Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Jonathan Chappel - JP Morgan.
Jonathan Chappel - JP Morgan
George, in your closing comments you mentioned the Omega King, the Omega Queen, the Omega Prince, and the Omega Princess and you said you will see what happens with those. Have you had any discussions with Torm or Nordin yet regarding their charters options?
Georgios Kassiotis
Yes.
Jonathan Chappel - JP Morgan
And how do those rates stack up versus the current charter rates?
Georgios Kassiotis
Yes, obviously, as we have mentioned in the previous discussions, we are in consistent dialogue with our charterers, for existing business and for future business. And we monitor the market in depth. As you know, the extensions stand for different time periods.
Nordin has one-year charter options for the two ships, the Prince and Princess, at a much higher rate than the prevailing three-year rate, obviously. And Torm has a two-year option extension at the rate which, I think again, is slightly higher than the three-year rate.
Both rates are flat rates, without profit sharing. Our strategy is to continue employing the ships with people that are familiar with the ships. The ships have been operated well into their logistic systems and we have the products in place. And obviously our keeping the ships with the same charterer is not a bad idea.
The mentions that we have gotten from the charterers pertaining to this in over the last couple of weeks and months is that they do want to continue operating the ships. Obviously the options, technically speaking, are declarable in the first quarter of 2009. The company has an open dialogue with other charterers as well, in order to assess what sort of demand is out there for what kind of ships and we have some other ideas as well that we can explore.
It’s all a matter of strategy and how we can approach. Obviously having an option in place, that being a charterers option, this is not assisting in our flexibility in terms of we need first to hear what these people have to say.
It is a possibility that we will reach an agreement with these people in advance of the declaration of the option, if things go the right way. And possibly the agreement will be for a different period and a different rate than what is stipulated in the options.
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