Star Bulk Carriers Corp. (NASDAQ:SBLK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Although, the market during March is a little bit the FFA market at least is a bit better than what it is right now. Now regarding Q2, if you look at the FFA average is around $12,500. Now, if you add to that, the scrubber benefits and the fact that we slow steam vessels during not very good markets, I think we will be profitable again in Q2 and probably, hopefully better than guess the Q1, and we’re very positive for the rest of the year.

Chris Robertson: Thanks for that Petros. Again, that’s very helpful to, I guess to see that the 2,500 that we see published is really almost, I guess it’s relevant, but not really indicative of the earnings power when you take into account speeds simply excluding the whole scrubber and whatnot.

Petros Papas: If you run cape by 13 knots and you burn 50 tons, then if you go at 11 tons, which is like 15 — sorry, 11 knots, which is about 15% less speed, you probably burn 25 tons or 28 tons, which is almost 50% below the 13 knots consumption, and therefore, that’s where you gained from.

Chris Robertson: And maybe just one final follow-up and maybe related to Chris’ first question about the dividend; obviously, you’ve had this long-term policy paying out cash and excess of 268 million threshold. What does the dividend look like? If ending cash is below that amount, does it just simply, do you stick with the actual policy and the dividend is zero or a few pennies or is there a certain floor that you have on the payout?

Petros Papas: Well, our policy is pretty clear and we don’t frankly anticipate any market in the foreseeable future leaving us with less cash than the minimum amount that would call for a dividend. But if basically our cash balance declines over the quarter and declines below the minimum threshold, then as in 2020 — parts of 2020, there might not be a dividend, but we don’t anticipate that actually happening.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I’d like to hand the floor back over to management for any closing comments.

Petros Pappas: No further comments, operator. Thank you very much.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for participating.