Imperial Petroleum Q3 2025 Earnings Call - Fleet Expansion Drives 72% Surge in Operating Income

Conference Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2025 Imperial Petroleum Results Conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode with no question-and-answer session at the end. Please note that today’s conference is being recorded. I will now like to turn the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Harry Vafias, CEO of Imperial Petroleum. Please go ahead, sir.

Harry Vafias, CEO, Imperial Petroleum: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter, nine months 2025 conference call. I’m Harry Vafias, the CEO of Imperial Petroleum, and joining us today is Mrs. Sakellari, who will be discussing our financial performance. Before we commence our discussion, please read the safe harbor disclaimer on slide two. In essence, it’s made clear that this presentation may contain some forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. We raise the attention of our investors to the fact that such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Imperial Petroleum and are subject to risks and uncertainties which would cause future results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. In addition, we’d like to clarify that during this conference call, we will quote monetary amounts, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are all denominated in US dollars.

On slide three, we’re summarizing our key operational and financial highlights for Q3 2025. Our operating performance in the third quarter was most satisfactory. This was the first quarter that our recently acquired seven dry bulk ships were fully integrated. Due to this integration, our fleet calendar days increased by 36.1% quarter on quarter. Our fleet operational utilization for Q3 2025 was quite high, about 89%, much improved compared to the same quarter of last year when operational utilization was only 66%. Our dry bulk ships are most of the time on short period time charters with low commercial off-hire, and this leverages the operating performance of our fleet as a whole.

In terms of our fleet deployment mix, in Q3 2025, our majority of our vessels, all of our dry bulk ships, and almost half of our product tankers were under time charter employment, so 75% of our voyage days were time charter days, while the remaining 25% of our voyage days were dedicated to spot activity. Touching briefly on our financial performance, the full integration of our dry bulk ships in conjunction with strong rates, both in tanker and dry bulk markets, were reflected in our Q3 numbers and mostly in our operating income. In Q3, our revenues came in at $41.4 million, marking a 25% increase against the same period of last year. Our operating income for the quarter was in the order of $10.3 million, marking a 72% increase compared to Q3 2024 and a 23% increase compared to Q2 2025.

We view it as very positive that our fleet expansion has led to increased income from our core operations. We ended the quarter with a net income of $11 million, which was slightly lower compared to the second quarter of 2025 due to the income decline from time deposits and minor losses from foreign exchange fluctuations. For the nine months of 2025, our net income came in at $35 million. Our EBITDA close to $50 million, while our operating cash flow was as high as $57 million. Our organic operations fell. Operating liquidity. In terms of our cash, including time deposits, we ended the nine-month period with about $100 million of cash, decreased compared to our six-month 2025 financials due to the $129 million payment for the seven dry bulk ships that took place within July and August 2025, and our highest base is about $172 million.

On December 1st, we concluded a capital raise of $60 million through a registered direct equity offering to institutional investors. These proceeds will be used for further acquisitions as we aim to increase our fleet, ideally to a size between 25 and 30 ships. Through our fleet expansion, we strive to further boost revenue, profits, and asset utilization. In terms of market conditions, we are under a period that both tanker and dry bulk segments are doing quite well, and we see that asset values for both markets we operate in are firming, and should this trend continue, it’s highly probable that values will climb higher in the near future. Imperial Petroleum has solid fundamentals as we have zero debt and a strong operating cash flow, and this gives us comfort that going forward, we’re able to satisfy our working capital needs.

Our strong operating cash flow generation supported our fleet expansion during the past couple of years. Our total cash of approximately $100 million at quarter end is expected to be primarily deployed to our upcoming cash needs, including $52 million of capital expenditures to be paid in Q2 and Q3 2026 related to our three remaining dry bulk vessel deliveries and an additional $14 million in total dry docking costs. In 2026, 12 of our vessels are scheduled to undergo dry docking, driving these cash requirements. On slide four, we’re providing a summary of our current fleet employment. 75% of our fleet is currently under time charter employment, while our dry bulk vessels are under short-term charter contracts. The commercial strategy we currently follow for our dry bulk ship provides healthy cash flow while minimizing idle time and voyage costs.

As for our tankers, at the moment, we employ three product tankers and our Suezmax is in the spot market, while the remaining four product tankers are under period employment ranging from short to medium-term contracts. On slide five, we’re discussing the evolution of market rates for both tankers and vessels. Within Q3, market rates strengthened in both tanker and dry bulk segments. Rates for Suezmax tankers gained momentum mainly at the back of OPEC output increase, which resulted in the VLCC rates more than doubling and trickling down this positive momentum to the Suezmaxes. The Suezmaxes ended the third quarter with a daily rate of about $55,000 a day. Product tanker rates were boosted towards mid-quarter by higher activity in the Atlantic and stronger refining spreads across USA, Asia, and Europe. Rates in the dry bulk sector exerted within Q3 the highest rise witnessed over the past year.

Daily rates for Supramaxes climbed within the third quarter from $10,000 to $16,000 a day, while for Kamsarmaxes increased from $12,000 to $15,000. This is attributed to higher global iron flows that began in June, especially in Chinese iron ore demand from both Australia and Brazil, along with higher activity on minor bulk cargoes. The broader market has been resilient in Q4, particularly for Suezmax tankers. Suezmax rates, a couple of weeks ago, were close to $80,000 a day. Rates for product tanker are gradually escalating within Q4 due to the colder weather combined with the end of the maintenance refinery season. Rates for dry bulk vessels have stabilized at these increased levels, witnessing Q3 and positive market prospects indicate that this trend may continue. On slide six, we are reviewing the tanker market. Within Q3, the setup for the tanker market was strong.

We witnessed a rebound in refining margins, higher than expected oil demand, and a generous reversal of prior OPEC cuts. The crude tankers exerted a strong performance within the third quarter of 2025, with earnings increasing every month. Additional US sanctions imposed on crude tankers tightened the fleet supply, thus helping conventional trades. Overall, the medium-term outlook for crude tankers remains positive on the back of OPEC exports and Chinese crude imports maintaining a steady pace. However, geopolitical uncertainty, such as the ending of the Russia-Ukraine war and the opening of the Suez Canal, may pressure the market in the long run. The performance of product tankers was modest in Q3, maintaining, however, an overall strength compared to the same period of last year. In the Atlantic, transatlantic routes from Europe, freight levels climbed, while the US Gulf remained subdued despite partial recovery later in the quarter.

East of Suez, activity softened on reduced product flows before stabilizing towards the period end. The order book for the product tankers stands at 11.2%, while about 19% of the fleet is above 20 years of age. The order book for the Suezmaxes is currently 21%, with about 15% of the fleet being above 20 years of age. While assessing tanker fleet capacity, we should also look upon the sanctioned fleet percentages. About 6% of the total product tanker fleet is in the E.U., U.K., OPEC, and U.N. sanctions, and this percentage for the total Suezmax tanker fleet is 11.6%. On slide seven, we’re discussing the dry bulk market. Following a softer first half, the dry bulk market took an upturn in Q3. Rates for both Kamsarmax and Supramax moved from $12,000 to $16,000.

Indeed, Q3 2025 was a stronger period for seaborne coal trade, with coal arrivals from China marking a significant quarter-on-quarter rise. In addition, volumes in this mid-size dry bulk segment were also supported by the increase of grain volumes in the Atlantic and a rise in U.S. corn exports 25% year on year. Trade growth is expected to mark a faster expansion in 2026, mainly at the back of South Atlantic iron ore and bauxite volumes. The recent U.S.-China trade truce should support freight rates as soybean exports to China will increase. Indeed, China will continue to drive growth, but at a slower pace than primarily, via the increasing aluminum production and strong imports of iron ore, bauxite, and minor bulks. Current order book is quite low for Handysize, 7.2%, and Supramax 8.7%, but relatively high for Kamsarmax, 14.5%.

Ordering activity has slowed down, while there’s a considerable percentage of aged vessels across all dry subsegments. I now pass you the floor to Ms. Sakellari to summarize our financial performance.

Mrs. Sakellari, Financial Executive, Imperial Petroleum: Thank you, Harry, and good morning to all. The third quarter of 2025 was once more profitable. It was the first quarter that we fully utilized our enhanced dry bulk fleet segment, and this paid off as we materially increased our operating income. It’s worth mentioning that the daily net revenue from the dry bulk vessels increased by about 23% in Q3 2025 compared to the same quarter of 2024. Our tanker segment, particularly our Suezmax tankers, performed strongly as well, except for one of our product tankers involved in CPP trading, as this was a market that remained relatively weak in the third quarter of 2025. Looking at our income statement for Q3 2025, on slide eight, revenues came in at $41.4 million in Q3 2025, marking a 25.5% increase compared to revenues generated in the same period of 2024.

This increase is mainly due to our recent dry bulk vessel addition, along with an improvement of market rates, particularly for the Suezmax tankers, as rates for these vessels increased within Q3 2025 to $55,000 per day and are now even higher, close to $70,000 per day. Voyage costs amounted to $11.6 million, marking $1.4 million lower than in Q3 2024. The decrease in voyage expenses is attributed to the change in our fleet employment, which now tips towards period coverage. In Q3 2025, our time charter coverage was about 75% versus 27% in Q3 2024. Our net revenues for the quarter came in at about $30 million compared to $20 million in Q3 2024. This is equivalent to a 50% increase. Voyage costs amounted to $10.9 million, increased by $3.7 million due to the increase of our fleet by an average of 8.6 vessels between the two periods.

The current average daily OpEx for our tanker fleet is around $7,200 and $5,600 for our dry bulk fleet. We incurred negligible dry docking costs this quarter, as none of our vessels underwent dry docking. As mentioned, we do have a pretty heavy dry docking schedule for 2026, as 12 of our vessels will need to be docked. In addition to this quarter, and compared to the same period of last year, we faced a reduction in our income from non-core operations due to a reduction of funds under time deposit and a minor foreign exchange loss incurred in the quarter. In Q3 2024, non-operating income was $4 million compared to $700,000 in Q3 2025. EBITDA for the third quarter of 2025 came in at $18 million, while net income at $11 million corresponded to a basic earnings per share of $0.30.

For nine months 2025, our EBITDA came in at $37.4 million. Our operating cash flow was $57 million, while our net income was $35 million, corresponding to an EPS of $0.98. Moving on to slide nine, let us take a look at our balance sheet for the nine months of 2025. As of September 2025, our free cash, including time deposits, was about $100 million. As already mentioned, within Q3 2025, we paid $129 million for the acquisition of seven dry bulk vessels. Hence, our cash base declined. We still enjoy a flexible capital structure as we have no debt and solid liquidity. Looking at our fleet book value, this increased to $343 million, reflecting a 65% expansion in the company’s asset base within just nine months. Proceeding to slide 10, we provide the summary of our liquidity, profitability, and market considerations going forward.

For the nine months of 2025, our operating cash flow was $57 million. Our profitability margin remains wide as market rates are favorable and significantly higher than our break-even levels. In Q3 2025, our average time charter equivalent per fleet voyage day was close to $23,000 for a vessel and about $12,000 for a dry bulk fleet. In terms of market consideration, it still remains crucial how the current geopolitical tensions will unravel and if new geopolitical tensions will arise, such as the recent friction between the U.S. and Venezuela. U.S. trade war seems to have stalled for now, but the question remains how it will play out in the long run. Rates for both tankers and dry bulk seem strong. Thus, the prospect for the fourth quarter is favorable. In Slide 11, we summarize some key remarks around our strategy going forward.

We base our strong operating performance on the successful commercial management of our highly quality-built ships. Going forward, we strive to expand further, while also addressing our current capital commitments and working capital needs. At this stage, our CEO, Mr. Harry Vafias, will summarize our concluding remarks for the period examined. The full integration of our recently delivered semi-drug ships, increasing our fleet to 19 ships and soon to 22 ships, enhanced within Q3 2025 our income and profitability stemming from core operations. Market rates for both tanker and dry bulk markets are solid, and this seems likely to hold in the upcoming quarters. With our debt-free balance sheet and our cash base that is currently $172 million and our focus on quality-built Japanese and Korean-built ships, we aim for an even better performance in the fourth quarter of 2025.

We’d like to thank you all for joining us at our call today and for your interest and trust in our company, and we look forward to having you again with us at our next call for our Q4 2025 results. Thank you.