Cmb.Tech (CMBT) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026 at 8:00 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer - Alexander Saverys

TAKEAWAYS

• Net Profit -- $364.4 million for Cmb.Tech NV (NYSE:CMBT), reflecting strong shipping rates and gains from vessel sales.
• Revenue -- over $700 million, representing the total top-line performance for the quarter.
• Asset Sale Gain -- $127 million, realized from selling two VLCCs and one Suezmax at historically high prices.
• EBITDA -- $552 million, reflecting operational earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
• Net Finance Expense -- $76 million, a 5% decrease from the previous quarter due to debt repayment and refinancing.
• Equity to Total Assets -- 51.5% on a value-adjusted basis, indicating the company's leverage position.
• Contract Backlog -- $3.3 billion, providing revenue visibility through multiyear vessel charters.
• Newbuilding Deliveries -- nine vessels, including four Newcastlemaxes, two Suezmaxes, one VLCC, one CSOV, and one CTV.
• CapEx Commitments -- $890 million for the remaining newbuilding program, with the majority already financed.
• Unfunded CapEx -- $119 million, with $43 million due in 2026 and the remainder spread through 2029.
• Year-End CapEx Target -- $375 million to $390 million, marking the expected completion of the current expansion plan.
• 2027 Operational Cash Flow -- $700 million to $1 billion, based on management's current rate assumptions and market projections.
• Dry Bulk Rates -- $46,000 for Newcastlemaxes, $40,000 for Capesizes, and $20,000 for Panamaxes during the second quarter.
• Tanker Rates -- over $120,000 for VLCCs and $123,000 for Suezmaxes in the second quarter.
• Future Asset Sales -- $100 million in gains expected in the third quarter and $130 million in the fourth quarter.
• African Iron Ore Growth -- 11% average export growth expected from regions like Simandou, potentially increasing ton miles by 7%.
• Tanker Order Book -- over 30% of the existing fleet, which management identified as a risk for oversupply in 2027 and 2028.
• Fleet Age -- less than six years on average, reflecting the company's focus on modern, efficient vessels.
• CSOV Rates -- $64,000 in the second quarter, with 66% of third-quarter days already booked at $50,000.
• Liquidity -- approximately $400 million, providing the cash necessary to repay upcoming bond maturities.

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RISKS

• Saverys stated, "What worries us a bit more is the order book to fleet," noting that the tanker order book has reached 30% of the existing fleet and could lead to oversupply starting in 2027.

SUMMARY

Management reported a quarterly net profit driven by shipping operations and strategic asset sales. The company indicated that it is concluding a major newbuilding investment cycle as total capital expenditure commitments have declined. Management stated that it is selectively divesting older tanker assets to take advantage of historically high valuations while maintaining a positive outlook on dry bulk demand and offshore wind service requirements.

• Tanker Divestment: Management is selling older VLCC and Suezmax vessels to realize capital gains, noting that current prices for secondhand tonnage exceed 10-year maximums.
• Dry Bulk Demand: CEO Saverys stated, "The Simandou iron ore, particularly, is being produced at a relatively low breakeven cost and could replace shorter-haul iron ore going forward," which would increase ton-mile demand for the Capesize fleet.
• El Nino Impact: The company identified El Nino as a potential positive driver for Panamax rates due to Panama Canal transit restrictions and increased long-haul grain trade from South America.
• Debt Management: The company intends to repay its maturing bond on Sept. 14, 2026, using available cash reserves.
• Fortescue Collaboration: A framework agreement covering 12 vessels involves a mix of ammonia-ready, fully fitted, and retrofit ships to support decarbonization initiatives.
• Offshore Wind: Management reported high utilization and profitable rates for the Windcat division, supported by demand from both offshore wind and oil and gas projects.
• Regulatory Outlook: CEO Saverys stated, "I truly hope that the world can come together at the IMO and agree on a clear and simple and certain framework," highlighting the need for a decarbonization standard.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• Newcastlemax: The largest class of bulk carrier able to enter the port of Newcastle, Australia, typically around 185,000 deadweight tons.
• VLCC: Very Large Crude Carrier, a tanker designed to transport approximately 2 million barrels of crude oil.
• Suezmax: A tanker vessel sized to transit the Suez Canal when fully loaded, typically between 120,000 and 160,000 deadweight tons.
• CSOV: Commissioning Service Operation Vessel, used to support the construction and maintenance of offshore wind farms.
• CTV: Crew Transfer Vessel, a high-speed craft used to ferry technicians to and from offshore wind turbines.
• Ton miles: A unit of measurement in shipping that calculates the weight of cargo multiplied by the distance it is carried.
• FE content: The percentage of iron in a given quantity of iron ore, determining its grade and quality.
• FFA: Forward Freight Agreement, a financial contract used to hedge against or speculate on the future price of freight rates.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Alexander Saverys: Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome to the earnings conference call for the second quarter of 2026 of CMB.TECH. My name is Alexander Saverys. I'm the CEO of CMB.TECH and I'm joined by my colleagues, Joris Daman and Enya Derkinderen. We will start, as always, with our financials and some highlights. And before we do, we give you an overview of the fleet of CMB.TECH. You can see that we have 206 vessels on the water with another 26 newbuildings coming. Our contract backlog is stable at $3.3 billion. The fleet is young. We have an average age below 6 years. Our CapEx commitments, we will discuss a bit later, have now gone down to less than $1 billion.

We have a market cap of $5.2 billion, a fair market value of the fleet of $11.2 billion. And for those who might not know, but we are still listed in New York, in Brussels and in Oslo. Our second quarter financials, the title of our press release was making hay, making hay while the sun shines. These are exceptional times for shipping and also exceptional times for CMB.TECH. The company has made a profit of $364.4 million in the second quarter. This was on the back of an increased revenue of over $700 million and an exceptional profit that we made on the sale of assets of $127 million.

You can see the other items in our profit and loss that stick out. One of them is the net finance expense. We are reducing our quarterly net finance expense to $76 million, which is a 5% reduction compared to the first quarter. This is led by cheaper refinancings and also just a general repayment of our debt. Our EBITDA stood at $552 million. Our liquidity slightly below $400 million. On total assets, book value stands at above 35% and our equity on total assets value adjusted is now above 50% at 51.5%. Other highlights during the quarter. I already mentioned our net profit and our EBITDA. The liquidity, which stands at around $400 million.

We have a contract backlog, which is stable. We have added during the quarter 2, 2-year charters on our CSOVs and one 1-year VLCC charter. We have the intention to distribute an amount of $0.64 per share, which will be split in an intermediary dividend of $21 per share and a payment of $0.43, so $0.21 per share and $0.43 per share out of the share premium reserve, which is exempt from any withholding tax. We have taken delivery in the second quarter and quarter-to-date of 9 newbuilding vessels. These were 4 Newcastlemaxes, 1 VLCC, 2 brand-new Suezmaxes, 1 CSOV and 1 CTV. We have sold quite a few ships so far this year.

In the second quarter, we have delivered to their new owners 2 VLCCs, the Ilma and the Ingrid, on which we booked a capital gain of $98 million. We have sold an older Suezmax, the Sienna with a capital gain of $29 million. So total gain in second quarter was $127 million. In the third quarter, we will book a gain of $100 million on the sale of 2 Suezmaxes. And in the fourth quarter, we will add a gain of $130 million on the sale of the Donoussa, which is a VLCC and one more Suezmax. The sales of our tankers, we believe, are very well timed. We are at historic high prices for VLCCs and Suezmaxes.

On this slide, you can basically see the 10-year average for a 5-year-old VLCC and a 5-year-old Suezmax compared to today's values and also compared to the last 10 years minimum and maximum. And as you can see, on VLCCs and Suezmaxes, we are well above the 10-year average. We are also well above the maximum of over the last 10 years that we have seen. We, therefore, believe it's a good time to sell some of our assets, particularly our older assets. And then we have put a comparison where other segments stand like Panamaxes and Capesizes.

As you can see that today's values, even though they're at the top end of what we have seen over the last 10 years, they are still in line of that bracket. Same goes for VLGCs. Of course, on the container vessels, the situation is different and also on LNGs. We wanted to show you what we believe in 2027, our operational cash flow could be based on certain rate assumptions. So we have put the rate assumptions at the bottom right of the slide with a 10% and 20% uplift. Rate assumptions for 2027 have been based on FFAs and assumptions for next year. You can see the numbers there.

What you then see is after having repaid or paid all our CapEx investments, we still are forecasting a cash flow of $700 million to $1 billion. I would say that's a very powerful figure to see that even after all our CapExes have been repaid, our operational cash flow will be between $700 million and $1 billion. Of course, if the market changes, the numbers will change, but it gives you an indication of the cash flow generating potential of all our different divisions. The most important, of course, our Newcastlemaxes and Capesizes, our VLCCs and Suezmaxes. I mentioned the CapEx. We still have $890 million of new buildings to be delivered of newbuilding installments to be made.

Of that number, the vast majority has already been financed. We have an unfunded CapEx of $119 million, which is basically spread out this year, $43 million and then other amounts in '27, '28 and '29, which are relatively small. At the end of this year, our outstanding CapEx commitments will be between $375 million and $390 million. So we've come to the end of our large 2.5-year newbuilding investment plan. I want to give you an update on the market and talk about Bocimar, Euronav, Delphis, Bochem and Windcat. And I always start with an overview of the different markets we operate in and what we feel is the sentiment and the state of the market.

Starting with dry bulk. Clearly, we are positive on dry bulk. We see that demand on the major commodities we are moving is growing. That goes for iron ore, bauxite, grain and coal. The order book to fleet has increased a little bit on Capesizes, actually decreased a little bit on Panamaxes. We are around the 15% mark, which we still think is something that the market can take for the next couple of years. The age of the fleet, 41% of our Capes are older than 15 years, more than 1/3 of the Panamaxes are older than 15 years. The balance between supply and demand on dry bulk, we believe, is positive. Moving to tankers.

You can see that we have colored from positive to cautious and basically kept a positive and cautious approach. No doubt, the market is very positive today. We are seeing all-time high rates on secondhand numbers, on the freight numbers on the spot market. So the market is very, very, very strong. Reason we are becoming a little bit more cautious is that on the demand side, we don't know what the effect will be of a potential solution in the Strait of Hormuz. Obviously, we don't know the timing, but that solution could lead to softer markets. What worries us a bit more is the order book to fleet.

We are now seeing an order book to fleet on VLCCs and Suezmaxes of over 30%. This is not impacting the market right now. The order book for 2026 is still very reasonable, but as from next year and the year after, we will see a tsunami of VLCC and Suezmaxes coming to the market. Moving to containers and the chemical tankers. We have had a cautious approach to both markets. Actually, the container market has surprised to the upside. The unwinding of the Red Sea rerouting has been postponed with the renewed tensions around Bab el-Mandeb and Houthi attacks. But when you look at the order book, we would still be quite cautious for containers going forward.

But right now, the market on containers is still quite good. On the chemical tankers, the order book is something we are watching closely. The market has actually performed relatively well. But going forward, we take a slight cautious approach. As you know, both in Delphis and Bochem, our Container and Chemical Tanker division, we have close to no spot exposure. So we are very well covered and shielded from any market fluctuations. Our last division, Windcat, Offshore Energy, we are seeing good rates.

We believe if you look at the demand for the offshore wind energy projects, but also offshore oil and gas projects, combined with the order book with the fleet that is coming, there is a substantial fleet of CSOVs coming to the market next year and in 2028. But combined with the demand that we see in oil and gas and wind, we believe that the balance is positive. I want to zoom in on certain specific dynamics in our subsectors, starting with dry bulk. First, our dashboard, what we have done in the second quarter. Our fleet today is 40 Newcastlemaxes on the water, 37 Capes and 30 Kamsarmaxes and Panamaxes.

The performance in the second quarter was very good. We earned $46,000 on our NUCs, close to $40,000 on our Capes and $20,000 on our Panamaxes. The rates for the third quarter are in line with the rates of the first quarter so far of second quarter. So far, what we have booked in Q3 is slightly below Q2 because we have positioned quite some vessels into interesting fronthaul positions, and we would normally see a bump on our rates towards the end of Q3 and into Q4. A lot of the indicators on dry bulk are green. Some indicators like iron ore inventories and steel inventories are slightly negative.

But overall, we see that the demand side of things is looking very positive. Looking at the order book to fleet before we zoom in on the demand, one can see that the order book has grown. We are now on Capesize order book to fleet of 17%. Panamax has actually gone down slightly. We are at 14%, spread out nicely over the next couple of years. So, so far, we don't believe that the order book to fleet is an issue. The average age of the fleet is actually very positive. The fleet is aging, very little scrapping going on. So that has the potential to help the market in the next couple of years.

The volumes, we are seeing iron ore, coal actually supporting the market. So on our Capesizes, it's iron ore, bauxite and a little bit of coal. On the Panamaxes, it's coal, grain and some of the other commodities. When you look at what has been transported, we see that there is growth. Bauxite seasonally dips in the second quarter, but we have seen a very interesting pickup recently. So strong second quarter volumes on all dry bulk commodities. When we look at the iron ore specifically, it's a China, Australia, Brazil story. And an interesting story that we are seeing is the FE content.

Overall, Chinese iron ore imports and Chinese iron ore imports are reducing in FE content a little bit, and we are seeing lower production, domestic production in China on the iron ore. Both these elements, if you compare 2026 with what we are expecting for 2027, could add another 2.5% of extra iron ore imports into China. So something to watch the FE content and domestic Chinese production, which is going down and being replaced by higher FE content iron ore coming from abroad and being imported via sea. But there's a new kid on the block since a couple of years, the importance of Africa is increasing. We wanted to highlight this on this slide.

Here, you can see the volumes from some major commodities, from major export areas, some of which have been around for a long time, some of which are new to the game like Simandou in Guinea, you can see that the growth from '25 to '26 is massive, but is actually expected to grow even further at an average rate of 11%. Why do we believe this could be a very interesting dynamic for our markets in the next 3 to 4 years? The Simandou iron ore, particularly, is being produced at a relatively low breakeven cost and could replace shorter-haul iron ore going forward.

We have tried to list some of the breakeven costs of some mines on the right side of the slide. If that iron ore would be replaced by cheaper Simandou iron ore, you could get a kick of 7% in ton miles for the Capesize fleet. So Africa is definitely something to watch and particularly Simandou and the effects in the next couple of years. I want to say a word about the El Nino as well. We have 2 slides on El Nino, and I'm sure my colleague, Joris, can talk to you about that for a little bit longer than what I will do now.

But what we wanted to do here is to show that based on previous experience and the El Nino phenomenon in 2023 and 2024, we could see a positive effect for the dry bulk market and particularly for the Panamax fleet in dry bulk. And it's basically 3 dynamics. On the one hand, less water in the Panama Canal could limit the transits. Now typically, Panamaxes carry low-value commodities and cannot compete in the auction system to go through the Panama Canal with the container vessels and therefore, don't transit anymore and therefore, have to reroute and have a longer distance.

There is a grain kicker to the dry bulk market as well, thanks to El Nino, where short-haul grain trades, for instance, Australia, where it's hotter and drier, produce less grain are being replaced by longer haul grain, for instance, from South America, where better crops are being grown. And then there's another one on the coal where hotter weather leads to higher electricity demand. And obviously, on coal, we also have the impact of Hormuz. So all combined, we think that El Nino could have a slight positive effect on the dry bulk market and Panamaxes in particular.

And we try to show this and prove this with this slide here, where you can basically see the effect of the May 2023 to May 2024 last El Nino and what it has an effect on rates and basically, rates doubled, even tripled over the space of 6 months. Moving to tankers and Euronav. Dashboard on our VLCCs and Suezmaxes. We have 5 VLCCs, 4 on the water, 1 that will deliver towards the end of this year. We have 15 Suezmaxes. You can see the results that we achieved in the second quarter, above $120,000 in Q2 for Vs already so far fixed in Q3, the same number.

On our Suezmaxes, we reached a rate of $123,000, we are slightly below $120,000 Q3 to date. So stellar numbers, very good numbers. Obviously, we have sold some vessels. The new sales are the Donoussa and Bristol, but we have delivered as well VLCCs to their new owners in the second quarter. And you can see all the capital gains that we did there, which I mentioned in the introduction. When you look at the dashboard and all the specific indicators, one stands out, of course, it's the oil supply from OPEC countries year-on-year, which is significantly down, but I will highlight some more details in the next couple of slides. First, talk about the order book.

It is big and it is growing. You can see here year-over-year on VLCCs and our Suezmaxes, what is on order, 370 Vs, 250 Suezmaxes. This is a very, very large order book, which is not going to be an issue this year. But as from next year, in 2027, 2028, we will get a delivery of 1 V or Suezmax every 2 days, which eventually could lead to an oversupply even though we know there is still an aging fleet. But when you look at the old vessel numbers, they are now inferior to the order book, whereas over the last 4, 5 years, it was the opposite.

So order book, something to watch for the next couple of years. On the demand side, we have analyzed what happened with seaborne crude. What we can see between January 2026 and June 2026, we went from 31 million barrels per day to 22.3 million barrels per day. And it's very interesting to see where the reduction came from. All in all, when you look at the total lost export volumes to the different major destinations, you come to a number of 8.5 million spread out, China, 4.3 million barrels lost; India, 1.8 million; Japan, 600,000 barrels; the U.S., close to 400,000 barrels; and the rest of the world, 400,000 barrels.

What is interesting is that the Chinese lost import is basically a combination of less volumes from the Middle East, but also less volumes from other places in the world, whereas you see that the other destinations, they surely have lost volumes from the Middle East, but they have actually increased their exports from other places in the world. And the reason we're saying this is that China is the single reason that we have not seen the barrel of oil at a much higher price than we have seen. They have basically single-handedly balanced the supply and demand story in oil by controlling it, thanks to their massive reserves.

And you can actually see here how the stockpiles of China have been evolving and how it allows them to be picky on when they decide to import depending on the price and depending on how they position themselves geopolitically. We believe that the power of OPEC as a producing block is now in the oil markets moving to even more to China as a big buyer, and the numbers show it. And actually, you see this on this slide as well, whereas you see that the non-Chinese Asian importers have very quickly increased their imports above the levels that we saw last year.

China is still way below the levels that they had last year at the beginning of the year. And this is really something to watch because as the situation in the Middle East normalizes, it will be very interesting to see how quickly China will start restocking or whether they will wait for lower prices. Moving to the container markets. As I said, the exposure of our company on containers is not very high. I think the one thing I can say about the container market is that it has been much better performing than what we would have expected. This Red Sea unwinding has been delayed, meaning that more vessels are rerouting via Africa, meaning more vessels are needed.

Volumes have been actually also better than expected. So all in all, container markets are good. But I said this in the previous quarters, we are cautious when we look at the supply and demand going forward because there's still a lot of ships on order. Chemical tankers, our fleet of 16 vessels, 8 are on the water, another 8 will be delivered. Most of our fleet is fixed on 10-year and 7-year contracts. We have 2 ships operating in a pool. You can see the results there. The chemical market is actually doing relatively okay.

We are watching the product tanker markets whether they will keep up at a certain level or where they will start eating into the chemical tanker market. But so far, we believe we are in an okay situation. We are watching the order book for '27 and '28. And then finishing off with a very nice picture of our Windcat Rotterdam and the offshore wind markets. We have recently fixed 2 of our CSOVs to the offshore oil and gas for 2 years.

We are seeing in the CSOV market, it's a market of the wind on the one hand, which is necessitating extra CTVs, extra CSOVs, but where projects have been a little bit slow to materialize over the past 2 years and a combination of the offshore oil and gas markets, which are actually needing modern vessels and are pulling away some of the wind vessels into their market. If you combine both, with the order books of CSOVs that we are seeing this year in '27 and in '28, the market is very well balanced and actually, the market is quite strong.

You can see that we achieved some very good rates in the second quarter on our CSOVs of $64,000. For Q3, we have already booked 2/3 of our days at $50,000, which, as you can see with the breakeven numbers are very good and profitable for our Windcat division. That sums up the presentation. There is one point I wanted to mention, which we have not tackled, but we have received quite a few questions about our bond. As you know, on the 14th of September, our bond expires we have decided to repay the bond from our own cash that we have available. So we intend to repay the bonds on the 14th of September.

We will not refinance the bond. We will repay it. I will hand over now to Enya for the Q&A.

Enya Derkinderen: [Operator Instructions]. So now we will take the first question that is coming from -- through the Morkedal.

Frode Morkedal: This is Frode from Clarksons. Yes, I think you started with the bond, just to confirm, that won't impact the dividends as you see it, hopefully.

Alexander Saverys: No, we don't expect this to impact the dividends.

Frode Morkedal: Yes. So the dividend has been 2 quarters right now with 50% payout. So that seems like a new trend as we expected. So yes, I guess investors should still think 50% of net profit, including vessel sales gains is the de facto policy. Of course, I understand that you have like you can change it, but it seems like a good target.

Alexander Saverys: It seems like a very good target. But as you correctly say, we are not going to change our policy. But look, it's been 2 quarters where we have tried to achieve that level. And depending on our investments, depending on new projects that might come up, we believe that trying to reward our shareholders at this level is a thing we want to continue to do.

Frode Morkedal: That's very good. Yes. So it seems like you're a bit concerned on the tanker order book and you have sold off ships. So how do you weigh, let's say, and you even sold this modern ship, Suezmax 2014 build, right? 2024 build?

Alexander Saverys: '24, yes.

Frode Morkedal: Yes. So how do you weigh continue holding on to these ships that make a lot of cash flow versus selling at this time?

Alexander Saverys: Frode, there's always 3 things you can do. You operate spots, you fix on TC or you sell your vessel. And we believe that definitely on some of the vessels that we have sold, the price that we saw was something that we should do because of the extreme value that we could create. Does that mean that we will sell even more vessels? No. It's really on a case-per-case basis. We like the tanker market. As you know, we have some charter cover on some of our vessels. We have some very modern assets still in our fleet.

But I think just look at the numbers over the past 30 years, prices we are seeing today, particularly for some of our VLCCs and Suezmaxes are an opportunity we want to take and then take some money off the table.

Frode Morkedal: Yes. Makes sense. And any capital gain you are -- that's included in the dividend. That's very good. Just like the last question I had, like bigger picture. It seems like some of these Middle East companies that are buying up tankers to run the shuttle services and you can pay a lot basically for tanker assets today. So how do you feel about the current, let's say, vessel value and potential for further increases?

Alexander Saverys: I think it's already very high. Can it increase more? It can definitely increase more. I agree with you that some of the Middle Eastern operators are taking a strategic view where the price they pay for the ship is not as important as having the security of an access to a vessel that can shuttle out their oil. It remains to be seen how long this will last. But for the time being, there are still definitely buyers out there that want to buy secondhand tonnage at these kind of prices.

Frode Morkedal: Yes. Which makes sense, of course. If you're one of these guys that can ship out oil from the inside the Middle East, you're making more than 500,000 per day or something like that, right? So obviously, the payback on any ship is quite high. And so you have a group of people that basically sets the price for the whole market. So that's very interesting dynamics. Anyway, that's all the question I had.

Enya Derkinderen: Then we move on. Kristof Samoy.

Kristof Samoy: Kristof Samoy, KBC Securities. Congrats on the results, Alexander. Yes, it seems like the pieces of the puzzle are falling perfectly in place for you guys. I mean the recycling cash in crude tankers. Golden Ocean acquisition was very well timed. This was the newbuild ordering of the NUCs at Bocimar. Yes. And then I come back again on capital allocation because you indicate that new builds is expensive, steel is expensive. You declared a new cash return of 60%. The loan-to-value is coming down. You have an across the cycle LTV target of 50%.

But -- could you maybe like give a hint for a range at peak or trough asset values where you feel comfortable at being a diversified shipping platform? That would be first. And then second, on bunker fuels, could you quantify the impact, if any, on vessel supply to speed reductions in the dry bulk segment that you have seen in the market over the past quarter? And then as a follow-up, concerning the situation in the Middle East, is there any risk in a certain region that there will not be -- that there will be bunker fuel shortages that could impact your operations?

Alexander Saverys: Okay. Thanks a lot, Kristof. So first, a question on the target on LTV. We have a target throughout the cycle of 50%. And your question is, if that significantly improves, will this change your capital allocation strategy, for instance, on dividends or investments or divestments? I would say that today, it's probably a little bit too early to say because we are only in the second quarter of this very strong market. We would like to see how much legs this market has, before we really want to change our capital allocation strategy. So we will keep a discretionary dividend policy.

We will keep on telling you that even though we come at the end of our CapEx program, there could be investments down the line. I'm not seeing any obvious ones right now. I've said this in the last quarterly call, new buildings are very expensive. I'm not excluding one-off new buildings, interesting projects that we could do. But it's too early, Kristof, to basically state something new than we have said in the past. If this changes, if we see after another 1 or 2 very strong quarters, more visibility on cash flows into 2027, then we might change it. On the availability of fuels, it's a very good question.

We have the general availability in the market, I think, is relatively okay. There are some places where fuel availability is more challenging. And there are certain shipowners and operators that have more difficulty accessing their fuel because they don't have the same network than we have. As you know, we are partners with TFG on the bunkering side. And definitely, on the CMB.TECH fleet, fuel availability has not been a major issue over the last couple of months. Continuing on to your question on fuel availability in the Middle East, are we expecting big shortages in certain areas? Again, I can say what I just said on the previous question.

So far, we think we will find the fuels that are necessary. You never know, of course, what the future will bring, but there's no specific shortage in a specific area where we go. We normally find our fuels.

Enya Derkinderen: And the next person is Climent Molins.

Climent Molins: This is Climent Molins from Value Investor's Edge. I want to follow up on Frode's question on your stance on tankers. Should the agreement be reached with Iran, what do you think would happen with the dark fleet previously involved in that trade? In other words, to what extent would the scrapping of the dark fleet offset the potential impact from newbuilds on your scenarios?

Alexander Saverys: Okay. So I'm going to give you my opinion, which you might agree or disagree with. I don't think the dark fleet will disappear overnight. I think there's 50 shades of gray now. It's not just the dark fleet and a white fleet. There's very different trades going on now from totally illegal trades to totally legal trades. All the vessels that are active in these trades will, in my humble opinion, continue to find trades even if a peace deal with Iran is achieved.

Climent Molins: Okay. That's helpful. And we've seen a lot of containership owners ordering newbuilds in recent months, but you haven't pulled the trigger. Could you talk a bit about the reasoning for holding off on additional investments on that space despite the long-term charters attached to most of these newbuilds?

Alexander Saverys: Very good question. We have not seen an opportunity that's interesting enough for us to move on, but we keep on monitoring what is happening.

Climent Molins: Okay. Makes sense. And last one for me. I wanted to ask about the time charter you signed with Fortescue. Could you talk a bit about the underlying dynamics of the contracts?

Alexander Saverys: Yes. Good question, Climent, and you're not the only one asking. So what we announced, again, there's a lot of confidential items to the deal. But what I can say, it's a framework agreement over 12 ships, which is a combination of ammonia-ready vessels, fully fitted ammonia ships and ships that we will retrofit at a later stage. And we are working together with Fortescue within this framework as the vessels deliver and come on the water to see on which periods we will deploy them at which rates and whether we will use ammonia on board, yes or no. So it's an ongoing process under a framework agreement with Fortescue.

Enya Derkinderen: Then [ Li Ri ].

Unknown Analyst: I'm [ Li Ri ] [indiscernible]. I'm 32 years old. I live in Belgium, and I'm really happy to be investing in CMB.TECH, which is quite a large-scale business. So my question is very simple. Would there be an impact or negative impact on the numbers when, for example, Iran and United States come to a peace deal?

Alexander Saverys: Well, thank you, Li, for dialing in. Very happy that you're an investor in our company. The impact of a peace deal between Iran and U.S. is very difficult to assess because you would have to look at what does the peace deal mean? What are the consequences of a peace deal. Now one of the consequences that you could see is that the Strait of Hormuz opens up and that tankers can again freely go in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. Now many things can happen then. You could see a very positive impact for tanker rates if suddenly China imports a lot more oil to restock their reserves.

And then they would send a lot of tankers to the Middle East and ship all that oil to China. You could actually also see a negative impact if China does not do that, and countries like India, Vietnam, Thailand source their oil from the Middle East because they can go through Hormuz instead of from the Atlantic Basin, the distance the oil will travel to and from is much shorter, which means that you will see less demand for ships. The answer to your question, therefore, lies -- there's many different aspects to it. But I think predominantly in what will China do.

If there's a peace deal between Iran and U.S., is China going to massively reimport oil and go back to the situation before January 2026? Or will they wait and hold off a little bit, in which case, I think you could see the market -- the freight market cool off.

Enya Derkinderen: [ Toba ]?

Unknown Analyst: [ Toba ] from the [ TED]. I was wondering when we expect a lot of newbuild ships coming to the market for Suezmax and VLCCs, does it mean that this is a market which will become less attractive for Euronav and that it's time to scale back operations in oil tanking markets?

Alexander Saverys: Thanks for your question, Toba. It is clear that when all the vessels deliver and if at the same time, freight rates go down, Euronav will make less money than what we are making today. We are trying to counter that by selling some of our vessels at these rates that we see today and by trying to take some cover, charter cover so that when the market corrects, we still enjoy higher rates. The big issue that we have, Toba, which I cannot predict is when will this happen.

And as we don't know when it will happen, we want to be prudent and make sure that we have done some part of our homework in taking cover before the market turns.

Enya Derkinderen: We have also received some questions in the Q&A. So we will go to those ones now. First question, what are your expectations for the upcoming IMO meeting?

Alexander Saverys: That's a very good question. Well, let me tell you first what my hope is. I truly hope that the world can come together at the IMO and agree on a clear and simple and certain framework. The uncertainty surrounding a decarbonization framework is not good for the shipping industry, whether you invest in decarbonized solutions like us or where you don't invest in decarbonized solutions. Uncertainty is not good for business. So I'm hoping that there will be clarity at the next meeting. Now what my expectations are, I have low expectations.

I don't think we should be fooled after the United States put a lot of pressure together with some other countries last year to cancel or postpone the deal. I don't think their viewpoint has changed. But we can be surprised to the upside. I do believe there's a big role for China in the discussions. There's a big role for Europe to try to see if they can make a coalition of the willing and push through some legislation. So hoping for the best, low expectations. Let's see what happens in November.

Enya Derkinderen: Okay. And then we have 2 questions on the tankers, so I'll add them together. First question, if we compare the spot TCE rate you realized in Q2 on your VLCC, seems to be a bit below compared to other tanker needs. Is it because the routes you have exposure to? Or are there any other factors that could explain the difference? Then the second one, how is CMB.TECH thinking in regards to the mix between TCE and spot exposure?

Alexander Saverys: Yes. Well, on the first question, we had some newbuilding deliveries. We had some positioning voyages, which in the second quarter affected our results a little bit. On the split between TCE and spot, it's just a financial exercise. If we can charter out our vessels at good rates, we will do so. If we think being spot will generate more revenue, then we will do so as well. And we've done both. We have fixed some of our Suezmaxes on period business, whilst we have kept some of our VLCCs on the spot market.

Enya Derkinderen: Okay. Perfect. I think this concludes the Q&A session.

Alexander Saverys: Thank you very much. Thank you, Enya. And I would like to thank all the participants to the call for dialing in. As we said before, if you have any follow-up questions, don't hesitate to contact my colleague, Joris, and he will gladly answer your questions. Thank you, and see you next time.

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