Beginning of CEO Interview with
Herbjorn Hansson, CEO
Wisconsin Energy Corp.

Jim:     Mr. Hansson welcome back to Mad Money...

Hansson: Thank you Jim, I am talking to you from the Eastern coast of Norway. A nice evening here with a lot of snow.

Jim: Well alright, I have always wanted to get there. I am in the Eastern coast of Jersey, very similar… alright, here is the thing that I need to know right now… I am seeing oil go higher and higher, and I am wondering whether I should be a buyer of Nordic American Tanker, given the price of oil?

Hansson: Let me say two points. Firstly, as you indicated in your introduction the market is very strong. We shall be having a very good quarter, there is no question on that as we indicated in our message to shareholders last month. Secondly, we shall continue our dividend policy. We shall not, and I repeat Jim, we shall not cut the dividend. Our dividend will follow the market. High market, high dividend. Lower market, lower dividend. And thirdly, we have the strongest balance sheet in the industry. At this point in time we have no debt, so we have a lot of dry powder as I believe you call it in your country. And we may be able to, if, the market should go down, we may be able to buy assets from other companies which are in trouble.

Jim: I get worried.. will you have to do another equity offering to do anymore buying?

Hansson: The answer is no. We don’t have to do an equity offering at this time. We can buy a ship or two with the capital base that we have this time. We only do equity offerings if the acquisitions are accretive. And they must be accretive. After we have bought the ship, we must be able to pay higher dividend than before we bought it.

Jim: Now, we have talked last time and there was a terrific trade going on where people realized when oil was in the $30’s that perhaps it would be best to hire your tankers, store it, and then when oil goes to the $50’s, dump it. Well now that has happened. Are you seeing the end of that great trade for you?

Hansson: Not necessarily. You know the synonym that you are mentioning is called the co-tangle, that means that the future oil price is higher than the present oil price. And there seems to be an attitude out there that people believe, and the industry believes that the future oil price still will remain higher than the present one. I am not able to judge that, Jim. But quite a lot of tonnage is tied up, many ships are serving for storage purposes.

Jim: Okay, there is a great skepticism about the increase in price in oil. People think that it might be artificial or dollar related. But aren’t the Chinese importing a lot of oil right now?

Hansson: Yes, they are indeed. All statistics show that. We must remember that in the past the Chinese they were riding their bicycles, now they are riding their cars. And even though we may see some recessionary tendencies they will not go back to the bicycles. They will run their cars. And growth rates in China, they are between 5% and 7%. And some people even indicate higher. We should not play down the severity of this financial situation. But indeed it will be China and America who will have to correct this.

Jim: Alright, one last question. There is a tremendous constraint in capital world wide. There are a lot of ships being built. That debased the value of your fleet. That overbuilding has stopped, hasn’t it sir?

Hansson: It has stopped to a significant extent. There are very strong readjustment forces at work. But we, in this position, we can reap the benefits because we, as you have indicated, a pristine balance sheet. The strongest in the industry. And when the others have water up to their cheeks, we are barely wet on our toe Jim.

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Jim's comments AFTER the interview:     Excellent. Herbjorn Hansson, thank you so much for checking in. CEO of Nordic American Tanker (NAT). Great to talk to you sir.   Nordic American is the only tanker company that I am recommending… and I continue to recommend it… yes, I didn’t like the equity offering… but you heard what he said… it wasn’t dilutive… this is the only tanker stock on Mad Money that we will endorse.