International Seaways Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

International Seaways (NYSE:INSW) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

International Seaways reported a strong financial performance for Q3 2026, with $345 million in adjusted EBITDA and $290 million in net income, while maintaining the previous quarter’s dividend of $5.05 per share.

The company announced a fleet renewal strategy through the acquisition of four newbuilding VLCCs, financed primarily through shares to preserve financial flexibility.

Tanker rates have reached unprecedented levels, with VLCC rates nearly four times historical peaks, driven by geopolitical factors and low OECD oil inventories.

Liquidity remains strong at $964 million, supported by $454 million in cash and substantial undrawn credit capacity, with a net loan-to-value below 6%.

Management reinforced its commitment to an 85% payout ratio for dividends, reflecting confidence in future cash flows and operational strength.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Conference call. After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to James Small, General Counsel. James, please go ahead.

James Small (General Counsel)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to International Seaways’ earnings call covering the third quarter of 2026. Before we begin, I would like to start off by advising everyone with us today of the following: during this call and in the accompanying presentation, management may make forward-looking statements regarding the company or the industry in which it operates, which may address, without limitation, the following topics: outlooks for the crude tanker and product tanker markets; changing trading patterns; forecasts of world and regional economic activity; forecasts covering the production of and demand for oil and petroleum products; the effects of ongoing and threatened conflicts around the world, in particular in the Middle East; the Company’s strategy and business prospects; expectations around revenues and expenses, including vessel charter hire and G&A expenses; estimated future bookings, TCE rates and capital expenditures; projected drydock and off-hire days; newbuild vessel construction, vessel sales and purchases; anticipated and recent financing transactions; and plans to issue dividends; economic, regulatory and political developments in the United States and globally; the Company’s ability to achieve its financing and other objectives and its consideration of strategic alternatives; and the Company’s relationships with its stakeholders.

Such statements take into account assumptions made by management based on various factors including management’s experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected and future developments, and other factors that management believes are appropriate to consider in the circumstances. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company’s control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those implied or expressed by the statements.

Factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company’s actual results to differ from expectations include those described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2025, our Forms 10-Q for the first three quarters of 2026, as well as in other filings that we have made or in the future may make with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Now let me turn the call over to Lois Zabrocky, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Lois.

Lois Zabrocky (President & CEO)

Thank you, James. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining International Seaways today as we celebrate our 10th anniversary as a public company. We posted a slide presentation on our website under Investor Relations, which you can follow along with during our call today. I’ll refer to a few of those slides as we go. Before getting into our quarterly results, I want to spend a few minutes talking about our recently announced transaction, because I think it says a great deal about how we execute on opportunities at International Seaways. Over the past two years, we’ve sold four older VLCCs as part of our ongoing fleet renewal strategy. This transaction brings four newbuilding VLCCs into our fleet, high-grading our core International Seaways vessel class. What makes this transaction particularly attractive to us is how we’re paying for it.

By using our shares as a primary currency, we’re able to acquire modern vessels while preserving financial resources and the flexibility to pursue other opportunities. That is what disciplined capital allocation is about: not simply adding ships, but continually improving the fleet and positioning International Seaways for the years ahead. As we work toward completing the remaining steps of the transaction, I’d also like to welcome our newest shareholders.

We’re excited to have you join us for the next chapter of International Seaways. We finished the third quarter with about $345 million in adjusted EBITDA and $290 million in net income, delivering results comparable to our solid second quarter. Accordingly, we also declared another dividend of $5.05 per share, matching the record we established last quarter. Importantly, our commitment to returning at least an 85% payout ratio remains in place, allowing our shareholders to continue participating directly in the strength of our tanker market.

With tanker rates reaching remarkable levels as we enter the fourth quarter, our shareholders will participate in the upside. Let’s move ahead to slides five and six for an update on that market. Starting with demand, geopolitics continue to dominate our headlines and influence our tanker markets. As you can see in the chart on the lower left, we’re experiencing truly remarkable conditions. We’ve had to change the scale of this chart to accommodate current VLCC rates, which have reached nearly four times the previous peak levels that we’ve seen over the past 35 years. Even in these unprecedented times, we don’t lose sight of the underlying fundamentals.

Crude oil production growth continues to come primarily from the West, particularly the Americas, while oil consumption growth is driven largely by the East. This dynamic should continue to support healthy tanker demand in the years ahead. Importantly, we believe a peaceful resolution to the current conflict could also be constructive for tanker demand. As the chart on the lower right shows, OECD oil inventories are at their lowest levels in roughly 20 years, having declined by approximately 250 million barrels since the start of the conflict.

Rebuilding those inventories will require significant volumes of oil to move around the world, providing an additional source of tanker demand even as geopolitical disruptions ease. Turning to ship supply on slide six, we have all watched the orderbook grow. With tanker rates at these levels and capital available to finance new ships, it’s only natural to see increased investment in capacity. That’s true in shipping, just as it is in any cyclical industry. There’s another side to that story. As you can see in the chart on the lower left, the number of older vessels still operating in today’s market is more than double the number of vessels that are on order.

It’s important to remember that we’re effectively operating two different tanker fleets: a mainstream commercial fleet and an aging fleet serving illegal sanction trade. As geopolitical tensions ease, we expect a significant portion of that older tonnage to exit the trading fleet, particularly given the age and condition of many of those vessels. Looking at the chart on the right, even during what we consider relatively heavy delivery years ahead, the number of vessels reaching 20 years of age is nearly as large as the number of new vessels entering the fleet.

So while the orderbook is growing, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fleet that it is replacing. The question is not simply how many ships are built, but how much effective capacity will actually be added. I’m now going to turn it over to our CFO, Jeff Pribor, to provide the financial review. Jeff?

Jeffrey Pribor (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, Lois, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 8, we delivered another quarter of record financial performance. Net income for the third quarter was a record $344 million, or $6.90 per share. Adjusted net income for the third quarter was approximately $291 million, or $5.84 per diluted share, while adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $345 million. On the lower half of the page, blended spot TCEs, weighted by revenue days, were $67,700 per day, compared to $29,400 per day a year ago.

For the same period, crude tanker revenues generated a record $321 million, including about $77 million of profit sharing from our dual-fuel VLCC. Together, those profit-sharing arrangements increased our blended VLCC earnings across both our spot and time charter vessels to more than $200,000 per day. While our underlying operating performance was largely in line with expectations, I’d like to highlight a few items that may not be immediately apparent from the financial statements. The lightering business contributed about $2 million in EBITDA, with $9 million in revenue, $3 million of both charter hire and vessel expenses, and $1 million of G&A. On slide 9, the bridge illustrates how we converted another quarter of strong operating performance into free cash flow. We began the quarter with total liquidity of $935 million, composed of $409 million in cash and $526 million in undrawn revolving capacity. Following the bridge from left to right, we generated $345 million in adjusted EBITDA, funded $17 million in debt service, paid another $30 million in drydock and capital expenditures, and used about $64 million of working capital.

The combination of these highlights represents free cash flow generation of about $234 million. For the third quarter, we generated proceeds of $74 million for the sale of a 2012-built Suezmax. Beyond our free cash flow, composition is essentially the capital allocation spend. During the quarter we used about $4 million in cash for installment payments and the financing for the original six LR1 newbuilds, and we paid about $250 million in dividends to shareholders, representing a record quarterly dividend of $5.05 per share.

The remaining $9 million in payments reflected the ebb and flow of our TI borrowing base facility, which repaid a drawdown from the second quarter. We ended the quarter with $454 million of cash and $510 million in undrawn revolving credit capacity, bringing total liquidity to about $964 million. Moving now to slide 10, our balance sheet continues to provide the financial flexibility that supports both disciplined growth and meaningful shareholder returns. The detailed balance sheet is shown on the left, with several key metrics highlighted on the right. Liquidity remains strong at close to $1 billion. We’ve invested about $2 billion in vessel debt costs on the books, which are currently valued at nearly $5 billion. And with approximately $250 million in net debt combined with rising asset values, our net loan-to-value is below 6% at the end of the third quarter.

The table on the lower right summarizes our debt portfolio. Gross debt at quarter end was $716 million. Our debt is almost entirely fixed or hedged, which contributes to our total cost of debt around a very low 5.6%. Next year we expect to make about $44 million in mandatory debt repayments, including the newly acquired Bruton vessels. Taken together, these metrics demonstrate the strength of our balance sheet. With 26 unencumbered vessels, substantial undrawn revolving credit capacity, and one of the lowest leverage profiles in our sector, we believe International Seaways remains exceptionally well positioned to pursue attractive growth opportunities while continuing to return meaningful capital to shareholders.

On slide 11, we’ve provided our customary forward-looking guidance, including booked-to-date spot TCE rates and our spot cash breakeven. As a reminder, these fixtures represent rates booked as of today, and our reported TCE for the fourth quarter may differ as additional voyages are fixed throughout the rest of the quarter. Today we booked more than half our expected fourth-quarter revenue days at a blended spot TCE of over $172,000 per day across the entire fleet.

That’s a number worth pausing on when you consider it’s more than double the record quarter we just reported. While fixture levels will continue to evolve throughout the quarter, we are obviously extremely encouraged by the strength of rates secured so far. When you view them alongside our fleetwide spot cash breakeven, they will clearly continue to provide an exceptional margin for cash generation in Q4. On the bottom left-hand chart, we provide some updated expense guidance for the rest of 2026 and looking ahead throughout 2027. This guidance also includes the acquisition of the Bruton vessels. We also include in the appendix our quarterly expected off-hire and capex. I don’t plan to read each item line by line, but encourage you to use them for modeling purposes.

That concludes my remarks. I’d like to now turn the call back to Lois for her closing comments.

Lois Zabrocky (President & CEO)

Thank you, Jeff. As we celebrate fantastic results and our 10th anniversary as a public company, I thought it would be appropriate to take a moment to reflect on what we’ve accomplished over the past 10 years. The chart at the top shows just how active we’ve been in renewing and growing our fleet. We consistently look for opportunities to invest in modern tonnage while selling older vessels, adapting our fleet as markets and opportunities present themselves.

And here’s something we are particularly proud of. When International Seaways became a public company 10 years ago, our fleet had an average age of approximately 12 years. Following our recently announced transaction, the average age of our fleet has declined to less than nine years. We’ve done all this while strengthening our financial position. As you can see in the lower left, our liquidity today is nearly 10 times what it was when we first became a public company.

This gives us the financial strength to continue investing in our fleet and pursuing opportunities. Ultimately, we’ve done all this to create value for our shareholders. We’ve worked to build a stronger company, return substantial capital through dividends, and create lasting value through share price appreciation. The chart on the right speaks for itself. Since International Seaways began trading on December 1, 2016, we’ve delivered a compounded annual total shareholder return of approximately 30%.

That’s more than 15 times our starting value and puts us well ahead of our combined peer group. The International Seaways team is very proud of what we’ve accomplished over these first 10 years, and we’re excited about the next. Thank you. And with that said, operator, we’d like to open the lines for questions.

OPERATOR

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Liam Burke with B. Riley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Liam Burke (Analyst)

Good morning, Jeff. Lois, the MR rates are continuing to run into the fourth quarter on the partial fixtures. You’ve got, obviously, seasonal strength, but is it the same in terms of refinery capacity, high utilization and margins, or is there anything else in there that’s driving up rates?

Lois Zabrocky (President & CEO)

You know, great question. You know, we’re really seeing that strength. You know, the U.S. has continued at very high refinery utilization, and most of those exports coming out of the U.S. Gulf are MR-preferred. And we’re also seeing, you know, something like half of the refineries in Russia are still offline. So even though there was a little, okay, some diesel exports, they really can’t put a lot of barrels out. And then you’ve got some of the straits over here where they’re rerouting those MRs. So I think the U.S. remains a really key, you know, supplier of barrels, and that’s pretty MR-preferred.

So, yeah, that number of, you know, close to $56,000 per day, I mean, that’s just super strong on those MRs.

Liam Burke (Analyst)

Yeah, it is. In terms of capital allocation, no change. You’re 85% payout, you’re amortizing your debt, and you’re keeping your powder dry for fleet optimization. On the other side of the coin, is there any interest in selling older vessels?

Lois Zabrocky (President & CEO)

Well, first, Liam, let me say that was a terrific summary of our capital allocation strategy and practice. So thank you for that. I want to let you take the second question. Yeah, absolutely. We… yeah, we’ve got Derek Solon here, and maybe just touch on the Sabine, and, you know, the fact that we’ve been reaping… I think we sold and delivered six older vessels this year.

Derek Solon (Chief Commercial Officer)

That’s right, Lois. Thanks. Good morning, Liam. So, Lois, you’re exactly right. We sold six ships so far this year. Most recently, we sold the 2012 Suezmax for a lot more than she was ordered for back in 2010. And, Liam, I think we’ll continue to look at selling some of the older tonnage into this really, really firm market.

Liam Burke (Analyst)

Great, thank you.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Omar Nokhta with Clarkson Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Omar Nokhta (Analyst)

Thank you. Hi, Lois and Jeff. Good morning, and yeah, congratulations on the Bruton deal and certainly the earnings that you just reported. And, Lois, it was nice to kind of get, like, a bit of a history lesson over the past 10 years on where Seaways has evolved to. You know, it’s obviously, you know, things have really transitioned very nicely. You’ve got the four VLCC coming to you here via the Bruton transaction. And as you mentioned, very nice structure in terms of being able to use stock effectively, especially at this point in the cycle.

You know, with this deal, you’ve now scaled up your VLCC portfolio beyond your meaningful enough footprint. You’ve got, obviously, the Suezmaxes of scale. LR1s have scale. MRs certainly have scale, but you don’t necessarily have that in the Aframax, LR2s. As you kind of think about, you know, the direction going forward, is that a logical place to look at in terms of beefing up your exposure?

Lois Zabrocky (President & CEO)

Thank you, Omar. You know, what’s interesting is just really, our balanced fleet has proven to be very valuable throughout this entire upcycle. So you’re absolutely right. You know, strategically, you know, we just came off our strategy review and we’re looking at, okay, you know, opportunistically, you know, as you say, you know, we’ve got six of our new LR1s on the water, the Bruton deal really clicked all the boxes with prompt tonnage and strong customers.

And then, you know, we kind of look at the fleet and say, it isn’t so much like, oh, we just want to target one area. We look at what we think the fundamentals of each of those is going forward, and then we can build upon that strength. So, you know, I think what I would say is we’re going to continue to be opportunistic within… you know, you see, like, we sold four older VLCCs, now we’ve replenished and high-graded the fleet. So I think that’s the type of approach that we hope the market is getting used to seeing from us.

Omar Nokhta (Analyst)

Yeah, thanks, Lois. And maybe just a second question, I’ll pass it back. You know, clearly the fourth quarter, based off of what we’ve seen with the spot market and certainly your guidance, it’s going to be enormous in terms of what you’ll be generating earnings-wise, free cash flow-wise. I guess you sort of hinted at this, I guess, or you mentioned it on the call. In terms of the dividend payouts, given just the sheer amount of cash that you will be generating, do you still intend to, or does the board perhaps intend to maintain that 85% payout, or do you look to hold back some of the cash just given how much is actually coming in?

Jeffrey Pribor (Chief Financial Officer)

Hi, Omar. I think, first of all, this quarter was a fourth consecutive quarter of paying out at least 85% of our adjusted net income. And we look back in the last four quarters, look at our share price development, and that clearly says to us that the market and the shareholders, investors are appreciating that. So the market should expect that we will continue that practice.

Omar Nokhta (Analyst)

Okay. Yeah, thanks, Jeff. Well, thanks for that. And Lois, thank you. I’ll turn it back over.

Lois Zabrocky (President & CEO)

Thank you.

OPERATOR

And again, everyone, if you would like to ask a question, press star then one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Lois Zabrocky for any closing comments.

Lois Zabrocky (President & CEO)

Yes, we just want to thank everyone for joining us today and for coming on the journey as INSW shareholders. And we think that really in these unprecedented times, it’s fabulous to be in the tanker market. So thank you very much.

OPERATOR

This concludes today’s call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.