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TWST: Can we start with a brief historical sketch and overview of Stelmar (NYSE: SJH)?

Mr. Molaris: Stelmar is an 11 year old company, founded in 1992 by Mr. Stelios Haji-Ioannou who comes from a well-known shipping family. The company operates mainly in the product tanker business, which is small sized tankers carrying a cargo of between 35,000 and 50,000 tons, and predominantly carrying refined petroleum products. We started with four ships in the middle of 1993 and have grown now to almost 31 ships at sea with another 11 under construction to be delivered between November this year and August next year. The company has two main focuses: the product tanker focus where we have a total fleet of 19 Handymaxes; and the Panamax market, which is considered a niche market. These are ships with a cargo capacity of between 60,000-70,000 dead weight, and are ideally suited inaudible for short haul cargo movements between South and North America. Here, we have build up a fleet of 8 ships currently, all of which are double-hull. In addition, we are building another five Panamaxes that will be delivered between the end of this year and August of next year. That will significantly increase the presence of the company in this niche market. We will then have a total of 13 Panamaxes, 11 of which will be sister ships, having been built between 2002 and 2004. One of the reasons why we have chosen to operate predominantly in the product tanker area through our Handymaxes is because of its low inherent volatility in terms of market. Throughout the conversation, you will be hearing quite a lot about the volatility of earnings and of cash flow and what our strategy is to a big part of this volatility.

TWST: Can you elaborate on your contract-orientated approach because I believe that ties into the issue of volatility of earnings that you mentioned a moment ago?

Mr. Molaris: Absolutely. This is one of the distinct differences between Stelmar and its peers, such as the other publicly listed shipping companies on the US stock exchange. A significant part of our business is done on a contract basis, what we call in our business time charters. A time charter is a contract which you sign off with a client. You obligation is to provide the ship, the crew, and the maintenance, but the commercial risk is borne by the client. You fix the ship for a specific period of time typically between one to three year and you get paid on per diem basis. In fact, we have signed 7 year contracts and still have another 3½ years to go on some of them. Importantly, you get paid on an agreed rate, so no matter whether the market goes up or down you still get paid the agreed rate. A significant part of our business is structured this way and we communicate that to the market in terms of our fleet capacity, expressed in terms of net operating days. The latest indication we have given to the market is that, as we stand, we are at about 77% of our fleet’s capacity in terms of net operating days for 2003 on contract business, and 33% for 2004. If you translate that to dollars then that would give you something like $135m worth of secured earnings for 2003 and $77m for 2004.