Koninklijke Vopak Uns/Adr

Hello and welcome to Royal Volpec first half year 2025 update. Throughout the call, all participants will be in the listen-only mode. And afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. This call is being recorded. I am pleased to present the Jonah Topshu, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead with your meeting.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our half-year 2025 Results Analyst Call. My name is Fathiona Topcu, Head of IR. Our CEO, Shubhik Rishal, and CFO, Mila Vilsin, will guide you through our latest results. We will refer to half-year 1 2025 Analyst Presentation, which you can follow on screen and download from our website. After the presentation, we will have the opportunity for Q&A. A replay of the webcast will be made available on our website as well. Before we start, I would like to refer to the disclaimer content of the forward-looking statement, which you are familiar with. I would like to also remind you that we may make forward-looking statements during the presentation, which involves certain risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, this is applicable to the entire call, including the answer provided to questions during the Q&A. And with that, I would like to hand over the call to Dick.

Thank you very much, Fajona, and a very good morning to all of you joining us in the call. Let's start with the key priorities of our strategy framework towards 2030. We continue to focus on improving the performance of our existing portfolio. This includes both our sustainability efforts and our financial results, with an operating cash return target for the portfolio above 13% throughout the cycle. Second, we have the ambition to invest 2 billion euro equity contribution in industrial and gas terminals. That translates to around 2.6 billion euro on a proportional basis. Third, we have the ambition to invest 1 billion euro equity contribution in infrastructure for the energy transition, which translates to around 1.4 billion euro on a proportional basis. Our improve, grow and accelerate strategy underpins our well-diversified and resilient portfolio and provides a solid foundation to continue delivering value to all our stakeholders. Now let's move into the key highlights for the first half of this year. First half of this year, the demand for infrastructure services remained healthy across the portfolio, and that resulted in a proportional occupancy rate of 92%, with continued high satisfaction from our customers. We reported strong financial performances. growing our proportional EBITDA to €615 million, leading to an operating cash return of 16.9%. Arjun Venture AVTL in India successfully completed its IPO, with proceeds of around €300 million, which will be used to fund future growth in this attractive market. This IPO led to an exceptional gain of €111 million for VOPAC, and we are increasing our full year outlook. Our business performance is strong, and we project a growth rate of 3 to 5% of our proportional EBITDA, excluding the currency impact, and the positive one-off item of this quarter. We're making good progress with the construction of Reeve Terminal in Western Canada, and are expanding at the Whitman Terminal in the same location. In India, our joint venture AVTL announced the development of the first independent terminal to store ammonia in the country. Additionally, in India, multiple expansions for LPG were commissioned. And we see good progress and ample opportunity to further grow our gas and industrial footprint around the world. Let me move to the accelerate. That goes straight into Malaysia. Malaysia, the PT2SB terminal took a positive investment decision to expand capacity for biofuels. Vopak Energy Park in Antwerp entered the feed phase for the development of ammonia capacity. And we signed a joint development agreement with IHI Corporation to establish a joint venture for the development and operation of an ammonia terminal in Japan. Our commitment remains unchanged to actively support our customers with infrastructure for the ongoing energy transition and to invest when opportunities arise at the right returns. Let's look at our financial performance. We see an overall strong performance with slightly higher results compared to the same period last year. Gas markets were stable and our terminal are supported by long-term contracts. Mainly due to some Planned out of service capacity and a positive one-off last year, the results of the gas segment in absolute terms went down slightly. In the industrial segment, we also see stable demand with slightly increased throughput levels. A one-off following a commercial resolution in Asia-Middle East and growth contribution from Weizhou in China were driving growth in this segment. Chemical markets remain weak. while our terminals continue to support evolving supply chains. Energy markets, which we serve with our oil terminals, have continued strong demand for infrastructure, especially in the hubs like Rotterdam. All in all, this has led to an increased proportional EBITDA of €615 million and a strong operating cash return in the first half of 2025. Now looking at our sustainability performance, we have safety always as our top priority. Personal safety performance deteriorated compared to a good first half of last year, while we reported good process safety performance. Looking at the emissions and diversity, we keep making good progress in achieving our long-term goals. Let's move to the growth investments. and start with an update on this year's proportional growth CAPEX spent. Year-to-date, we spend around €300 million on growth projects, while we expect this number to be around €700 million for the full year, reflecting our share of investments, but not our equity contribution, and it includes key growth projects we announced earlier. Since the start of our Improve, Grow and Accelerate strategy, we've committed a total of 1.7 billion euro, of which 314 million euro this year. We're well on the way to the 4 billion euro proportional ambition towards 2030, that we aim to allocate in opportunities that meet our investment criteria. Over the years, we delivered a number of projects, adding new capacity to our network. 1.7 million cubic meters of capacity was added since 2022, of which the majority in the industrial and the gas segment. As you can see on this slide, with a few highlights of the past years, projects were delivered around the world. For example, in China, with the Greenfield Weizhou Terminal, and the expansion in Chaojing, both industrial terminals in China. Also in the Netherlands, with LNG capacity at the Ames Energy Terminal, and capacity for low-carbon fuels and feedstocks in Vlaardingen. These commissioned capacities have a strong contribution to our results today. Now let's move to India. Our joint venture AVTL successfully completed the IPO, leading to an exceptional gain of 111 million euro. We've seen a lot of growth in India and we continue to see attractive opportunities ahead. The recent commissioning of LPG capacity in Pipavava Mangalore are examples of this. AVDL also announced the development of the first independent ammonia terminal in India, which is fully funded by AVDL. The capacity is expected to be commissioned at the end of next year. In Canada, the construction of the reef terminal is progressing well. The project remains within budget and is on track for the in-service date planned for the end of 2026. Together with AltaGas, we have now started to evaluate near-term optimization opportunities. Further optimization and expansions will benefit from common infrastructure of the terminal in the initial phase. Also at Ripit, we are expanding with additional infrastructure for the removal of methanol. This expansion requires an investment of €11 million of OPAC share. Both developments fit well within our strategy to grow in industrial and gas terminals in a highly strategic location at the Canadian west coast. Now moving on to the third strategic pillar, accelerating toward infrastructure for the energy transition. Today, we announced an expansion in Malaysia at the industrial PT2SV terminal. In total, 272,000 cubic meters of additional storage capacity will be built and connected to a biorefinery to support the production of low-carbon transport fuels. The investment of €72 million of OPAC share is underpinned by a long-term contract. An investment which is a strategic fit with the focus to accelerate towards infrastructure for the energy transition, in combination with a strong industrial position in Malaysia. Furthermore, with regards to accelerating towards infrastructure for the energy transition, Volpac Energy Park Antwerp is moving on in the development of an ammonia terminal by entering the feed engineering phase. In Japan, we work on developments with regard to ammonia. We signed a joint development agreement with IHI to participate in an ammonia project. And we leverage our extensive experience in handling and storing ammonia. in six current locations around the world. We delivered on growth over the recent years with multiple expansions at existing and new locations. Our capability to deliver will ensure project execution in the years to come with multiple key investments coming online that will support future growth. At the end of 26, we have planned to have both Reef and the fourth tank at Gate commissioned. And further down the line, multiple expansions and new terminals will follow, supporting long-term and stable returns. To wrap it up, we presented strong results, supported by a healthy demand for our infrastructure services, leading to an operating cash return of 16.9%. We're able to increase our outlook despite a foreseen negative currency translation effect of around 30 million euro. That translates into a 3% to 5% of business growth. And finally, we're delivering on growth and remain committed to further invest in gas, industrial, and energy transition infrastructure. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Michiel to give more details on the numbers.