Omar Nokta: Great. Thank you, Lars. That’s a very, very obviously detailed and helpful color. So appreciate that. And Robert, thank you as well. I’ll turn it over.
Operator: Our next question comes from Jon Chappell of Evercore ISI. Go ahead, please.
Jon Chappell: Thank you. Good morning. Quick follow-up on strategy as it relates to vessel sales. It seems like the pace of disposals have been picking up a little bit through some of the announcements you made today. By my count, 6 2012 and 2013 vessels lapped. Clearly you already have a lot of operating leverage and per your commentary about your own NAV there seems to be an [indiscernible] there of potential sale. So should we expect those to exit the fleet at some point in this year? Clearly, you don’t need it from a deleveraging perspective, but could only just add to the bounty for the second half buyback. A – Robert Bugbee I think that the better way to describe it, we’ll deal with those opportunities — opportunistically along the way. I don’t think we can answer this, but …
Jon Chappell: Okay.
Robert Bugbee: …I just don’t think it’s useful for us to discuss actual types of vessels and what our plans would be. I think it’s much better for us to all have shareholders to just accept that we’ll carry on if we see vessels that are bids that are attractive to us, then we might engage and do that. We don’t have to, but we might want to.
Jon Chappell: Then for a follow-up to go back to, I think James’s first chart. I think the LR2 get a lot of focus because of the volatility there. But as you noted, the MRs have been pretty consistent throughout. Would it be fair to characterize the LR2s to be more of the disruptively impacted sector. But what’s been happening in the MR is kind of slow and steady, grinds higher is more structural, and related to demand and the refinery dislocation, and therefore, if there were to be some perceived, I guess, peace across the impacted regions, it would seem that the MRs would still have more of a structural boost. And maybe the LR2s would be the ones at risk.
Robert Bugbee: I’ll let Lars answer that in two seconds. But I think we just said we got back into historically you still had a — I just think you’d rather just the widest spread between MRs and LR2s to the benefit of the LR2, whilst the Suez Canal is we’re not [indiscernible] the owning group. And — but you still had in 2023, quite a wide — still quite a wide spread to the LR2s in its favor. You also on the time charter market its difficult to [indiscernible] remember the time charter market itself is saying there is a quite a widespread again to the LR2s favor. So we’re only saying we’re not saying that the market thinks that the Red Sea will be transmittable, it is just saying, look, some of this sort of worried really isn’t that much of a worry. Lars, do you want to add to that?
Lars Dencker Nielsen: I think what we’re seeing today also is that the LR2 is becoming more of a fungible unit. There is a lot more arbitrage that takes place on an LR2 today. The whole concept of what’s going on — going back to the TMX thing has meant that the crossover between an LR2 and Aframax is evident. You can see that on the time chatter market. You can also see it in the ordering market for new builds where you know, most owners considering where the price point is today will be willing to pay the marginal increase for an LR2, which is limited now to have that optionality. So when you look at LR2 Aframax you got to look them together holistically. I think that to your second point, Robert, where you talked about these factors of Bab el-Mandeb and so on, obviously impacts the longer haul business, which of course impacts the LR2 by virtue of its size, and therefore you have it outsized.
I think under normal market conditions there will be that spread. But I do think that they both are kind of very viable, fungible tradable assets.
Robert Bugbee: If you’ve seen some recent clarification in INSWs, the results yesterday when they have fixed MR and they have fixed an LR2. And there you can see that positive spread — quite a wide positive spread to the LR2.
Jon Chappell: Okay. That’s all clear. Thank you, Lars. Thanks, Robert.
Operator: Our next question comes from Greg Lewis of BTIG. Go ahead, please.
Greg Lewis: Yes, thank you and good morning, afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I guess my first one, Robert, James or Lars is around the time charter market. I mean, you called out the pickup and I guess rates in the more longer term 2, 3-year time charter market. Just kind of curious at a high-level, what types of customers are looking for those are kind of the usual suspects. And as we think about the appetite from those charters, is the impediment on getting deals done. Like [indiscernible] why do we think these bid asks are at this point?
Lars Dencker Nielsen: First of all, I’d say that the bid ask is not very wide, because deals are being concluded quite regularly at this moment at levels that are gainful both on LR2s and also on MRs. And there’s quite a few out there looking consistently for longer term charters between 2,3, 4 or 5 years. And basically, the client base is wide. It is national oil companies, its traders, its end users and it spans the globe.
Greg Lewis: And just real quick on, is there a preference for scrubbers?
Lars Dencker Nielsen: There tends to be a preference with scrubbers, but it’s not complete. I mean, there are definite, there are some who do not want, but I’ll probably say 80% for scrubbers.
Greg Lewis: Okay, great. Thanks. And then just one I wanted to touch a little bit on Dangote, kind of where — that seems like it has the potential as the year progresses. And I guess really even in the ’25 to be a major driver of volumes. Any kind of updates you can share there kind of what’s been happening there as you see it develop is that, as we think about the differences between MRs and LR2s. Is that — do we expect that to kind of evolve in a more of an LR2 market, is it going to be mixed, kind of just any high-level thoughts around that would be super helpful.
