we see improvement as a continuous process, but how we retain knowledge and consistently apply it.

TCE 優化。無論市場提供什麼，我們都生存和呼吸，我們如何做得更好？當然，答案是多方面的。這體現在我們如何交易船舶、如何探索新市場。答案在於我們如何運作我們的航行。但同樣重要的是，它涉及我們如何建立組織能力，如何作為一個團隊學習和發展，我們將改進視為一個持續的過程，但我們如何保留知識並一致地應用它。

Then initiatives that improved TCE performance can compound over time. Good for immediate financial results and also from a competitive standpoint, it gets harder to replicate. Much of what we do then is rooted in our culture, which we built and refined from day 1 to think and to act as one, we extremely deliberate what we do at all times, and how we look at every decision as an opportunity for relative trade.

隨著時間的推移，改善 TCE 績效的措施將會不斷增加。這對於直接的財務結果來說是件好事，而且從競爭的角度來看，它也更難複製。我們所做的大部分事情都植根於我們的文化，這種文化從第一天起就建立並不斷完善，旨在團結一致地思考和行動，我們時刻慎重考慮我們所做的事情，並將每個決定視為相對貿易的機會。

Slide 21. Here, you have an overview of our commercial universe, or at least a selection of it and how we are set up within it. You will see here many recognizable names, 2 chip companies, major refineries and commodity traders. And this slide may seem a bit obvious, boring really because you will have seen similar slides from most of the other tanker companies. But an important point to make here is that we transact with an increasing amount of customers with a nonpetroleum focus. Now engagement with them goes well beyond the day-to-day. You have to forgive me for not being more specific here. It could be agricultural companies, chemicals, other companies that increasingly focus on trading of nonpetroleum commodities, bio feedstocks or companies to engage in biofuel blending.

幻燈片 21。在這裡，您可以概覽我們的商業世界，或至少了解其中的一部分以及我們在其中的運作方式。您將在這裡看到許多知名的名字、兩家晶片公司、大型煉油廠和商品交易商。這張幻燈片可能看起來有點明顯，實際上很無聊，因為你會在大多數其他油輪公司看到類似的幻燈片。但這裡要強調的一點是，我們與越來越多的非石油業的客戶進行交易。現在與他們的互動已經遠遠超出了日常的範圍。您必須原諒我在這裡沒有說得更具體一些。它可能是農業公司、化學品公司、其他越來越注重非石油商品交易的公司、生物原料公司或從事生物燃料混合的公司。

You can actually see that the conversation in the market is shifting quite a bit. Ultimately, this slide is about creating lots of trading options for Ardmore across the globe, and importantly, also across different cargo segments.

你實際上可以看到市場上的討論正在發生很大的變化。最終，這張投影片是關於為阿德莫爾在全球創造大量貿易選擇，而且重要的是，也涵蓋不同的貨運領域。

Slide 22 is really important for us. This is about the team that we feel quite blessed to have at Ardmore. The culture that we built, which is really at the heart of everything. When you compare us with the average tanker company, we have an unusually diverse team, diverse along almost every dimension and at every level. Different cultural backgrounds, gender, but also different professional backgrounds, all is strictly merit-based. This diversity enables us to have better access to our regional markets, and to make better trading decisions, better access, more options, better decisions, it's good business really. As much as possible, we give our staff a chance to step up and take more responsibility through internal rotations, internal progression and career development. We are also constantly trialing new data and technology solutions. Focus is on bottom-line impact, making sure that our commercial team have the best decision-making tools at hand at all times. It is not about buzz. Therefore, we are quite selective in terms of what technology we are eventually onboarding.

第 22 張投影片對我們來說非常重要。這就是我們非常榮幸能在阿德莫爾擁有的團隊。我們所建立的文化其實是一切的核心。與一般的油輪公司相比，我們擁有一支異常多元化的團隊，幾乎在各個方面和各個層面都呈現多元化。不同的文化背景、性別，以及不同的專業背景，都是嚴格擇優錄取的。這種多樣性使我們能夠更好地進入我們的區域市場，並做出更好的貿易決策，更好的管道，更多的選擇，更好的決策，這確實對企業有利。我們盡可能透過內部輪調、內部晉升和職業發展為員工提供晉升和承擔更多責任的機會。我們也不斷嘗試新的數據和技術解決方案。重點關注底線影響，確保我們的商業團隊始終擁有最佳的決策工具。這與嗡嗡聲無關。因此，我們對最終採用的技術非常挑剔。

Slide 23. Summarizing key pillars of our commercial strategy, and I could speak for an hour now to unpack all this. Some of it will have to remain a bit of a black box because it is commercially sensitive, but to highlight a few. Voyage combinations, finding creative and more profitable voyage combinations is key within petroleum markets and beyond. It is about creating access to the right trading options, and it is also about having the organization capability to execute them, especially when we trade in the overlap between petroleum products and chemical cargoes. Voyage execution. How well integrated are we across the whole chain that makes up 1 voyage? There are myriads of factors affecting voyage performance. For us, it's a bit like in Formula 1, where every lap is analyzed and every voyage is debriefed extensively. Perfect lap, perfect pit-stop, it's what makes the perfect race and the perfect season. Just like in Formula 1, we do our own lap analysis too after every voyage, no matter how close we get to the perfect voyage, we always look for ways to do it better, then having a constant life feedback loop across our teams. Commercial philosophy, I touched on briefly. It is about being nimble and embracing the volatility in all markets, but at the same time being very methodical, very diligent, targeting exactly the right voyage at the right time.

幻燈片 23。總結我們商業策略的關鍵支柱，我可以講一個小時來闡述這一切。由於涉及商業敏感性，其中一些內容必須保留為黑盒子，但需要強調的是其中的一些。航次組合，尋找有創意且更有利可圖的航次組合是石油市場及其他市場的關鍵。這不僅關係到創造正確的交易選擇，還關係到擁有執行這些選擇的組織能力，特別是當我們在石油產品和化學品貨物重疊區域進行交易時。航程執行。我們在組成一次航行的整個鏈條中的整合程度如何？影響航行表現的因素很多。對我們來說，這有點像一級方程式賽車，每一圈都經過分析，每一次航行都經過詳盡的報告。完美的一圈，完美的進站，這就是完美的比賽和完美的賽季。就像一級方程式賽車一樣，每次航行後我們也會進行自己的圈速分析，無論我們多麼接近完美航行，我們總是尋找更好的方法，然後在我們的團隊中建立持續的生命反饋循環。商業哲學，我簡單談一下。它是關於靈活和接受所有市場的波動，但同時又要非常有條理、非常勤奮，在正確的時間瞄準正確的航程。

Trading book here on the right, we will provide an example on the next slide of how we use time charter in and time charter out to dynamically manage our exposure throughout the cycle, and options. How can we increase options for Ardmore? And by that, I don't just mean voyage options. New markets is a new, dedicated and focused function within the company. Freight derivatives supplement our ability to increase or decrease our exposure.

右邊的交易簿，我們將在下一張投影片中提供一個範例，說明如何使用定期租入和定期租出來動態管理整個週期的風險敞口和選擇權。我們如何增加阿德莫爾的選擇？我所說的不僅僅指航行選擇。新市場是公司內部一個新的、專門的、重點突出的功能。運費衍生性商品補充了我們增加或減少風險敞口的能力。

So Slide 24 makes the point I just mentioned. Allow me to explain what we are looking at here. The green line is the spot market. The bars in blue are the number of ships we had on time chartered out. The bars in gray are the number of ships we have time chartered in. As you can see here, looking at the green line, markets were low in 2021. The work was still affected by restricted mobility due to the COVID pandemic. Then markets started to recover last winter and continue to accelerate as of last spring. 2021, when markets were weak, as you can see here, bars in blue, we had a very meaningful amount of TC cover. Starting last winter, we started to take redelivery of those ships, and we put them back in the spot market. At the same time, we extended and expanded our time charter-in position, so we increased our market exposure. Our average TCN rate at the moment is just above $13,000 a day, and we calculated that over a 2-year period, TC versus spot created about $30 million in value.

投影片 24 闡述了我剛才提到的觀點。請容許我解釋一下我們在這裡所看到的內容。綠線是現貨市場。藍色長條表示我們按時租出的船舶數量。灰色長條表示我們定期租用的船舶數量。正如您在此處看到的，從綠線可以看出，2021 年市場低迷。由於新冠疫情導致的流動性限制，工作仍受到影響。去年冬天市場開始復甦，並從去年春天開始繼續加速。 2021 年，當市場疲軟時，正如您在此處看到的藍色長條圖，我們的 TC 覆蓋量非常可觀。從去年冬天開始，我們開始重新交付這些船隻，並將它們重新推出到現貨市場。同時，我們延長並擴大了定期租船合約期限，從而增加了市場曝光率。目前，我們的平均 TCN 匯率略高於每天 13,000 美元，我們計算出，在兩年的時間裡，TC 與現貨相比創造了約 3,000 萬美元的價值。

Now, of course, we did not predict the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But as the world was recovering from the pandemic and the global need for mobility was on the upswing, we felt there was more upside to the market, and certainly more than what the going time charter rates were pricing in at that time, set us to pivot from a more defensive position to more market exposure. We will now look at some spot voyages in a bit more detail to give you a better sense of how our business works and how we trade our ships.

當然，我們沒有預測俄羅斯會入侵烏克蘭。但隨著世界從疫情中復甦，全球出行需求不斷上升，我們感覺到市場還有更大的上漲空間，而且肯定比當時定期租船費率所反映的要大，這促使我們從更防禦的立場轉向更多的市場敞口。我們現在將更詳細地介紹一些定點航行，以便您更好地了解我們的業務運作方式以及我們如何交易我們的船舶。

I will show you 3 case studies starting with Slide 25. Before we look at this slide, remember the base case for a tanker. Base case is every late leg, there is a ballast leg, meaning a ship loads a cargo at the refinery, travels across the ocean to the consumer, then unloads our cargo or as we say, discharges for cargo. Then she travels empty to the next refinery to load her next cargo. For instance, a ship brings gasoline from the Netherlands across the Atlantic to New York. And she either goes back empty to Europe or empty down to Houston. That's okay, and we do those voyages too. But to outperform the market, you have to look beyond the base case. So case study #1 shows some very long-haul global trades combined. In red, ballast legs or empty voyages. In green are the latent voyages, or you could say, paying voyages.

我將從投影片 25 開始向您展示 3 個案例研究。在看這張投影片之前，請記住油輪的基本狀況。基本情況是，每一段後期運輸都有一段壓載段，這意味著船舶在煉油廠裝載貨物，穿越海洋到達消費者，然後卸載我們的貨物，或者如我們所說，卸貨。然後她空車前往下一個煉油廠裝載下一批貨物。例如，一艘船將汽油從荷蘭橫渡大西洋運送到紐約。她要么空手返回歐洲，要么空手前往休斯頓。沒關係，我們也進行這樣的航行。但要超越市場，你的眼光就必須超越基本狀況。案例研究#1 顯示了一些非常長期的全球貿易的綜合情況。紅色表示壓載航段或空航次。綠色的是潛在航行，或者也可以說是付費航行。

In this case, the vessel is coming from Asia, and a very long haul voyage to Africa. Instead of going empty to your next typical load area, all the way up north to Europe. He only has a short ballast and she picks up an export cargo from West Africa, straight down to Argentina. From there, she could ballast to the U.S. Gulf or to Europe, but in our case here, she has no ballast at all. A matter of fact, she immediately picks up an export cargo from Argentina back to the east. These voyages combined yielded a 30% premium to average market rates over nearly 2 quarters. So if your base case is for every laden leg, there's a ballast leg. Here you can see that for 9 laden days, there was only 1 ballast day.

在這種情況下，該船來自亞洲，並經過很長的航程到達非洲。而不是空車開往下一個典型的裝載區，一路往北到達歐洲。他只帶了很短的壓艙物，她就從西非裝載了一批出口貨物，直達阿根廷。從那裡，她可以壓載到美國墨西哥灣或歐洲，但在我們這裡，她根本沒有壓載物。事實上，她立即從阿根廷裝載了一批出口貨物返回東部。這些航次合計產生的運費比近兩季的平均市場運費高出 30%。因此，如果您的基本情況是針對每條滿載航線，那麼就會有一條壓載航線。從這裡您可以看到，在 9 個滿載日中，只有 1 個壓載日。

Let me also state that it is not unique to Ardmore to look for ways to combine voyages more creatively. Some of our competitors do as well. But we have worked hard on this, and we believe it shines too in our results. Slide 26 shows the next case study. Also here for every ballast day, there are 9 laden days. In this case, we are looking at a combination of the whole range of successive cargo categories, all products, edible oils and chemical cargoes. Over nearly 2 quarters, these voyages produced a 45% premium to the market. These great crossover trades can be quite complex. We need the broader organization capability to do these voyages well and profitably, including Ship-to-Shore.

我還要指出的是，尋求以更具創造性的方式組合航行的方式並不是阿德莫爾獨有的。我們的一些競爭對手也這麼做。但我們已為此付出了努力，並且我們相信我們的成果也會熠熠生輝。幻燈片 26 展示了下一個案例研究。這裡每個壓載天數對應 9 個滿載天數。在這種情況下，我們正在考慮一系列連續的貨物類別、所有產品、食用油和化學貨物的組合。在近兩個季度的時間裡，這些航次的運費比市場價格高出 45%。這些偉大的交叉交易可能相當複雜。我們需要更廣泛的組織能力來出色且有利地完成這些航行，包括船隻到岸航行。

It took us many years bringing this expertise and do forgive me for not going into a whole lot more detail here. But going back to how I described our commercial strategy at the start and back to generating trading options, you can see why this is so important that enables us to combine the right voyages, to not only think about the next voyage, but to already sketch out next follow-on voyages and the rationale behind combining them. The next case study and last case study, I called the Whole Hog. Short-haul, long-haul, backhauls, regional, interregional, different cargo grades, this ship really has seen it all.

我們花了很多年的時間來獲得這些專業知識，請原諒我沒有在這裡進行更詳細的介紹。但回到我在開始時描述的商業策略以及產生交易選項的方式，您可以看到為什麼這麼重要，它使我們能夠結合正確的航程，不僅考慮下一次航程，而且已經勾勒出下一次後續航程以及結合它們背後的理由。下一個案例研究和最後一個案例研究，我稱之為 Whole Hog。短程運輸、長途運輸、回程運輸、區域運輸、跨區域運輸、不同等級的貨物，這艘船確實見識過一切。

Over nearly 3/4, these combinations yielded a 20% premium to the market. This is about combining voyages creatively, but it is also about just timing the market. (technical difficulty) talked about volatility at the start, and our market consists of many mini cycles. Like the macro cycle, which plays out over years, these mini cycles can play out over a number of weeks, days and sometimes even hours. Again, back to how I described our commercial strategy at the start, it is about being very targeted depending on where we are in those mini cycles. Of course, we cannot accomplish these results on every voyage, but enough for it to make a difference. I also want to avoid sending the wrong message here.

在近四分之三的股票中，這些組合的收益比市場高出 20%。這是關於創造性地組合航行，但也只是關於把握市場時機。 （技術難度）一開始就講了波動性，我們的市場是由很多小週期組成的。就像持續數年的宏觀週期一樣，這些微週期可以持續數週、數天，有時甚至是數小時。再次回到我在開始時描述的商業策略，它是根據我們在這些小周期中所處的位置而具有針對性的。當然，我們不可能在每次航行中都取得這樣的成果，但足以產生影響。我也想避免在這裡發送錯誤的訊息。

Ballast reduction is not an objective in itself. The real objective is TCE optimization. There are times when reducing ballast goes hand-in-hand with achieving the optimal TCE. But there are also times where we might forego certain cargoes and accept about is to take advantage of a hot market, especially during times of extreme arbitrage in commodity markets as we have been experiencing. This can create more inefficiency in the market, which we can benefit from. But key message just to repeat, our game is not about ballast reduction as such. It is about maximizing TCE. We don't have to go hand in hand. This concludes my tool of our commercial platform. I will now provide a brief market outlook, but I promise there will be a few more maps. Post topical, of course, the EU embargo on Russia.

減少壓載物本身並不是目標。真正的目標是TCE優化。有時，減少壓載物與達到最佳 TCE 是相輔相成的。但有時我們可能會放棄某些貨物並接受一些交易，以利用熱門市場，尤其是在我們所經歷的大宗商品市場極端套利時期。這會導致市場效率更低，而我們可以從中受益。但需要重申的關鍵訊息是，我們的遊戲並不是關於減少壓載物的。這是為了最大化 TCE。我們不必攜手並進。這就是我對我們商業平台工具的總結。我現在將提供簡要的市場展望，但我保證還會有更多的地圖。當然，後熱點是歐盟對俄羅斯的禁運。

Slide 30. This is a really important slide here. We are using data from commodity platform Vertex here. On the left, crude exports from Russia. On the right, diesel exports from Russia. You can see on the left that even before the EU crude embargo came into effect, self sanctioning had already started. EU and G7 countries started to decrease their oil purchases from Russia, well ahead of time, the blue bars. The diesel on the right-hand side, this is not the case. As a matter of fact, there was a buying spree leading right up to the winter. So the diesel story is actually yet to play out.

幻燈片 30。這是一張非常重要的投影片。我們在這裡使用商品平台 Vertex 的數據。左邊是俄羅斯的原油出口。右圖為俄羅斯的柴油出口。您可以在左側看到，甚至在歐盟原油禁運生效之前，自我制裁就已經開始。歐盟和七國集團國家開始減少從俄羅斯的石油購買量，遠早於藍色長條圖。右側的柴油，情況並非如此。事實上，冬季來臨前，出現了一股購買狂潮。因此，柴油的故事實際上尚未展開。

It is an evolving situation and the EU ban just came into effect last week. Therefore, there is little hard data as such. But of course, there is the immediate reality of how clean freight markets have reacted, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence as of last week as well. Really important to note in this context is that Russia essentially only has 2 buyers for their crude oil, China and India. Now this does not make for a great bargaining position. But diesel, there are more countries to accept and within those countries, there are also more receivers. So lots more buyers for Russian diesel than for Russia's crude oil. Russia, it is a lot more attractive instead of exporting crude oil to put their crude through refinery first and then export it as diesel and step.

情況正在不斷變化，歐盟禁令上週剛生效。因此，這樣的硬數據很少。但當然，清潔貨運市場的反應是直接的現實，截至上周也有大量的軼事證據。在此背景下真正需要注意的是，俄羅斯原油實際上只有兩個買家，即中國和印度。現在這不是一個很好的談判地位。但是柴油，有更多的國家可以接受，在這些國家中，也有更多的接收者。因此，俄羅斯柴油的買家比俄羅斯原油的買家多得多。對俄羅斯來說，與其出口原油，不如先將原油經過煉油廠，然後以柴油等形式出口，這樣更有吸引力。

We don't run crude tankers here at Ardmore, and I don't want to comment too much on the crude market. But the point here is that the diesel story is quite differentiated and still to play out. It is not a single event. It's a structural fundamental shift of refined product supply chains globally. Another important insight from the oil analyst from Vortex is that it's very easy to have television right now and to only focus on diesel. Of course, refiners are doing the utmost to optimize their product slate for diesel production. But this comes at the expense of gasoline and naphtha production.

我們在阿德莫爾這裡不營運原油油輪，而且我不想對原油市場發表太多評論。但這裡的重點是，柴油的故事相當不同，而且還有待展開。這不是一個單一事件。這是全球成品油供應鏈的結構性根本轉變。 Vortex 石油分析師的另一個重要見解是，現在看電視很容易只專注於柴油。當然，煉油廠正在盡最大努力優化柴油生產的產品結構。但這是以犧牲汽油和石腦油產量為代價的。

This could create price pressure for gasoline and naphtha. This will kick over the next long-haul arbitrage with the obvious positive impact on tanker demand. Road traffic is globally on the rise still as is aviation demand. The world cannot live on diesel alone, something we pay close attention to.

這可能會對汽油和石腦油帶來價格壓力。這將啟動下一輪長途套利，對油輪需求產生明顯的正面影響。全球道路交通量仍在上升，航空需求也上升。世界不能只靠柴油生存，這是我們密切關注的事情。

Slide 31. I have promised you more maps. These are not specific embargo voyages now, but I believe this map as well in visualizing very simply the tonne-mile impact related to the EU cargo. The red arrows show 2 trade lanes, basically how Russian oil products used to get shipped to the European market. Baltic to Northern Europe on top, and below, Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Of any voyages that MR tankers would ever engage in these are among the shortest by far. Contrast, if diesel gets shipped to Europe from the U.S., the green arrows towards the left here, we are looking at voyages 4x as long, at least 5x as long from the Middle East, 10x as long from the Far East. I said earlier, this is an evolving situation, and we are in the first week since the ban came into effect. But many traders booking ships loading in Houston nowadays ask for discharge options in Poland. That is new. It really confirms the point that slide is trying to make, which is from short runs in Northern Europe to quadruple the voyage length from Houston to Eastern Europe.

幻燈片 31。我承諾過會給你更多地圖。這些現在不是具體的禁運航程，但我相信這張地圖也能非常簡單地顯示與歐盟貨物相關的噸英里影響。紅色箭頭表示兩條貿易航線，基本上就是俄羅斯石油產品運往歐洲市場的路線。上面是波羅的海，下面是北歐，下面是黑海，下面是地中海。在 MR 油輪所進行過的所有航行中，這些航行是迄今為止最短的。相較之下，如果柴油從美國運往歐洲，也就是這裡左側的綠色箭頭所示，我們觀察到的航程是原來的 4 倍，從中東運往歐洲至少是原來的 5 倍，從遠東運往歐洲是原來的 10 倍。我之前說過，情況正在不斷演變，目前正處於禁令生效的第一週。但如今許多在休士頓裝貨的貿易商都要求在波蘭卸貨。這是新的。這確實證實了幻燈片想要表達的觀點，即從北歐的短程航線到從休士頓到東歐的航程長度增加四倍。

Tonne-mile impact overall is estimated at between 7% to 8%. So where is all the Russian diesel going now? Slide 32. The expectation is that it will move fairly long haul that we will see a fair bit of flow into South America and long-haul voyages replacing short-haul voyages. We're already seeing today Russian Baltic cargoes moved to North Africa and West Africa, also long haul, prone for voyage delays. These deals are generally done under the radar by the so-called shadow fleet, but we are keeping a close eye on this activity. Most importantly, remember, this is cheap diesel. And voyage distance is almost irrelevant in the face of price arbitrage.

總體而言，噸英里影響估計在 7% 至 8% 之間。那麼俄羅斯的柴油現在都去哪了呢？幻燈片 32。預計它將進行相當長時間的運輸，我們將看到相當多的流量流入南美洲，長途航行取代短途航行。今天我們已經看到俄羅斯波羅的海貨物運往北非和西非，而且運輸距離較長，容易出現航程延誤。這些交易通常由所謂的影子艦隊秘密進行，但我們正密切關注這項活動。最重要的是，請記住，這是廉價柴油。在價格套利面前，航行距離幾乎無關緊要。

Oil analysts have been predicting that even markets East of Suez will be absorbing Russian diesel. India, the Middle East and Asia might all be importing diesel all the way from Russia, and as of this week, we are starting to see exactly this happening. We are seeing CPP cargoes from the Baltic getting booked for East of Suez discharge on both MRs and LRs. This can either be for consumption or Russian diesel will get blended with other products and then get re-exported. This is a remarkable 2-way trade. Same cargo is shipped twice over really long distance, west to east and then back east to west. By the way, not by the same ships.

石油分析師一直預測，即使是蘇伊士運河以東的市場也將吸收俄羅斯柴油。印度、中東和亞洲可能都在從俄羅斯進口柴油，而從本週開始，我們開始看到這種情況正在發生。我們看到來自波羅的海的 CPP 貨物被預訂在蘇伊士運河以東的 MR 型船和 LR 型船中卸貨。這既可以用於消費，也可以將俄羅斯柴油與其他產品混合，然後再出口。這是一次非凡的雙向交易。同一批貨物要經過兩次非常長的運輸距離，從西到東，然後再從東到西。順便說一句，不是同一艘船。

Allow me to clarify that Ardmore does not engage in Russian exports, but we are monitoring what the shadow fleet is doing. And the expectation is clearly that many of these vessels are -- not all of them, will not be able to slot back into international mainstream trades afterwards. This would create further market inefficiencies and limited tonnage available -- tonnage availability in the market even further. Turning to Page 33, the industry outlook. Much of this will be familiar to you and I also regret to inform you that we only have 1 map left in the slide deck. You're a very kind audience. Thank you. This is also a very small map.

請容許我澄清一下，阿德莫爾不參與俄羅斯的出口，但我們正在監視影子艦隊的活動。顯然，預計其中許多船隻（並非所有船隻）將無法重新進入國際主流貿易。這將進一步導致市場效率低下和可用噸位有限——市場上的噸位可用性將進一步下降。翻到第33頁，產業展望。其中大部分內容對您來說都很熟悉，而且我很遺憾地通知您，幻燈片中只剩下 1 張地圖了。你們真是一位友善的觀眾。謝謝。這也是一張非常小的地圖。

Slide 34, a simple story but very important. Net fee growth for product and chemical tankers is slowing substantially, even expected to turn negative in the foreseeable future, against an estimated 3.5% annual demand growth. This is the widest supply and demand gap we have seen in a very long time.

幻燈片 34，一個簡單的故事，但非常重要。成品油船和化學品船的淨費用成長正在大幅放緩，預計在可預見的未來甚至會變為負值，而年需求成長率預計為3.5%。這是我們很長一段時間以來看到的最大的供需缺口。

Slide 35. Talked a lot about tonne-mile today, but sometimes it is useful to just look at tonnes as in consumption. This is a combination of data from the IEA, MSI and IMF, OMG. In brief, the pandemic is behind us, certainly from a point of our consumption anyway. We are exceeding pre-pandemic consumption levels and consumption continues to still accelerate. Once again, it is worth looking at what has been happening with global road fuel demand and aviation demand just this past week.

幻燈片 35。今天談了很多關於噸英里的內容，但有時只看消耗量的噸數也很有用。這是 IEA、MSI 和 IMF、OMG 資料的組合。簡言之，從我們的消費角度來看，疫情已經過去了。我們的消費水平已經超過了疫情前的水平，並且消費仍在繼續加速。再一次，值得關註一下過去一周全球道路燃料需求和航空需求的變化。

Slide 36. This is it. Final map of the day. I will spend very little timing because you will have heard us talk about this all before. But the key messages really remain fundamental demand drivers, consumption, refinery dislocation, China emerging from COVID, embargo on Russian oil products. This results in an estimated tonne-mile increase of 10% year-on-year for product tankers and 8% for chemical tankers.

幻燈片 36。就是這個。當天的最後一張地圖。我將花很少的時間，因為您之前一定已經聽過我們談論這一切。但關鍵訊息仍是基本需求驅動因素、消費、煉油廠錯置、中國擺脫新冠疫情、對俄羅斯石油產品的禁運。這意味著成品油輪的噸英里數預計將年增 10%，化學品油輪的噸英里數預計將年增 8%。

Slide 37. Let's take a closer look at supply, and it is worth lingering here for just a moment before I conclude my slides. When you look at the order book for product tankers on the left, you really have to travel quite far back in time to get to a point when the order book was anywhere near this low because you have to zoom out all the way to the year 2000. I personally dislike the term generation opportunity because it is so overused, but it is really hard to argue with these numbers. But equally important is the chart on the right, the green dotted box here. 40% of the fleet will be older than 20 years in 5 years' time. That is really old for our sector. It is getting older, there's very little ordering and this has been a long time in the making.

幻燈片 37。讓我們仔細看看供應情況，在我結束幻燈片之前，值得在這裡停留片刻。當你查看左側的成品油輪訂單簿時，你真的必須回溯到很久以前，才能找到訂單簿接近如此低的時期，因為你必須一直縮小到 2000 年。我個人不喜歡「生成機會」這個詞，因為它被過度使用了，但這些數字確實很難引起爭論。但同樣重要的是右邊的圖表，這裡的綠色虛線框。 5年後，40%的船隊船齡將超過20年。對於我們這個行業來說，這確實已經過時了。它已經越來越老了，訂單很少，而且已經製作了很長時間。

Slide 38 makes an important point on where environmental regulation comes in, in this context. These older ships we just looked at are less fuel-efficient. That means higher carbon footprint. Older ships will become more expensive, to operate and to own. At the same time, anyone who wants to order a ship today must realize that the useful life of the asset will take them straight to 2050. By 2050, the industry aspires to have reduced carbon intensity by 70%. There is a lot of meaningful discussion in the industry about future propulsion technology, but a winner has yet to emerge. This creates a mountain of uncertainty for anyone ordering ships today. So environmental regulation, this incentivizes the operation of older ships. But environmental regulation also disincentivizes the ordering of new tonnage. So flipping back to Slide 37 then, supply-side gap is already significant. Environmental regulation will only increase this gap. This completes my section for today. Of course, I'm happy to answer questions later. Thank you so much for your attention.

幻燈片 38 重點指出了在這種背景下環境監管的作用。 我們剛剛看到的這些老船燃料效率較低。這意味著更高的碳足跡。舊船的營運和擁有成本將變得更加昂貴。同時，任何想要今天訂購船舶的人都必須意識到，該資產的使用壽命將直接持續到 2050 年。到 2050 年，該產業的目標是將碳強度降低 70%。業界對未來推進技術進行了大量有意義的討論，但尚未出現贏家。這給今天訂購船舶的任何人帶來了巨大的不確定性。因此，環境法規可以激勵老式船舶的運作。但環境法規也抑制了新船的訂購。那麼，回到第 37 張投影片，供給側缺口已經很大了。環境監管只會擴大這一差距。我今天的部分就到此結束了。當然，我很樂意稍後回答問題。非常感謝您的關注。

Right. So just we'll go ahead and just sum everything up now. So regarding the markets. In summary, the second half of 2022, market strength is continuing into the first quarter. Near-term outlook is very strong given the reordering of global product tanker trades and the medium-term outlook is positive as well for both products and chemicals based on the strong supply-demand fundamentals. Starting the company, we're reporting record earnings. We're performing very well and, in fact, thriving in these volatile markets, cash breakeven and substantially strengthened our balance sheet, which enhances the quality of our earnings, the quality of the dividend and the substance behind the NAV calculation for Ardmore. And this has enabled us to now pursue all of our capital allocation priorities simultaneously (technical difficulty).

正確的。因此我們現在就繼續並總結一切。關於市場。綜上所述，2022年下半年，市場強勢將延續至第一季。鑑於全球成品油油輪貿易的重新排序，短期前景非常強勁，而基於強勁的供需基本面，產品和化學品的中期前景也同樣樂觀。公司成立以來，我們報告了創紀錄的利潤。我們的表現非常好，事實上，在這些動蕩的市場中蓬勃發展，現金收支平衡，並大幅增強了我們的資產負債表，這提高了我們的盈利質量、股息質量以及阿德莫爾資產淨值計算背後的實質。這使得我們現在能夠同時追求所有資本配置優先事項（技術難度）。

We're balancing the energy transition with energy reality above all prioritizing carbon reduction projects, which yield very high current returns and improve our operating performance today. And as a final, but I think really perhaps the most important point, we feel that we could be in for a really good multiyear run in our markets and that Ardmore will continue to excel in these conditions. So just before pivoting to Q&A, I want to thank Curtis for coming up to join us today, also to Bart and Gernot along with Mark and his team for their leadership in achieving our results. And John and Allan, Brian and Elliott for the great work in putting this whole thing together and organizing the event. We'll now open up the call for questions.

我們正在平衡能源轉型與能源現實，首先優先考慮碳減排項目，這些項目可產生非常高的當前回報並改善我們當前的營運績效。最後，但我認為也許最重要的一點是，我們認為我們的市場可能會在未來幾年保持良好的發展勢頭，並且阿德莫爾將在這些條件下繼續表現出色。因此，在進入問答環節之前，我要感謝 Curtis 今天的到來，也感謝 Bart 和 Gernot 以及 Mark 和他的團隊為我們取得成果所發揮的領導作用。感謝 John、Allan、Brian 和 Elliott 為組織和安排這次活動所做的出色工作。我們現在開始提問。

Congratulations, first of all. Obviously, earning extraordinary returns now will continue as long as it continues. But we're entering a new era, obviously, hopefully, for the industry, for the company. Can you just comment on where you expect the long-term ROE kind of to settle out? I know there are ups and downs in vagaries. But kind of where it's been in the last decade and where you think it will be in the future decade once we're done with the abnormal period in the war?

首先，恭喜你。顯然，只要現在繼續下去，獲得非凡的回報就會繼續下去。但顯然，對這個產業、對這個公司來說，我們正進入一個新時代，希望如此。您能否評論一下您預計長期 ROE 將會穩定在什麼水平？我知道世事無常，有起有落。但是，過去十年的情況如何？您認為，一旦我們度過戰爭中非正常的時期，未來十年的情況又會如何？

When anybody says, here's to the beginning of new era, you want to run for the access. I don't know if it's a new era. It's a continuum. Look, we're in an extraordinary phase. I think it's interesting to think back to the very early 2000s and what kind of kicked off that strong run through the abnormalities. It was actually a couple of oil spill from single-haul tankers. That then led to the growth in China, kind of all unrelated events.

當有人說，這是新時代的開始時，你就想去爭取進入權。我不知道這是否是一個新時代。這是一個連續的過程。看，我們正處於一個非凡的階段。我認為回顧 21 世紀初期以及是什麼引發瞭如此強勁的異常走勢是很有趣的。這實際上是幾艘單程油輪發生的漏油事件。這隨後導致了中國的成長，以及所有不相關的事件。

But call it Murphy's law or whatever you want to call it, these things tend to build. And so that's why we do think that -- we don't think it's just fundamentals alone or Ukraine conflict alone, but probably a sequence of things that are going to continue to drive the market. Ultimately, this is a highly efficient competitive global industry. I think we're doing a marvelous job providing the global economy with efficient transport. Occasionally, we make a lot of money. I do think that we're going to be going through a phase of probably very substantial fleet turnover and replacement into new technologies. Personally, I think it's going to take longer than anyone expects. If you think about what happened with single-haul tankers, it took 20 years. When you build a ship, it's a 25-year asset. And I don't think the IMO or anyone else is going to do anything that's going to create an economic crisis out of curtailing shipping supply.

但無論你稱之為墨菲定律或無論你想怎麼稱呼它，這些事情都有建立的趨勢。所以，我們認為，這不僅僅是基本面因素或烏克蘭衝突，而是一系列因素將繼續推動市場趨勢。歸根究底，這是一個高效競爭的全球產業。我認為我們在為全球經濟提供高效運輸方面做得非常出色。有時候，我們會賺很多錢。我確實認為，我們將要經歷一個可能規模很大的船隊更新換代和新技術替換的階段。就我個人而言，我認為這將比任何人預期的都要花費更長的時間。如果您想想單程油輪的發展歷程，這花了 20 年的時間。當你建造一艘船時，它是一項25年的資產。我認為國際海事組織或任何其他機構都不會採取任何可能因削減航運供應而引發經濟危機的措施。

Follow-up. What is the day rate that is required to get a 10% or 15% rate of return on a new ship?

跟進。要獲得新船 10% 或 15% 的回報率，需要多少日費率？

Well, kind of a normalized newbuilding price, my guess would be maybe $17,000, $18,000 a day. That was a bit of a ramble, apologies, but it was a good question.

嗯，對於標準化的新造船價格，我猜大概是每天 17,000 美元到 18,000 美元。抱歉，我說得有點多，但這是一個很好的問題。

Not an industry expert by a very long way, but can you give us a sense of 2 things? One, hopefully, the easy question. These assets will all have market prices. What's the market value of your assets today versus the share price? Second question is really unfair. Let's just say the Ukraine invasion hadn't happened and all the repercussions that you've seen and -- really appreciate you articulating here. How much has that helped you? And if that -- if there was -- if it hadn't happened, would you think you would have been today?

雖然您不是行業專家，但您能給我們講講兩件事嗎？希望這是一個簡單的問題。這些資產都會有市場價格。相對於股價而言，您今天的資產市值是多少？第二個問題確實不公平。我們只能說，烏克蘭入侵並沒有發生，以及您所看到的所有後果——真的很感謝您在這裡的表達。這對你有多大幫助？如果那件事 — — 如果有 — — 如果那件事沒有發生，你會認為你會是今天這個樣子嗎？

So the first question, we don't typically talk a lot about the asset values because that's what research analysts do. But we do think today, our net asset value is still -- I would say, way ahead, but kind of meaningfully ahead of the stock price keeps going up, and it's not going up right now because of asset values, but because of accrued earnings, holding building of equity in the companies.

所以第一個問題是，我們通常不會談論太多資產價值，因為那是研究分析師所做的。但我們確實認為，今天我們的淨資產價值仍然——我想說，遙遙領先，但在某種程度上，明顯領先於股價的持續上漲，而且現在我們的淨資產價值上漲不是因為資產價值，而是因為應計收益、持有公司股權的建設。

It's probably around $700 million, $720 million. It just feels like the stock price has been chasing NAV all the way up right now. So the other question is where would we be without Ukraine war, I think we'd all be a lot happier. And -- because it does -- in spite of the fact that it's had a positive impact on our business, it does really trouble us. Gernot pointed out that at the beginning of last year, we were pivoting anyway to spot because we felt it was going to be a good year. And we thought by that, we thought maybe high teens. I think we would have been in the high teens today without the Ukraine war, which is still quite good.

大概是7億美元，7.2億美元左右。現在感覺股價一直在追逐資產淨值。所以另一個問題是，如果沒有烏克蘭戰爭我們會怎樣，我想我們都會更幸福。並且——因為它確實如此——儘管它對我們的業務產生了積極的影響，但它確實給我們帶來了困擾。 Gernot 指出，去年年初，我們無論如何都會轉向現貨市場，因為我們覺得今年會是個好年。我們認為，也許在十幾歲左右。我認為，如果沒有烏克蘭戰爭，我們今天的收入水平就會達到十幾歲，這仍然相當不錯。

You throw a few multi parts there. You just mentioned you pivoted the (inaudible). But MR is typically in a market where you have long-term contracts, is it bit of customer behavior, they're looking at the same data you're looking at? Are we going to see the emergence of an attractive 5-year kind of contract market in MRs, and how would you approach that?

你把幾個多部分丟到那裡。您剛才提到您改變了（聽不清楚）。但是 MR 通常處於擁有長期合約的市場中，它是否與客戶行為有關，他們查看的數據與您查看的數據相同？我們是否會看到 MR 中出現一個有吸引力的 5 年期合約市場？您將如何看待這一點？

And then totally different question. I couldn't help but notice on your sensitivity page started out with $35,000 and went up from there. Is there something we should be reading into that? Because normally, you would have put a few years ago, $35,000 around other side of half of the page.

然後是完全不同的問題。我忍不住注意到，您的敏感度頁面一開始是 35,000 美元，然後逐漸上漲。我們應該解讀一下其中的內容嗎？因為通常情況下，幾年前你會在頁面的另一半上寫上 35,000 美元。

Yes. Okay. So in terms of -- I think I'd like to ask Gernot to comment a bit more about the market structure, but I would just make the observation that forward rates in our business are not so much a predictor. I guess where people think it's going. It's very often a degree, it's a measure of risk aversion, a little bit like interest rates. But I'll hand it over to Gernot. In terms of the sensitivity, look, the fact is that we fix ships at $125,000 a day a few months back, okay. So when you go from fixing a few ships at $125,000 a day to all your ships at that level, not very much, okay? And that's how inelastic this business is. So that's why we wanted to show that. Gernot, do you want to comment on?

是的。好的。因此就這一點而言——我想請 Gernot 對市場結構發表更多評論，但我只是想指出，我們業務中的遠期利率並不是一個預測指標。我猜人們認為它會走向何方。它通常是一種程度，是衡量風險規避程度的標準，有點像利率。但我會把它交給 Gernot。就敏感度而言，事實是幾個月前我們以每天 125,000 美元的價格修繕船舶，好吧。因此，當你從以每天 125,000 美元的價格修理幾艘船，到以同樣價格修理所有船時，差別就不大了，好嗎？這就是這個產業缺乏彈性的體現。這就是我們想要展示這一點的原因。 Gernot，你想評論一下嗎？

Yes. The longer you go out in terms of duration, liquidity really becomes quite thin for time charter contracts. It is discounted quite heavily. But more importantly, you really have to start to wonder about kind of quality of counterparties as well. So obviously, looking at that as a bit of an insurance, many ways for people to try to lease out of contracts, and this has been done before, and these are not financial contracts. These are physical contracts, where it could be physical situations beyond any owners' control that give the charter abilities to repeat those certain fixed pay contracts. That's just as a general comment, right now, most liquidity is around 6 months to 12-month periods.

是的。就期限而言，租船合約越長，流動性就越弱。折扣相當大。但更重要的是，你真的必須開始考慮交易對手的品質。因此，顯然，將其視為一種保險，人們可以透過多種方式嘗試解除租賃合同，而且以前也曾這樣做過，而這些都不是金融合約。這些都是實物合同，其中可能存在超出任何船東控制範圍的物理情況，從而賦予租船人重複某些固定支付合同的能力。這只是一個一般性的評論，目前，大多數流動性期限約為 6 個月至 12 個月。

I think I just asked my notes back -- it's mostly on 6- to 12-month period, and then you really have to look at what is the position of the ship, what's the (inaudible) to strength, the spot market. How does the paper market look compared to it? So the answer is there's very little liquidity and the liquidity that is there is usually quite unattractive. Sometimes simply from a point of view of pricing or counterparty. Maybe, one point I wanted to add on the question of where did the demand come from last year. And of course, Russia, Ukraine really was captivating the headlines. And of course, it also drove a lot of psychology in terms of that angst around where do we get our product supplies from and what does this really all mean.

我想我剛剛問了我的筆記——主要是 6 到 12 個月的時間，然後你真的必須看看船的位置是什麼，強度如何，現貨市場是什麼。與之相比，紙質市場表現如何？所以答案是流動性非常少，而且現有的流動性通常很沒有吸引力。有時僅從定價或交易對手的角度來看。也許，我想補充一點關於去年的需求來自哪裡的問題。當然，俄羅斯、烏克蘭確實佔據了新聞頭條。當然，這也引發了許多心理方面的擔憂，例如我們的產品供應從哪裡來，以及這一切到底意味著什麼。

If you go back and dissect the tonne-mile data for last year you will see that there was a lot of things happening in the market that had really nothing to do with Russia, Ukraine. There was a lot of tonne-mile demand coming from South America. Refining system is still fairly inefficient there, a lot of economies reemerging from COVID and requiring a lot of mobility, industrial demand from South Africa. But just to make the point again, also new streams of demand -- tonne-mile demand coming into play around nonpetroleum-based commodities used for biofuel or biofuel blending.

如果你回顧並分析去年的噸英里數據，你會發現市場上發生的許多事情實際上與俄羅斯、烏克蘭無關。來自南美洲的噸英里需求量很大。那裡的煉油系統仍然相當低效，許多經濟體正在從新冠疫情中復甦，需要大量的流動性和來自南非的工業需求。但再次強調，還有新的需求流——用於生物燃料或生物燃料混合的非石油基商品的噸英里需求開始發揮作用。

I think an example that is probably now attracting a bit more visibility in the market is used cooking oil. Really think of it as used cooking oil that gets shipped in more lots from Asia to Northern European refineries to produce and blend biofuel with. So there's a lot of interesting stuff that's happening that goes beyond just Russia, Ukraine, even though, of course, that did have an impact. But I feel like it's easy to overlook those and I wanted to briefly highlight those elements.

我認為現在市場上可能更受關注的一個例子就是廢棄食用油。實際上，可以將其視為廢棄的食用油，這些食用油被分批從亞洲運往北歐煉油廠，用於生產和混合生物燃料。因此，有很多有趣的事情正在發生，不僅僅是俄羅斯、烏克蘭，儘管這確實產生了影響。但我覺得很容易忽略這些，我想簡單強調一下這些元素。

Just to actually briefly follow-up on that. If -- looking at the other side of that, if the conflict ended tomorrow, how does that change your medium-term outlook or short- to medium-term outlook? Did it -- does the conflict essentially tighten the market faster than it would have naturally? You still have the supply/demand imbalance going forward even?

只是想簡單跟進一下這一點。如果—從另一個角度來看，如果衝突明天結束，這會如何改變您的中期前景或短期至中期前景？衝突是否實際上導致市場收緊的速度比自然情況下更快？未來還會有供需失衡的情況嗎？

Yes. I think certainly, it has done something has created a lot of extra volatility and that's helped shift the momentum increasingly in the owner's favor. But even if you look at trade patterns today, there's a lot of demand in places that really have nothing to do with what goes on in Europe. But I think it's also important to point out that even if they were to end tomorrow, I think these changes in supply routes are probably here to stay. And I would be very surprised if politically or for all the other reasons, Northern Europe would shift back quickly towards using Russian diesel or Russian crude oil. And equally, once some of these street lanes get established also they kind of stick. So as some of these people in Middle Eastern and Asian countries are used to actually importing Russian diesel. The distance really is negligent. It's about the price incentive, pretty strong.

是的。我認為，它確實產生了一些額外的波動，這有助於將勢頭轉向對所有者有利的方向。但即使你看看今天的貿易模式，你也會發現很多地方的需求其實與歐洲的情況毫無關係。但我認為同樣需要指出的是，即使這些供應路線的變化明天就結束，我認為它們也可能會繼續存在。如果北歐出於政治或其他原因迅速轉向使用俄羅斯柴油或俄羅斯原油，我會感到非常驚訝。同樣，一旦一些街道小巷建立起來，它們也會逐漸形成。因此，中東和亞洲國家的一些人實際上已經習慣進口俄羅斯柴油。距離實在太疏忽了。這是關於價格激勵，相當強勁。

Thank you. I wanted to dig into the energy transition investments you guys have been making. You mentioned in the slides, cover investments, the 60% IRR. Can you sort of talk about what has changed relative to when IMO 2020 was implemented, like why now? Why are you investing in scrubbers now? And then kind of second part of that is you mentioned 12 ETP investments. Any degrees of success? But are those sort of all the low-hanging fruit outside of full fuel, [1G], methanol, et cetera, ammonia, sort of do you believe that the low-hanging fruit has been picked on?

謝謝。我想深入了解你們一直在進行的能源轉型投資。您在幻燈片中提到，涵蓋投資，60% IRR。您能否談談與 IMO 2020 實施時相比發生了哪些變化，例如為什麼是現在？為什麼現在要投資洗滌器？第二部分是您提到的 12 項 ETP 投資。有任何程度的成功嗎？但是，除了滿燃料、[1G]、甲醇、氨等之外，這些都是唾手可得的成果嗎？您是否認為這些唾手可得的成果已經被摘走了？

Yes. So maybe I'll kind of go backwards. I think what we found is that (technical difficulty) evaluated probably, we're not doing [wind assist]. We're not doing lubrication, these kind of -- so what's fun and exciting is that these are relatively bite-sized investments that have a cumulatively meaningful impact on fuel consumption (technical difficulty) goes up in our TCE. And the -- when we calculate the IRRs and paybacks, they're pretty amazing. We've got a really good team that looks at this kind of team, but our head of innovation is really good. And it's surprising how many new things -- so there are other things that we've done that a year ago, we (technical difficulty) that they were going to pop up. So I think that will continue. Not forever, but for the time being, we're very optimistic when it comes to that.

是的。所以也許我會倒退一下。我認為我們發現（技術難度）可能經過評估，我們沒有做[風力輔助]。我們不做潤滑之類的——所以有趣和令人興奮的是，這些都是相對小規模的投資，對燃料消耗（技術難度）有累積有意義的影響，從而增加了我們的 TCE。而且 — — 當我們計算內部報酬率 (IRR) 和報酬率時，它們相當驚人。我們有一個非常優秀的團隊來關注這類團隊，但我們的創新主管非常優秀。令人驚訝的是，一年前我們做了很多新的事情，但這些新事情（技術難題）並沒有出現。所以我認為這種情況將會持續下去。雖然不是永遠，但就目前而言，我們對此非常樂觀。

And certainly, as the industry studies, what is the ship of the future, the fuel, the distribution, the service, the vessels. The emerging technology that's coming up, but then to your existing base. So I think it goes back to Tony's comments of having this Goldilocks fleet, where the fleet is not too old, not too young, but actually can benefit from these small incremental CapEx projects and the system that we have at Ardmore where the innovation team can bring it up. We have a pretty brief discussion after the rigorous analysis, pilot test it. And if it works, you roll it out to the fleet in due course. If it doesn't, you move on to the other projects. And I think it is dual fuel, we focused a lot on different hardware, but there's also the software component of as well, which continues. I think there's been a lot of hype in some of the side of it, but hardware, software, and it is the rapid ability to deploy it in the routine drydocking where vessels are underway and imports. So I think you'll see part of that from us, for sure.

當然，正如業界所研究的那樣，未來的船舶、燃料、配送、服務和船隻是什麼樣的。新興技術正在興起，但隨後會進入您現有的基礎。所以我認為這又回到了托尼關於擁有這支金發姑娘艦隊的評論，這支艦隊不是太老，也不是太年輕，但實際上可以從這些小型增量資本支出項目和我們在阿德莫爾的系統中受益，創新團隊可以將其帶上去。我們在嚴格的分析之後進行了相當簡短的討論，並進行了試點測試。如果有效，你就會在適當的時候將其推廣到艦隊。如果沒有，你就轉向其他專案。我認為它是雙燃料，我們非常關注不同的硬件，但也有軟體組件，它會繼續。我認為它的某些方面被大肆炒作，但硬體、軟體以及在船舶和進口船舶的常規乾船塢中快速部署的能力是關鍵。所以我想你肯定會從我們這裡看到其中的一部分。

And then a second one, if I could. So you had mentioned part of the strategic pillars, well-timed accretive growth. I just wanted to ask about growth, I guess, medium term, longer term. I guess first, is there any interest in doing any new builds at this time? I guess the first question is, do you envision seeing growing the fleet outside of time charter ins in the near future, medium term? And I think the second part of that, I guess, is that, are new builds any interest to you? Or is it purely secondhand vessels, I guess, where does the preference lie?

如果可以的話，我會再寫第二個。所以您提到了策略支柱的一部分，適時的增值成長。我只是想問一下有關中期和長期的成長問題。我想首先，現在大家對進行任何新建置感興趣嗎？我想第一個問題是，您是否預計在不久的將來或中期內，定期租船以外的船隊數量會有所增長？我認為第二部分是，新建築是否讓您感興趣？或者我猜是純粹的二手船，偏好在哪裡？

Yes. I think when you look at the Ardmore fleet compared to others, it's perhaps a little bit on the small side. But we have grown a lot in 13 years, and we intend to continue doing that, but we want to do it in a smart way. So what does that mean? We're continually looking at opportunities. It could be secondhand. I think new buildings -- I think once we get a bit more clarity or can better figure out what to build and are convinced that they are going to be good investments for the long term as a possibility.

是的。我認為，與其他船隊相比，阿德莫爾船隊的規模可能略小。但我們在過去 13 年裡取得了長足的進步，我們打算繼續這樣做，但我們希望以一種聰明的方式來實現它。那麼這意味著什麼？我們一直在尋找機會。可能是二手的。我認為新建築——我認為一旦我們更加清晰地了解或能夠更好地弄清楚要建造什麼，並確信它們將成為長期的良好投資。

There are kind of modern second-hand ships out there that are possible. But I think this is not a very homogenous market. So it's very global and there are pockets of kind of opportunity. So we'll continue to look for things that on a relative basis are sufficiently attractive to make sense on (technical difficulty), and tend to buy well. So we bought 6 ships, okay, admittedly a while back, but when they were 2 years old at an average price of $28.5 million MRs and that price has been (technical difficulty) flagship we bought was about 2 years ago, and that ship has doubled in value. But I think we're pretty good buyers. And in the moment, people always question us, but this seems to work out pretty well.

有一些現代化的二手船是可行的。但我認為這不是一個非常同質的市場。所以它非常全球化，並且存在著各種各樣的機會。因此，我們將繼續尋找那些相對而言具有足夠吸引力（技術難度）且容易買到的東西。所以我們買了 6 艘船，好吧，誠然是好久以前了，但是當時它們只有 2 年船齡，平均價格為 2850 萬美元，而且這個價格已經是（技術難度）旗艦了，我們大約 2 年前買的那艘船的價值已經翻了一番。但我認為我們是相當不錯的買家。而此刻，人們總是會質疑我們，但這似乎效果很好。

Probably a question for Gernot. But on the shadow tanker market, can you quantify that? I mean, how big is it relative to the overall fleet? Is it lower end, 30 or (technical difficulty), that's kind of interesting as well from a -- high curtailment. So just a little more detail on that would be great.

這可能是針對 Gernot 的一個問題。但在影子油輪市場上，你能量化這一點嗎？我的意思是，相對於整個艦隊來說它有多大？它是低端嗎，30 還是（技術難度），從高削減來看這也很有趣。因此，如果能更詳細地介紹一下這一點就更好了。

Yes, I think that's a great question because, unfortunately, it's not like the ships fly a flag that says shadow fleet. You have to use sort of various data points to extrapolate which ships are likely to end up in the so-called shadow fleet. It's a bit too early to tell. Of course, now we can see certain ships trade into those Russian export cargoes and it will become more apparent. I've heard a lot of different estimates, and I almost don't want to transfer myself, but I think it's, I think, 100 to 120 ships, could easily be -- they're dedicated to those trades. And the way you extrapolate is usually age. So these are older ships. That's sophisticated. And then you can look at certain demographics within the distribution of ship owners, owners that would typically be a bit more prone and risk-taking to what's potential sanctions violations and just exploring trades that we would not get anywhere near to.

是的，我認為這是一個很好的問題，因為不幸的是，這些船並沒有懸掛「影子艦隊」的旗幟。你必須使用各種數據點來推斷哪些船隻可能最終進入所謂的影子艦隊。現在說還太早。當然，現在我們可以看到某些船隻從事俄羅斯出口貨物的貿易，這一點將變得更加明顯。我聽到很多不同的估計，我幾乎不想自己轉移，但我認為，我認為，100 到 120 艘船很容易——它們專門用於這些貿易。而推斷的方式通常是年齡。這些是較老的船。這太複雜了。然後，您可以查看船東分佈中的某些人口統計數據，這些船東通常更容易冒險違反潛在的製裁規定，並且只會探索我們無法接近的交易。

I think -- yes, I think the -- as an example, just today on a ship with one of our competitors that got into a fair bit of trouble due to trading history, and we also know that fairly high-profile customers, of course, are quite concerned about their reputation and to ask a lot of questions during their KYC process, not just about the owner, the counterparty, but also about individual ships and their trading history. Just being scrutinized even more.

我認為——是的，我認為——舉個例子，就在今天，我們其中一個競爭對手的一艘船因為交易歷史而陷入了相當大的麻煩，我們也知道，相當知名的客戶當然非常關心他們的聲譽，並在他們的 KYC 過程中提出很多問題，不僅是關於船主、交易對手，還包括關於個別船隻及其交易歷史的問題。只是受到更嚴格的審查。

So I think it is a fairly safe assumption to say that these ships will be not in a perfect growth from that owner's perspective, you would take a Russian cargo to the Middle East and then load another clean product cargoing take it right back to Europe. That is unlikely to play out. This is just going to be shifted ballast-back essentially back to Russia. And certainly, the way it's trading is still making sense for them. But I think for the wider market, the important message is really that these ships will be dedicated to those shadow trades and a de facto removed from the markets that we would find ourselves in.

因此，我認為可以相當安全地假設，從船東的角度來看，這些船舶不會處於完美的成長狀態，你會將俄羅斯貨物運往中東，然後再裝載另一批清潔產品貨物，將其運回歐洲。但這種情況不太可能發生。這實際上只是將壓艙物轉移回俄羅斯。當然，這種交易方式對他們來說仍然有意義。但我認為，對於更廣泛的市場而言，重要的訊息是，這些船隻將專門用於那些影子貿易，並且實際上脫離了我們所處的市場。

So it is actually still important from tonne-mile perspective, and it's probably even more so important considering that it's very inefficient in terms of how you can actually really shift those cargoes a lot of empty legs for the ships to get back to with the Baltic states.

因此，從噸英里的角度來看，這實際上仍然很重要，而且考慮到如何將這些貨物實際轉移到空船上以便船隻返回波羅的海國家，效率非常低，因此它可能更為重要。

Starting Slide 38. The International Maritime Organization is talking about 20%, 30% or 40% reduction in carbon intensity. My question is, is this considered to be a significant reduction as it is now or will be since nobody has really agreed to all of this and would this type of reduction met through staggered transition dates going forward?

起始投影片 38。國際海事組織正在討論將碳強度減少 20%、30% 或 40%。我的問題是，這是否被視為一次重大削減，因為沒有人真正同意這一切，而且這種削減是否會透過今後交錯的過渡日期來實現？

Fantastic question and clear. And this is the frustrated part for us, and I think a lot of companies is if we just knew what the rules were, we could plan accordingly, and this is also what's holding back ordering activity. So the IMO has basically come up with short-term measures, which (technical difficulty), CII, et cetera. They're now working on medium-term measures, which are more market-based to try to level the playing field of renewable fuels with fossil fuels, and that will then hopefully incentivize owners to build ships that burn renewable-type fuels, whether it's ammonia, methanol, biodiesel, et cetera. So the timing and the nature of that legislation is to be the deciding part. And that's why we're focusing on what we can do in the near term to just reduce carbon emissions because (technical difficulty).

非常好的問題，而且很清楚。這對我們來說是令人沮喪的，我認為很多公司如果知道規則是什麼，我們就可以做出相應的計劃，而這也是阻礙訂購活動的原因。因此，國際海事組織基本上已經提出了短期措施，其中包括（技術難度）、CII 等等。他們目前正在製定中期措施，這些措施更加以市場為基礎，試圖為再生燃料和化石燃料創造公平的競爭環境，並希望激勵船東建造燃燒再生燃料的船舶，無論是氨、甲醇、生物柴油等等。因此，立法的時間和性質將是決定性因素。這就是為什麼我們專注於短期內可以做些什麼來減少碳排放，因為（技術難度）。

Thanks, Tony. Sean Morgan from Evercore. I just wanted to get an update on the e1 Marine JV and just trying to understand better how long it's going to take for commercialization of that kind of new nascent business? And like what are the -- I guess, what are the gatekeeping factors for getting that up and running? And then also, once you kind of have the technology ready, are you seeing any green shoots of a distribution network of hydrogen and ports starting to develop? And if so, where are you seeing that distribution network start to pop up?

謝謝，托尼。 Evercore 的 Sean Morgan。我只是想了解 e1 Marine JV 的最新情況，並想更好地了解這種新興業務的商業化需要多長時間？我想，要實現這個目標，需要哪些門檻因素？而且，一旦技術準備就緒，您是否看到氫氣分銷網路和港口開始發展的跡象？如果是這樣，您認為分銷網絡在哪裡開始出現？

Sure. So let's comment on Element 1 and then Tony, maybe on the marine side. I think as we think about Element 1, certainly, it's an earlier-stage company, but the benefit that it actually already is -- has revenue today is cash flow positive. And really for them, it's the evolution of expanding their licensing model on a global basis and across industry verticals and regionally and then at the same time, engaging with the large global industrial players that could actually service as a distribution and global partner for them.

當然。那麼讓我們先對要素 1 進行評論，然後 Tony，也許在海洋方面。我認為，當我們考慮 Element 1 時，它當然是一家處於早期階段的公司，但它實際上已經擁有的好處是——今天的收入是正現金流。對他們來說，這實際上是在全球範圍內、跨行業垂直領域和跨地區擴展其許可模式的演變，同時與可以作為他們的分銷和全球合作夥伴的大型全球工業參與者合作。

I think they have the interesting model where the most critical piece of their equipment is this metal filter that actually produces this ultrapure hydrogen to like the 99.99% level that can be used in fuel cells. And so for them to control that core bit of the technology, but then leverage other organizations in terms of distribution, this is a big year for that to continue to play out, and then I'd say maybe on the marine side.

我認為他們有一個有趣的模型，其中設備中最關鍵的部分是金屬過濾器，它實際上可以生產出純度達到 99.99% 的超純氫氣，可用於燃料電池。因此，對他們來說，控制技術的核心部分，然後在分銷方面利用其他組織，今年是繼續發揮作用的重要一年，然後我想也許在海洋方面。

Yes. So I think -- and I think the demand will come when the regulations are set. The advantage of the system is that it takes methanol and water, methanol molecule and water, there's a lot of hydrogen there, right? So it takes a mix of roughly 50-50 and reforms it into high-purity hydrogen stream so that you don't have to store hydrogen. And we think the best applications are going to be generated replacements on chips or shore power facilities on docks and maybe propulsion for river in Coastal craft. The partnership with e1 Marine is 3-way between Element 1 Ardmore and Maritime Partners and Maritime Partners has announced that they're financing and building the first ever hydrogen power tug and the hydrogen is going to be produced by the Element 1.

是的。所以我認為——而且我認為當法規制定後，需求就會出現。這個系統的優點是它需要甲醇和水，甲醇分子和水，那裡有很多氫氣，對嗎？因此，它採用大約 50-50 的混合並將其重新形成高純度氫氣流，這樣您就不必儲存氫氣。我們認為最好的應用將是晶片的替代品或碼頭上的岸電設施，或許還有沿海船隻的河流推進器。與 e1 Marine 的合作是 Element 1 Ardmore 和 Maritime Partners 之間的三方合作，Maritime Partners 宣布他們正在資助和建造第一艘氫動力拖船，氫氣將由 Element 1 生產。

Another big-picture industry question. As you point out, the industry does a great job of efficiently moving these products around the world and they're products that economies absolutely need or they'll grind to a halt without them. Yet at the same time, you have the governments trying to outlaw full in products. (technical difficulty) the EUs outlying gasoline-powered cars by 2035. So if I'm in your seat at a Board meeting talking about capital investment on a long-lived asset for what we call it, 25 years, just for rounding purposes, how do you make that decision in the near term? And I would guess, as we get closer to that date, no matter how bizarre you think it is what the government is trying to do, doesn't that just mean there's going to be less supply because more people won't take the risk of spending that kind of capital on an asset that might not be worth very much in a decade, and how do you think about that?

另一個涉及整個行業的宏觀問題。正如您所指出的，該行業在高效地將這些產品運往世界各地方面做得非常出色，而且這些產品是經濟體絕對需要的，否則經濟體將陷入停滯。但同時，政府卻試圖全面禁止此類產品。 （技術難題）到 2035 年，歐盟將淘汰汽油驅動車。因此，如果我在董事會會議上坐在您的位置上討論對我們所說的 25 年（只是為了四捨五入）的長期資產的資本投資，您如何在短期內做出這個決定？我想，隨著我們越來越接近這個日期，無論你認為政府試圖做的事情有多麼奇怪，這是否意味著供應將會減少，因為更多的人不會冒險將這種資本花在十年後可能價值不高的資產上，你對此有何看法？

So one thing that I think is worth reflecting on is that the global economy, if it just continues to grow at like 3.5%, doubles every 20 years. Now in 2050, the global economy is going to be 3 or 4x the size it is today. China, India, Africa, Latin America, et cetera, they're way behind Europe and the U.S. (technical difficulty) William, so I think in the context of all that global growth, most of which is going to be happening in Asia. We think there's going to be a market for petroleum transport. In time, we think the real growth is going to come from non-CPP, which is kind of chemicals, biofuels, vegetable oils, and that kind of stuff. So that's where we're heading strategically when the opportunities arise -- in a manner which we think is going to holding and improving our performance. When I started in this business, products represented about 10% of the world tanker fleet. It's close to 40%. I think, and versus crude. So I think you're going to see the same kind of migration, not kind of type 2 cargoes that over time, we're going to become a bigger slice of the pie, and that's where we're going to be.

所以我認為值得反思的一件事是，全球經濟如果繼續以 3.5% 的速度成長，每 20 年就會翻倍。到 2050 年，全球經濟規模將達到現在的 3 到 4 倍。中國、印度、非洲、拉丁美洲等等，它們遠遠落後於歐洲和美國（技術難度）威廉，所以我認為在全球成長的背景下，大部分成長將發生在亞洲。我們認為石油運輸將會有市場。我們認為，隨著時間的推移，真正的成長將來自非CPP，即化學物質、生質燃料、植物油等。因此，當機會出現時，我們就會採取策略性的方向——以我們認為能夠維持和提高我們業績的方式。當我開始從事這項業務時，產品約佔世界油輪船隊的 10%。接近40%。我認為，與粗魯相比。所以我認為你會看到同樣類型的遷移，而不是第二種類型的貨物，隨著時間的推移，我們將佔據更大的份額，這就是我們將要達到的目標。

Chris Robertson with Deutsche Bank. So one of the downside risks here is just the general recession risk. So can you guys talk about demand elasticity for petroleum products during a regular kind of general recession versus the COVID-driven recession?

德意志銀行的克里斯·羅伯遜。因此，這裡的下行風險之一就是普遍的經濟衰退風險。那麼，你們能談談在常規經濟衰退和新冠疫情引發的經濟衰退期間，石油產品的需求彈性嗎？

I went over to Bart.

我走向巴特。

I mean I think for us, from the macro perspective, we fully acknowledge that there's potential pressure there. It does feel like it's more of a first half relative to second half potential reacceleration and more different geography-based. It feels like we've already, even from Gernot comments, starting to see increased flows related to China already. But I would say in this market environment and we looked at the supply-demand spreads and absent the February 5, Ukraine potential impact and reordering of the trades, you're still at a 3% to 4% demand growth relative to near-zero fleet growth, and there's going to be volatility there. As we think about it, even if that were to compress them, for example, in '23, that, that's not really the driver of the market.

我的意思是，我認為對我們來說，從宏觀角度來看，我們完全承認那裡有潛在的壓力。感覺上半場相對於下半場來說更具有潛在再加速的趨勢，而且地理位置差異更大。感覺我們已經開始看到與中國相關的流量增加，甚至從 Gernot 的評論來看也是如此。但我想說，在這種市場環境下，我們研究了供需價差，如果沒有 2 月 5 日烏克蘭事件的潛在影響和貿易重新排序，相對於接近零的船隊增長，需求增長率仍然為 3% 至 4%，而且會出現波動。讓我們想想，即使這會壓縮它們，例如在 23 年，那也不是真正的市場驅動力。

And as you're reordering on the tonne-mile story, it's really the story Gernot shared.

當您重新排序噸英里故事時，這實際上就是 Gernot 分享的故事。

Maybe just to add a small nuance there, less macro, but for tankers in particular, of course, our demand is tonne-mile demand and also ship availability. So even when you might be facing economic headwinds that could suggest that, for instance, the structure of the oil and product prices goes into a steep contango. So all of a sudden, there's potential for more long-haul demand and also more storage demand as we have seen, which could actually bode quite well for tankers. So sometimes what that actually means in terms of tanker demand at least for a period of time, can be quite counter-intuitive and (technical difficulty).

也許只是為了增加一點細微的差別，不那麼宏觀，但對於油輪來說，當然，我們的需求是噸英里需求以及船舶可用性。因此，即使你可能面臨經濟逆風，也可能表示石油和產品價格結構會陷入大幅正價差。因此，正如我們所見，突然之間就有可能出現更多的長途運輸需求和更多的儲存需求，這對油輪來說實際上是一個好兆頭。因此，有時，就油輪需求而言，至少在一段時間內，這實際上意味著相當違反直覺和（技術難度）。

(technical difficulty) right here. We look at the crossover trades, and the maps right there, we're looking at a balance and laden ratio of about 9:1. Is there a floor ceiling that you guys could put on that, especially looking at the vectors over time, environmental regulation, cyclicality, the aging fleets is there a floor ceiling on that number? Does it change? How do you assess that? And how do you guys act in the moment when you see that? Is there a lot of variability in that?

（技術難題）就在這裡。我們查看了交叉交易和地圖，發現平衡和負載比率約為 9:1。你們能為此設定一個最低上限嗎，特別是考慮到隨著時間推移的向量、環境法規、週期性、老化的車隊，這個數字是否有最低上限？有變化嗎？您如何評價這一點？當你們看到這種情況時，你們會怎麼做？這其中存在著很多可變性嗎？

There is and it's actually a decision -- so we're not looking to say, okay, we are striving to have a ballast-laden ratio of X across the fleet. As a matter of fact, it's very much a trading decision that is made almost voyage-by-voyage.

有，這實際上是一個決定——所以我們並不是想說，好吧，我們正在努力使整個船隊的壓載比率達到 X。事實上，這幾乎是一個在每次航行中做出的交易決策。

So what is the highest voyage you're seeing on some of that? Because right now, in the examples you gave, they're both 9:1, do you see that go up, down, pretty heavily by?

那麼您所見過的最高航程是多少呢？因為現在，在您給出的例子中，它們都是 9:1，您是否看到它們大幅上升、下降？

Those are probably some of the more -- those are examples on the high end, but it's kind of -- it's obviously visualizing when these things stack up really well.

這些可能是一些更高端的例子，但它有點——當這些東西堆積起來時，它顯然是可視化的。

I'd say if your base case is a laden leg for ballast leg for a crude tanker, let's say, it's 50-50. I think the average laden balance ratio for product tankers is roughly 60%. And I think over the last year, we'll probably be in the 75% range there. But it really depends on kind of what profitability dictates. There might well be cases where taking a longer ballast into account just makes more commercial sense and then we do that. But I'd say, to answer your question, I would like to think that as we stress further towards nonpetroleum-based cargoes, they can move quite different from your standard petroleum-based trades, which usually starts with a big refining hub, Northern Europe, U.S. Gulf, Middle East, maybe China, maybe Singapore, you will find, I think, ways to quite naturally cut those ballast legs. Again, just because it makes commercial sense rather than kind of us looking to kind of move that KPI up or something similar.

我想說，如果你的基本情況是原油油輪的滿載航段和壓載航段，那麼比例就是 50-50。我認為成品油輪的平均載貨平衡率大約是 60%。我認為，在過去的一年裡，我們的比例可能會達到 75% 左右。但這實際上取決於盈利能力的性質。在某些情況下，考慮更長的壓載物可能更具商業意義，然後我們就會這樣做。但我想說，回答你的問題，我想，隨著我們進一步強調非石油貨物，它們的運輸方式與標準的石油貿易截然不同，後者通常始於一個大型煉油中心、北歐、美國墨西哥灣、中東、也許是中國、也許是新加坡，我認為，你會發現很自然地切斷這些壓載腿的方法。再說一遍，這只是因為它具有商業意義，而不是我們想提高 KPI 或類似的東西。

That makes commercial sense, I mean, it's obviously not black or white here, but as environmental regulation comes in, it's hard to tell it's going to happen with that ratio to go either way.

這具有商業意義，我的意思是，這顯然不是黑色或白色，但隨著環境法規的出台，很難說這個比例會發生什麼。

That's correct. And I think if you were to know -- really dig into the mechanics of the CII rating, which is in place of this year, some of it can be quite counter-intuitive where not necessarily the -- yes, the trade that the most carbon efficient could actually still end up getting penalized. So you're right. I mean there is a lot of complexity, especially once you factor in that as of next year, of course, Europe has the shipping or highly likely to be including Europe in the carbon trading scheme. But very likely, a lot of the other jurisdictions are just waiting to see how this plays out in Europe, and we think there's going to be a lot of regional jurisdictions with similar carbon taxes in North America and other parts of the world as well. So you have a real crazy mosaic of different carbon-related taxes as well, which is going to skew that picture of ballast, laden in the long term. That's vision of an answer. A lot of...

沒錯。我認為，如果你真正深入研究今年實施的 CII 評級機制，你會發現其中一些內容可能相當違反直覺，不一定是——是的，碳效率最高的企業實際上可能最終會受到懲罰。所以你是對的。我的意思是，這其中有很多複雜性，特別是當你考慮到從明年開始歐洲將擁有航運權，或者很有可能將歐洲納入碳交易計劃。但很可能許多其他司法管轄區只是在等待觀察歐洲的情況，我們認為北美和世界其他地區也會有許多區域司法管轄區徵收類似的碳稅。因此，你也會看到各種與碳相關的稅收，這確實是一個瘋狂的拼圖，從長遠來看，這會扭曲壓艙物的圖像。這就是答案的願景。很多...

I'm taking out of this. I mean, it's how do you systematically create system where you're okay through all this crazy mosaic.

我要擺脫這個。我的意思是，你如何有系統地創建一個系統，讓你在所有這些瘋狂的馬賽克中都能安然無恙。

And I think that's part of the reason why a lot of what we do in terms of setting up our organizational focus is to really -- so we don't lose sight of this because a lot of this we need to catch on the forefront and it needs to be kind of come part of sort of our muscle memory in terms of how we trade our ships, operate them. And just even what we discuss on a daily and weekly basis, this has to be a part of it.

我認為這就是為什麼我們在設定組織重點方面所做的許多工作都是為了真正地——這樣我們就不會忽視這一點，因為我們需要抓住很多方面，它需要成為我們如何交易和操作船舶的肌肉記憶的一部分。甚至我們每天和每週討論的內容也必須是其中的一部分。

I think earnouts being modest. I mean that uncertainty on the regulatory side, in other words, it adds volatility and the team is set up to trade in that volatility.

我認為獲利水準不高。我的意思是，監管方面的不確定性，換句話說，它增加了波動性，而團隊就是為了在這種波動性中進行交易而成立的。

Obviously, we're -- in the financial markets generally, there's a premium being paid for dividends. It seems they continue. You mentioned the payout ratio, but you're in a hugely cyclical business. So what has to happen for that dividend to be vulnerable? And then secondly, what's your view on growing the dividend over time? And obviously, that's a longer period of question.

顯然，在金融市場中，股利通常需要支付溢價。看來他們還在繼續。您提到了派息率，但您所在的行業具有很強的周期性。那麼，什麼情況會導致股利變得脆弱呢？其次，您對隨著時間的推移增加股息有何看法？顯然，這是一個較長的提問。

Sure. I think as we reinstituted the dividend after a considerable period of time, we've thought about determine 1/3 level being something that you look to have sustainable through the cycle. And it allows us to build strength at this point in the up cycle, but also address the other pillars of our capital allocation policy. And so with -- accretive growth opportunities don't emerge, and we continue to be disciplined and patient there for the long term. We can always review an additional return on capital above the stated dividend policy and our Board is supportive of that as well.

當然。我認為，當我們在相當長一段時間後恢復分紅時，我們已經考慮將 1/3 的水平確定為一個在整個週期內可持續的水平。它不僅使我們能夠在上升週期的這個階段增強實力，還能解決我們資本配置政策的其他支柱問題。因此，增值成長機會不會出現，我們將繼續長期保持紀律和耐心。我們始終可以審查高於既定股利政策的額外資本回報率，並且我們的董事會也對此表示支持。

Are there any -- if you're right on this -- on this supply, demand in the market is as tight as you think, are there any relief valves, whether it's steaming speeds after coming back from the dirty side, ships trading older than they are typically allowed to help create some relief or there's really no kind of improvement to the laden-ballast ratio across the industry. I'm just trying to think of what could be wrong?

如果您對此的看法正確的話，那麼在供應和市場需求確實如您所想的那麼緊張的情況下，是否存在任何緩解措施，無論是從污染區回來後的航行速度，還是交易時船齡超過正常水平的船舶，都有助於緩解壓力，或者整個行業的載貨壓載比實際上沒有任何改善。我只是想知道可能出了什麼問題？

Yes. So part and then maybe Gernot Ruppelt can pitch in. Despite of the very high rates, ships (technical difficulty) but not as much as you would able. No, that's possibly just because of the high fuel price as well. I think if you had a very low fuel price, all the demand you might see more speed. We haven't seen a lot of congestion is a little bit, but that was the whole container ship story. That's not part of the tanker story now. And it's really not even a lot to do with volumes at the moment. It's the distance. So you can -- obviously, LR2s can clean up from dirty trade and go into clean. You can even have crude tankers on initial voyages that do multiple voyages and be clean. Not too many of resets do that on a sustained basis, but they're there to do that.

是的。所以部分然後也許 Gernot Ruppelt 可以加入。儘管費率非常高，但船舶（技術難度）但沒有你能做到的那麼多。不，這可能只是因為油價太高。我認為，如果燃油價格非常低，那麼所有需求都可能帶來更快的速度。我們沒有看到太多擁堵，但這就是整個貨櫃船的故事。現在這已經不再是油輪故事的一部分了。目前這實際上與數量沒有太大關係。是距離。所以你可以——顯然，LR2 可以清除骯髒的交易並進入清潔狀態。您甚至可以讓原油油輪在首次航行時進行多次航行並保持清潔。雖然沒有太多的重置能夠持續實現這一點，但它們確實可以實現這一點。

And I think that if the freight rates are high enough, then the market kind of sorts itself out in terms of the trades or the oil trades that are possible. So obviously, I think a lot of what happened is disruption in which once it kind of settles into more stable trading patterns can obviously is a lot more efficient.

我認為，如果運費夠高，那麼市場就會根據可能進行的交易或石油交易進行自我調整。因此，顯然，我認為發生的很多事情都是混亂的，一旦它穩定下來，形成更穩定的交易模式，顯然就會更有效率。

I was just thinking, I mean, oil trades obviously do have that greater sophistication in the just (technical difficulty) and safety concerns. So I mean when you think about dry bulk vessels, we're able to put stack containers on deck and that substitutability. You don't have that in general in the industry.

我只是在想，我的意思是，石油交易在技術難度和安全問題方面顯然確實更加複雜。所以我的意思是，當你想到乾散貨船時，我們能夠將堆疊貨櫃放在甲板上，並且具有可替代性。一般來說，這個行業不會出現這種情況。

Just touching back on capital allocation for a second. You showed you're down 25% debt to cap. With this extra cash you'll have, I mean, do you want to pay that down to zero? I mean at what level -- it sounds like you're not going to buy a whole lot of ships right now. So when would that maybe extra dividends and what have you done for us lately, beyond the formula come into play?

稍微回顧一下資本配置。您顯示您的債務已下降 25% 至上限。有了這些額外的現金，我的意思是，你想把它還清嗎？我的意思是在什麼水平上——聽起來你現在不會購買大量的船隻。那麼什麼時候可能會有額外的股利？除了公式之外，您最近還為我們做了什麼？

I can assure you, it's something we discuss at every board meeting (inaudible). And so look, we're trying to find the right balance. And we're very, very happy to pay special dividends if we feel that there's no better use of cash.

我可以向你保證，這是我們在每次董事會會議上討論的事情（聽不清楚）。所以，我們正在努力尋找正確的平衡。如果我們認為沒有更好的現金用途，我們非常樂意支付特別股息。

Is there a low you want the debt to cap going below which it's not an efficient capital structure?

您希望債務上限有一個最低值嗎？低於這個數值就不是一種有效的資本結構？

Not really. But I think our delevering is going to slow down from here because we're paying a dividend. 2/3, 1/3 of that cash and the market is not quite where it was. We had some other specific factors in 2022. So I think the delevering will happen slower even if we do not (technical difficulty).

並不真地。但我認為我們的去槓桿速度將會從現在開始放緩，因為我們正在支付股息。 2/3、1/3 的現金，但市場卻不如以前了。 2022年我們還面臨一些其他具體因素。所以我認為，即使我們不這樣做（技術難度），去槓桿也會進行得更慢。

I also think that there's real benefit in that low leverage in terms of just the quality of the cash flow and earnings.

我還認為，就現金流和收益的品質而言，低槓桿確實有好處。

Few from the webcast here. Most of them have been already -- actually, a handful of them by Greg. So I guess maybe reading my email, I'm not sure. But in any case, do MRs are outperforming? Is that something you would expect to be the case? Or is that something related to February 5?

這裡的網路廣播很少。其中大多數已經——實際上，有一小部分是 Greg 提出的。所以我想也許讀我的電子郵件，我不確定。但無論如何，MR 的表現是否優異？這是您所期望的情況嗎？還是這與 2 月 5 日有關？

Yes. MRs and LRs are correlated. So in a way, everything that's good for product tankers is good for kind of all vessel classes. What I think it's worth highlighting that in an environment of extreme volatility as we have experienced and an environment of extreme uncertainty as we have also experienced that our customers, oil traders and refiners really like that flexibility, ability to continue selling their cargoes as the ship is already underway and the ship that offers the most trading flexibility and the most traded stem sizes are the MRs.

是的。 MR 和 LR 是相關的。因此從某種程度上來說，一切對成品油輪有利的因素也對所有等級的船舶有利。我認為值得強調的是，在我們所經歷的極端波動性和極端不確定性的環境中，我們的客戶、石油貿易商和煉油商非常喜歡這種靈活性，能夠在船舶已經在航行時繼續銷售他們的貨物，而提供最大交易靈活性和交易量最大的船型是MR型船。

For us, of course, also we can access nonpetroleum trade more easily with MRs, it's not really possible with LRs. So for us, it also creates more flexibility in how we trade ships and how we combine cargoes and how we combine voyages. So in a way, the MRs, I think inherently offer more flexibility to both our customers and us, which is why I believe that MR should continue to do quite well. Looking at some of the maps we started in terms of shifts in trade flows from short haul within Europe to long haul. That's, of course, structurally the bullish MRs bearish handies, these are traditional handy trades.

當然，對我們來說，透過 MR，我們可以更輕鬆地進行非石油貿易，但透過 LR，這實際上是不可能的。因此對我們來說，它也為船舶貿易、貨物組合和航程組合方式創造了更大的靈活性。因此，從某種程度上來說，我認為 MR 本質上為我們的客戶和我們提供了更大的靈活性，這就是為什麼我相信 MR 應該繼續表現良好。透過查看一些地圖，我們開始了解貿易流從歐洲內部短途運輸向長途運輸的轉變。當然，從結構上來說，這就是看漲 MR 看跌便利，這些都是傳統的便利交易。

I think on the LRs, it's important to point out that LR2s are already trading as clean as they usually do. There's always a slice of the market that just stays in dirty trades. So I think overall, mainly due to its kind of structural layout, MRs provide a lot of flexibility for both us and the customers and I think should continue to do well.

我認為，就 LR 而言，需要指出的是 LR2 的交易已經像往常一樣乾淨。市場上總有一部分人只從事骯髒的交易。所以我認為總的來說，主要是由於它的結構佈局，MR 為我們和客戶提供了很大的靈活性，我認為應該會繼續表現良好。

Given where rates are and also where asset prices are, would you expect to capturing this you look at potentially crystallizing the value in the assets by doing some sales of older vessels? Or would you -- for a vessel that you would otherwise look at selling now look to hold on to that vessel? How do you think about -- does that change at all your normal process for sort of the aging-out process?

考慮到費率和資產價格的現狀，您是否希望透過出售一些舊船來實現資產價值的具體化？或者，對於一艘您原本想出售的船隻，您現在會考慮保留它嗎？您如何看待—這會改變您正常的老化過程嗎？

Typically, keep ships until they turn around 15 years of age. We sold 3 last year that were old age, and we sold them on a sale-leaseback basis and we took it back at $13,000 a day (technical difficulty) years. So that actually carries even (technical difficulty). So our next older ship now is 2010, so it's 13. It's still a very efficient ship. We like the way it's operating. So I guess the question is, would we sell anything now opportunistically? And the answer is yes, maybe, but you have to factor in the cash flow that's quite visible near term. And when you get to the other side of that, very visible and reasonably confident kind of basis and even look at one of your TC rates and freight future, et cetera, you get to a point where if you sold the ship at an impressive price today, back end of all that cash flow, it's actually a pretty low price, (inaudible). And then the final thing I'll say is that we don't have the luxury that everybody in the audience has here to just sell the shares, right? So I mean we're -- anytime you want to sell the ships, just sell the shares.

通常情況下，船舶要保養到 15 年左右。去年，我們以售後回租的方式出售了 3 艘老舊的船隻，並以每天 13,000 美元（技術難度）的價格收回成本。因此這實際上帶來了（技術難度）。我們現在的下一艘老船是 2010 年建造的，也就是 13 號。它仍然是一艘非常有效率的船。我們喜歡它的運作方式。所以我想問題是，我們現在會趁機賣任何東西嗎？答案是肯定的，也許吧，但你必須考慮到短期內相當明顯的現金流。而當你看到另一個非常明顯且相當有信心的基礎時，甚至看看你的 TC 費率和運費未來等等，你會發現如果你今天以令人印象深刻的價格出售這艘船，那麼所有現金流的後端，這實際上是一個相當低的價格，（聽不清）。最後我想說的是，我們不像在座的各位那樣，可以隨意賣出股票，對嗎？所以我的意思是──任何時候你想賣船，只要賣掉股票就好。

And then last one from the webcast, you'll answer this, but I'm going to ask it because they'll let me hear it if I don't. Given what you're generating right now, given some of the slides that you had in the deck, how much dry powder could you accrue over the course of the year?

然後是網路廣播中的最後一個問題，你會回答這個問題，但我要問這個問題，因為如果我不問，他們會讓我聽到。考慮到您現在所創造的成果以及您在簡報中的一些投影片，您在一年內可以累積多少乾粉？

How do we accrue?

我們如何累積？

Could you accrue over the course of the year? What does it look like a few quarters from now?

你能在一年內累積嗎？幾季後的情況會怎樣？

Well, I mean it could be another $150 million looking at these current levels.

嗯，我的意思是，以目前的水平，可能還需要 1.5 億美元。

Just a quick one for me. We're expecting to see quite a few bits of refinery runs over the course of first half of 2023 to the tune of roughly 3 million barrels per day in the Middle East and West Africa. Would you mind just sharing your view on how this reads through to tonne-mile demand?

對我來說只是一個快速的步驟。我們預計，2023 年上半年中東和西非的煉油廠將有相當多的原油產量，日產量約 300 萬桶。您介意分享一下您對這如何理解噸英里需求的看法嗎？

Actually, a lot of the seasonal turnaround, particularly in the U.S. Gulf, we're kind of past the peak here already. We've seen this unusually strong winter weather, as I'm sure everybody in this audience can remember, and it did knock out a fair bit of (inaudible) U.S. Gulf refining capacity. So those would typically happen a bit later, but a lot of them actually went straight into an early turnaround. So from what we are tracking, we should kind of actually start to move out of it. West Africa, in terms of turnaround is for us good news because that means it's already an import market, and that just means more of an import draw.

實際上，許多季節性轉變，特別是在美國墨西哥灣，我們已經過了高峰期。我相信在座的每個人都記得，我們​​經歷了異常強勁的冬季天氣，它確實摧毀了相當一部分（聽不清楚）美國墨西哥灣的煉油能力。因此，這些通常會稍後發生，但實際上很多都直接進入了早期轉變。因此，從我們所追蹤的情況來看，我們實際上應該開始擺脫這種困境。西非的轉變對我們來說是個好消息，因為這意味著它已經是一個進口市場，這意味著更多的進口吸引力。

And the Middle East is a particularly interesting market because a lot of the product deficit in Europe comes from the Middle East markets, and we have seen the Middle East actually firm quite substantially. I was just talking to somebody this week and particularly in that market, and they said it's strong, but it's actually still -- even at these levels is giant. So I guess we'll see. But the refining turnaround that we typically see in the spring, a lot of it is actually basically in the (inaudible) mirror, particularly due to the heavy weather we've seen here in the U.S.

中東是一個特別有趣的市場，因為歐洲的許多產品缺口都來自中東市場，我們已經看到中東市場實際上表現得相當強勁。本週我剛剛與某人進行了交談，特別是在那個市場，他們說它很強勁，但實際上它仍然 - 即使在這些水平上也是巨大的。所以我想我們會看到。但我們通常在春季看到的煉油好轉，很大程度上實際上基本上是（聽不清楚）鏡子，特別是由於我們在美國看到的惡劣天氣。

Just a quick update on the 3 Vanguard. It's almost -- it's been a year now since it's hit or birth in Argentina.

這只是對 3 Vanguard 的快速更新。這首歌在阿根廷流行或誕生至今已有一年了。

You're referring to the [illusion] incident, which is fully covered by insurance or the ship?

您指的是[幻覺]事件，該事件已由保險或船舶全額承保？

But is she still anchor the...

但她仍然是主播嗎？

No. It's trading ever since. We -- the P&I cut posted a indemnity or something (technical difficulty). I don't have any closing remarks, but thank you for coming.

沒有。它從那時起就一直在交易。我們－保賠險削減了賠償金或其他東西（技術難題）。我沒有任何結束語，但感謝你們的到來。