Dorian LPG (NYSE:LPG) reported fourth-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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The full earnings call is available at https://viavid.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1763349&tp_key=a37e2a0ce5
Summary
Dorian LPG reported a strong financial performance for Q4 2026, with $82 million cash flow from operations and a dividend increase to $1 per share, reflecting robust market conditions.
The company completed strategic fleet transactions including the sale of the Cobra, generating a gain of approximately $30 million, and the repurchase of the Corsair, enhancing liquidity and flexibility.
Future outlook remains positive, with expectations for continued strong LPG trade despite geopolitical tensions; the company is focused on fleet expansion and maintaining a solid balance sheet.
Operational highlights include high fleet utilization at 97.8% and significant TCE earnings per day, driven by favorable VLGC market conditions.
Management emphasized a balanced capital allocation strategy, prioritizing shareholder returns through dividends while being open to fleet reinvestment opportunities.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Thank you for your continued patience. please press Star zero and a member of our team will be happy to help you. Please stand by. Your meeting is about to begin. Good morning and welcome to the Dorian LPG fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Additionally, a live audio webcast of today’s conference call is available on Dorian LPG’s website, which is www.dorianlpg.com. i would now like to turn the conference over to Ted Young, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you Mr. Young. Please go ahead.
Ted Young (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks Madison, Good morning everyone and thank you all for joining us for our fourth quarter 2026 results conference call. With me today are John Hajibateras, Chairman, President and CEO of Dorian LPG Ltd.; John Lacouris, Head of Energy Transition; and Tim Hansen, Chief Commercial Officer. As a reminder, this conference call, webcast and a replay of this call will be available through May 27, 2026, Many of our remarks today contain forward looking statements based on current expectations. These statements may often be identified with words such as expect, anticipate, believe or similar indications of future expectations. Although we believe that such forward looking statements are reasonable, we cannot assure you that any forward looking statements will prove to be correct. These forward looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors as well as general economic conditions. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or should underlying assumptions or estimates prove to be incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those we express today. Additionally, let me refer you to our unaudited results for the quarterly and annual periods ended March 31, 2026 that were filed this morning on Form 8K. In addition, please refer to our previous filings on Forms 10K and 10-Q where you’ll find risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward looking statements. Please note that we expect to file our full 10-K no later than May 29, 2026. Finally, I would encourage you to review the investor highlight slides posted this morning on our website. With that, I’ll turn over the call to John Hajibateras.
John Hajibateras (Chairman, President and CEO)
Thank you Ted and thanks for joining us. Today. My colleagues will share some useful and interesting information about the past quarters and our views of the market. First, I’d like to say a few words on capital allocation and provide some historical context on fleet development which relates to risk management in a volatile market with a view to capturing upside. Today’s price of a new building VLGC at approximately 115 million reflects an increase of approximately 2.5% per annum over the cost of our first VLGC which was delivered to our predecessor company 20 years ago. It was ordered for a price of approximately 65 million in 2004. When she was delivered in 2006, the new building replacement cost was over 90 million. From 2009 to 2012 the new building price hovered in the low 70 million range and the next order we placed was in 2012 for advanced echo type series at just under 70 million each. The new building prices stayed in the $70 million range until 2021. The total VLGC fleet in 2005 comprised 102 ships. Today the total fleet is 427 VLGCs and there are about 124 ships on order representing nearly 30% of the existing fleet compared to the all time high of more than 50% in 2007. Our owned fleet comprises 18 echo type with efficiency enhancing features and two new fuel ships. The average age of Our fleet is 10.3 years. In the next few years we hope to expand our fleet by adding new ships and expect that the catalyst for our investment in replacement tonnage will be innovation in the design and efficiency of new buildings. The advent of ultra long stroke electronic engines informed our investment decision in 2012 and the development of dual fuel engines supported our decisions for our investments in the Captain Marcos delivered in 2023 and via our VLGC Rion delivered a couple of months ago. We have witnessed the volatility I’ve described and we’ve been the beneficiaries of a tremendous increase in the volume of seaborne trade of LPG in both absolute terms and in ton mile terms. We have confidence in the further expansion of this trade and our intention is, as always with our capital allocation to proceed judiciously. Mindful of our steadfast commitment to maintaining a solid balance sheet. We believe that this is the route by which we can earn the best return for our investors and continue to provide top quality services to our customers and a safe and fair working environment for our people at sea and onshore. And now I’ll pass you on to Ted.
Ted Young (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks John. My comments today will focus on capital allocation, our financial position and liquidity and our unaudited Fourth Quarter Results We’ve been active since the beginning of calendar 2026 in growing our business and rewarding shareholders. First, we took delivery of the Arianee in late March, our fully ammonia capable 93,000 cbm VLGC. As you would expect, she immediately started contributing to earnings and though we won’t see the P and L impact until the first quarter of our fiscal 2027, the most recent irregular dividend of a dollar per share, a significant increase from the prior quarters reflected the strong underlying market and our board’s commitment to creating shareholder value. Second, we completed the sale of the 2015 built Cobra in May, paying off $16.5 million of debt in the process. We expect to generate a gain on sale of approximately $30 million from her sale and I would note that her sale price was actually greater than her contract price in 2015. Finally, we will complete the repurchase of the Corsair for her sale leaseback before month end, which will require a payment of about $24.2 million in total and positions us to be flexible with any potential opportunities. At March 31, 2026 we reported $327.4 million of free cash which was sequentially up from the previous quarter. Cash flow from operations was $82 million or nearly $2 per share, and as we noted in our press Release, we borrowed $62.9 million upon closing of the delivery of the Ariane, covering the final payment to the yard. As we disclosed then, the ariane loan has two tranches, one 7 years and one 12 years and a weighted average margin between the two tranches of 125 basis points over SOFR. We closed the fiscal year therefore with a debt balance of 565.8 million, but given the payoff of the debt in connection with the sale of the COBRA and the Corsair repurchase, the pro forma balance would be 524.7 million. Based on our stated book, however, quarter end of 565 point million of debt, our debt to total book cap stood at 33.2% and net debt to total cap of 14%. We continue to have well structured and attractively priced debt capital with a current all in cost of about 5 million, an undrawn revolver of 42.9 million and one debt free vessel. Coupled with our strong free cash balance we have a comfortable measure of financial flexibility. We expect our cash cost per day for the coming year to be approximately 26,000 per day excluding capital expenditures for the dry docking of the Captain John which is currently planned for our fourth fiscal quarter. For the discussion of our fourth quarter results, you may find it useful to refer to the investor highlight slides posted this morning on our website. I remind you that my remarks will include a number of terms such as tce, available Days and adjusted ebitda. Please refer to our filings for the definitions of these terms. Looking at Our fourth Quarter Chartering Results since our entire spot trading program is conducted through the Helios Pool, its reported spot results are the best measure of our spot chartering performance. For the March 31st quarter, the Helios Pool earned a Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) per day for its spot and COA voyages of 65,600 per day, reflecting more favorable VLGC market conditions. Our utilization improved sequentially to 97.8% this quarter from 94.6% in the prior quarter as the last of our dry dockings for the 2014-2016 class was completed. The overall Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) result for the pool of nearly 63,300 per day reflects that very strong rate environment as well as our time Charter out portfolio. On page four of our Investor Highlights material, you can see that we have six Dorian vessels on time charter within the pool, indicating spot exposure of just over 80% for the 31 vessels in the Helios pool. Dorian’s reported Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) revenue per available day for the quarter was about $63,615, which is the second highest Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) rate we have earned in our corporate existence. For the year, we earned 52,238 per day with the fourth quarter completely offsetting our sector’s relatively slow start to the fiscal year. The current rate environment remains healthy, though Panama Canal transit fees are having an impact on realized rates. We’d note that most posted Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) rates do not include auction fees for VLGCs transiting the canal, which have ranged from 200,000 to as high as 4 million in the last and also they do not include the effect of ballasting around the Cape of Good Hope, which can also have a significant impact on realized Time Charter Equivalent (TCE)s. We plan to issue our forward booking information in the near future. Daily OPEX for The quarter was $9,548, excluding dry docking related expenses, which was virtually flat with the prior quarter’s 9,558. Our gross time charter in expense for the six TCN vessels came in at 18.4 …
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