Earnings Call Transcript - INSW Q1 2023

Operator, Operator

Good morning, and thank you all for standing by. I would like to welcome you all to International Seaways First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. And after the speakers' remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I'll now turn the conference over to your host, James Small, General Counsel. So please go ahead, James.

James Small, General Counsel

Thank you, Brica. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to International Seaways earnings call for the first quarter of 2023. Before we begin, I would like to start off by advising everyone with us on the call today of the following. During this call, management may make forward-looking statements regarding the company or the industry in which it operates. Those statements may address, without limitation, the following topics: the outlooks for the crude and product tanker markets and changes in trading patterns; forecasts of world and regional economic activity and of the demand for and production of oil and other petroleum products; the effects of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine; the company strategy; the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic; our business prospects; expectations regarding revenues and expenses including vessel, charter hire and G&A expenses; estimated bookings, TCE rates and/or capital expenditures during 2023 or in any other period; projected scheduled drydock and off-hire days; purchases and sales of vessels, construction of newbuild vessels and other investments; the company's consideration of strategic alternatives; anticipated and recent financing transactions and any plans to issue dividends; the company's relationship with its stakeholders; the company's ability to achieve its financing and other objectives; and other economic, political, and regulatory developments globally. Any such forward-looking statements take into account various assumptions made by management based on a number of 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, uncertainties and assumptions, many of which are beyond the company's control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those implied or expressed by the statements. Factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause International Seaways' actual results to differ from expectations include those described in our annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and in other filings that we have made or in the future may make, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, let me turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Lois Zabrocky. Lois?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

Thanks very much, James. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining International Seaways earnings call for the first quarter of 2023. Following Slide 4 of the presentation found on our Investor Relations section of our website, net income for the first quarter was $173 million or $3.47 per diluted share, bringing our cumulative earnings over the last three quarters to over $500 million. Adjusted EBITDA, which removes the gain on the sale of an MR, was $209 million. Based on our strong results in the first quarter and strong spot fixtures thus far in the second quarter, we have declared a combined dividend of $1.62 per share. Following the dividend payment in June, Seaways’ year-to-date dividends are nearly as high as the previous three years combined, as found in the chart on the upper right-hand corner of the slide, and surpasses $360 million in cumulative returns to shareholders since the start of 2020. And finally, represents over $5 per share return to shareholders over trailing 12 months. Our success today is clearly demonstrated in our balanced capital allocation approach. Two of the three dual-fuel VLCCs have been delivered with the third newbuilding and final delivery expected later in the second quarter. We ordered these ships in 2021 at a contract price of $96 million per ship, and today's vessel's value has these ships worth nearly $150 million each. These ships will be on time charter for the next seven years through an oil major with a fixed rate component plus a profit share. They are financed at a 64% loan to current value at a fixed interest rate of 425 basis points. We also exercised the purchase options on two vessels under sale leaseback arrangements for a net price of $41 million combined, representing a discount to current value of about 45%; one vessel delivered in March and the other in April. Additionally, we sold an MR during the quarter, and that resulted in a $10 million gain on sale, evidencing our successful investments at low points in the cycle. The balance sheet remains strong with total liquidity ending the quarter at $519 million. This is after our $98 million in dividends and $97 million of repayment toward our term loan. With the repayment on the term loan, we amended the facility to increase our revolving credit to nearly $260 million and released 22 vessels from the collateral package. Today, we have 27 unencumbered vessels, representing 35% of our total fleet. Lastly, we fixed four ships on two to three-year time charters during the quarter, increasing our contracted revenue to about $337 million, excluding any profit share component on the newbuild deal. These additional time charters increase our fixed coverage to over 10% of the fleet and reduce our cash breakeven levels. On Slide 5, Russian oil exports remain in focus. Trade flows to Europe are displaced due to the ongoing sanctions and creating higher ton mile demand while soaking up tonnage. On the left-hand side of the slide, it's clear that Russian crude is primarily heading to Asia, particularly India and China. The chart shows that crude seaborne exports have remained relatively stable and constant at 4.5 million to 5 million barrels per day, while the composition of the destination on the right axis has narrowed significantly to essentially Turkey in Europe and increased significantly to Asia. Product exports from Russia in a similar graph on the right-hand side of the page are not as clear in terms of displacement, since the sanctions began only in February. Turkish imports in the Mediterranean are all that remain for Europe, while volumes to Asia and Africa have increased. While this story continues to develop, including the concept of double handling via FTS transfers, International Seaways and its commercial managers remain constant on our self-sanctioning of lifting Russian oil. Turning to Slide 6, we have updated our standard set of bullets on tanker demand drivers. With the subtle green up arrows next to the bullet representing good for tankers, the black dash represents neutral impact on tankers and a red arrow meaning the topic is not presently positive for tanker demand. I won't read each of these bullets individually, but we’ll pull some highlights for you. While the consensus of oil demand growth for 2023 is around 2 million barrels per day, most believe that the growth in oil demand is weighted to the second half of the year. In the chart on the lower left of the slide, the average of the EIA, the IEA and OPEC forecast for oil supply and demand reflects a slight oversupply in the first half of 2023 that is then more than offset in the second half of the year. We saw inventories grow in the first quarter, some of which is seasonal, but we remain cautious on near-term views of global recession. With these considerations, it seems logical that OPEC+ announced cuts to their production targets. However, we are a bit skeptical on compliance with these targets, as evidenced in the lower right hand chart, which are very close to actual recent OPEC+ production levels in the past few months. We believe sentiment has been impacted particularly on the VLCC earnings, and we continue to monitor oil supply and oil demand as the year progresses. On Slide 7, the tanker supply side remains a compelling story to our fundamentals. The supply side remains constrained with an aging fleet and barriers to ordering new ships. Yards are still quite busy over the next two years with other shipping sectors. This is keeping newbuilding prices high and limiting economic decisions on ordering. We expect new environmental regulations to continue to evolve and to further pause a wave of newbuilding orders. In the chart on the lower left of the page, contracting has been somewhat limited this year and there is a significant downward trend over the last few years for tanker vessels that are taking longer to build, with 2026 a reasonable estimate for the early delivery on certain newbuilding contracts today. The oil tanker fleet age is now about 12 years old with more than one-third of the fleet above 15. As you can see in the lower right-hand chart, expected new tonnage over the next few years is well under the candidates that could be removed from commercial trading, and we may see negative fleet growth in the near future. The supply outlook for tankers in the near term is incredibly positive. Combined with higher oil demand and disrupted trade flows, the overall outlook for tankers remains strong, particularly in the medium term. There may be near-term recession, which could affect tanker rates, or we may return to our regular seasonality in the summer months. In either case, we remain positive on tankers and we believe that Seaways is very well positioned to capture strong markets with our low operating leverage and our diversified fleet of 76 tankers in both crude and product sectors. With our healthy balance sheet and our liquidity, we expect to continue building upon our track record and our balanced capital allocation strategy, investing in the fleet opportunistically, reducing debt, and returning cash to shareholders. I'm going to now turn it over to Jeff, our CFO, to provide our financial review. Jeff?

Jeff Pribor, CFO

Thanks Lois, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 9. Net income for the first quarter was $173 million or $3.47 per share. Adjusted net income, which essentially removes the gain from the sale of the vessel, was $163 million, representing the third consecutive quarter of earnings over $100 million and over $550 million of net income for the latest 12-month period. Similarly, on the upper right chart, adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2023 was $209 million, bringing trailing 12-month EBITDA over $730 million. In the appendix, we provided a reconciliation from reported earnings to adjusted earnings. While our expense guidance for the first quarter fell within a range of expectations, I'd just like to point out a few items of note with our income statement. First, other income for the quarter was over $4 million, and that consists largely of interest income on the significant cash balances that we are holding. On the revenue side, our lightering business had a very strong first quarter with $11 million in revenue. Given $2 million in vessel expenses, $3 million charter hire, and $1 million of G&A, overall, the lightering business contributed about $5 million in EBITDA for the quarter. Also, on the revenue side, our LR1 pool, Panamax International, continues to outperform the general market with earnings in excess of about $5,000 above the broader market indices. As you can see in our TCE revenues at the bottom of the page, LR1 spot earnings for the quarter were nearly $71,000 per day. Turning next to Slide 10 for our cash bridge. You can see we began the year with liquidity of $541 million, which was composed of $324 million in cash and $217 million in undrawn revolving credit capacity. Following along the chart from left to right on the cash bridge, we added $209 million in adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter, less $57 million in debt service composed of scheduled debt repayments and cash interest expense, and less our drydock and maintenance capital expenditures of $23 million in the quarter, and a working capital bump of about $40 million. We therefore achieved our definition of free cash flow of just about $169 million for the first quarter. The remaining bars in the cash bridge show all the levers we pulled in our capital allocation strategy for the quarter. For instance, we sold one 2008 built MR for proceeds of $10 million, and we opted to repay more of the term loan rather than reduce capacity on the credit facility. We exercised the purchase options on two Aframaxes that had been on sale leaseback. $24 million of that amount was paid in March for the vessels, and $18 million was put in escrow as of the end of March for the final payment on the second vessel, which was made in April. We repaid $97 million on our term loan portion of our main senior secure facility, which will reduce our scheduled amortization by about $3 million per quarter and save over $600 a day on our forward cash breakeven levels. Finally, we paid $98 million in combined dividends, which was $2 per share that we announced on our last earnings call. The $4 million of other is mostly composed of deferred financing costs. Altogether, these components then led us to liquidity of over $519 million with $261 million in cash and short-term investments at the end of the quarter and $257 million in undrawn revolving capacity. As previously mentioned, the revolving capacity was increased during the quarter in connection with the amendment of the credit facility. Now moving to Slide 11. We continue to have a very strong financial position as shown by the balance sheet on the left-hand side of the page. Cash remains strong at $261 million. Restricted cash of $18 million represents the amount of escrow related to the vessel purchase with a corresponding lease liability. With the completion of the sale in April after the quarter, those will be eliminated. Vessels on the books stand at approximately $1.9 billion versus the current market values, which are well over $3 billion with about $950 million in gross debt that equates to a net loan-to-value of just about 21%. On the right-hand side of the page, we wanted to show further strength of our operating leverage, which results in significant cash flow generation over the last few quarters, even after returning substantial cash to shareholders and paying down debt. As we mentioned in our press releases this morning, we expect to continue on this trajectory of balanced capital allocation approach. Two newbuildings of our three dual-fuel VLCC program were delivered in the second quarter. We also intend to use some of our cash to repay existing debt. Currently, we are exploring options on which facilities of the portfolio we intend to repay, either in their entirety or in a portion. But overall, we expect the total repayment may be around $75 million. We have also announced our combined dividend of $1.62 per share, which consists of our regular dividend of $0.12 per share and a $1.50 per share supplemental dividend. These payments will be made in the second quarter, as we continue to build our track record of executing the capital allocation strategy. The last slide I'll cover, Slide 12, shows our forward-looking guidance and book-to-date time charter equivalents aligned with our cash breakeven levels. Starting with TCE fixtures for the second quarter of 2023, and as always, I'll remind you that actual TCEs that we will report on our next earnings call will probably be different than this. But as of now, we have a blended average spot TCE of nearly $48,000 a day fleet-wide for the quarter. On the right-hand side, you can see our cash breakevens, which we’ve displayed for the forward-looking 12 months, reflective of delivery of the last vessel on our newbuilding program and related payments on principal and interest, as well as the new fixed revenues before any profit share on our increased long-term time charters. Altogether, we have reduced our breakeven by $600 a day from the first quarter of last year. But if you consider the approximately 250 basis point increase in bank rates over the same period, the reduction to our breakeven was actually closer to $1,500 a day. When you compare these breakeven rates to our fixtures for the quarter-to-date, it certainly looks like the second quarter could be another strong quarter for International Seaways. On the bottom left-hand side of the chart for those modelers out there, we have given you some updated guidance for expenses such as in Q2 and the remainder of 2023. We also include in the appendix of this presentation our quarterly expected off-hire and CapEx schedule for 2023. I won't read each item line-by-line but encourage you to use these for modeling purposes. That concludes my remarks. I'd now like to turn the call back to Lois for her closing comments.

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

Thank you very much, Jeff. On Slide 13, we provide a comprehensive Seaways investment highlights. I encourage you to read and review in its entirety that we just summarized briefly for you here. At International Seaways, you will find that we execute on our commitment to all stakeholders and we have a recent track record. We strive to buy assets at low points in the cycle. Our track record and our balance sheet show that we have invested about $2 billion in assets that are now worth well over $3 billion today. We said that we have a balanced capital allocation approach. Last quarter, we generated over $200 million in earnings and we distributed nearly half to shareholders and the other half to reduce debt, and then we bought two ships at discounted prices. This quarter is much of the same, $170 million of earnings with $80 million to shareholders and another $75 million towards debt reduction. And our balance sheet remains very healthy, with significant liquidity, historically low net loan to asset value and 35% of the fleet unencumbered. We have strategically positioned the company today for a sustained robust tanker market, with our low cash breakeven levels and flexible operating models, we are set to take advantage of the compelling tanker fundamentals on the horizon. The growing distances between oil supply and consumption, creating high demand for seaborne transportation across a globally aging fleet that has barriers towards replacement, much less the expected role we anticipate to compound demand. On this, we are mindful of the environmental regulations ahead and remain focused on being a leader in ESG. We have backed this up with sustainability clauses in our cost of borrowing. We strive to continue to evolve these principles and to provide a meaningful platform for all stakeholders. Thank you very much. And with that, operator, we would like to open up the lines for questions.

James Small, General Counsel

Operator, we can't hear you.

Operator, Operator

The first question on the line is from Greg Lewis with BTIG.

Greg Lewis, Analyst

I do want to talk about the cash balance. But Lois before, could we clarify? You mentioned that with the newbuilds on the back of the strong contracts, you mentioned the 60% plus on the LP. Was that on the purchase price which was in the $90 million or was that on the current market price of the $150ish?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

That is on the current market price.

Greg Lewis, Analyst

So based on our purchase, we’re in a good position. As I think about cash, I recognize that cycles can be tough, although we're not currently in a difficult market. With interest rates being higher, we are indeed earning more income on our cash. Should we plan for a sustained cash balance at these levels? Looking ahead to the second half of the year, especially with an anticipated rate recovery and no significant capital expenditures on the horizon, it seems that our cash balance should continue to increase. Is that a reasonable perspective?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

Well, Greg, I think that presently, we're still in a really strong market, and yet we have very structural fundamentals for a strong market in the future. The spot market has reacted to the sentiment with OPEC cutting. And yet we still believe that there's going to be strong demand in the second half. So I'm going to let Jeff expound on it. But presently, we think that the way that our balance sheet is set up and the way that we've been focused on unencumbering ships and paying down debt, as well as returning to shareholders, we have this sweet spot hopefully of where we're really striking a very good balance and are prepared for whatever the market brings to really surf very well through that.

Jeff Pribor, CFO

Like you said, Greg, we've been through a couple of cycles. And I actually remember when it was sort of normal to be receiving interest rates on your cash, right? I think we all forgot about that for the last 10 years. So I don't think it fundamentally changes our view, which is we want to have a good cushion between cash, undrawn revolver, and frankly, unencumbered vessels, which are themselves a great cushion against whenever that next downturn might be and however long or short it might be. And it's just nice to be paid more on that cash, which we want to have as a clear part of the liquidity we want to keep. I think returns, as Lois was talking about, return to shareholders and paying down debt, that all stays the same. It's the right thing to do at this point in the cycle, so we continue with it. So I think it's kind of like back to the future, back to a fairly normal time where interest rates on your debt are a little higher, but that's why we've hedged out a significant portion or have fixed portion of our debt, and interest on your cash is conventionally a little higher; just is where it is, Greg, I think it's okay.

Greg Lewis, Analyst

You have developed a resilient company that offers flexibility with its cash position. I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Additionally, Lois mentioned the benefits related to lightering, and we continue to observe weekly SPR releases. Could you clarify how much these SPR releases are contributing to lightering? Furthermore, after we complete the lightering, those volumes are transported on ships to more distant locations. Is there any way to quantify the impact of the SPR releases on the market over the past few months?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

That's interesting. I mean, we certainly know last week 4.7 million barrels a day exported out of the US Gulf. So we know that those releases really bolster the exports and put more barrels on the water seaborne for the tanker side. It's pretty tough to give you a quantification of how that assists. On lightering, I would say that Q1 was bolstered by that level activity as well as by the very robust rates. You know we don't look for them to be able to repeat that $5 million in EBITDA for Q2. We would think that it would be more moderate in the second quarter, reflecting seasonally a little bit lower volumes and lower jobs. And then, I think that half of that SPR, it's like 11 out of like 25, 26 barrels have been put on the water. So we probably can look forward to seeing that over the next probably 30 to 60 days kind of helping volumes a little bit as well.

Jeff Pribor, CFO

Can I just add one observation? Greg, in my opinion, a lot of people, observers, kind of freaked out a little bit when OPEC made a surprise cut. Like, oh, what does that mean about demand? Whereas a lot of that might have been, what does that mean about inventories? And inventories were probably relatively higher than they might otherwise have been, because of SPR releases and sales mainly last year. So that's where I think it comes in.

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

And we've seen it come down already, but in the US, the crude is like 460 million barrels of inventory. So a lot of what was there in Q1 has been coming out week over week.

Ben Nolan, Analyst

I have a couple of questions. The first is more of a macro question. You've discussed the order book and fleet age extensively. There has been some recent ordering, but it's interesting that most of it has been for Suezmaxes, and it's been about two years since a VLCC has been ordered. I'm curious about the dynamics here. What about the market makes people more optimistic about Suezmaxes compared to VLCCs, as reflected in the orders?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

I thought you might bring up the ships that have been ordered, specifically our MRs and LR2s, especially given the strong performance in both sectors due to the Russian war. That's not particularly surprising to me. The Suezmaxes offer more flexibility, and you can construct them at a greater number of shipyards. However, we haven't observed much activity in the larger crude segment. Even with the Suezmaxes, the activity has been quite limited. Overall, we are still operating at about a 4% replacement level or have a fully booked order book. Typically, you would expect to lose about 4% to 5% of your fleet annually under normal conditions, which we are not experiencing, leading us to believe that the current situation remains structurally low.

Ben Nolan, Analyst

Clearly, the numbers have never been this low, except for perhaps a month ago. That's helpful. Regarding newbuildings, a few years ago you all constructed the VLCCs with LNG. I'm interested to know if there has been any reverse inquiry about whether you would consider doing it again. It's a different conversation, but are you beginning to notice your customers showing more interest and asking what you can offer? They know they will need a ship in a few years, so are those discussions starting to take place?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

Yes, I would definitely say that oil majors are very forward-looking and structured. We have been engaging with them and having discussions. However, it’s still not completely clear what type of dual fuel is best depending on the vessel size. While dual fuel LNG is excellent for some, it might not be suitable for all sectors. There is still a lot to learn and innovate in this area.

Jeff Pribor, CFO

One thing, Ben, we remarked on before, but I think it's appropriate to say it again as we come to the completion of the delivery of this three vessel program is, there is a lot of intellectual property in the company and what we have gained as an asset from having spent the time building these vessels and seeing them through to completion and to see trials and now putting them out with our customer. So I think that if there is going to be a reverse inquiry, we expect the phone to be ringing here.

Ben Nolan, Analyst

And then just the last one for me, I know you guys did the repurchase of some of the vessels that you had leased in. Are there any more of those in the fleet that you have purchase options on?

Jeff Pribor, CFO

Yes. We will be looking at our debt facilities and our sale leaseback facilities, which are all accounted for, for opportunities to reduce debt incrementally, as we’ve talked about today. There may be some of the low-hanging fruits that makes sense to or even though we have a high fixed portion, fixed or hedge portion of our debt could stick off some of the more slightly higher-cost stuff. So yes, you can look for that…

Omar Nokta, Analyst

I wanted to just follow up with a couple things. Just first off, obviously, the Panamax LR1 fleet continues to be a nice piece of business for you, it's niche overall. But it's becoming a real contributor to your revenue as we could see this past quarter and the one before it, you earned $70,000 a day. In 1Q, you've guided to $79 so far in the second quarter. How should we be thinking about that segment as we move forward here, whether the rest of this quarter or into the second half, how has that market been developing? And can we expect this type of elevated rate to continue for some time?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

Omar, currently, the LR1s are trading crude and dirty PPP in America. All the crude markets have softened a bit, but we expect that Panamax International will maintain very strong rates. This is our joint venture with Ultra and Flopec, and we believe it will align closely with the broader market, providing additional benefits beyond the spot rates.

Omar Nokta, Analyst

I'm not sure if you've asked this before, but I can't remember. Is there a way for us to track how that business is performing, or is it mainly based on individual customer relationships? It feels like we don't have a clear view of its performance.

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

What I would say is maybe we'll follow up with Tom offline, because we do have indices that, our market indices that are benchmarked. So if we could do that I think that might be beneficial.

Omar Nokta, Analyst

Yes, sorry to get into it, but it's just obviously remarkable how…

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

No, there are some reflective routes. There are routes that we use as benchmarks that reflect that trade.

Omar Nokta, Analyst

I'm looking forward to that. Following up on the discussion about the dual fuel VLCCs you've received, you have the first two, and the third one is coming soon. I wanted to ask about the future type of propulsion associated with these VLCCs. Specifically, could you provide insights on how they have been deployed since delivery? Is the LNG portion of the fuel being utilized? Are the ships potentially being used for transporting US cargo, allowing access to US LNG at a lower cost? Any details you can share on their current operational use would be appreciated.

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

So I mean, the trading in typical VLCC trades, right? So on the Vs, those routes, I mean, you need Singapore, US Gulf is great, Fujairah, right? So those are sort of your bunker spots. They are using the LNG system, not fully for propulsion; they're operating these on a mix presently. And of course, we want that LNG system to be used so that we make sure everything is effective as we start to trade them and operational and smooth for us, right? So we're going to learn more as we get all three of them into steady service.

Omar Nokta, Analyst

And I'll learn as well watching you guys. And maybe just one simple one, I just kind of thought of it as we were talking. The LNG component of the vessel, does it always have to have LNG in it or is it able to run without that?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

We don't have the one person who can fully operate on conventional fuel. It can run, but it is designed to run completely on conventional fuel. You can use a blend, and we will probably always have some LNG in the bunker tanks on deck, which is likely necessary. My head of options sustainability is traveling, and if there’s anything more to add, we’ll keep you informed.

Chris Robertson, Analyst

Thanks for taking the time and answering our questions today. Just on, Jeff, looking at the recent pullback, not only with your shares but across the tanker space. Can you talk about how you're thinking about the capital allocation strategy here as it relates to maybe doing some share repurchases over dividends in the coming months?

Jeff Pribor, CFO

I'm glad you asked that. Looking at the overall situation, we don't have a specific formula for capital allocation. We consider all options, which allows us flexibility. This applies to our decisions regarding dividends and share purchases. Over the last year, we've returned $5 per share, which included some repurchases when it made sense. We believe the regular and supplemental dividends declared in the last three quarters were appropriate. We're aware of the decline in prices across our peer group. Moving forward, we generated cash flow in the second quarter and have a solid cushion. Given the current valuations, we have a $40 million share repurchase program available, and we are open to executing that for beneficial share repurchases in our future capital allocation strategy.

Chris Robertson, Analyst

You guys spent a little time here talking about the OPEC production targets versus the actuals. I mean, it seems on kind of a tangible impact the volumes haven't really been impacted thus far. But I guess looking ahead now that the Brent price is still trading below $80. I think the IMF has come out and said that Saudi Arabia needs $80 per barrel to balance the balance sheet there for the government. Is there any downside risk do you think at the next meeting that either the cuts would be extended or deepened in some way or trying to get additional compliance to where we will actually see volumes on the water impacted?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

It's possible. However, the IMF also mentioned on Monday that Asia's GDP has been revised to 4.7% or 4.6% from 4.3%, which accounts for 70% of global GDP growth this year. We welcome this news, as we are observing that although China's performance is somewhat inconsistent, the Golden Week is starting off strongly with transportation numbers significantly higher year-on-year. Demand from the East remains robust. The Saudis are adjusting their pricing this month, slightly lowering it for Asian destinations, but only to a small extent. We are monitoring the situation closely. Overall, it seems likely that Asia could have a stronger pull than the West as we move into the second half of the year.

Chris Robertson, Analyst

Last question from me, just looking at the order book to fleet ratios for both segments, you kind of highlighted that the crude segment is faring a bit better at a relatively lower basis. And you mentioned that there has been some ordering on the product side with LR2s and MRs. Do you think at least in the near term kind of given the uncertainty in the market and the current sentiment that ordering might take a pause on the product side, or do you think there is more kind of downside risk to additional orders in the coming quarters?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

I believe we mentioned earlier that regulations are continuously changing. Order books are progressing, and the values remain high. However, there is some uncertainty regarding the technology. I suspect we may see a slight reduction in activity. Let's wait and see if that actually happens.

Liam Burke, Analyst

Lois, as the older MRs begin to age, move to the 15-year and above level. Are you satisfy to keep operating them or do you consider selling them or taking them out of the fleet?

Lois Zabrocky, President and CEO

You see that we sold one here in the first quarter and that we continue to kind of prune them, but 3105 a day, right? So it's a balance; they're fully employed, they are highly marketable, and they are well maintained. So we are judicious in the way that we just continue to do our fleet optimization, that's ongoing.

Liam Burke, Analyst

And Jeff, you've been very clear about not being formulaic in terms of capital allocation. But do you anticipate a dividend program that has the flexibility of providing the special component every quarter or during the upcoming quarters?

Jeff Pribor, CFO

Liam, what we've done is establish a regular dividend program, which we recently increased. Last year, we doubled it from $0.06 to $0.12 per share each quarter, and we expect this to continue. In the future, as we've discussed in this call, we will explore the possibility of increasing that regular dividend. You're correct in understanding our approach. During favorable points in the cycle, when we have significant free cash flow in addition to paying down debt, we will supplement the regular dividend. This is why we mention supplemental dividends, as we want to share in the upside with our shareholders. We don't have a specific formula, but if conditions remain consistent in the upcoming quarters, shareholders can expect us to continue our approach—pay down some debt while also sharing through dividends or potentially share repurchase. We are committed to sharing with our shareholders.

James Small, General Counsel

I want to thank everyone for joining International Seaways today, INSW on the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you very much, and have a great weekend.

Operator, Operator

Thank you for joining. I can confirm that this concludes today's call. Please have a lovely day, and you may now disconnect your lines.