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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Analyst and Investor Conference Call of Uniper. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participant has difficulty seeing the conference, please press star key followed by zero on your telephone for appraisal assistance. May I now hand you over to Stefan Juth, who will start today's meeting. Please go ahead.

Good morning, dear analysts and investors. Welcome to the Uniper Interim Results Call for the first nine months of fiscal year 2021. Thank you for participating in our conference call today. This time, our CFO, Tina Tuomela, will guide you through the Interim Results presentation and answer all your questions. Tina will start with a brief wrap-up of the key highlights and then focus on the financial data. Tina.

Thank you very much, Stefan. Good morning, everyone. Also from my side, a warm welcome. Before I will go into the details of our financials, I would like to start briefly with the key highlights and shed some light on recent developments relating to our portfolio and strategy execution. Uniper's business performance in the third quarter again exceeded our expectations, which led ultimately to the ad hoc announcement two weeks ago. Accordingly, our financials should not come as a surprise to you today. Adjusted EBIT increased more than 50% year-on-year to 614 million euros in the first nine months of the fiscal year 2021. Adjusted net income increased by approximately 60% to 487 million euros in the same period. We have increased the outlook for our adjusted EBIT by 250 million euros, now with the range of 1,050 million euros to 1,300 million euros. For adjusted net income, the guidance has been increased by 200 million euros to a range of 850 million euros to 1,050 million euros. Turning now towards our strategy and portfolio development. Today, I will focus on the key events in our half-year reporting in August. There have been two dominant themes in the recent months. First, the development of the international commodity market, and second, the federal election in Germany and possible effects on the energy policy. Ultimately, both are linked on the topic of security of supply, which is back on the agenda. With its portfolio, Uniper contributes significantly to security of supply in Europe. With our comparably high gas storage filling levels, we are ensuring reliable gas supply to our customers. I will go more in detail on our role in the gas commodity markets in a bit. When it comes to our power generation, we delivered significantly higher volumes in the UK and German markets from our fossil assets this year. Based on the improved commercial prospects for B-Cloud power in Germany, we are now looking at preparing and bringing back online a 160 megawatt pump storage plant, namely the Habberg facility in Bavaria. In the UK, electricity market reserve demand peaks during the recent shortage period in September. The increase in load factors was particularly strong for the efficient units, one of them being Total 4. At present, there are ongoing discussions between the potential coalition parties of accelerating the German coal phase-out from 2038 up to 2030. As you know, Klaus Dieter, our CEO, has announced our willingness to talk about how DATEN4 could fit into a new context. When it comes to the legal dispute with respect of DATEN4, in August the Higher Administrative Code of Low Trine Petrelia ruled against the defendant, the city of Datteln, declaring the development plan invalid and not allowing an appeal. By now, Uniper and the city of Datteln have filed a complaint against the non-admission of an appeal. In our view, the issue raised by the court in its ruling requires clarification by the highest court, the Federal Administrative Court. Unipo continues to assume that the permits granted to the power plant and underlying development and regional planning are lawful. Despite the currently higher demand for fossil-based energy, we continue to drive the decarbonisation of our portfolio and the focus on green customer solutions in parallel. Uniper has ended its chapter of lignite-fired power generation in Europe and handed over its stake in the Skopal power plant to the minority owner eBay Edge on October 1st. Moreover, as announced some weeks ago, Uniper's engineering service business with around 1,100 employees will be streamed aligned and repositioned. Engineering competencies will in the future focus on universe-owned power plants as well as customers' business in the areas of hydrogen, renewable energy, industrial customer solution and net zero solutions. We are also making progress on our growth investment plans. in the renewable business, our first essential projects are taking shape, even though today I cannot be more concrete yet. There have been a number of recent news items relating to the development of our hydrogen activities. In Germany, the joint venture Flaxseed project, an energy park part lasted with an integrated value chains, including a 30 megawatt electrolyzer and estimated capex at up to 140 million euros, received funding of 43 million euros from the German Ministry of Economics in September. Another example is the memorandum of understanding on joint hydrogen projects between Ørsted and Univer. The main aim here is to establish a hydrogen production facility at our coastal site in Vilmershaven that is powered by offshore wind farms in the North Sea. Finally, Uniper and Fortum are continuing to work on the expansion of the joint one-seam platforms with the three key areas, renewable development, hydrogen, and Nordic Hydro and Physical Trading Optimization. The Nordic Hydro and Physical Trading Optimization area now takes shape under Fortum's responsibility. It includes a joint organization for the hydro asset management and operation in Sweden, as well as its physical trading operations. The entity with 400 employees will start operations during the first quarter of 2023. Furthermore, the nuclear dismantling and decommissioning cooperation between UNIPE and Fortum is operational since October. The initial focus will be on the technical execution of the ongoing decommissioning program in Sweden, followed by a rollout of services for nuclear generators in Europe. At present, around 1,000 colleagues from UNIPE and Fortune are working on over 80 business cooperation projects. Now over to the next slide. One of the key questions this year has been, what is? and what will be happening in the gas market. The global gas markets are showing a number sign of a perfect storm this winter season. China in particularly, but also unexpectedly other markets such as Brazil or Turkey and also Europe have significantly increased their demand this year. Also supply is also increasing, it has so far fallen short of expectations. As you can see on the slide to the left, in Europe, rising demand in meeting falling European production, limited pipeline gas supply, and significantly fewer LNG cargoes. Due to the tight supply and even record prices on the spot and forward markets, Europe and Germany are heading into a winter 2021-2022 with very low gas storages filling levels. Accordingly, the way how temperature develops will have an even bigger impact on the market this time around. Gazprom has run up its own production by over 10% so far in 2021, thus above pre-corona 2019 levels. Nevertheless, Russia was criticized for not doing more to improve the supply situation in Europe. Accordingly, there was some relief around Gazprom's recent statement that it would be able to deliver more gas into the German and Australian storages once it has built up its own Russian storages from the next week on. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether Gazprom will be able to deliver significant additional gas volumes to Europe this winter, especially during cold spell, and whether Gazprom will then be able to use the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The 55 billion cubic meters pipeline representing more than 10% of gas consumption in the EU with two pipes has been completed. One of the two pipes is filled with gas and would be ready for commercial operation. In September, Nord Stream 2 AG applied to the German regulator for certification. As publicly stated, it is expected that this process takes us into the year 2022. As a reminder, Uniper is only a financial partner in Nord Stream 2. Accordingly, Universe gas midstream portfolio is not directly linked to the availability of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Our gas midstream business positioned itself early on successfully in this market, ensuring sufficient supply volumes for our customers and strong optimization position for our assets. This did not only lead to higher earnings and ultimately trigger the ad hoc announcement, but it also is the perfect starting point going forward into a tight and potentially volatile winter season like this. This is best reflected in the storage filling levels at the end of the third quarter. While the European average was only at about 75%, Uniper's storage levels were significantly higher as shown on the next slide. As usual, you find the main operating indicators summarized on this slide, starting with our physical storage levels on the left side. At the end of September, and despite the challenging environment, Uniper's storage filling levels were at 95% and therefore close to prior years level and around 20 percentage points above market level. Next to the storage filling levels you find a breakdown of the generation volumes in our European generation fleet. Overall, and in line with trend in the previous quarters, we see an increase in power generation of about 16% for the first nine months in the current financial year. Looking at the underlying movements, hydro-oleums decreased by about 10% year-on-year, mainly caused by a normalization in the Nordic compared to previous years extraordinary precipitation and snow melt. Prior weather in 2021 led to significantly decreases in inflows and thus limited hydro supply, which will also most likely extend to the upcoming winter period. This development was offset to the certain extent by a precipitation-related 11% increase in German hydro-outfits. Nuclear production increased by 6% as a result of better availability compared to 2020, where we faced extended outages at the Ringhaus and Oskarsham plants. Gas and coal-fired power are up by 34% on a year-to-year basis, despite extended unavailability at our Dutch Mars Luxury Power Plant. This is the result of consistently low wind power generation, healthy demand coupled to the economic recovery but also unplugged interconnection authorities influencing our UK business. In addition, unlike last year, the DATM4 and IRCINC4 and 5 power plants are now fully contribute to the nine-month figures. Our Russian power segment also is showing an increase in generation volumes, however, to a smaller degree. The 6% increase year-on-year is driven by the recovery of domestic consumption and the growth of electricity exports to Finland and the Baltic countries. The overall growth in fossil-based generation volumes translates into a 21% increase in carbon emissions year-on-year. Looking at the full year 2021, we expect this trend to continue. Our specific carbon intensity slightly decreased to approximately 435 grams CO2 per kilowatt hour. Although we could observe a further production increase, the more or less constant level can be mostly explained with the highly efficient units 4 and 5 at the easing power plant site. Moving over to the financial section, starting with a summary of our main KPIs on the next slide. The overall picture after nine months is first and foremost a positive one. In a volatile and extreme commodity market environment, Uniper managed to significantly increase operating performance. However, looking at the magnitude of some of the presented metrics, it is also fair to conclude that Uniper's financials pretty much capture the level of exceptionality that we saw in the commodity markets. Let's go through the matrix from left to right. Both adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITDA increased by about 200 million euros each compared to previous year. Consequently, economic depreciations and amortization turned out flat year on year with 486 million euros. The adjusted net income followed this positive development and increased by 179 million euros year-on-year, benefiting also from a stronger economic interest result due to a revaluation of our hydro provisions in light of the higher interest rates. While minorities remained stable at 40 million euros, the economic tax rate increased towards 25% as more earnings shifted towards higher taxed countries. Despite a long operational set of numbers, the reported IFRS net income shows a loss of almost 5 billion euros. As explained in the ad hoc announcement, this matrix suffers from a mismatch in IFRS accounting. The deals that Juniper uses to hedge its portfolio are subject to mark-to-market accounting. As commodity prices have jerked, the hedge deals have significantly decreased in value. The total non-operating loss from hedge instruments valuation amounts to roughly 7 billion euros and is reflected in this net income figure. However, the corresponding values gained on Uniper's underlying assets like power plants or inventories are not reflected here as their book values are capped at historic costs under IFRS. This mismatch is only temporary and will resolve over time as the position settles. While the impact on the net income is therefore of limited relevance, the valuation losses on the derivative side did have a very tangible impact on Uniper's financial situation. In many cases, the merchant's hedge deals are concluded via commodity exchanges and bilateral agreements that are subject to hearings. Accordingly, with prices hitting uncharted territory and increasingly out of the money, hedge deals universally faced significant variation margin calls over the last week. The finance team worked very intensively and closely with our business as well as financing partners to make sure that those calls and the resulting liquidity risk were properly managed. In order to achieve this in the most efficient way, Uniper relied on a broad set of tools, including commercial papers, bank loans, intergroup loans, and ultimately also operational measures within our commodities portfolio. The very high operating cash flow reflects to some extent those measures. When it comes to the economic net debt, margining payments do not have an impact here. With every margining payment made or received, Uniper recognizes a corresponding margining receivable or liability, which are all included in Uniper's economic net debt definition. Therefore, not being impacted by margining, the net debt developed in line with the very high operating cash flow. As usual, I will now get into the details of the KPIs, starting with the underlying earnings drivers on the next chart. This slide breaks down the year-on-year development of adjusted EBIT into the main effects. The overall positive delta of 209 million euros after nine months is primarily driven by our international and gas midstream commodity business, which together showed an increase of more than 450 million euros. Roughly two-thirds of this increase is related to the international commodity business, in this case our US and LNG business, that benefited from the market developments in North America and Asia already during Q1. In the past, European gas industry results came in more than 100 billion higher year-on-year compared to the already strong previous year. This is reflecting the successful optimization of our flexible asset portfolio and our good positioning in times of volatile and rising gas prices. Usually, in this business, the earnings are materializing rather in the winter, i.e. Q1 and Q4. This year, however, the gas midstream business has already made a strong contribution to the third quarter due to the way the entire portfolio has been managed in this exceptional market environment. Next, European fossil generation is up by almost 70 million euros compared to already strong previous year. Now we can see the full nine-month contribution from DATEM4 and the K5 e-sink power plants, all of which went in commercial operation during the last year. Additionally, increased prices from capacity auctions resulted in higher capacity payments in UK for 2021. The positive drivers were partly offset by lower availability of mass luxury this year. Our outside generation business is on par with last year's results. On the volume side, hydro is down mostly due to the facility station in Sweden being very high last year, which came down to below normal level this year. However, this is partly compensated by a stronger nuclear generation after lower outages for most of the nuclear assets during last year. Price-wise, given increased spot prices and not fully hedged position on our hydro assets, we see a positive price effect here, while on the nuclear side the achieved prices came down. The next driver is so-called carbon-facing effect that we had already flagged in previous calls, including the last one at the half-year stage. As you know, this is a temporary intra-year effect that will fully revert in Q4. As CO2 prices increase, so do our CO2 provisions during the year, leading to higher expenditures in the first nine quarters. The offsetting gains on our carbon hedges, however, are not recognized within adjusted EBIT until the hedge deal settles, which is in Q4. Given the increase in CO2 prices and the high auto generation volume of the nine months, the CO2 phasing effect reached almost minus 450 million euros in absolute terms, which is about €320 million more than in the previous year. A contribution from the Russian dollar generation business developed in line with last year's results. Here, a negative effect offset the positive performance in the underlying Russian business. The additional contribution from Rezovskaya 3 and higher day ahead market prices in Europe and shown for lower earnings from Saturskaja, Javinskaja, Kutskaja plants, which all moved from the CAC capacity market scheme into the COM scheme. Now over to the operating cash flow. The operating gas flow after interest and taxes amounts to roughly 2.2 billion euros at the nine-month date, which is extraordinarily high. Looking at the waterfall that derives the operating gas flow from the adjusted EBIT on the left, there are two elements that stand out in the terms of magnitude. The first one is the so-called other category, which amounts to 927 million euros. This category summarizes all CO2-related provisions and working capital movements. As already mentioned, we had quite high CO2 provision built up in the first nine months. Accordingly, as those are burdening the EBIT but are not effective, this leads to a significantly positive effect here. In principle, at some point there would be offsetting effect in this category once the actual CO2 emission certificates are delivered into our balances. However, as you know, this does not happen before Q4. Accordingly, we see a very positive effect here that should largely balance out at the full year stage. Let's have a look at the second large driver on the operating gas flow. The net moment in the working capital amounting to 615 million euros. This figure reflects ultimately the way how the individual gas assets, including storages and contracts, as well as market channels, have been utilized over the last nine months and particularly in Q3. Given the extreme and unsustainable commodity market developments, The optionality in the portfolio was seen in a way that emphasized prudence and liquidity. Hereby, the business contributed to meet Uniper's funding requirements before, but also after, the 30th of September. Next, the development of the economic net debt. After nine months, the economic net debt came in at 1.4 billion euros, which is about 1.6 billion euros lower compared to the beginning of the year. Obviously, the main driver here is the high operating cash flow. This is by far overcompensating the payouts for dividends and investments. Lower pension provision and assets with silent obligation further contributed about €450 million to the positive development of the economic net debt. In both cases, this was due to the rising interest rates with regards to the pension provision, the underlying interest rate increased from 0.8% to 1.3% in Germany, and from 1.5% to 2.1% in the UK. For the sake of clarity, please note that the category DIVEX includes proceeds from the sale of our last European Lit Night Assets Compile that took place end of September. Given the positive earnings outlook for the remainder of the year, we expect the economic set to end up at a more than comfortable level at the year end as well. Admittedly, not at current record low levels. Having said that, let's have a look at the updated earnings outlook on the last slide today. As communicated in our ad hoc announcement, we have raised our full year outlook for 2021 adjusted EBIT and adjusted net income by 250 million euros and 200 million euros respectively. Hence, we now expect an adjusted EBIT between 1,050 million euros and 1,300 million euros and adjusted net income in the range of €850 million to €1,050 million. The reasons for the higher outlook are both a stronger than anticipated Q3 and higher expectations for the rest of the year. Aside from the revision of the carbon phasing effects, we expect Q4 to turn out better on the back of our gas midstream and fossil generation business. One final remark on the bandwidth of our outlook. Depending on how prices move until year end, earnings could shift between 2021 and 2022. Given the current tightness in the commodity market, those movements could be quite material. Therefore, even though we feel generally very comfortable with the new outlook, we did not narrow down the bandwidth of our guiding range at this point of time. That brings me to the end of my presentation today. Stefan, back to you.

Thank you, Tiina. Now time for our Q&A session. Therefore, happy to take your questions. And as usual, please limit yourself to two questions each. Operator, please.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question for a speaker, please dial a 021 on your telephone. Once the name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you find your question is answered before it is your turn to speak, you can dial zero and two to count for your question. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the hands right before making your selection. Remind me, please, for the first question. And the first question is from Luda Schumacher, Social Security General. Your line is now open.

Yes, good morning. Two questions on my side. The first one is on your economic net debt. I was just wondering how clean is this operating cash flow number of 2.2 billion, i.e., how sustainable is it and how much of this do you expect to revert in Q4? I mean, just now, Tina, you just, I think, hinted that full year net debt will not be at the level it is now. If you could give us an idea of where you see full year net debt, that would be quite interesting. The second is a more general question on the European gas market. I mean, obviously quite extraordinary times there. I believe one of your traders has described the market as not functioning properly anymore, given the extent of variation margin flows that are there. That was certainly a Bloomberg headline that picked up. Do you believe that if Nord Stream 2 were to get its operating license back, earlier than currently anticipated. And I believe additional Russian gas flows have always been linked to receiving this operating license. Would that be enough to bring the European gas market into balance, even if we were to get a cold winter? Or would even this be insufficient if we're in for a cold winter? So your general view on the supply-demand balance in the European gas market. That would be very interesting.

Hello, Lucio, and good to have you today in this call. I'll take your first question about the economic net debt and the question was that how in a way sustainable the numbers are if we look at the full year forecast. As you know, we don't provide any forecast for the specific economic net debt numbers, but clearly we can see that the current market are very exceptional. and therefore we could see that also our measures to provide the liquidity to meet all the margin calls has been in a way exceptional. So in that sense, we would anticipate the cash flow to be at a more normalised level Maybe one way to look at this, if we look at our EBIT guidance rate, our depreciation levels are roughly 700 billion, quite constant, giving us EBITDA, and then quite good gas conversion rate, so that is, in a way, the normal level. But as I said, very big volatility in the market, So we need to see how that goes, but clearly would emphasize that this has been a special quarter. Then I think the other question about market and how they functioning. So I think it is fair to say that the movements First of all, the increase in the prices have been very, very exceptional. So power and gas prices increased by five to six-fold if compared to the previous year. So putting much pressure to the companies, not only the producers, but particularly to the retailers. the margin calls surely I think has in a way limited how the players could act in the market and what we see is that also the liquidity in the market started to be fairly small so it has been in a way hopefully not continuing. Then of course what comes to the Nord Stream 2 so if That would go into the operation, so it would take even more supply and take the market to the right direction. But I think it is still questionable whether it will fully change the picture. And that, of course, depends also on what kind of winter, how the demand supply overall will develop.

So if we're going to get a cold winter, then Nord Stream 2 alone will not be able to balance the market. Is that what you're saying?

Well, I would say that it is still questionable because there are also some other impacts in the market. So how the demand and supply, how much we get LNG. So as we saw in Q3, very little LNG coming to the Europe now lately. I think the prices are supporting, and we can see that also LNG coming to the market. So I think we need to look at the overall. Clearly, it would help, but, you know, the situation and the picture is more complex.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next question is from James Brand, Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. Well done on the good points and for having some gas, hopefully keeping us all warm over the winter. Two questions for me. Firstly, I'm just going to try a different angle on the net debt question. I can understand it's all very uncertain, so maybe you won't be able to give a precise answer. number, but you seem to suggest in your comments earlier that of the 900 million of other, most of that was going to, most if not all of that was going to reverse. I was wondering whether I could also perhaps ask about the working capital improvement of 600 million. You don't normally see that in the nine-month stage. I think you might have slightly changed your definition in terms of how you present net debt, dealing with margins, so maybe that made a difference. But of that 600 working capital move that we've seen in the nine-month stage, maybe you could comment on how much of that you think might be sustainable. That's the first question. And then secondly, you obviously give very precise guidance on your hedging for the outrights, but the spreads, as you showed, spark spreads, dark spreads, as you showed in your chart, have increased rates substantially, particularly for the year ahead. So I was wondering whether you could maybe give us a bit of colour on the extent, I guess, to which you might have capacity that you can be putting into the market to benefit from that. I presume that not all of your capacity is hedged for the whole year, or maybe you have some open positions anyway, but if you could just give us some colour on how much capacity might not be fully hedged. and to make sure that would be really interesting. Thank you.

Hello, James, and thank you for your question. So if I got it right, your first question relates to gas flow and the item what we have in other is 900 million. I'm sorry, please.

Sorry, the first question, although I think you were clear, the question is more around the 600 million of working capital.

Okay, okay. Very good. So clearly, as mentioned, the working capital measures were bigger in this quarter. I would say that normally what we do is do is that these kind of measures are taking in the last quarter. Clearly, the working capital measures were a support to our liquidity situation when we got these additional margin calls. I would say that the main, in a way, what we did actually was on the funding side. So we increased our funding with bank loans, commercial papers, intracurricular loans, but also then we did some operative measures to close the remaining gap and also improve our additional cash situation. I think the operating measures or working capital measures were mostly related to our gas business. So there we have certain, in a way, contracts where we use the flexibility, what comes to the timing of the payments of our supply and sales, and also we have some assets and inventory so which could be in a way converted in easy way to the cash in a way to reduce the balances and improve the cash. Then the question about the hedges. So I think The hedges is to secure our cash flow and earnings for the future, and usually, as you know, we will start to build the hedges from a couple years beforehand, but also based on what is the liquidity in the market, how we could, in a way, build that. And in general, the hedge levels We recall last year it was COVID, so we also have relatively high hedge levels. In the spread side, so we see in general the better spreads. But to recall that they are not directly to the volume related. So for example, last year, so we, in a way, do the deals and put the heads, all the different legs, the power, the fuel, and the CO2s are in a way locked. But then of course, we use the optionality. So whether we reproduce, or whether you will buy from the market. For example, last year, we made very good results by using this optionality. So, the spreads in general, they are not directly linked to our generation volumes. I think going forward, we see the spread and we have capacities now coming from RTC, so it's in a way available, but we probably don't give in more detail in a way numbers on that. Of course, very important to keep our power plants in training if needed, and then we can capture any possible additional spikes or gives the security of supply to the market.

Brilliant. Thanks, Sina. Very useful answers.

Thank you.

The next question is from Sam Ares, UBS. Your line is now open.

Hi. Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for the presentation, and congratulations on more strong results. I wanted to just dig into the global commodities business, if I can, with a couple of questions. And the first one, I think, is about, you know, how much of the current strong performance is, you know, really just to do with the exceptional markets this year, and how much could we think of as kind of sustainable? And then the second question is, You know, if we think about the global commodities activity, I mean, it's been a huge part of the story for Uniper in the last five years. I suppose it's easy to forget that the reason for the creation of Uniper was that I suppose E.ON didn't like these businesses at the time. But things have changed massively, haven't they, in the last five years? But the other thing that's changed is your strategy and your strategy within the Fortum group of focusing more on kind of clean activities going forward. So there's a kind of tension between the fact that this global commodities business is performing really, really well for you, producing a lot of earnings and cash flow, but kind of isn't really fitting very well with the strategy. And so my second question here is not, you know, are you going to sell this global commodities business? Because I'm sure that you can't answer that question or wouldn't answer that question. But could you talk to us a little bit about how sort of essentially integrated the commodity business is with the rest of your activity? You know, how much of it is really an essential route to market for, you know, your power assets? And how much of it can we think of as a sort of standalone separate business that could exist within Unipol or could exist somewhere else in the future? Thank you.

Hello, Sam. Good to have you today in our call. So I think your first question relates to global commodities and the extraordinary incomes which we have made I think last year and also so far this year, so whether this is sustainable. I think it is fair to say that these kind of profit levels really relate to the market conditions I think also it in a way reflects that our ability to capture, utilize our flexibility and the optionality what we have, so really happy how the assets and the contracts are used. But I think that what comes to our guidance for longer term, so I think our old guidance what we have given roughly 350 million euros to 500 million euros of EBITDA per year still remains. And depending, of course, how the market develops and what is the volatility, so we assume in the longer term more kind of the normal years. Then I think in general, we are very happy to have total commodities in our portfolio and see a lot of synergies, how it's linked to our generation portfolio, gives really the access to the market, because I think it's not only about the hedging and optimization, but also looking to the future. And then I think that what we have already done is that, you know, our customers want the green products we are providing already now, offering the EPA. So I think this is one example and also other green products what we are developing. As well, very important for our renewables and hydrogen business, so to finance and attract in a way, put the renewable project, wind project, solar project. So it is important to have the access to the market. So I think the global commodities is essential. Likewise in our gas industry business. So we are aiming to get that more green. So our hydrogen business and so forth to be able to utilize the infrastructure, the competencies So very important. So put it in very short, it is the commercial heart of our unit group operation.

Very, very helpful and very clear. So to summarize, you know, the ongoing guidance is still valid at sort of 350 to 500, even though this year might be sort of double or triple that by the low end of the range and very much a core part of the business. Very helpful answer.

Very good. Thank you.

The next question is from Geeta Venkateshwaran, Bernstein. Your line is now open.

Thank you. I have two questions, Tina. So the first one is I'm going to come back to the net debt. So if I look at your disclosure later on in the deck, there's basically 5.3 billion of margin receivables. So that's roughly on a year-on-year basis, 4.2 billion. So can I assume that that's the valuation margin outflow you've had in the year? And now because you show these assets, of course, that's not included in the net debt. Can I check how the ratings agencies look at this or would they basically be looking at your net debt differently and, you know, course the variation margin and what's the timing of unwind of this outflow so that's my first question on the net debt and variation margin and second question what are you hearing about how the EU commission is thinking on the green taxonomy with regards to nuclear and gas I know the position was supposed to come out later at the end of the year but any updates on how their thinking is developing on these two technologies would be great

Hello Deepa, thank you for joining our call today. So to your first question, so the net debt and in relation to 5.3 million margin receivables, so that is clearly reflecting the payments that we have made, mostly related to power and gas, with the payments we have made, and also put them in our receivables. I think it is also worth to mention there are margining payables, and the net amount of that is 3 billion euros. And in a way, how that will roll over, of course, it is in relation to how our hedges will roll over. And clearly, of course, the winter is the important time when the backflow will happen. So I would say most of that would go in the next... next winter but also something going even further because of course hedging is done for the longer term. I think what comes to our rating and how they look at them, so they follow pretty much our view when it comes to our net debt definition because I think this is the money what we have paid or received and we roll over So the swing spots are there, so they are temporary, but not impacting the net debt. Then the question about the taxonomy, so I think we are also waiting for announcements, and of course it would be very important to get the clarity as soon as possible. I think the current situation where we have had a pretty high prices and the also supply demand was fully matching so hopefully that will bring and I believe also it will bring the importance of the gas and also nuclear so that we need the nuclear. being sealed in pre-production form, gas very important, particularly in the transformation form. So I think that it is important to recognize the role in this transformation and look at the broader picture. So as we know that the delegated axle is expected later on, very much believing that this current situation brings the security of supply and alternative in a way all forms of production forms, how to take this transformation further.

Okay, thank you.

The next question is from Nikko Helland, the Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask a quick one on the Nordic hedge prices. It looks like quarter on quarter they're a bit down. So I wonder if you could explain why is that? Thank you.

Hello. Thank you for the question. So the question was these hedges in the Nordics and why... they are the level in a way remaining as they are.

I think quarter on quarter prices are down a couple of euros for 22 and 23. Yeah, thanks.

Very good. Of course, one reason is that the overall hedge levels are very high. So before they roll off, so it is, you know, not that much open what could improve the price. In additional, we have the proxy hedging impact there from the earlier years, which will burden the number. And also, if we look at the areas where we hedge in Sweden, so we are mostly the price area two and three, and particularly the price area two, we have seen very low prices. There is unfortunately a lot of, in a way, limitation in the The connections between the different areas and the areas too has really burdened also our head society.

Okay, excellent. Thanks.

As a short reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press 021-MANIA-TELESINKI-PASS. And the next question is from Andrew Mulder, Credit Cites. Your line is now open. We can't hear you at the moment. Maybe you put yourself on mute.

Yes, sorry. Yes, it's Andrew Mulder at Credit Sites. Yeah, I understand what you're doing with the net debt. That's fine. I just want to understand more about what's actually happening with the cash flows. I'm sorry if this is a bit of a detailed question, but if I look at your cash flow statement on page 31 of your report, particularly if I look at the working capital movements there, I can see that there's an operating receivable of 94 billion and an operating liability of 101 billion within the working capital. Could you perhaps just clarify for me exactly what they are? And then there's two items further down, which are the purchase of securities of 4.8 billion and the proceeds from new financial liabilities of 4.9 billion. I mean, I guess that's all to do with the margining and the cash flows around the margining and the hedges, but could you please just explain to me what those items are and how it all fits together? Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew. So looking at the individual numbers in the cash flow, I think the margining is certainly one item, but I think that it also includes the derivatives. So there is these assets and liabilities, which are at a very high level, on a cross level, but they will net out, as mentioned, the seven billion Euro derivative loss. So, therefore, I would, in a way, maybe guide you to look at the waterfall in our IR presentation. That might be more helpful, so it doesn't include mark-to-market valuation of the derivatives. So there you can see the overall operating working capital, positive effects, and the impact measures, which in a way gives the better picture because certainly this quarter, the impact of the mark-to-market derivative values are really disturbing maybe the underlying, in a way, drivers.

Okay, thank you. I'll take a look at the IR windfall in the presentation. Thank you very much, Tina.

Thank you.

We have a follow-up question from Sam Arias, UBS. Your line is now open.

Oh, hi. Thanks for coming back to me. Just, Tina, a follow-up question I perhaps should have asked last year, but it was reported I think around a year ago that Centrica was looking to

sell some of its LNG activities. And I'm hearing you say that the LNG and the commodities is core and obviously UK important geography for you. I'm just wondering, did you ever comment if you were interested in those types of assets or did you look at the Centrica assets that were for sale or any update you can give us on that particular situation would be very interesting. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Simon. Well, I think that when we discuss about our core, so I say the global commodities as a whole, and as usual, we do not comment any speculation of the individual asset. So, frankly, I would have expected you to ask about the other asset, actually, so not the LNG, but asset, you know, We don't comment any speculation.

Okay, well, just worth a try. Thank you again for your comment this morning. It's super helpful and great results, obviously, too. So, have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We have no further questions in the line. I hand back to Mr. Hughes for concluding remarks.

Thank you very much, everyone. for your questions and wish you a nice day. We conclude the call here. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect.