Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited Q4 2025 Earnings Call - Spot and Profit-Sharing Windfall Lifts Earnings, $4B+ Backlog and Rising Liquidity
Summary
Tsakos Energy Navigation closed 2025 with a sharp rebound in profitability as spot rates and profit-sharing contracts drove earnings higher. Management reported roughly $800 million in 2025 gross revenue, $161 million net income, and a Q4 net of $58 million, while locked-in minimum contracted revenue surpassed $4 billion. Fleet renewal, selective asset sales and favorable newbuilding finance left the company with near-term liquidity and a fully financed newbuild program.
The call sounded confident but pragmatic. TEN is tilting into market upside via profit-sharing structures and limited spot exposure, while keeping most of the fleet on time charters to protect cash flow. Geopolitical shocks in early 2026 have pushed spot and war-risk dynamics into another gear, creating a near-term earnings and cash inflection. Management flagged higher war-risk insurance and bunker considerations, reiterated shareholder distributions, and signaled appetite to reduce debt and potentially repurchase preference shares once liquidity accumulates.
Key Takeaways
- 2025 financials were strong: roughly $800 million gross revenue, $252 million operating income, $161 million net income, and $4.45 earnings per share for the year.
- Fourth quarter results: $222 million gross revenue, $81 million operating income, $58 million net income, $1.70 EPS, and $128 million adjusted EBITDA in Q4.
- Locked-in contracted minimum revenue rose above $4 billion, excluding profit-sharing upside, giving multi-year visibility on a large portion of cash flows.
- Fleet and employment mix: pro forma fleet of 83 vessels, current operating fleet around 64 vessels, with 22 vessels (34% of operating fleet) exposed to market upside via 9 spot and 13 profit-sharing contracts.
- Profit-sharing contribution was material in Q4, adding about $27 million of incremental income, and management expects further step-ups in early 2026 as spot rates surged.
- Fleet renewal continues aggressively: since 2023 TEN sold 18 older vessels (avg age 17) and replaced them with 34 modern/acquired vessels (avg age 0.5 years), including LNG and dual-fuel ships and a large shuttle tanker program.
- Newbuilding program of roughly 20 vessels is largely financed via recent syndications, with favorable Korean yard and export agency relationships cited for shuttle tanker financing.
- Liquidity and leverage: cash on hand $298 million at year end, total debt $1.9 billion, net debt to capital around 46.7% and loan to value about 48%. Management expects liquidity to rise toward mid-2026 and prioritize shareholder returns, deleveraging, and completing newbuild financing.
- Asset recycling and timing worked: management sold a 10-year-old VLCC and generated sizeable free cash proceeds to add to reserves and reduce debt; the CEO highlighted opportunistic ordering of VLCCs at reported prices near $128 million each.
- Utilization reached record highs: fleet utilization rose to about 96.6% for 2025 and 97.7% for Q4, with operating days covered by time charters and profit shares increasing, while pure spot days fell year on year.
- Break-even and margin structure remain favorable: company-reported all-in breakevens are roughly $28k/day for VLCCs, $25k for Suezmax, $21k for Aframax, and $34k for LNG/shuttle tankers, leaving current market rates well into the money for many classes.
- Cost dynamics: voyage expenses fell from $153 million to $122 million year over year, vessel OPEX rose to $211 million due to larger and more specialized ships, but OPEX per ship per day remained competitive at about $9,990 for the year.
- Insurance and fuel notes: war-risk premiums spiked roughly 500% recently to about $0.75 to $1 per deadweight ton, a cost passed through to charterers; TEN has about 25% of bunker needs forward-covered and most fuel cost risk sits with time charterers.
- Charterbook and clients: repeat business from energy majors is core, with ExxonMobil largest client followed by Equinor, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies and BP; TEN stresses blue-chip counterparty focus.
- Near-term operational caution: no TEN vessels are currently transiting the Strait of Hormuz, and management emphasized safety and close monitoring of Middle East developments; dry docking schedule is light in Q1 and increases later in the year (Q1:2, Q2:5, Q3:7, Q4:3).
Full Transcript
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Tsakos Energy Navigation conference call on the fourth quarter 2025 financial results. We have with us Mr. Takis Arapoglou, Chairman of the Board, Mr. Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Mr. George Saroglou, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Mr. Harrys Kosmatos, Co-CFO of the company. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. At which time, if you wish to ask the question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise that this conference is being recorded today. Now I’ll pass the floor to Mr. Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link and Investor Relations advisor to Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited. Please go ahead, sir.
Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link and Investor Relations Advisor, Capital Link / Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you very much, good morning to all of our participants. I am Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link and Investor Relations advisor to Tsakos Energy Navigation. This morning, the company publicly released its financial results for the 12 months and 4th quarter ended December 31, 2025. In case you do not have a copy of today’s earnings release, please call us at 212-661-7566 or email us at TEN at capitallink.com and we will have a copy for you emailed right away. Please note that parallel to today’s conference call, there is also a live audio and slide webcast which can be accessed on the company’s website on the front page at www.tenn.gr. The conference call will follow the presentation slides so please we urge you to access the presentation slides on the company’s website.
Please note that the slides of the webcast presentation will be available and archived on the website of the company after the conference call. Please note that the slides of the webcast presentation are user controlled and that means that by clicking on the proper button you can move to the next or to the previous slide on your own. At this time, I would like to read the safe harbor statement. This conference call and slide presentation of the webcast contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which may affect TEN’s business prospects and results of operations. At this moment, I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Arapoglou, the Chairman of Tsakos Energy Navigation. Mr.
Arapoglou, please go ahead, sir.
Takis Arapoglou, Chairman of the Board, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you, Nicholas. Good morning, good afternoon to everyone. Thanks for joining our call today. I have really nothing to add on the brilliant financial performance and the usual quality of operating performance for TEN. Just four points from me worth noting. All of our 19 new buildings under construction, including the two recent VLCCs and the LNG are already in the money. The second point is that we sold the 10-year-old VLCC generating $82 million of free cash to be added to the $300 million already existing cash cushion that we traditionally keep. The third point is that the locked-in contracted future revenue has now gone over the $4 billion mark, excluding profit shares.
Lastly, which is very important, 22 of our vessels are taking full advantage of the high rates in the spot market stroke profit share as we speak. All the above I believe guarantee a continued strong performance going forward. With this, I give the floor to Nikolas Tsakos.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you, Chairman. Good morning. Good afternoon to everybody here from Athens. From peaceful Athens, Greece. We’re just reported a very strong year, a year that has been a milestone period for TEN. A year in which we concluded significant strategic transactions for the future growth of the company and in very specific segments, as the shuttle tanker and the dual fleet segment. The last quarter of 2025 has been a very strong quarter, and that was before the geopolitical events that started early in January with the changes and the opening up of Venezuela, one of the largest traditional exporters of sweet crude to the West that has been lagging behind due to political reasons.
The opening of Venezuela to the mainstream fleet like ours, we were the first vessel under time charter to transport the first, let’s call it legal, export to the United States after the change of the political environment there. Soon after that, of course, we have the issues in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden that have made it even further, have even further strengthened spot rates to levels that at least our generation has never seen before. I think these are the highest levels ever recorded in recent times. In this environment, TEN has been able to conclude very successfully a 2025, and is taking advantage of the very strong rates that we’re facing since the beginning of the year.
In the meantime, we were able to disinvest some of our older tankers, putting aside in excess of $100 million to our cost reserves and reducing significantly our debt. We were, I would say lucky enough with a very good timely orders of our VLCCs at what today look our 3 VLCCs, with at what look today to be at very significant discount to today’s, to today’s market, and also recently to our LNG orders. We maintain our motto of modernizing our fleet according to our clients’ requests. We have already a significant dividend policy. Our last dividend was in the later part of February. We’re looking forward as we’re following day to day, and I think we have a...
We’re following the developments, the geopolitical developments in the Middle East in order to, first of all, to secure the safety of our seafarers, the crew, and the cargos on board and take advantage of this very strong market environment. All in all, I would say, as far as the market is concerned, good news. Good news perhaps not for the right reasons, because none of us, I think nobody in the world is happy to have good news well, under war circumstances. You know, we have to run a tight and safe ship and this is what we have been doing. With that, I will ask George, if you Mr.
Saroglou, our President, to give us a more detailed analysis of what happened in 2025, and we’ll be happy to answer your questions later.
George Saroglou, President and Chief Operating Officer, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you, Nikos. We are pleased to report today on another profitable quarter and year. Before reflecting on the company’s performance of last year, a few words for the current events unfolding in the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf. Shipping faces another geopolitical event in the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz sits on one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, acting as a gateway to the oil and gas fields, refineries, and terminals of the Arabian Gulf. A fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes through this narrow strait. It’s a vital shipping lane for dry bulk commodities as well. Spot rates across all tanker vessel classes have spiked at levels far above the already strong rates in existence prior to the start of operation Epic Fury.
Substitute barrels from the USA, Venezuela, Brazil, Guyana and West Africa are expected to benefit tanker rates and ton mile demand. When the conflict started last Saturday, we had three vessels under time charter approaching the Arabian Gulf. We monitor 24/7 and follow the advice and updates of maritime security centers flag state P&I insurance underwriters. In coordination with our charterers, we assess the risks associated with any potential passage through this high-risk area. None of our vessels have entered for now this area, and they are kept outside the Strait of Hormuz. Charterers consider diverting some or all of them to other loading areas outside of the Arabian Gulf. Our foremost concern remains the safety and well-being of our seafarers on board these vessels and all those vessels that are in proximity and the structural integrity of our assets.
Even without the latest geopolitical events, tanker markets have remained healthy during the course of last year. Energy majors continue to approach our company for time charter business. Since the start of the 4th quarter of 2025, we concluded 20 new time charter fixtures and extensions of existing time charters. Today, we have a backlog of approximately over $4 billion as minimum fleet contracted revenue. We have 33 years as history as a public company. We have started with 4 vessels in 1993, and we have turned every crisis the world and shipping have faced through the years into a growth opportunity. If we move in slide number 4, we see that today we have managed to have TEN as one of the largest energy transporters in the world with a very young, diversified, versatile pro forma fleet of 83 vessels.
In slide 4, we list the pro forma fleet of all conventional tankers, both crude and product carriers. The red color shows the vessels that trade in the spot market, we have 9 as we speak, 2 more from our last call and our new buildings under construction. With light blue, we have the vessels that are on time charter with profit sharing, 13 vessels. With dark blue, the vessels that are on fixed rate time charters, 42 vessels. In the next slide, we list the pro forma diversified fleet which consists of our 3 LNG vessels, including the new order we announced today, and our 16 vessel shuttle tanker fleet. We are one of the largest shuttle tanker operators in the world with a very young and technologically advanced fleet. After the tender we won last year in Brazil to build 9 shuttle tankers in South Korea.
We have six shuttle tankers in full operations after taking delivery of both Athens 04 and Paris 24 last year, which commenced long time charters to an energy major. If we combine the two slides and account only for the current operating fleet of 64 vessels, 22 vessels or 34% of the operating fleet has market exposure, spot and time charter with profit sharing while 55 vessels or 86% of the fleet is in secured revenue contract, time charters and time charters with profit sharing. The next slide lists our clients with whom we do repeat business through the years thanks to our industrial model. ExxonMobil is the largest revenue client. Equinor, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies and BP follow.
We believe that over the years, we have become the carrier of choice to energy majors thanks to the fleet that we have built, the operational and safety record, the disciplined financial approach, the strong balance sheet and good and financial performance. The left side of slide seven presents the all-in break-even cost for the various vessel types we operate in the company. Our operating model is simple. We try to have our time charter vessels generate revenue to cover the company’s cash expenses. That is paying for vessel operating and finance expenses, for overheads, chartering costs and commissions. We let the revenue from the spot and profit sharing trading vessels to make contributions to the profitability of the company.
Thanks to the profit sharing elements for every $1,000 per day increase in spot rates, we have a positive $0.11 impact on the annual earnings per share based on the number of 10 vessels that currently have exposure to spot rates, 22 vessels. We have a solid balance sheet with strong cash reserves. The fair market value of the operating fleet exceeds today $4 billion against $1.9 billion debt and net debt to cap of around 47%. Fleet renewal and investing in eco-friendly greener vessel has been key to our operating model. Since January 1, 2023, we have further upgraded the quality of the fleet by divesting from our first generation conventional tankers, replacing them with more energy efficient new buildings and modern second-hand tankers, including dual fuel vessels.
In summary, we sold 18 vessels with an average age of 17 year and capacity of 1.7 million deadweight ton and replaced them with 34 contracted and modern acquired vessels with an average age of 0.5 years and 4.7 million deadweight capacity. We continue to transition our fleet to greener and dual-fuel vessels. We are currently one of the largest owners of dual-fuel LNG powered Aframax tankers with 6 vessels in the water. Global oil demand continues to grow year after year. OPEC+ accelerated their voluntary production cuts, wars, economic sanctions lifted tankers and geopolitical events positively affect the tanker market and freight rates while the tanker order book remains at healthy levels as a big part of the global tanker fleet is over 20 years and will need to be replaced gradually.
With that, I will pass the floor to Charis Kosmatos, who will walk us through the financial performance for the fourth quarter and last year.
Harrys Kosmatos, Co-CFO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you, George.
George Saroglou, President and Chief Operating Officer, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Charis?
Harrys Kosmatos, Co-CFO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you. Thank you, George. Let’s start with a review of the year 2025. With 2025 starting on a whim with an avalanche of global tariffs and tit-for-tat actions by China on U.S. proposed port fees, measures that were subsequently revised or suspended, all in the backdrop of ever-growing geopolitical turmoil, the tanker markets remained elevated and oil majors increased their long-term cargo requirements. To this effect, TEN, true to its tried and tested operating model of seeking long-term cover, provided the vessels required for its blue chip clientele to meet its needs.
This operational tweak, however, did not hinder the fleet from taking advantage of the equally strong but more erratic spot market, as it had a good complement of vessels benefiting from trade and spot. In particular, with the fleet in the water averaging 62 vessels, identical to 2024, days under secure revenue employment, that is vessels on time charters and time charters with profit sharing provisions increased by 12.6%, while days on spot declined by 33%. Of interest, during 2025, days on profit sharing contracts alone increased by 12.4% from 2024, highlighting TEN’s commitment to adding another layer of employment to benefit from the very lucrative spot market. Today, one-third of our fleet, that is 22 vessels, nine on pure spot and 13 on profit sharing contracts, are directly impacted by the historical strong spot market.
As a result of this employment shift, during 2025, TEN generated close to $800 million in gross revenues and $252 million in operating income, which incorporated $12.5 million of capital gains from the sale of 4 older vessels. Capital gains during the equivalent 2024 12 months were at $49 million from the sale of 5 vessels. In line with the above employment pattern and fewer vessels on dry dock compared to 2024, TEN in 2025 from 15 last year in 2024, fleet utilization increased to 96.6% from 92.5% in 2024. The time charter equivalent rate the fleet attained during 2025 was a healthy $32,130, similar to 2024 levels.
Reflecting the reduction of the fleet’s spot exposure mentioned above, voyage’s expenses declined from $153 million in 2024 to $122 million in 2025, a saving of $30 million. A saving of $4.4 million was also incurred by a reduction in charter hire expenses, whilst vessel operating expenses increased by just under $13 million from the year prior to settle at $211 million. The introduction of larger and more specialized vessels in the fleet, like Suezmax and shuttle tankers, in place of Handysize and Aframax vessels that were sold, contributed to that increase. As a result, operating expenses per ship per day for 2025 averaged a competitive $9,990, about a third of the time charter equivalent rate mentioned above.
Depreciation and amortization came in at $170 million for 2025 from $160 million in 2024, reflecting the introduction of four newbuilding vessels. General and administrative expenses in 2025 were at $42 million from $45 million in 2024. To a large extent, the result of the amortization of stock compensation awarded in July 2024 and scheduled to fully vest by July 2026. A decline was also experienced in our cost of interest as a result of lower interest rates, which despite a $174 million increase in the company’s debt obligations from 2024 due to new loans for TEN’s newbuilding program, came in at $98 million, compared to $112 million in 2024, another saving of $14 million. Interest income came in at $10.5 million, which was another meaningful contribution.
At the end of 2025, with just 62 vessels on average in the water and a 20-vessel newbuilding program, TEN’s total debt obligations were at $1.9 billion. While net debt to cap stood at a comfortable 46.7%. TEN’s loan to value at the end of 2025 was a conservative 48%. As a result of all the above, the company during 2025 generated a healthy net income of $161 million, or $4.45 in earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA for the year came in at $416 million, while cash on hand as at the end of December 2025 stood at $298 million.
After having paid $148 million in scheduled principal payments, $190 million in yard pre-delivery installments and capitalized costs, and $27 million in preferred share coupons. Now let’s go over the quarter four summary results. The fourth quarter of 2025 experienced similar fleet employment patterns, which had fleet utilization reaching 97.7% from 93.3% during the 2024 fourth quarter. During the 2025 fourth quarter, two vessels underwent scheduled dry dockings, compared to four in the 2024 fourth quarter, which naturally contributed to this improvement.
With an identical number of vessels in the water with the 2024 fourth quarter or a bit of greater deadweight, the fleet generated $222 million of gross revenues and $81 million in operating income, which similarly to the 2024 fourth quarter did not have any gains or losses from vessel sales. The result in time charter equivalent per ship per day, reflecting the ever-increasing strength in rates, was at 36,300, 21% higher than the 2024 fourth quarter level. Voyage’s expenses during this year’s fourth quarter were lower compared to last year’s fourth quarter, experiencing a $7.6 million drop to settle at $26.8 million.
Operating expenses, on the other hand, increased to $56 million from $51 million in the fourth quarter of 2024 due to some extent by operating larger vessels. The result in operating expenses per ship per day for the fourth quarter of 2025 came in at $10,558, again one-third of the fleet’s average TCE and still competitive, thanks to the efficient and quality of management performed by TEN’s technical managers. Depreciation and amortization were a little higher from the 2024 fourth quarter at $44.4 million. General and administrative expenses were at $6.2 million lower from last year’s third quarter at $9.2 million. Interest costs came in at $25 million similar to the 2024 fourth quarter, while interest income contributed about $3 million to the bottom line.
As a result of all the above, TEN during the fourth quarter of 2025 reported $58 million of net income or $1.70 in earnings per share, a 200% increase from the 2024 fourth quarter. The adjusted EBITDA during the fourth quarter of 2025 settled at $128 million, $42 million higher from the 2024 fourth quarter number. With that, I’ll pass it back to Nikos. Thank you.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you, Harry, for having so many positive numbers. I will allow you to make long presentations as long as the numbers are positive because I’m joking. Well, as we said, the fourth quarter was only the beginning of the beginning of the end, I would say of a very fruitful year for 2025. A year that we have been able to establish a renewal, a significant renewal of the fleet. We have been able to take and absorb the new acquisitions of the Viking fleet, which we did earlier, fully in the company.
We were able to have an increase of our utilization to close to 98%, which I think this is really something that we want to congratulate also the operation department of Tsakos Shipping and Trading for keeping the ships, the propellers earning almost 100% of the day. This figure includes dry dockings and special surveys. It’s really, I think, the highest utilization in the company’s history. The beginning of 2026, we had, I would say surprises mainly on the geopolitical front. We had the change and the lifting of sanctions from Venezuela, which has allowed companies like ourselves to be able to participate even more in that in those trades.
Of course, recently the events in the Persian Gulf, which have created spot rates or have led to spot rates and prices of oil that we have not seen for a generation. The company is very well prepared to navigate such a tumultuous environment. As Mr. Saroglou showed us in our earlier slide, I think the company comes stronger out of every crisis. I think most of you listening are too young to remember most of the crisis that we have gone through in the last, you know, in the last 7 crises in the, in the last 30 odd years. But the company has been able to build and build further.
I think this graph is very evident that, Harry, next time don’t forget your 12.5 growth graph there that we usually have to show that the company has been growing year after year regardless of difficult markets. Another important factor, we have increased the dividend. We paid the last part of our dividend in February. We’re looking to reward shareholders accordingly as we move forward. Yeah, a lot of question marks. We’re actually focusing on the safety of our seafarers, as Mr. Saroglou said, and also of protecting our assets and the cargoes in our assets. We are going through situations that we have not seen in a generation. We are well prepared to be able to take advantage of that.
With that, I would like to open the floor and also to thank the Chairman for his good words earlier, to any questions. Thank you.
Conference Operator, Moderator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing these star keys. One moment please while we pull for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Climent Molins with Value Investor’s Edge. Please proceed with your question.
Climent Molins, Analyst, Value Investor’s Edge: Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to start by asking about the two LNG carrier orders you announced today. Could you talk a bit about whether you are already in discussions for long-term charter employment? If so, what durations are you targeting?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Yes. Hello. I mean, there is, as I said, the LNG segment is a segment that we have been participating from a very early stage back in 2007. I think for good reasons, we have never over extended ourselves in investing in that segment. We always want to participate in new ships and new technologies, and that’s what we have done. With these ships, it’s too early to charter long-term, there is a lot of appetite going forward. I think this is more as a long-term investment for this growing segment of the business rather than something that we have done with a charter in mind.
Climent Molins, Analyst, Value Investor’s Edge: Right. Makes sense. I also wanted to ask about that energy. Could you talk about how the index link portion is calculated? Is it benefiting from the surge in spot rates we’ve seen in recent days?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: The energies on a profit-sharing arrangement based on trading routes of the Far East and of Transatlantic. Of course, it’s participating in this situation. The current employment ends in about 9, 8 months. Of course, there’s a significant appetite for such a prompt ship going forward.
Climent Molins, Analyst, Value Investor’s Edge: That’s helpful. Thank you. As I understand it, you very recently fixed the 2 MR2 new builds that were delivered earlier this year. Are they employed at fixed rates or at variable hire? If it’s the former, at what rate are they employed?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: We cannot tell you all the secrets. You have to call Mr. Kosmatos. When you see him in New York, you can ask Mr. Kosmatos. He’s only allowed to write this on a piece of paper and secretly hand it to you under the table. They are, I would say, yeah, they are fixed rates and they are very, very accretive in the mid to high twenties. That’s all I can say. I think these are the highest that those ships have been fixed. This type of ships have been fixed in the recent months, or at least this is what our chartering department tells us.
Climent Molins, Analyst, Value Investor’s Edge: Makes sense. Harry, we definitely need to catch up soon.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Looking forward to it, Simon.
Climent Molins, Analyst, Value Investor’s Edge: Yeah. I also have a question on the shuttle tanker new builds. We’ve seen some of your peers getting very good financing terms and support from the Korean Export Agency. Is this something we should kind of expect on your shuttle tanker orders as well?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Of course. Of course. I mean, we are one of the biggest supporters of South Korean yards and all the, you know, we try to keep all. We are currently to the Herculean task of our new building department. We have side offices in all the major South Korean yards. We have a very big site office in Samsung, as big in Hanwha, the ex-Daewoo, and of course, in a big one in Hyundai, which we never stopped having. Which is perhaps, if you recall, we just took delivery of our last vessel there in October. You know, we keep on maintaining very hands-on site offices in this, in all of them. Of course, we get the appreciation from the Korean banking system.
I think our team has concluded one of the largest syndications for the finance of those vessels at very competitive terms.
Climent Molins, Analyst, Value Investor’s Edge: That’s good to hear. Final question from me. Big picture, 2026 has started very strongly for you and both earnings and free cash flow are set to rise very significantly. Could you talk a bit about how you think about your capital allocation priorities? How do you plan to balance deleveraging fleet renewal and increase shareholder returns going forward?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Well, I think as we said, our, we make sure that we are securing the well-being of the company long-term. As we speak, I think as we see today, as your Mrs. Mallou more accounted, I think that by the end of the first and second quarter, we might be in excess of half a billion dollars in liquidity. Which means that, our priority is the reward of our shareholders, of which we are the largest ones as the management. Of course, we would be allocating, our new building program is almost fully financed, as I said, with the recent syndication. Rewarding our shareholders, reducing debt significantly, and we might be looking next year, April next year, to actually repurchasing some of our very, very usual preference.
Climent Molins, Analyst, Value Investor’s Edge: Thanks for the color. That’s helpful. I’ll turn it over. Thank you for taking my questions.
Conference Operator, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Poe Fratt with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Hi. I was trying to isolate the impact of the profit-sharing agreements that you had in the spot market exposure on the increase in, you know, voyage revenue in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter. Can you quantify, you know, the impact of the, you know, increase in the TCE rate? You know, what was the exposure to the spot market versus the contribution from profit sharing?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Right. Must have been.
Harrys Kosmatos, Co-CFO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Well, we did see a lot of profit sharing coming in later while throughout 2025, and we are beginning to see recently. Actually, a number of our vessels have been rechartered on higher elevated flow rates to what they were previously. Just to give you an idea, over and above the fixed rate that I mentioned earlier, in the fourth quarter of 2025, we got an additional $27 million from those profit share, from the profit sharing income that came in. Obviously we did have some benefit. It seems that the numbers will...
I mean, they look that we are moving in the right direction and perhaps to record similar amounts of additional income, you know, going forward. Again, you know, $27 million over and above the flow rate on those profit sharing vessels in the fourth quarter.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Yeah. That’s a significant amount. I mean, this is almost like 50% of the profitability of the fourth quarter. It’s not, it’s the profit arrangements have huge contribution.
Harrys Kosmatos, Co-CFO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Bear in mind that.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Being $27 million, you know, on $58 million of profit. Thank you.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: That’s exactly what I was looking for. There was a positive increase on some of rechartering or recontracting the time charters that you had. When you look at the first quarter and look at maybe at the first half of the year, my sense is that rates, you know, started to move in the fourth quarter, but the really significant move is more, you know, in the February timeframe. Obviously it’s a little early just because of what’s going on in the Middle East. Is there an additional step up that we should see in the first quarter in profit sharing?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Yes. I mean, the way things are today, I think the profit sharing has gone off the chart because of.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yeah.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: You know. You know, as Harry said, I mean, for example, we had categories of ships that we would profit share for anything above $20,000 a day. The next fixture was anything about $35,000 a day. You understand that we made sure that we pushed this, the fixed part of the profit sharing as high as possible for as long as possible, and then the profit sharing goes. Yes, I think the first quarter, you know, it’s going to be another step up from where we left the fourth quarter.
Harrys Kosmatos, Co-CFO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: I think of interest, Poe, is that from the 13 vessels that we currently have on profit shares, 7 are Suezmaxes and 2 are VLs.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Yeah. They’re actually the big, big boys of profit sharing.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yeah. I was gonna say, that’s where you’re seeing the meaningful increases. You know, maybe it’ll filter down to the smaller sizes. At this point in time, you know, your exposure to the larger segments is, you know, or larger sectors is really good. When you look at the decision to sell the V, how did you, was this an, you know, inquiry from somebody as far as trying to, you know, you know, there’s been a bigger choir out there? Was there an inquiry that came in that led you to, you know, hit the bid? Was this part of your strategic, you know, fleet renewal? If you could talk about what other potential assets are on the block, you know, that we could see sold in 2026, that’d be helpful.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Yeah. I mean, there’s always, you know, it takes two to tango. It, you know, it was not that we were out. I mean, our philosophy has always been that we’re looking to sell any vessel which is, you know, between 10 and 15 years old. As you very well know, there have been people who have been buying these assets at prices that make huge sense. I think we were I would call it lucky enough in November to order 3 VLs at Hanwha at prices that today. Just to put it in perspective, we saw, you know, we ordered those ships, I think it has been reported at $128 million.
We sold the 10-year-old ship, which if you equate, it’s a new building price, it’s in excess of $170 million. It doesn’t, you know, it’s always good to take advantage of these possibilities. The good thing is that we are going to be using the ship for up to almost the middle of the year since we will be, you know, we’re taking advantage right now in a huge way of the big market, of the spot market. We’re going to be selling here, delivering here back to the new owner sometime in June, end of May, June. You know, in a sense, we were able to have our cake and eat it too for that for this first six months.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yeah, that was a pretty timely rollover as far as just the Ulysses went open in the, I guess, December timeframe. Just to go back to, if you wouldn’t mind, the chartering strategy. You know, profit sharing’s kicked in. You know, see a step up in the first quarter, probably the second quarter too. Where do you get more aggressive in trying to lock in higher, the higher rates?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Well, I mean, we have such a evident step up in all categories of the vessels. As long as we are able to have the profit sharing arrangement, which is, you know, something that, you know, very few others do, and we should keep it that way. You see on slide number 7, page 7, you see our breakevens, which I think are very, very competitive. I mean, we have a all-in breakeven for VLs up to $28,000. Today, they’re averaging above $100,000, including the profit sharing. Suezmax’s breakeven over everything at $25,000. I think we’re closer to $80,000. Aframax is $21,000. Well, Aframax and LR2s, if we put them together about $22,500.
Again, we’re in the 70s and 80s there. Our Panamax is, which are our oldest segment, in the, you know, 18. I think that’s where we got the 30 plus profit share arrangements, so those are in the money. Our Handysizes are down to $10,000, which means they’re actually, you know, operating expenses and some interest since they’re very, very well amortized. The LNGs and our shuttle tankers are also very much into the money at $34,000 time charter. You know, when we can, when we can make sure that we get covering our minimum significantly, then we do the profit share. I think page number 7 is, portrays, Mr. George, what Mr., our President has put up on the board.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yeah, that’s helpful. If I may have one more question. You know obviously the turmoil in the Middle East has had an impact on rates. The other side of the question is right now, and I know you don’t have any tankers in harm’s way, but what are you expecting on the insurance expense side? Also, you know, how much exposure do you have to higher fuel costs as we look at the rest of 2026?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Well, this is actually a very good point. I mean, I think we have, we have had in the last week a 500% increase on insurance, on war risk insurance. I think from we used to do it at $0.15, $0.15 per deadweight ton, we’re up to close to $1 now, $0.75 to $1. That’s a huge increase. It’s 500%. Of course, all this is paid directly by the charterers. It does not really influence, it’s a, you know, pass through cost for us. But it shows, you know, how the market rates this risk.
As far as our fuel costs, I mean, we have, first of all, we have close to 25% of our existing requirements covered, George, for the next couple of years at a very competitive rates. Also, being mainly on a time charter basis, all the fuel costs, surge or not, affects our clients. We do not have that. I mean, we have a huge fleet, but being on time charter, the risk of the surge or drop of the bunker costs are taken up by the charters in a very big way.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Great. I’m sorry, if I may squeeze one last one in. What’s your dry docking schedule for the rest of the year?
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Yes. Okay. We are starting quite light for the 1st quarter. We only have 2 vessels, 2 Suezmaxes for Q1. We have 5 vessels in the 2nd quarter, 7 vessels in the 3rd quarter, and 3 vessels in the 4th quarter.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Great. Thank you so much.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Sorry.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Hopefully we’ll be able to see you in New York next week.
Poe Fratt, Analyst, Alliance Global Partners: Yeah. I’ll see you on Monday. Thank you.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Thank you.
Conference Operator, Moderator: Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back to CEO, Mr. Nicholas Tsakos for closing remarks.
Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited: Well, thank you for participating and listening in to our 2025 end of the year results. It has been a productive year. Your support has been appreciated. We have seen significant, I think close to 60% increase of our share price in the last year, which shows the trust that the public markets are putting on TEN. Hopefully this is only the beginning. We have seen again, a very steady trading and a very positive trading of our preferreds. The company would maintain its distribution policy of keeping shareholders, of rewarding shareholders.
We are going through a period of uncertainty in the world, and what we try to do with TEN is to take as much of this uncertainty possibly out through our chartering policy, which is always to the most blue chip end users out there. With that, we want again to thank you, wish you a good weekend, and hopefully we’ll see you in New York next week. Thank you.
Conference Operator, Moderator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation. Have a great day.