Robert Bugbee: So it’s very early days still, Greg. Dangote has just recently started up and I think it’s currently around 300,000 barrels a day. And I think there’s a second distillation unit that’s coming on stream in 6 weeks or something like that, and that’s going to start ramping up. And then suddenly the product is going to become finished grade, which is not the case right now. We have seen exports, we have done a couple of cells that has been exports done on LR2s long-haul, there’s been a lot of MRs being done as well. Dangote, which primarily has been going to some of the other West African countries, all are very interesting from a product tanker owner perspective. As this startup has taken place, it almost seems right now at the startup stage that we’ve — there’s this third export market has been created in the Western Atlantic together with the continent and the mid.
So you have to bid the vessel, you have to start looking at pricing somewhat differently rather than being at a backwater West Africa where you tended to only have gone in with your imports. Obviously, you would anticipate some reduction of imports over time from the continent. But I think we talked about this before, but there is a logical value trade, because the premium finished product that’s coming out of Dangote is high grade, high value stuff that’s ultra low sulfur, diesel, 1 PPM gasoline and stuff like that, which obviously goes and fetches a premium in the States or in Europe and other OECD markets whereas the products that you normally you would use in Nigeria of lower grade. So it obviously remains to be determined if — what are the political pressures around that and what that’s going to be.
And I think that remains to be determined at some way or form. The other issue as well, when it comes to Dangote, which is also something we need to find out is the whole supply infrastructure is also big question. And I think there’s going to be some issues around bottlenecking and double handling that’s going to pose. We can see that some of these things will need to have double handle, you need to have bigger ships into work as SDS as they do already today. So it’s going to be a really interesting thing to say, and to see how that’s going to develop over the next year. I think the final thing also that’s quite interesting is that where it’s placed, Dangote has excellent out potential as a swing refinery, even go East, West, you can do all these things, I think, I would imagine as this thing starts developing as a real up and running refining with the size that it has, it will have a lot of potential because it will have a lot of Naphtha that can be exported, they will have a lot of jet fuel as well that they would not require in the local market.
So it’s an interesting one. Headwinds in terms of a product coming from the continent going down to West Africa, you could assume that, but I think there’s a lot of other stuff considering the size of this refinery, and the quality of product that it’s going to produce that will kind of come up with some interesting determinants for the market.
Greg Lewis: Super helpful. Thank you very much. Have a great day, everybody.
Operator: Our next question comes from Ken Hoexter of Bank of America. Go ahead, please.
Ken Hoexter: Hey, great. Good morning, Emanuele, Robert, James and Lars. Thanks for the update and Chris. So congrats on meeting the net debt to NAV target. What a ride to get here. Just a minor one to start. Did you have fewer vessels and drydock or where the plan drydocking quicker moves to the quarter. It looked like it was a bit lower than what you had talked about last quarter. But then my question is, is rates for the MRs have improved on your quarter-to-date with lower on LRs? Are you seeing any seasonal cooling off? If we’re looking at second quarter? Is there just bigger demand near-term just want to understand the very near-term market where we normally get that seasonal pullback. Lars, have you have any thoughts on that?
Lars Dencker Nielsen: The short answer to the — second part of your question is, I do not see seasonal pullback. I see a seasonal ramp up. And I don’t think that what we have seen in the past in terms of what we would historically look at the market seasonality, going back — pre-2019 being the case, I do see that we probably going to have a stronger some of them we have anticipated before. One of course, it’s because of the refineries that we can see from the output that’s going to happen over June, July. I think another thing also which is a key variable from a macro perspective, as an ingredient is China exports. We’ve talked about this in the past as well. There’s been — the second quarter was issued is higher than it was last year.
The thing that I find quite interesting in that context is that before we were kind of being cannibalized somewhat by the new builds, but I can see that there’s only one VLCC that’s per delivery in ’24. There’s only 7 Suez maxes, I think that’s being scheduled for the rest of the year. So, there’s limited competition, but this kind of China long-haul stuff that before we will talk about, it’s not even something that I think about anymore. It’s just — it’s another thing that just comes in, and we’re looking at some really kind of constructive stuff as we go into the second quarter.
Ken Hoexter: Great. Chris, thoughts on the days?
Chris Abella: Yes, Ken, thanks for the question. There were slightly fewer drydocks. I’d also emphasize there were slightly fewer days of the drydocks that we had planned, which is good. There’s drydocks are always going to move around. Especially in this market, there’s vessel positioning. We’ve had some good push back from Q1 to Q2, and some good push back from Q2, Q3. So we’ll just keep updating that. But short answer is, yes.
Ken Hoexter: Perfect. Just looked a little different. And then, Robert, I guess, maybe just bigger picture or manually, thoughts on cash, right. You’ve noted you’re going to refocus on buybacks. But what’s your vision for the fleet, right, you’ve got some opportunities, you mentioned on potentially selling some of the older vessels. Do you look at this as an ongoing entity for the next 20, 30 years. Do you look at it as we kind of run it to the end of the fleet life and monetize that? I just want to understand your vision for what comes next. I mean, obviously, it’s been a long ride to get here. And to be able to have the optionality you now have, but just want to understand how you think about the next phase of the company structure?
