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Omv Ag
10/29/2025
Welcome to the OMV results January to September Q and Q3 2025 conference call and webcast. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to refer you to the disclaimer, which includes our position on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on beliefs, estimates, and assumptions currently held by and information currently available to OMV. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that will or may occur in the future and are outside the control of OMV. Therefore, recipients are cautioned not to replace injury lines on these forward-looking statements. OMV disclaims any obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, revise assumptions and expectations in future developments and events. This presentation does not contain any recommendation or invitation to buy or sell securities in OMV. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Florian Greger, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead, Mr. Greger.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to OMV's earnings call for the third quarter 2025. With me on the call are OMV's CEO, Alfred Stern, and our CFO, Reinhard Florey. Alfred will walk you through the highlights of the quarter and discuss OMV's financial performance. After his presentation, both gentlemen are available to answer your questions. And with that, I hand it over to Alfred.
Thank you, Florian. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and thank you for joining us. As we held our capital markets update at the beginning of the month, where we gave a comprehensive update on our strategy 2030, I will focus today on the third quarter. Let me start with a quick overview of the macro environment. Oil prices in the third quarter were impacted by additional OPEC supply. However, increased crude processing by refineries driven by strong refining margins provided some support. As a result, print prices were slightly above the previous quarter, but 14% lower compared to the third quarter of 2024. European gas prices have traded in a narrow range in recent months, with muted Asian demand easing competition for flexible LNG and allowing prices to drift lower. Despite a significant year-on-year decline in inventory levels by the end of the third quarter, European gas hub prices decreased by 5% versus the prior year quarter. The OMV refining indicator margin rose strongly to $11.5 per barrel. Thus, more than doubled compared to the prior year quarter and was significantly higher than the previous quarter. This was driven by strong gasoline and diesel crack spreads with unexpectedly high gasoline demand and a shift toward diesel production. Reduced Russian exports and maintenance at the Tangote refinery provided additional support. European middle distillate margins were further boosted by limited imports and tighter access to Russian crude and products. In chemicals, European demand remained weak due to economic headwinds and increased imports, particularly from China and the U.S., European olefin indicator margins decreased compared to the previous quarter, but remained about 10% higher than the prior year quarter, supported by lower NAFTA prices and industry outages. Polyolefin indicator margins in Europe showed a mixed picture. Polyethylene margins improved while polypropylene margins declined versus prior year quarter. Both benefited from lower olefin costs, but polypropylene supply remained abundant due to continued high imports, even as domestic producers reduced operating rates. In this mixed economic backdrop, OMV delivered very solid financial results. Our clean CCS operating result rose to almost 1.3 billion euros, an increase of about 20% compared with both the prior year quarter and the second quarter of this year, demonstrating the benefits of our strongly integrated portfolio. Main driver was a very strong result of the fuel segment, which more than doubled compared to the prior year quarter. Clean CCS earnings per share grew to €1.82, driven by strong refining margins and increased E&P sales volumes. A lower tax rate and a positive one-time effect related to a litigation outcome in Romania provided further support. Cash flow from operating activities reached almost €1.1 billion and thus was on a similar level as the previous quarter. However, it came in below the strong prior year quarter, primarily due to significant negative net working capital effects. Excluding net working capital effects, the operating cash flow was slightly higher than in the prior year quarter. Our hydrocarbon production was 8% down year-on-year, primarily related to the divestment of our Malaysian asset last year. Fuel sales volumes remained broadly stable. Polyolefin sales volumes, including joint ventures in the third quarter, declined by 8% year-on-year, partly attributable to the implementation of a new ERP system at Puerto Aires. The clean operating result of the energy segment declined by 11% to €622 million, mainly due to significantly lower oil prices, FX development, and the missing contribution from the divestment of Sapura OMV. Increased sales volumes had a somewhat mitigating effect. The realized oil price fell by 15% to $66 per barrel, in line with the print price development. In contrast to the European benchmark prices, our realized gas price increased by 10% to 27 euros per megawatt hour, primarily due to the changed portfolio composition following the divestment of Sapura OMV. The unfavorable exchange rate development weighed on the results by around 70 million euros compared with the prior year quarter. Production volumes declined by 8% to 304,000 POE per day. This was mainly a consequence of the divestment of the Malaysian assets, which had produced 33,000 POE per day in the third quarter of 2024. A strong production increase in Libya to almost 40,000 POE per day, more than offset natural decline in New Zealand and Norway. Unit production costs slightly increased to $11 per barrel, predominantly due to the lower production volumes and the foreign exchange rate development, partly mitigated by reduced absolute costs. Sales volumes increased by 6,000 POE per day due to substantially higher liftings in Libya, complemented by greater sales volumes in Norway and the United Arab Emirates, owing to favorable lifting schedules. The result of gas marketing and power declined by 25 million euros, driven by a weaker supply result and a lower sales result in gas waste, only partially offset by an improved LNG contribution. Gas East delivered a better result stemming from the power business supported by power market deregulation in Romania effective from July 2025. The clean CCS operating result of the fuel segment more than doubled to 413 million euros, driven by substantially stronger refining indicator margins, a significantly higher up knock refining and trading result, and improved utilization rates of our refineries. The European refining indicator margin rose sharply to $11.5 per barrel. We were able to benefit from the strong market environment through a high refining utilization rate of 91%. The contribution of the marketing business remained strong, but was lower compared to the very high prior year quarter. Retail performance declined slightly, mainly due to reduced fuel margins driven by less favorable oil product quotations, partly offset by slightly increased sales volumes following the acquisition of retail stations in Austria and Slovakia. The result of the commercial business decreased as margins declined driven by slow economic development. The contribution of ad-hoc refining and global trading increased significantly to 52 million euros mainly due to a better market environment and stronger operational performance. The clean operating result of chemicals increased significantly to 222 million euros, driven to a large extent by the stop of Borealis depreciation. In our European business, we recorded positive market effects of 35 million euros, attributable to rising olefin indicator margins, while inventory effects had a negative impact of around 10 million euros. The utilization rate of our European crackers was 84%, slightly higher than the prior year quarter level. The result of OMV-based chemicals improved, driven by stronger olefin margins and higher steam cracker utilization rates. This was partly offset by weaker benzene margins. The contribution of Borealis, excluding joint ventures, increased by 64 million euros, supported by the stop of depreciation. However, contributions from both base chemicals and polyolefins declined. The base chemicals result was affected by a significantly lower light feedstock advantage, a lower phenol margin, as well as a slightly decreased utilization rate of the Borealis steam crackers. These effects were partly offset by improved olefin margins in Europe and less negative inventory effects compared to the third quarter of 2024. Polyolefin sales volumes of Borealis, excluding joint ventures, declined by 8%, largely attributable to the implementation of a new SAP system, which led to pre-sales in the second quarter. Thus, when looking at the two quarters combined, polyolefin sales volumes at Borealis rose by 5% compared to the respective prior year period. The realized unit margins of standard products declined, primarily due to stronger import pressure. In contrast, the realized unit margins of specialty products remained strong and stable, underscoring Boialis' strength in the specialty segment. The contribution of the JVs increased to 73 million euros, even though Boirouge delivered a lower result due to softer sales volumes and weak demand in Asia. The increase of the JV result is explained by the reclassification of PESTA, which is no longer consolidated and was negative in the prior year quarter. Turning to cash flows, our third quarter operating cash flow, excluding networking capital effects, was very strong at around 1.5 billion euros, an increase of almost 80% compared to the previous quarter. It was also 7% higher than the prior year quarter. Main drivers were strong refining margins and higher volumes in Libya. A positive one-time effect related to a litigation outcome in Romania was also supportive. In the third quarter of this year, we recorded a substantial networking capital build of about 400 million euros, while in the prior year quarter, we had a small positive effect from networking capital. As a result, cash flow from operating activities for the quarter was around 1.1 billion euros, in line with the previous quarter, but 23% lower than in Q3 2024. Looking at the nine-month picture, cash flow from operating activities came in at 3.5 billion euros, representing a decrease of 20% compared to the first nine months of 2024. Around half of the decrease is explained by a swing in net working capital effects, which were positive last year, but negative this year. Organic cash flow from investing activities in the first nine months was around 2.8 billion euros. related to ordinary ongoing business investments and major growth projects such as Neptune Deep, the BDH plant in Belgium, the SAF HBO plant in Romania, and the green hydrogen plant in Austria. Free cash flow before dividends in the nine months of 2025 was 5% lower than in the same period of last year. Our balance sheet continues to be very strong, with a leverage ratio at 16%. In the third quarter, we redeemed 750 million euros of hybrid notes at its first call date. The fair value of the hybrid bond was reclassified from equity to short-term bonds and consequently repaid, leading to an increase of the leverage ratio. At the end of September, OMV had a cash position of 4.6 billion euros and 4.2 billion euros in uncrowned committed credit facilities. Let me conclude with an updated outlook for this year. we maintain our Brent oil price assumption of around $70 per barrel for full year 2025. However, geopolitical environment remains highly volatile. For gas, we now expect the full year average PHE price to be slightly below 40 euros per megawatt hour, And the realized gas price is projected to be at the lower end of the 30 to 35 euros per megawatt hour range. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we anticipate E&P production to be around 300,000 barrels per day. Thus, expect for the full year 2025 an EMP production of slightly above 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. EMP production costs are anticipated to remain stable at around $11 per barrel. In fuels, the refining indicator margin rose significantly in the third quarter, and the start to the fourth quarter has also been very positive, with refining margins above $12 per barrel. As a result, we are upgrading our full-year outlook to above $9 per barrel. And our refinery utilization is expected to be at the upper end of the 85 to 90% range. Retail margins have developed positively and are now projected to be slightly above 2025 levels, while we maintain our outlook for lower commercial margins. The European chemicals market continues to face significant pressure from persistent economic challenges and rising import volumes, driving further consolidation and ongoing cracker closures. Supported by lower NAFTA costs, olefin margins in the fourth quarter are estimated to be at a similar level as the average of the first nine months. However, current high discounts are anticipated to have a somewhat mitigating effect. Polyolefin indicator margins are expected to decline in the fourth quarter due to lower seasonal demand and destocking at year end. Consequently, we now assume a lower utilization rate of our European steam crackers of around 85%. Polyolefin sales volumes at Polyalis are expected to increase by 200,000 tons to around 4.1 million tons in 2025. However, not as strongly as previously anticipated. All other full year assumptions for the group remain unchanged. We continue to make good progress on the Borussia Group international deal. we remain confident in our expectation to close both transactions related to BGI within the first quarter of next year. Thank you for your attention. Reinhard and I will now be happy to take your questions.
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