Good morning, and a warm welcome to Höegh Autoliners' second quarter presentation. My name is My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, and we have with me our CEO, Andreas Enger, and our CFO, Espen Stubberød, will walk you through the last quarter update.

As usual, you can send questions to our Investor Relations mailbox at [email protected], and we will address these questions during our Q&A session at the end. With that, I will hand it over to you, Andreas.

Thank you, My Linh. Welcome to this presentation.

This has been an exceptional quarter in many ways, exceptional in the sense that we've had the strongest customer demand growth, I think I've ever seen, where we could have filled multiple vessels if we had them. It's been exceptional also then in the tightness of the capacity market with increased charter rates.

It has been exceptional in disruptions, both in terms of fuel costs and in terms of cargo displacement bound for the Middle East due to the conflict in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. That, in some way, warrants a slightly deeper dive than usually into the underlying factors, but we will run you through the presentation and then, as My Linh said, respond to Q&A session afterwards.

Starting with the quarter highlights. The market for ro-ro services is exceptionally strong.

Car exports out of Asia growing 31% year-on-year in the first half. China increased by 68% year-on-year, again creating an exceptional demand for capacity that is also fairly substantially underserved.

That has tightened the capacity market, charter rates climbing further, and newbuild order books fully absorbed by the Chinese growth. We're coming into that in some more detail.

It's also been very much colored by the conflict in the Middle East. It's been for us a huge disruption, with 16,000 cars bound for the Middle East displaced, but also successfully managed during the quarter.

While, as we said, the quarter is upset by this shock together with the fuel price, we do expect normal cash conversion and full run-rate BAF compensation within the third quarter. It is as a summary, a market situation that is strong and is remaining strong.

There has been some exceptional disruptions that we will dive into that has largely been dealt with and will soon be behind us. Starting with the Middle East conflict.

We have strong position serving the Middle East market. We have regular voyages into the Middle East, and obviously, the disruption with the outset of the war or the military escalation is substantial.

Right now, as we speak, we have no vessels inside and no cargo displaced as a result of that. We're coming back to what happened and how we got to where we are now.

On the financial side, the elevated fuel prices and, I think, the fairly well-known lag in our BAF revenues impacts the quarter. The costs related to rerouting and disrupted cargo is fully compensated by customers, but it does create additional costs and receivables that takes slightly longer to collect due to the extraordinary nature of the costs.

That, in sum, creates a working capital build-up that also unfortunately covers this quarter. Let's start with the effects of the Strait of Hormuz.

As I said, we had more than 16,000 cars en route to the Middle East when the Straits were closed. They ended up in being unloaded in the Caribbean, in Mozambique, in India, and in Sri Lanka, and a few back in Europe.

That created a huge disruption and substantial costs in terms of both storage and then finding solutions to bring these cars somewhere, and we've worked closely with customers. We found good solutions.

All of these units have found an home. All the costs are covered.

Again, there is a slightly longer invoicing cycle. Although coming back, most of these costs are now actually also paid and collected, but it created a longer cycle than building working capital.

That was obviously compounded with the fuel price. I think there are two effects that are important in that.

We have an average fuel inventory on board of 2 months. When the fuel price increases to the extent it does now, it basically substantially increases our fuel inventory.

It's also a structural delay in the compensation. The additional fuel cost is fully passed on to customers, but it is with a delay that then also is creating delays in revenues and building working capital.

We do expect the full run-rate BAF compensation within Q3. Our 5-year average fuel cost recovery is 95%.

We are considering this to be temporary effects. In a declining fuel prices, there is also a recovery or sort of positive effect on that, although I don't think we're going to guide on oil prices in the current geopolitical situation.

Those effects combined created then a working capital growth of $54 million in the quarter. As we said, net increase in receivables of $25 million, now mostly collected.

The fuel inventory obviously staying high with the oil prices, but as a one-off effect. In sum, a substantial effect on the quarter that obviously, given our dividend policy being strictly linked to end-of-quarter cash, has an impact on the quarterly dividend.

That brings us to the highlights: $122 million of EBITDA, $86 million of profit after tax, a gross rate of $94, and one new vessel, a feeder vessel, delivered; a continued high equity ratio; a result that if you factor in the delayed fuel cost and the costs of some vessel disruptions and not being able to serve the Middle East market fully is, in our view, a strong quarter, unfortunately with then the working capital effects taking down dividends for this quarter. To go a little bit deeper into the market side, I think it's important to recognize an extremely strong growth in Far East exports, primarily Chinese exports, with a 73% growth in light vehicle exports a year-on-year, a 41% in construction equipments, a little bit under-communicated, but there's strong development in that one as well.

It's tightening capacity. It's also creating a larger system imbalance that also contributes to consuming ro-ro capacity, with the eastbound trades being largely flat with the westbound trades growing strongly.

Chinese car exports is continuing to grow with successors, high quality, well-priced products, building market share across the world. The 2026 growth alone consumes something like 100 car carriers in order to transport.

It is a very, very strong, and we believe well-justified based on the products and price points, and also sort of a, given the growth across the world, also a sustainable or a structural market change that we expect to be here to stay. With the lack of ro-ro capacity, that has led to strong increase in cars shipped in containers or other means of transportation.

We estimate that to be about a million, 1.5 million cars in the first half of 2026. By experience from this also to some extent happened after the pandemics, and our experience is that these volumes will largely return to ro-ro when capacity becomes available, it also contributes to further tightening the capacity market, but also represents a buffer if and when markets normalize.

We remain to have a strong backlog. We are totally sold out for 2026.

I think given what I've said, we probably would have some opportunity if we weren't, but that is where we are. We also have a strong backlog into 2027.

I think the situation in the market is now also changing the kind of somewhat limited, but still the contract renewals as an upside opportunity rather than a risk given that we see the market remaining tight into and through 2027. Our contract situation is strong.

I think the sort of contract renewals represents an upside, and so that the market outlook, in our view, remains quite strong and strongly colored by the lack of available ro-ro capacity out of Asia. Going a little bit into the capacity side as well.

We are through the peak in newbuild deliveries. We are also heading towards a scrapping period where between now and 2030, a fairly substantial part of the older fleet will pass 30 years of age, which is the normal scrapping age for car carriers.

That is also clearly reflected where we saw the 20 23, 24 very, very high charter rates falling sharply on expected normalized capacity balances into 2020 through 2025 and is now again on a sharply increasing trajectory, which I think can be fairly well explained if you look back by this slide where we basically look at net fleet growth against Chinese export growth back all the way back till 2020, where you basically saw when market tightened in 2022, 2023, the growth grossly exceeded the newbuild deliveries or the fleet growth. In 2024, 2025, it somewhat reversed where, with the peak of the newbuild delivery, new capacity into the market slightly exceeded the Chinese export growth.

It's now been turned around again in 2026 with the increase in Chinese exports creating a gap that we currently estimate roughly 70-plus, 74 ships. It is kind of a fairly close link between the evolution of Chinese export growth and vessel deliveries that has during 2026, towards the end of 2025 into 2026, changed the dynamic of a loosening capacity balance into actually a sharply tightening, which is where we are right now.

In that picture, we're obviously very, very pleased to have our first eight Aurora vessels in full operation. They are performing very well.

They are also allowing us to deliver record carbon intensity. We're running LNG, which is helpful, but it's mostly efficiency, it also actually impacts obviously our operating costs and the operating economics.

We are also obviously looking forward to getting the first four dual-fuel VLSFO-ammonia vessels delivered from next year, mid next year onwards. We also, in that sense, I think, we are strongly committed.

We did, I think, innovate the PCT capacity market by basically introducing a new class of vessels being larger and with more fuel flexibility and efficiency. We now see how that works out where the cash cost of our newbuild vessels are almost a tiny fraction of the current charter market in cost.

It's also substantially lower than it would have been to build the cheaper, smaller 7,000 or 7,500 vessels. We are rapidly building the most competitive class of vessels in the industry, and we have now also acquired substantial operating experience, and we are quite comfortable with how this plays out in terms of also long-term cost position.

That concludes my part of this presentation. I will then leave the word to Espen to go through the financial in some more detail.

Thank you, Andreas, and good morning. Our net rate is moving flat quarter-on-quarter and has been very stable over the last period.

Top line is up 4% in the second quarter quarter-on-quarter, driven by higher volumes, up 2.6% to 4 million cbm. We think that is a strong result considering the meaningful disruption to our network in the quarter.

Our EBITDA in the second quarter came in at $122 million. That's slightly ahead of what we guided in the first-quarter presentation.

It's down $23 million quarter-on-quarter, and we had a net fuel impact of $22 million, which is explaining the drop in performance. Our fuel cost was up $21 million quarter-on-quarter, and we had a negative impact from BAF revenues of $1 million quarter-on-quarter following changes to our cargo mix.

We had a net profit before tax reduction of 16% or $16 million, mitigated by a gain from debt modification following a refinancing in June. Looking at our EBITDA bridge, as mentioned, we had $21 million extra in fuel costs.

We also had, as Andreas already mentioned, additional operational expenses related to the Middle East routing: extra storage costs, extra discharge costs, and canal costs, as well as some costs related to us putting our cargo on third-party vessels, which is increasing charter hire expenses. These costs have been invoiced to clients and is offset by additional revenues.

We are continuing to using the short-term capacity market, and some of the increase in charter expenses is also reflecting the tightness of that market. Our balance sheet remains strong.

Our net debt to EBITDA up to 1.3 times following a lower cash balance at the end of the quarter and an increase in right-of-use assets as we have taken delivery of one feeder vessel on a long lease, and we also extended one feeder vessel for 1 year. Equity ratio remains stable.

We end the quarter with $216 million in cash, and we have liquidity reserves through our revolver of $197 million. As Andreas already talked to, our cash generation in the second quarter has been meaningfully impacted by increase in working capital, with increased fuel inventory and also higher receivables.

We expect working capital to be reversed in coming months. We had an operating cash flow of $67 million in the second quarter.

We had normal capex related to drydocks, vessel upgrades, and also one newbuilding installment for Aurora vessel number 9 of $16 million. We had normal debt and lease payments of $35 million as well as a $94 million dividend paid to shareholders.

We have refinanced both our bank facilities over the last 6 months. We already announced that we extended our liquidity reserve, the $200 [million?]

revolver we have, in the first quarter. We extended it by 2 years up to 2030.

In the second quarter, we also extended our main 640 bank facility. We're quite pleased to have achieved a 8-year tenor, increasing then maturity by 4 years up to 2034, and also meaningful reduction in margin and more favorable covenants.

As Andreas said, we have a cash-based quarterly dividend, and that gives some volatility in a very special quarter like the second quarter. We will be paying out $16 million, which is the excess cash above our targeted cash balance, in August.

With that, Andreas, I hand it back to you for the outlook.

Thank you, Espen. Yes, and with the outlook starting with the market.

Demand for ocean transportation is accelerated, supported primarily by strong growth in exports from China, both for vehicles and high and heavy equipment. The capacity market is further tightening, 60% increase in July charter index prices, obviously also then creating a limit to our flexibility on the capacity side, but also reflecting a very strong market.

Q3 remains impacted by high fuel prices and delayed BAF revenue, but cash conversion is expected back to normal in Q3. Normalized performance with full run-rate BAF compensation is expected within the third quarter, and Q3 EBITDA is expected then to be roughly in line with Q2.

That's our guidance. Very, very strong market.

Still some of the kind of effects from the fuel and BAF accounting-wise coming into the quarter, less cash-wise, but the underlying market suggests continued strong demand and continuing full utilization and also a strong environment for contract renewals. Thank you.

Thank you, Andreas and Espen. We can start our Q&A sessions.

We have received a few questions from our online audience during the presentations. The first set of questions is coming from analyst Sondre Schneider from Nordea.

First, on networking capital, we talk a little bit about that in a previously slide, and then we guide for normalization of cash conversion in Q3, within Q3. How can we say again about how is the outlook for the underlying networking capital level, and can we say a little bit more about expectation of reversal, and when we can expect that?

No, I think as we said, it's a very special quarter for us, and the working capital build-up is significant. It's driven by two two two things.

It's the fuel inventory following higher fuel prices, which will come down when fuel price come down. The other part is the increase in receivables, and that is related to this rerouting of Middle East cargo, 16,000 units, big volumes spread out on different locations.

This volume is from our largest clients, some of our absolutely biggest customers. We're not concerned we will not get paid, but it takes longer to process for our biggest clients because this is non-contractual cargo moves with additional surcharges and so forth.

The increase in receivables at the end of the quarter is related to those Middle East cargo moves that wasn't paid at the end of the quarter, but is largely paid today.

Thank you, Espen. The second question, surcharge lag.

For this quarter, we highlight a surcharge lags of 5 to 6 months. Isn't that somewhat longer than the previously commentary about one quarter?

I think for this questions, I can just take it. It's consistent with our previously guidance of surcharge lag of 5-6 months.

It's the combination of the two main factors. It's the time lag nature of the BAF, where the price charged to customer is based on the previous quarterly price, and the periodization effect.

Do you want to add something more?

No, basically what that means is that we load cargo and invoice, and it takes a while and before actually the work is fully done, and the actual BAF revenues is periodized over that period while it's invoiced separately, yeah.

Yes. The next question is about capacity.

Höegh added two charters for the quarter. How is the view on capacity needs going forward with regards to the contract backlog?

I think there are two two answers to that. In terms of the contract backlog, we are largely covered.

In terms of the market opportunities, we will clearly at all times be looking for additional capacity because we have good opportunities to put more capacity to work. We will, given our very, very attractive cost of newbuilds, we will be very careful going into long commitments at pricing that is substantially above newbuild parity, which it is today.

Thank you, Andreas. Contract renewals, can we say a little bit about the sentiment and dynamics in contract renewals this year compared to last year?

Can we say a little bit more about the rate level and directions and the duration we are seeing?

I I think it's it's it's a very fairly simple, maybe a bit complicated as well, but but I think when when you also looked at If we go back to 2024 and '25, you've had an environment where we expected the newbuild deliveries to catch up with the demand growth. I think the the kind of contracting market was probably more in a in a less-for-longer mindset.

We're now in a situation where the capacity market is tightened, the availability of of lease or charter tonnage is both limited and and very, very expensive, and and a lot of our Asian customers had simply have, uncovered transportation needs, going into containers and and and and chasing solutions. The dynamic is is is fundamentally changed and is more back to sort of the earlier days where So so it is it it is it is changed, and and it's mainly driven by the fact that there is large uncovered transportation needs.

There's more cargo going into containers. There is not sufficient ro-ro capacity on offer, and there is no easy way to get it through the through the charter market that that changes dynamics quite substantially.

Thank you, Andreas. The next question is about the spot exposure.

Höegh Autoliners has previously been successful with a somewhat higher spot exposure during tight markets. Could this be a strategic play going forward given the tight market, or will we continue to pivot towards a longer contract?

First I think right now, would we have wanted to have more spot capacity? Yes.

I still think over the cycle that we have spent the last couple of years building strong relations with our existing large customers and also a number of growing customers. We believe in our business that that is valuable.

We will continue that strategy. I don't think we will seek to go back to higher spot exposure.

We are very pleased with our newbuild effort creating capacity. Which I think is also indicating some of the tightness on the market, we have chosen to do 30-year class renewal on a couple of vessels, which is something that we generally do not like to do because of both the fuel efficiency and the cost of those vessels.

We are obviously actively chasing capacity. Good part is that with the exceptional performance of the Aurora class, we are still managing to provide market-leading performance in terms of reducing our carbon footprint and efficiency.

The capacity game is basically rather closer to where it was 2 or 3 years ago while the last year and a half, I think it's been colored by the expectation of the market balance on capacity softening, which has sharply reversed during the first half of 2026, obviously changing the market dynamics substantially.

Thank you for the elaborating answer, Andreas. The next question from analyst Oliver Durnbøll, ABG SC.

It's about operations. With the extreme export growth out of Asia, are we seeing an increase port congestions in the West?

Are the terminals able to handle all the volumes?

I would say generally yes. The port congestion issue, if should say, is more a question the disruption in the Middle East is creating a huge appetite for alternative routes where you don't have the structure.

The challenge of actually serving the Middle East market is remaining. Obviously, port congestions is increasing with the larger volumes, but I think it's mostly related to Middle East being a fairly substantial market, not being able to be served through the traditional as well of port infrastructure is creating ongoing challenges.

Thank you, Andreas. Yes.

The next set of question from analyst Jørgen Lian, DNB Carnegie. We already answer in details about the stickiness of the higher networking capital and the TC higher and capacity market, so that's why we're not going to ask this question again.

The next question is about the outlook of Q3 EBITDA in line with the current quarter. Is saying, isn't it implying that there's an underlying numbers of the Q2 cost you guide for the Q1 report, mainly the $20 million Q-on-Q fuel cost and the $10 million Q-on-Q Middle East disruption costs, is still extending into Q3?

Can we elaborate about the in-line guiding of the Q3 EBITDA?

In the first quarter, we guided that we would have a $20 million impact from fuel, and we had a $22 million net fuel impact, so that was according to our guidance. Underlying performance improved somewhat, we came in ahead of our guidance, and we have been able to invoice all the additional costs related to this rerouting to our clients.

I think we also were very prompt to handle this disruption, actually being able to grow volumes from the first to the second quarter. I think we have been very clear that when you have a spike in oil prices, that takes 5 to 6 months.

It takes two quarters for us to come through the P&L fully. We have a 95% recovery over time, but it takes 5 to 6 months for us due to the length of our voyages and periodization over salts.

That's why we're saying that we'll have full BAF recovery within Q3.

I think if you add to that, the guiding, which is first we're always careful of guiding exactly on working capital because that's obviously difficult on a specific date. What we are clearly saying is that by the end of third quarter, we're back to normal run rates both in terms of EBITDA and cash, and we're saying that cash conversion is improving faster.

The obvious of the drag in Q3 is pretty much driven by the fact that we start the quarter in a still somewhat disrupted, as Espen says, environment, and we end the quarter in what we basically call My Linh Vu (Head of Investor Relations): Good morning, and a warm welcome to Höegh Autoliners' second quarter presentation. My name is My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, and we have with me our CEO, Andreas Enger, and our CFO, Espen Stubberød, will walk you through the last quarter update.

As usual, you can send questions to our Investor Relations mailbox at [email protected], and we will address these questions during our Q&A session at the end. With that, I will hand it over to you, Andreas.

Thank you, My Linh. Welcome to this presentation.

This has been an exceptional quarter in many ways, exceptional in the sense that we've had the strongest customer demand growth, I think I've ever seen, where we could have filled multiple vessels that if if more vessels if we had them. It's been exceptional also then in the tightness of the capacity market with increased charter rates.

It has been exceptional in disruptions, both in terms of fuel costs and in terms of cargo displacement bound for for the Middle East due to the the conflict in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. That, in some way, warrants a slightly deeper dive than usually into the underlying factors, but we will run you through the presentation and then, as My Linh said, respond to Q&A session afterwards.

Starting with the quarter highlights. The market for ro-ro services is exceptionally strong.

Car exports out of Asia growing 31% year-on-year in the first half. China increased by 68% year-on-year, again creating an exceptional demand for capacity that is, also fairly substantially underserved.

That has tightened the capacity market, charter rates climbing further, and new newbuild order books fully absorbed by the Chinese growth. We're coming into that in some more detail.

It's also been very much colored by the conflict in the Middle East. It's been for us a huge disruption, with 16,000 cars bound for the Middle East displaced, but also successfully managed during the quarter.

While, as we said, the the quarter is is upset by this, this shock together with the fuel price, we do expect normal cash conversion and full run-rate BAF compensation, within the third quarter. It is it is in in for as a summary, a market situation that is strong and is remaining strong.

There has been some exceptional disruptions that we will dive into that has largely been been dealt with and will soon be behind us. Starting with the Middle East conflict.

We have strong position serving the Middle East market. We have regular voyages into the Middle East, and obviously, the disruption with the with the outset of of the of the war or the military escalation is substantial.

Right now, as we speak, we have no vessels inside and no cargo displaced as as a result of that. We're coming back to, what happened and how we got to where we are now.

On the financial side, the elevated fuel prices and, I think, the fairly well-known lag in our BAF revenues impacts the quarter. The costs related to rerouting and disrupted cargo is fully compensated by customers, but it does create additional costs and receivables that takes slightly longer to collect due to the the, extraordinary nature of the costs.

That, in sum, creates a working capital build-up that that also unfortunately covers this quarter. Let's start with the effects of the Strait of Hormuz.

As I said, we have we had more than 16,000 cars en route to the Middle East when the Straits were closed. They ended up in being unloaded in the Caribbean, in Mozambique, in India, and in Sri Lanka, and and if and if and a few back back in in Europe.

That created a huge disruption and substantial costs in terms of both storage and then, finding solutions to bring these cars somewhere, and and we've worked closely with customers. We found good solutions.

All of these units have found an an home. All the costs are covered.

Again, there is a slightly longer invoicing cycle. Although coming back, most most of these costs are now actually also paid and collected, but but it created a longer cycle than building working capital.

That was obviously compounded with the fuel price. I think there are two there are two effects that are important in that.

We have an average fuel inventory on board of of 2 months. When the fuel price increases to the extent it does now, it it basically substantially increases our fuel inventory.

It's also a structural delay in in the compensation. The cost of that addition the additional fuel cost is fully passed on to customers, but it is it is with with a delay that that then also is is, creating delays in revenues and building working capital.

We do expect the full run-rate BAF compensation within Q3. Our 5-year average fuel cost recovery is 95%.

We are considering this to be temporary effects. In a declining fuel prices, there is also a a a recovery or sort of positive effect on that, although I don't think we're going to guide on oil prices in the current geopolitical situation.

Those effects combined created then a a working capital growth of $54 million in the quarter. As we said, net increase in receivables of $25 million, now mostly collected.

The fuel inventory obviously staying high with with the oil prices, but but but as a one-off effect. In sum, a substantial effect on the quarter that obviously, given our dividend policy being strictly linked to end-of-quarter cash, has an impact on the quarterly dividend.

That brings us to the highlights: $122 million of EBITDA, $86 million of profit after tax, a gross rate of $94, and one new vessel, a feeder vessel, delivered; a continued high equity ratio; a result that if you if you factor in, the delayed fuel cost and the costs of of some vessel disruptions and and not be being able to serve the the the Middle East market fully is is, in our view, a strong quarter, unfortunately with then the working capital effects taking down dividends for this quarter. To go a little bit deeper into the market side, I think it's it's it's important to recognize, I I think in unexpected, but, an extremely strong growth in Far East exports, primarily Chinese exports, with with, a a 73% growth in light vehicle exports a year-on-year, a 41% in construction equipments, a little bit under-communicated, but there's strong development in that one as well.

It's is, tightening capacity. It's also creating a larger system imbalance that, also also contributes to consuming ro-ro capacity, with, the the eastbound trades being largely flat with the westbound trades growing strongly.

Chinese, car exports is continuing to grow with, successors, high quality, well-priced products, building market share across the world. The 2026 growth alone consumes something like 100 car carriers in order to transport.

It is a it it it is a a very, very strong, and and we believe, well-justified based on the the products and price points, and and also sort of a a a, given the given the growth across the world, also a a a sustainable or a structural market change that that we expect to be here to stay. With the lack of ro-ro capacity, that has led to strong increase in in, cars shipped in in containers or other means of transportation.

We estimate that to be about a million, 1.5 million cars in the first half of 2026. By experience from this this also to some extent happened after the pandemics, and and our experience is that these volumes will largely return to ro-ro when capacity becomes available, it also creates a contributes to further tightening the capacity market, but but also represents a buffer if and when markets normalize.

We remain a to have a strong backlog. We are totally sold out for 2026.

I think given what I've said, we probably would have some opportunity if we weren't, but but but that's that is where we are. We also have a strong backlog into 2027.

I think the the situation in the market is now also changing the kind of somewhat limited, but still the the contract renewals as as an upside opportunity rather than a risk given that we we see the market remaining tight into and through 2027. Our contract situation is strong.

I think the the the sort of renewable renewing contract renewals represents an upside, and so that our the market outlook, in our view, remains quite strong and strongly colored by by the lack of available ro-ro capacity out of Asia. Going a little bit into the capacity side as well.

We are through the peak in newbuild deliveries. We are also heading towards, a a scrapping period where between now and 2030, a fairly substantial a part of the old older fleet will will pass 30 years of age, which is the normal normal scrapping scrapping age for for car carriers.

That is also clearly reflected where we saw the 20 23, 24 very, very high charter rates falling sharply on expected normalized capacity balances into 2020 through 2025 and is now again in on a sharply increasing trajectory, which I think can be fairly well explained if you look back by this slide where we basically look at net fleet growth against Chinese export growth back all the way back till 2020, where you basically saw when market tightened in 2022, 2023, the growth, grossly exceeded the the newbuild deliveries or the fleet growth. In 2024, 2025, it somewhat reversed where where, with the with the peak of the newbuild delivery, new capacity into the market slightly exceeded the Chinese export growth.

It's now been turned around again in 2026 with with, the increase in Chinese exports creating a gap that that we currently estimate roughly 70-plus, 74 ships. It is it is kind of a fairly it's a close link between the evolution of Asian Chinese export growth and and vessel deliveries that has during 2026, towards the end of 2025 into 2026, changed the dynamic of a loosening capacity balance into actually a sharply tightening, which is where we are right now.

In that picture, we're obviously very, very pleased to have our first eight Aurora vessels in full operation. They are performing very well.

They are also allowing us to deliver record carbon intensity. Since we are still, we're running LNG, which is helpful, but it's mostly efficiency, it also actually impacts obviously our operating costs and the operating economics.

We are also obviously looking forward to getting the first four dual-fuel VLSFO-ammonia vessels delivered, from from next year, mid next year onwards. We also, in that sense, I think, will will we are we are we are strongly committed.

We we did, I think, innovate the PCT capacity market by by basically introducing a new class of vessels being larger and with more fuel flexibility and efficiency. We now see how that works out where, our first our our the cash cost of our newbuild vessels are almost a tiny fraction of of, the current charter market in cost.

It's also substantially lower than it would have been to build the cheaper, smaller 7,000 or 7,500 vessels. We are rapidly building, the most competitive class of vessels in the industry, and we have now also acquired substantial operating experience, and and we we we are quite comfortable with with how this plays out in terms of also long-term cost position.

That concludes my part of this presentation. I will then leave leave the word to to Espen to go through the financial in some more detail.

Thank you, Andreas, and good morning. Our net rate is moving flat quarter-on-quarter and has been very stable over the last period.

Top line is up 4% in the second quarter quarter-on-quarter, driven by higher volumes, up 2.6% to 4 million cbm. We think that is a strong result considering the meaningful disruption to our network in the quarter.

Our EBITDA in the second quarter came in at $122 million. That's slightly ahead of what we guided in the first-quarter presentation.

It's down $23 million quarter-on-quarter, and we had a net fuel impact of $22 million, which is explaining the drop in performance. Our fuel cost was up $21 million quarter-on-quarter, and we had a negative impact from BAF revenues of $1 million quarter-on-quarter following changes to our cargo mix.

We had a net profit before tax reduction of 16% or $16 million, mitigated by a gain from debt modification following a refinancing in June. Looking at our EBITDA bridge, as mentioned, we had $21 million extra in fuel costs.

We also had, as Andreas already mentioned, additional operational expenses related to the Middle East routing: extra storage costs, extra discharge costs, and canal costs, as well as some costs related to us putting our cargo on third-party vessels, which is increasing charter hire expenses. These costs have been invoiced to clients and is offset by additional revenues.

We are continuing to using the short-term capacity market, and some of the increase in charter expenses is also reflecting the tightness of that market. Our balance sheet remains strong.

Our net debt to EBITDA up to 1.3 times following a lower cash balance at the end of the quarter and an increase in right-of-use assets as we have taken delivery of one feeder vessel on a long lease, and we also extended one feeder vessel for 1 year. Equity ratio remains stable.

We end the quarter with $216 million in cash, and we have liquidity reserves through our revolver of $197 million. As Andreas already talked to, our cash generation in the second quarter has been meaningfully impacted by increase in working capital, with increased fuel inventory and also higher receivables.

We expect working capital to be reversed in coming months. We had an operating cash flow of $67 million in the second quarter.

We had normal capex related to drydocks, vessel upgrades, and also one newbuilding installment for Aurora vessel number 9 of $16 million. We had normal debt and lease payments of $35 million as well as a $94 million dividend paid to shareholders.

We have refinanced both our bank facilities over the last 6 months. We already announced that we extended our liquidity reserve, the $200 [million?]

revolver we have, in the first quarter. We extended it by 2 years up to 2030.

In the second quarter, we also extended our main 640 bank facility. We're quite pleased to have achieved a 8-year tenor, increasing then maturity by 4 years up to 2034, and also meaningful reduction in margin and more favorable covenants.

As Andreas said, we have a cash-based quarterly dividend, and that gives some volatility in a very special quarter like the second quarter. We will be paying out $16 million, which is the excess cash above our targeted cash balance, in August.

With that, Andreas, I hand it back to you for the outlook.

Thank you, Espen. Yes, and with the outlook starting with the market.

Demand for ocean transportation is accelerated, supported primarily by strong growth in exports from China, both for vehicles and high and heavy equipment. The capacity market is further tightening, 60% increase in July charter index prices, obviously also then creating a limit to our flexibility on the capacity side, but also reflecting a very strong market.

Q3 remains impacted by high fuel prices and delayed BAF revenue, but cash conversion is expected back to normal in Q3. Normalized performance with full run-rate BAF compensation is expected within the third quarter, and Q3 EBITDA is expected then to be roughly in line with Q2.

That's our guidance. Very, very strong market.

Still some of the kind of effects from the fuel and BAF accounting-wise coming into the quarter, less cash-wise, but the underlying market suggests continued strong demand and continuing full utilization and also a strong environment for contract renewals. Thank you.

Thank you, Andreas and Espen. We can start our Q&A sessions.

We have received a few questions from our online audience during the presentations. The first set of questions is coming from analyst Sondre Schneider from Nordea.

First, on networking capital, we talk a little bit about that in a previously slide, and then we guide for normalization of cash conversion in Q3, within Q3. How can we say again about how is the outlook for the underlying networking capital level, and can we say a little bit more about expectation of reversal, and when we can expect that?

No, I think as we said, it's a very special quarter for us, and the working capital build-up is significant. It's driven by two two two things.

It's the fuel inventory following higher fuel prices, which will come down when fuel price come down. The other part is the increase in receivables, and that is related to this rerouting of Middle East cargo, 16,000 units, big volumes spread out on different locations.

This volume is from our largest clients, some of our absolutely biggest customers. We're not concerned we will not get paid, but it takes longer to process for our biggest clients because this is non-contractual cargo moves with additional surcharges and so forth.

The increase in receivables at the end of the quarter is related to those Middle East cargo moves that wasn't paid at the end of the quarter, but is largely paid today.

Thank you, Espen. The second question, surcharge lag.

For this quarter, we highlight a surcharge lags of 5 to 6 months. Isn't that somewhat longer than the previously commentary about one quarter?

I think for this questions, I can just take it. It's consistent with our previously guidance of surcharge lag of 5-6 months.

It's the combination of the two main factors. It's the time lag nature of the BAF, where the price charged to customer is based on the previous quarterly price, and the periodization effect.

Do you want to add something more?

No, basically what that means is that we load cargo and invoice, and it takes a while and before actually the work is fully done, and the actual BAF revenues is periodized over that period while it's invoiced separately, yeah.

Yes. The next question is about capacity.

Höegh added two charters for the quarter. How is the view on capacity needs going forward with regards to the contract backlog?

I think there are two two answers to that. In terms of the contract backlog, we are largely covered.

In terms of the market opportunities, we will clearly at all times be looking for additional capacity because we have good opportunities to put more capacity to work. We will, given our very, very attractive cost of newbuilds, we will be very careful going into long commitments at pricing that is substantially above newbuild parity, which it is today.

Thank you, Andreas. Contract renewals, can we say a little bit about the sentiment and dynamics in contract renewals this year compared to last year?

Can we say a little bit more about the rate level and directions and the duration we are seeing?

I think it's a fairly simple, maybe a bit complicated as well, but I think If we go back to 2024 and '25, you've had an environment where we expected the newbuild deliveries to catch up with the demand growth. I think the kind of contracting market was probably more in a less-for-longer mindset.

We're now in a situation where the capacity market is tightened, the availability of lease or charter tonnage is both limited and very, very expensive, and a lot of our Asian customers simply have uncovered transportation needs going into containers and chasing solutions. The dynamic is fundamentally changed and is more back to sort of the earlier days.

It is changed, and it's mainly driven by the fact that there is large uncovered transportation needs. There's more cargo going into containers.

There is not sufficient ro-ro capacity on offer, and there is no easy way to get it through the charter market that changes dynamics quite substantially.

Thank you, Andreas. The next question is about the spot exposure.

Höegh Autoliners has previously been successful with a higher, somewhat higher spot exposure during tight markets. Could this be a strategic play going forward given the tight market, or will we continue to pivot towards a longer contract?

Right now, would we have wanted to have more spot capacity? Yes.

I still think over the cycle that we have spent the last couple of years building strong relations with our existing large customers and also a number of growing customers. We believe in our business that that is valuable.

We will continue that strategy. I don't think we will seek to go back to higher spot exposure.

We are very pleased with our newbuild effort creating capacity. Which I think is also indicating some of the tightness on the market, we have chosen to do 30-year class renewal on a couple of vessels, which is something that we generally do not like to do because of both the fuel efficiency and the cost of those vessels.

We are obviously actively chasing capacity. Good part is that with the exceptional performance of the Aurora class, we are still managing to provide market-leading performance in terms of reducing our carbon footprint and efficiency.

The capacity game is basically rather closer to where it was 2 or 3 years ago and three or while the last year and a half, I think it's been colored by the expectation of the market balance on capacity softening, which has sharply reversed during the first half of 2026, obviously changing the market dynamics substantially.

Thank you for the elaborating answer, Andreas. The next question from analyst Oliver Durnbøll, ABG SC.

It's about operations. With the extreme export growth out of Asia, are we seeing an increase port congestions in the West?

Are the terminals able to handle all the volumes?

I would say generally yes. The port congestion issue, if should say, it's more a question in the disruption in the Middle East is creating a huge appetite for alternative routes where you don't have the structure.

The challenge of actually serving the Middle East market is remaining. Obviously, port congestions is increasing with the larger volumes, but I think it's mostly related to Middle East being a fairly substantial market, not being able to be served through the traditional as well of port infrastructure is creating ongoing challenges.

Thank you, Andreas. Yes.

The next set of question from analyst Jørgen Lian, DNB Carnegie. We already answer in details about the stickiness of the higher networking capital and the TC higher and capacity market, so that's why we're not going to ask this question again.

The next question is about the outlook of Q3 EBITDA in line with the current quarter. Is saying, isn't it implying that there's an underlying numbers of the Q2 cost you guide for the Q1 report, mainly the $20 million Q-on-Q fuel cost and the $10 million Q-on-Q Middle East disruption costs, is still extending into Q3?

Can we elaborate about the in-line guiding of the Q3 EBITDA?

In the first quarter, we guided that we would have a $20 million impact from fuel, and we had a $22 million net fuel impact, so that was according to our guidance. Underlying performance improved somewhat, we came in ahead of our guidance, and we have been able to invoice all the additional costs related to this rerouting to our clients.

I think we also were very prompt to handle this disruption, actually being able to grow volumes from the first to the second quarter. I think we have been very clear that when you have a spike in oil prices, that takes 5 to 6 months.

It takes two quarters for us to come through the P&L fully. We have a 95% recovery over time, but it takes 5 to 6 months for us due to the length of our voyages and periodization over salts.

That's why we're saying that we'll have full BAF recovery within Q3.

I think if you add to that, I think the guiding, which is, first we're always careful of guiding exactly on working capital because that's obviously difficult on a specific date. What we are clearly saying is that by the end of third quarter, we're back to normal run rates both in terms of EBITDA and cash, and we're saying that cash conversion is improving faster.

The obvious of the drag in Q3 is pretty much driven by the fact that we start the quarter in a still somewhat disrupted, as Espen says, environment, and we end the quarter in what we basically call a normal performance. That obviously colors the average, the full number for the quarter.

Thank you, Andreas and Espen. For the next question, I guess we already briefly touched up on it, Andreas, during the answer for the capacity market question.

Given the stronger market outlook, does it change our ambition for fleet size in the future?

I think given the strength of the market, and actually also given the kind of aging of the current fleet, the global fleet and our fleet, we are seeking capacity addition and capacity renewal opportunities. We are very, very strongly committed to retaining an industry-leading cash capacity cost, because we believe the company and our shareholders best in long term.

We will have a very disciplined approach. We're clearly, we will hunt for capacity, but we will not commit ourselves to long-term high charter costs.

Thank you, Andreas. Yes.

The next set of questions coming from Clement Mullins from Value Investors Edge. First, could we compare the cost basis of shipping cars by container versus using ro-ro?

How much less efficiency using containers compared to with using a traditional ro-ro vessels?

We have had that in a couple of I think some quarters ago, but what we have seen without sort of giving the exact numbers is that when rates for ro-ro is excessive, being substantially for incremental cargo being substantially ahead of the kind of rate level that we report today in our system, and actually also when ro-ro capacity is simply not available, you see volume drifting into containers. It happened after the pandemics and in a fairly strong way.

What we're seeing is that at rate levels at or definitely lower than what we report today, these volumes and with the availability of ro-ro capacity, those are coming back. It's partially a pure cost calculation.

It's also a question that we had sort of discussions with I did actually visit the Port of Barcelona towards the end of last year that told the story of the additional land-based costs where they, during the pandemic, massive car imports came in containers and there is simply no infrastructure to handle the unpacking and things around it. It's partially the pure transportation cost, but also a sort of supply chain costs that makes at least on any large flows of cars, most all of our customers strongly preferring ro-ro over container, as long as the sort of pricing is not totally out of line.

Then obviously, if you have 10 cars going somewhere, then containers might be fine. If you have 3,000 a month, it's simply quite cumbersome.

Most of our large flows and most of our large customers are more in that territory.

Thank you, Andreas. Yes.

The next questions: with car manufacturing margins in China severely under pressures, to what extent we expect continued export growth versus capacity rationalizations? Are the export margins higher, much higher than the domestic ones, that could lead to the continued growth?

I don't think we have full transparency on that, but we have strong indications clearly that the export margins are substantially higher so that and we've had that discussion when tariffs were introduced where the message that we got from our customers was that it doesn't really impact their volume aspirations. I think you also see the car exports growing in more markets.

We get that sort of diversification out of it. You also see high and heavy and equipment growing, creating sort of a broader cargo mix.

I think it would be exceptional if the Chinese growth should continue at the current pace. I think we do expect that some production will be shifted closer to market and some of those kinds of things.

For us, it seems, looking at the volume aspirations both of our automotive customers and the high and heavy customers, we believe the likelihood of continued growth is still high. The situation is positive.

Product price point margins, as you said, is supportive to that. That also comes in the sense that we are a bit surprised because the Middle East has been a high-growth market also for Chinese cars, and that has been choked by lack of transportation options.

You've seen this kind of exceptional growth regardless of that. I think there is also still opportunities on adding additional markets, whether that's Africa, other parts of Asia, South America, Middle East, and then broadening the product mix, probably offset by some localization of production to, for example, Europe, where volumes are high.

Still the market share is growing rapidly, but it's still not so high that it necessarily is some limits to it. We don't expect the first-half growth rates to continue.

I don't think that would be almost even possible to serve from our point of view.

Thank you, Andreas. Yes.

The last question is about the fleet ambition is that already addressed in full by Andreas earlier, I going to just skip this questions. I think that bring us to the end of the Q&A session today.

Of course, you have further question, feel free to reach out to us via Investor Relations mailbox, and we will address that question to you later. Thank you very much for your attention today, and we look forward to seeing you next time.