Navigator Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:NVGS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Omar Nokta: Randy, it’s Omar. Am I coming through it okay?

Randy Giveans: Loud and clear, Omar.

Omar Nokta: Good. Good. Nice to see you yesterday. Yes, I just wanted to ask about a bit further on the terminal. And I guess you mentioned next week, we’ll get some more info on that. So I’ll look for that. But I just wanted to ask in terms of the offtake agreements you’re discussing with your customers, how are they looking relative? Or how are they — these discussions developing in terms of, say, duration? And I’m sure you won’t be able to comment too much, I guess, about the tariff but I guess in duration, how do those compare relative to what you have on your existing volumes?

Randy Giveans: Sure. On the new offtake bring it, it’s certainly a range where we have some portfolio players running shorter term, 1 or 2 years and certainly sound that one 5-plus years. So we expect to kind of contract that out with some range of maturities, right? So they’re starting in late ’24, some will roll ’25, ’26 and some will go until 2029 plus.

Omar Nokta: Okay. And then when you think about contracting that additional cost, so you have 1 million tonnes and you’re going to get it up to 550 million with the planned CapEx spend. Is — is it — are you expecting to be able to contract — you mentioned being able to contract all the volumes before the end of the construction period, would that be for the 550 million? Or is that for the full build-out, including the additional 1 million?

Randy Giveans: Yes. I think it’s a majority price. So we’ll have at least 1.55 million tonnes of capacity. I know our partner and I spoke, would like to see at least 80%, to make 90% of that contracted, obviously, making some upside for spot cargoes which we have the expansion anyway. But I would expect that 90% number for the full 1.55 million to kind of be the goal for contracts.

Omar Nokta: Okay. And then just wanted to follow up separately. Final question. Just kind of on the shipping market itself, you guys gave a pretty good update and clearly, there’s been a big bounce back in the Handysize shipping segment here. And definitely, in the fourth quarter relative to the third, we’re seeing longer distances for the U.S. exports towards Asia versus Europe like it was in the third. Just wanted to ask, how are you seeing things developing now? I know you gave some color in your opening comments. I just wanted to see how are those distances going currently? And then is there any risk or anything that you see in the horizon that would shift those back towards more shorter haul trades into the European market?

Oeyvind Lindeman: If this is specifically linked to ethylene, we’re booking ethylene ship freight from the U.S. for April and May already. And the indications are that it will continue to go to Asia which is great. Some is going to Europe because there’s a big arbitrage to Europe as well. So it’s a little bit of who can pay the most in the ethylene freight game. But definitely, the trend continues to go to include Asia Pacific destinations.

Omar Nokta: Great. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate the color and looking forward to next quarter, it sounds like it’s going to be a record figure.

Randy Giveans: Thanks, Omar. Any other questions? Okay, everyone on the line on our or then maybe to you, can you give an update for where TCE rates are now and maybe your expectation for the rest of 2023?