Fortum Oyj Corp Ord

the 2025 Interim Report. My name is Ingele Ulves and I'm heading the IR at Fortu. As always, this event is being recorded and a replay will be available later today on our website. Our CEO, Markus Rauramo, and our CFO, Tina Tuomela, will present the group financial and operational performance during the...

We will then again open up for questions in our Q&A session. Happy to hand over to Markus to start.

To the key elements of our highlights, financial performance and market fundamentals. After that, Tina will provide more details, especially on the financials and how this turned into our results. Let me now start with the highlights. Despite the lower Nordic spot prices, we were able to reach a very good achieved power price of 60.1 euros per megawatt hour. Our achieved power price was supported by a robust double-digit optimization premium above last year's level. Due to increased power price volatility on the Nordic market, we also update our annual optimization premium to 7 to 9 euros per megawatt hour for the year 2025. For the following years, we keep the level at six to eight euros per megawatt hour. The optimization premium mainly consists of the physical optimization of our hydropower fleet and the sale of environmental values, such as guarantees of origin, which typically see a peak in the first quarter. Despite the good hydrological conditions in the Nordics, Fortum's hydro generation was below the long-term historical average. The weaker hydro generation shows that it is likely that our annual hydro output will fall behind the normal annual level of approximately 20 terawatt hours. Also, nuclear volumes were lower, negatively affected by outages. In addition, there have been announcements of both extended and unplanned outages that will negatively affect volumes during the rest of the year. Our forecast for nuclear volumes for the remainder of this year has decreased by approximately 1.4 terawatt hours from previous quarter. Regarding our strategy implementation, we continue to develop our renewables pipeline. As part of this, we concluded the acquisition of EnerSense's project development portfolio for renewable power. We also initiated a two-year feasibility study to explore possibilities for for flexible pumped storage hydropower in Sweden. Earlier in the quarter, we announced the results of our extensive feasibility study exploring the prerequisites for new nuclear in Finland and Sweden. The study concluded that with the current power market outlook, new nuclear is not economically viable on a merchant basis. However, we continue to develop new nuclear as a long-term option. Our efficiency program is proceeding as planned. We will come back to more details on it later on. As you might have noted, last week we also announced the acquisition of the Polish electricity solutions provider Orange Energia. Through this transaction, we doubled the customer base of our consumer solution business in Poland. Further, we now have also signed an agreement to divest our renewables development platform in India. Our financial position remains very robust. At the end of the first quarter, our financial net debt was practically zero and our leverage ratio stood at 0.0 times. This reflects our proven track record to create more stable income through hedging and optimization premium in combination with disciplined capital allocation. In terms of the operating environment, uncertainty has increased this year due to ongoing geopolitical conflicts and turbulence caused by, among others, the U.S. tariffs plans. However, we continue to see robust underlying demand from customers in various industrial sectors. We believe that this reflects the power demand growth longer term. Currently, customers are mainly focusing on short- and mid-term contracts over the next three to five years with lower volumes. This is also seen in the fact that we have not signed significant new power purchase agreements recently. Then over to our main figures and financial KPIs. These are all familiar compatible headline KPIs for the group's first quarter 2025. Considering all external factors, I'm satisfied with our performance. I'm especially happy about our value creation from our ability to optimize our generation fleet. Our comparable operating profit declined in the first quarter. Lower power prices and lower volumes negatively affected the result of our generation segment. Comparable operating profit for the group amounted to 462 million euros in the first quarter of 2025. Our comparable EPS also declined on the quarter, and was 42 cents per share. The operative cash flow was at a good level, however, decreased to 453 million euros. Finally, on the balance sheet, and most importantly, our leverage. Defined as financial net debt to comparable EBITDA, leverage was at 0.0 times at the end of first quarter 2025. Next, a few words about the commodity markets. Starting from the gas market, European gas prices surged to 59 euros per megawatt hour in early February due to supply risks as the Russian pipeline gas via Ukraine ended, which resulted in significant storage withdrawals. However, towards the end of the quarter, gas prices declined as geopolitical tensions momentarily eased. storage regulations became more flexible and supply to Europe increased following high LNG availability from reduced Asian demand. European TTF front-mount prices averaged 47 EURT in the first quarter, up 9% quarter-on-quarter. The high volatility in Nordic spot price continued during the first quarter, mainly driven by the variation in the wind power output. The precipitation amounts in the Nordics were close to normal. The high Nordic temperatures, 2 degrees above normal, resulted in very high inflows, 11 terawatt hours above normal. Hence, the hydro situation continued to be very high as hydro reservoirs became extremely well filled, especially in the northernmost hydro areas, but also in the southern Norwegian reservoirs. The reservoir balance surplus in Norway and Sweden increased to 21 TWh, which is the highest Q1 level seen in many decades. The high Nordic temperatures led to lower than normal Nordic power demand. All of this together resulted in low spot prices, except for some periods when the Nordic spot coupled with the continental spot prices. Overall, the Nordic futures market declined somewhat over the quarter, especially for the summer quarters, driven by the soft Nordic weather fundamentals and the slightly lower continental prices due to declining gas prices during the second part of the quarter. In the first quarter, soft Nordic market fundamentals in combination with strong wind power growth increased spot price volatility. This again lowered the capture rate for wind power while it increased for hydropower. Then I would like to hand over to Tiina to tell more about business performance.