FOCUS TRIMESTRALI D'AMICO INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING

We are clearly living in a moment where the dynamics in both supply and demand for tanker space are particularly tight. This is due first of all to the pre-war situation in Ukraine; the fundamentals were already positive. Consider that the first quarter of last year compared to the first quarter of this year, freight rates improved by about a third, and this without the Ukraine effect. Clearly, the Ukraine effect has accelerated certain situations. The distances that ships must travel today are longer because clearly the products we used to take in Europe, we took from Russia with a few days of navigation, strong in Europe, there is a week in the Mediterranean ports. Today we have to go get the same cargoes from the United States and the Far East, and therefore with much longer voyages. For the same quantity transported, many more ships are needed, so demand has risen.

Practically, a good part of these results, which would have been better than last year anyway, have been substantially improved by this state of affairs. And another thing, and this is more important looking to the future and looking at the medium term, on the supply side, the number of ships under construction, new ships, could, how to say, inflate supply and consequently depress freight rates, but it is minimal and will be for a few more years. So I feel we have ahead of us, even in the presence of a recession, certainly very strong and very good fundamentals.

Clearly with the improvement of the market, the value of assets has grown, clearly cash has also grown thanks to improved freight rates, and this has led to an increase in NAV, net asset value. So if we look at that, we are today at a discount of about 40 percent, so yes, if we look at NAV as a benchmark, there is still a long way to go.

We are mainly looking at the purchase options we have on ships that are already controlled by us through charter contracts. We are evaluating these options. Our priority remains deleveraging, so debt reduction, and clearly we will do something. Now it's a bit early because we also want to understand how the results will go in the second half. Thank you.