International Seaways, Inc. (INSW) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Today of the following. During this call and in the accompanying presentation, management may make forward-looking statements regarding the company or the industry in which it operates, which may address, without limitation, the following topics. Outlooks for the crude tanker and product tanker markets, changing trading patterns, forecasts of world and regional economic activity, Forecasts covering the production of and demand for oil and petroleum products, the effects of ongoing and threatened conflicts around the world, in particular in the Middle East, the company's strategy and business prospects, expectations around revenues and expenses, including vessel, charter hire, and G&A expenses, estimated future bookings, TCE rates, and capital expenditures, projected dry dock and off-hire days. New-build vessel construction, vessel sales and purchases, anticipated and recent financing transactions and plans to issue dividends, economic, regulatory, and political developments in the United States and globally, the company's ability to achieve its financing and other objectives and its consideration of strategic alternatives, and the company's relationships with its stakeholders. Such statements take into account assumptions made by management based on various factors, including management's experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected and future developments, and other factors that management believes are appropriate to consider in the circumstances. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those implied or expressed by the statements. Factors, risks, and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ from expectations include those described in our annual report on Form 10-K for 2025, our Forms 10-Q for the first three quarters of 2026, as well as in other filings that we have made or in the future may make with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Now let me turn the call over to Lois Lebrocki, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Lois?

Thank you, Jane. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Seaways today as we celebrate our 10th anniversary as a public company. We've posted a slide presentation on our website under Investor Relations, which you can follow along with during our call today. I'll refer to a few of those slides as we go. Before getting into our quarterly results, I want to spend a few minutes talking about our recently announced transaction, because I think it says a great deal about how we execute on opportunities at Seaway. Over the past two years, we've sold four older VLCCs as part of our ongoing fleet renewal strategy. This transaction brings four new building VLCCs into our fleet. Hi, greeting our core seaways vessel class. What makes this transaction particularly attractive to us is how we're paying for it. By using our shares as a primary currency, we're able to acquire modern vessels while preserving financial resources and the flexibility to pursue other opportunities. That is what disciplined capital allocation is about, not simply adding shifts, but continually improving the fleet and positioning seaways for the years ahead. As we work toward completing the remaining steps of the transaction, I'd also like to welcome our newest shareholders. We're excited to have you join us for the next chapter of Seaways. We finished the third quarter with about $345 million in adjusted EBITDA and $290 million in net income. Delivering results comparable to our solid second quarter. Accordingly, we also declared another dividend of $5.05 per share, matching the record we established last quarter. Importantly, our commitment to returning at least an 85% payout ratio remains in place, allowing our shareholders to continue participating directly in the strength of our tanker market. With tanker rates reaching remarkable levels as we enter the fourth quarter, our shareholders will participate in the upside. Let's move ahead to slides five and six for an update on that market. Starting with demand, geopolitics continue to dominate our headlines and influence our tanker market. As you can see in the chart on the lower left, we're experiencing truly remarkable conditions. We've had to change the scale of this chart to accommodate current VLTC rates, which have reached nearly four times the previous peak levels that we've seen over the past 35 years. Even in these unprecedented times, we don't lose sight of the underlying fundamentals. Crude oil production growth continues to come primarily from the West, particularly the Americas, while oil consumption growth is driven largely by the East. This dynamic should continue to support healthy tanker demand in the years ahead. Importantly, we believe a peaceful resolution to the current conflict could also be constructive for tanker demand. As the chart on the lower right shows, OECD oil inventories are at the lowest levels in roughly 20 years, having declined by approximately 250 million barrels since the start of the conflict. Rebuilding those inventories will require significant volumes of oil to move around the world, providing an additional source of tanker demand, even as geopolitical disruptions ease. Turning to ship supply on slide six, we have all watched the order book grow. With tanker rates at these levels and capital available to finance new ships, it's only natural to see increased investment in capacity. That's true in shipping, just as it is in any cyclical industry. There's another side to that story. As you can see in the chart on the lower left, the number of older vessels still operating in today's market is more than double the number of the vessels that are on order. It's important to remember that we're effectively operating Two different tanker fleets, a mainstream commercial fleet, and an aging fleet serving illegal sanctioned trades. As geopolitical tensions ease, we expect a significant portion of that older tonnage to exit the trading fleet, particularly given the age and condition of many of those vessels. Looking at the chart on the right, even during what we consider relatively heavy delivery years ahead, the number of vessels... Reaching 20 years of age is nearly as large as the number of new vessels entering the fleet. So, while the order book is growing, we shouldn't lose sight of the fleet that it is replacing. The question is not simply how many ships are built, but how much effective capacity will actually be added. I'm now going to turn it over to our CFO, Jeff Pibor, to provide the financial review. Jeff?

Thanks, Lois, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 8, we delivered another quarter of record financial performance. Net income for the third quarter was a record $344 million, or $6.90 per share. Adjusted net income for the third quarter was approximately $291 million, or $5.84 per delivered share, while adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $345 million. On the lower half of the page, blended spot TCEs, weighted by revenue days, were $67,700 per day, compared to $29,400 per day a year ago for the same period. Crude tanker revenues generated a record $321 million, including about $77 million of profit sharing from our dual-fuel VLCCs. Thank you. Those profit-sharing arrangements increased our blended DLCC earnings across both our spot and time-charger vessels to more than $200,000 per day. While our underlying operating performance was largely in line with expectations, I'd like to highlight a few items that may not be immediately apparent from the financial statement. The lightering business contributed about $2 million in EBITDA with $9 million in revenue. 3 million of both charter hire and vessel expenses, and $1 million of G&A. On slide 9, the bridge illustrates how we converted another quarter of strong operating performance into free cash flow. We began the quarter with total liquidity of $935 million, composed of $409 million in cash and $526 million in undrawn revolving capacity. Following the bridge from left to right, We generated $345 million in adjusted EBITDA, funded $17 million in debt service, paid another $30 million in DARDOC and capital expenditures, and used about $64 million of working capital. The combination of these highlights represents free cash flow generation of about $234 million for the third quarter. We generated proceeds of $74 million for the sale of a 2012 built Suez Macro. Beyond our free cash flow composition, it's essentially the capital allocation spent during the quarter. We used about $4 million in cash for solid payments and financing for the original six L-O-1 new bills. And we paid about $250 million in dividends to shareholders, representing a record quarterly dividend of $5.05 per share. The remaining $9 million in payments reflected the effort flow of our TI borrowing-based facility, We've repaid a drawdown from the second quarter. We ended the quarter with $454 million of cash and $510 million in undrawn, revolving credit capacity, bringing total liquidity to about $964 million. Moving now to slide 10, our balance sheet continues to provide the financial flexibility that supports both disciplined growth and meaningful shareholder returns. The detailed balance sheet is shown on the left. With several key metrics highlighted on the right, liquidity remains strong at close to $1 billion. We've invested about $2 billion in vessels that cost on the books, which are currently valued at nearly $5 billion. And with approximately $250 million in net debt combined with rising asset values, our net loan-to-value is below 6% at the end of the third quarter. The table on the lower right summarizes our debt portfolio. Gross debt at quarter end was $716 million. Our debt is almost entirely fixed or hedged, which contributes to our total cost of debt around a very low 5.6%. Next year, we expect to make about $44 million in mandatory debt repayments, including the newly acquired Bruton vessels. Taken together, these metrics demonstrate the strength of our balance sheet. With 26 uncovered vessels. Substantial undrawn revolving credit capacity, and one of the lowest leveraged profiles in our sector, we believe Seaways remains exceptionally well positioned to pursue attractive growth opportunities while continuing to return meaningful capital to shareholders. On slide 11, we've provided our customary forward-looking guidance, including booked-to-date spot TCE rates and our spot cash break-even. As a reminder, These fixtures represent rates booked as of today, and our reported TCE for the fourth quarter may differ as additional voyages are fixed throughout the rest of the quarter. Today, we booked more than half our expected fourth quarter revenue data at a blended spot TCE of over $172,000 per day across the entire fleet. That's a number worth pausing on when you consider it's more than double the record quarter we just reported. While fixture levels will continue to evolve throughout the quarter, we are obviously extremely encouraged by the strength of rates secured so far. When you view them alongside our fleet-wide spot cash break-even, they will clearly continue to provide an exceptional margin for cash generation in Q4. On the bottom left-hand chart, we provide some updated expense guidance for the rest of 2026 and looking ahead throughout 2027. This guidance also includes the acquisition of the fruit and vessels. We also include in the appendix our quarterly expected off-hire and CapEx. I don't plan to read each item line by line, but I encourage you to use them for modeling purposes. That concludes my remarks. I'd like to now turn the call back to Lois for her closing comments.

Thank you, Jeff. As we celebrate fantastic results and our 10th anniversary as a public company, I thought it would be appropriate to take a moment to reflect on what we've accomplished over the past 10 years. The chart at the top shows just how active we've been in renewing and growing our fleet. We've consistently looked for opportunities to invest in modern tonnage while selling older vessels, adapting our fleet as markets and opportunities present And here's something we are particularly proud of. When SeaWaves became a public company 10 years ago, our fleet had an average age of approximately 12 years. Following our recent announced transaction, the average age of our fleet has declined to less than nine years. We've done all of this while strengthening our financial position. As you can see in the lower left, our liquidity today is nearly 10 times what it was when we first became a public company. This gives us the financial strength to continue investing in our fleet and pursuing opportunities. Ultimately, we've done all this to create value for our shareholders. We've worked to build a stronger company, return substantial capital through dividends, and create lasting value through share price appreciation. The chart on the right speaks for itself. Since sea waves began trading on December 1, 2016, We've delivered a compounded annual total shareholder return of approximately 30%. That's more than 15 times our starting value and puts us well ahead of our combined peer group. The CWA's team is very proud of what we've accomplished over these first 10 years, and we're excited about the next. Thank you, and with that said, operator, we'd like to open the lines for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Liam Burke with Bea Reilly. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Jeff. Hi, Liam. Lois, the MR rates are continuing to run into the fourth quarter on the partial fixtures. You've got, obviously, seasonal strength, but is it the same in terms of refinery capacity, high utilization, and margins, or is there anything else in there that's driving up rates?

You know, great question. You know, we're really seeing that strength. You know, the U.S. has continued at very high refinery utilization, and most of those exports coming out of the U.S. Gulf are MR preferred. And we're also seeing, you know, something like half of the refineries in Russia are still offline, so even though there was the titular, okay, some diesel exports, they really can't put a lot of barrels out, and then you've got some of the states' rates over here where they're... Rerooting those MRs. So I think the U.S. remains a really key, you know, supplier of barrels, and that's pretty MR preferred. So yeah, that number of, you know, close to 56,000 per day, I mean, that's just super strong on those MRs. Yeah, it is.

In terms of capital allocation, no change. You're 85% payout, you're amortizing your debt, and you're keeping your powder dry for fleet optimization. On the other side of the coin, is there any interest in selling older vessels?

Well, first, Liam, let me say that was a terrific summary of our capital allocation strategy and practice, so thank you for that. Lois, I'll let you take the second half.

Yeah, absolutely. We've got Derek Sloan here and maybe just touch on the Sabine and, you know, the fact that we've been reaping, I think we sold and delivered six older vessels this year.

That's right. Lois, thanks. Good morning, Liam. So, Lois, you're exactly right. We've sold six ships so far this year. Most recently, we sold a 2012 Suez Max for a lot more than she was ordered for back in 2010. And Liam, I think, will continue to look at selling some of the older tonnage into this really, really firm market.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Omar Nocta with Clarkson Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, Lois and Jeff. Good morning. And yeah, congratulations on the Bhutan deal and certainly the earnings that you've just reported. And Lois, it was nice to kind of get like a bit of a history lesson over the past 10 years on where Seaways has evolved to. You know, it's obviously, you know, things have really transitioned very nicely. You've got the four VLTCs coming to you here via the Bruton transaction. And as you mentioned, very nice structure in terms of being able to use stock effectively, especially at this point in the cycle. You know, with this deal, you've now scaled up your VLTC portfolio beyond your red meaningful enough footprint. You've got, obviously, the suiz max is a scale. LR1s have scale. MRs certainly have scale. But you don't necessarily have that in the after max LR2s. As you kind of think about, you know, the direction going forward, is that a logical place to look at in terms of beefing up your exposure?

Thank you, Omar. You know, what's interesting is just... Really, our balanced fleet has proven to be very valuable throughout this entire upcycle. So you're absolutely right. You know, strategically, you know, we just came off our strategy review and we're looking at, okay, you know, opportunistically, you know, as you say, you know, we've got six of our new LR1s on the water. The Bruton deal really clicked all the boxes with. Prompt tonnage and strong customers. And then, you know, we kind of look at the fleet and say, it isn't so much like, oh, we just want to target one area. We look at what we think the fundamentals of each of those is going forward, and then we can build upon that strength. So, you know, I think what I would say is we're going to continue to be opportunistic within, you know, you see like we sold four older bees. Now we've replenished and high-graded the fleet. So I think that's the type of approach that we hope the market is getting used to seeing from us.

Yeah. Thanks, Lois. And maybe just a second question, I'll pass it back. You know, clearly the fourth quarter, you know, based off of what we've seen with the spot market and certainly your guidance, it's going to be enormous in terms of what you'll be generating earnings wise, free cash flow wise. I guess you sort of hinted at this, I guess, or you mentioned it on the call in terms of the dividend payout. You know, given just the sheer amount of cash that you will be generating, do you Do you still intend to, or does the board perhaps intend to maintain that 85% payout, or do you look to hold back some of the cash just given how much is actually coming in?

Hi, Omar. You know, I think, first of all, this quarter was the fourth consecutive quarter of paying out at least 85% of our adjusted net income. And we look back in the last four quarters, look at our share price development, and that clearly says to us that the market and the shareholders, investors, are appreciating that. So the market should expect that we will continue that.

Okay, yeah. Thanks, Jeff. Well, thanks for that, and Lois, thank you. I'll turn it back over.

Thank you. And again, everyone, if you would like to ask a question, press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Lois Zabroki for any closing comments.

Yes, we just want to thank everyone for joining us today and for coming on the journey as INSW shareholders. And we think that really in these unprecedented times, it's fabulous to be in the tanker market. So thank you very much.

This concludes today's call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.