Koninklijke Vopak Uns/Adr

Hello, and welcome to the Royal BOPAC First Quarter 2026 Results Update. Throughout the call, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question-and-answer session. This call is being recorded. I'm pleased to present Patrona Topchew, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead with your meeting.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q1 2026 Results Analyst Call. My name is Patrona Topchew, Head of IR. I will see you soon to Dick Richelle and CFO, Miguel Gilson, to guide you through our latest results. We will refer to the Q1 2026 summit 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 you to like the disclaimer content of the forward-looking statements, which you are familiar with. I would like to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements during the presentation, which involve certain risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, this is applicable to the entire poll, including the answers provided to questions during the Q&A. And with that, I would like to hand over the poll to Dick.

Thank you very much, Fatrona, and a good morning to all of you joining us in the call this morning. I would like to start with the key highlights of the year so far. We've had a strong start. Of the year, we saw a healthy demand for our services, which is reflected by our continuously high occupancy rate of 91%. Our financial performance remained strong. Proportional EBITDA grew by 4.1% compared to Q1 2025. And that is the result adjusted for negative currency translation and divestment impact. Importantly, we were able to convert 76% of this EBITDA into operating free cash flow, resulting in an operating cash return of 16.6%. We also made good progress on executing our growth strategy. In West Canada, the construction of our Reef LPG project export terminal is progressing well. And in the Netherlands, approximately 90% of the fourth tank Construction at Gate Terminal has been completed. The project is on track to be commissioned within budget and on time at the end of Q3 2026. In addition, we took an investment decision in the Netherlands to repurpose capacity at a Europort terminal for the storage of pyrolysis oil, and another FID in Spain to expand the capacity in Tarragona. Finally, despite the increased volatility in the market related to the Middle East conflict, we are confirming our full year 2026 outlook, subject to ongoing market uncertainties and currency exchange movements. As per our current assessment, we anticipate the financial impact of the ongoing conflict will be absorbed by our strong underlying business performance and is within the range of our full year 2026 outlook. However, we do see that the uncertainty has increased, which is what I will talk about in more detail in the following slides. First look at the market dynamics. Before diving into the results, I'd like to provide some context on the conflict in the Middle East. It has caused a historic supply-side shock across global energy and manufacturing markets. This presents a major challenge for some of our customers. Broadly speaking, supply-side substitution has not been sufficient to offset the loss of physical products normally sourced from developed countries. This has triggered significant commodity price volatility and forced a redirection of energy flows towards domestic and transportation sectors, further impacting industrial demand. As a result, we see cautious customer sentiment and increased uncertainty. and let's take a closer look at how this impacts our business, starting off with our exposure to the region. We own and operate four storage terminals across the Middle East, with strategic locations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In terms of financial exposure, around 5% of our proportion of EBITDA is generated by these terminals, and they represent around 4% of our capital employed. Our terminals in Saudi Arabia are linked to industrial clusters, while our Fujairah terminal in the Emirates, located outside the Strait of Hormuz, functions as an oil hub. The conflict has had severe impact on the industrial activity in the Gulf countries, because of physical damage to the production facility and production halls. As a result, from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Fujairah, despite its strategic location, faces reduced product close. In terms of indirect exposure, to substitute for the loss of product volume from the Middle East, we see a rebalancing of trade routes emerging. While our infrastructure facilities facilitate the rebalancing of global trade flows, throughput levels are impacted by reduced products in the markets. We do see that this presents a major challenge for some of our customers, impacting their business continuity. With our well-diversified portfolio of terminals, we've proven to be resilient against geopolitical tensions, as well as energy market volatility and disruptions in the past. Our diversification is a structural strength, allowing our network to serve the evolving supply chain and energy security needs of our customers and partners. In addition, with the shift of our portfolio towards gas and industrial terminals, The duration of our contracts has increased significantly, reducing our exposure to short-term volatility. However, we are resilient, but we're not immune. The conflict in the Middle East introduces variables from shifts in global trade routes to heightened security risks and regional price shocks that we are not insulated from. We continue to monitor these developments to protect our operations and our customers' interests. Now let's take a closer look at our results for the different terminal types we operate. We see an overall strong performance with higher results compared to Q1 of last year when adjusting for the impact of currency translation and divestments. It's important to highlight that Q1 results had limited impact from the Middle East conflict. We saw a strong performance of our chemicals and oil terminals, which was primarily driven by increased throughput combined with strong contribution from growth projects. Our industrial terminals performed broadly stable year-on-year. However, due to the contribution of growth projects, we saw a slight increase compared to Q1 2025. For our gas terminals, we saw a slight decline year on year, which is primarily related to disrupted gas supply from the Middle East conflict. All in all, this has led to a proportionally enough 295 million euro and a strong operating cash return of 16.6%. Notwithstanding the volatility and uncertainty on the market during Q1, we continued to execute on our growth strategy. In the United States, at our depart terminal, we commissioned repurposed capacity for biofuels. And in Spain, our tech teams at Druin Venture took an FID to expand its capacity to address market needs, as well as further solidify its leadership position. Last but not least, we've taken a final investment decision to repurpose capacity at our Europort terminal in the Netherlands for the storage of pyrolysis oil. This is an important step in our continued commitment to the energy transition and is strengthening and further integrating our industrial partnership at the Eurocorp. Since 2022, we've committed around 1.9 billion euro to grow our base in gas and industrial terminals and to accelerate the energy transition. Around 650 million of this is already commissioned and is contributing to the financial results. around 1.3 billion is still under construction. We expect to commission around 775 million euro near year end related to mainly Gates, the fourth tank, and the LPG export terminal in Canada. In the period 2027-2028, we expect to commission around 325 million euro and around €175 million in 2029 and beyond. This is based on the FIDs that we've taken so far. The already commissioned growth projects, as well as the growth CAPEX under construction, will further reinforce our long-term stable return profile and diversify our revenues. Looking ahead, we remain well positioned to achieve our long-term ambitions. We've shown strong business performance in recent years, and the market indicators for storage demand remain firm, supporting the delivery of growth projects and the resilient performance of our existing business. This is reflected in our long-term ambition. We have an operating cash return ambition for an annual range of between 13% to 17%, and are well on track to invest €4 billion growth capex through 2013. Also, as announced during our full year 2025 results, we are distributing around 1.7 billion euros to our shareholders through year-end 2030 via a progressive dividend and a multi-year share buyback program. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Michiel to give more details on the Q1 2026 results.

Thank you, Dick, and also from my side, good morning to all of you. As Dick mentioned already, we have had a very strong start of the year. we reported a healthy occupancy rate, increased our EBITDA, and further improved our free cash flow generation. These results highlight the strength of our well-diversified portfolio, particularly in times of increased uncertainty and volatility. Simultaneously, we continue to invest in attractive and accretive growth projects while returning value to our shareholders. Let's take a closer look at the performance of the portfolio. Our operating cash return was broadly stable at 16.6% compared to the 16.8% in Q1 2025, driven primarily by the negative effect of currency translation in our free cash flow. On an autonomous basis, excluding currency and divestments, our proportional operating free cash flow per share increased 7.1% versus Q1 2025. Demand for our services remained healthy, reflected in a proportional occupancy rate of 91%. Adjusted for currency movements and divestments, proportional EBITDA increased by 4.2%, which we will detail further in the next slide. Moving on to our business unit performance overview. Excluding negative currency exchange effects of €15 million and €2 million divestment impacts, our proportional EBITDA increased by 4.2% compared to Q1 2025. A large part of this growth can be explained by the strong EBITDA contribution of €9 million from our growth projects, particularly in the US and India. The performance across the network was relatively stable, as regional headwinds are balanced by robust activities at our major oil hubs in the Netherlands and Singapore. We are continuously focused on generating predictable growing cash flows to create value for our shareholders. Compared to Q1 2025, we have seen our proportional operating free cash flow grow by 7.1%, adjusted for currency translation and divestment impact. This is primarily driven by the autonomous improvement of our proportional EBITDA and the reduced share count following our share buyback programs. Moving from the cash flows to our financial position. Our proportional leverage, which reflects the economic share of our joint venture debt, remains stable at 2.6 times. If we exclude the impact of assets under construction, which do not contribute yet to the EBITDA, the proportional leverage is at 1.99 times, which is the lowest level in over five years. Our ambition for the proportional leverage range is between 2.5 and 3 times. To facilitate the development of growth opportunities that enhance our operating cash return, Volkart's proportional leverage may temporarily fluctuate between 3 and 3.5 during the construction period, which can last 2 to 3 years. This is all in line with our disciplined capital allocation framework. Our capital allocation framework consists of four distinct pillars, aiming to maintain a robust balance sheet, distribute value to shareholders, invest in attractive growth projects, and yearly evaluate the share buyback program. As announced during our full year result, we are distributing around 1.7 billion euros to our shareholders through year-end 2030 via a progressive dividend and a multi-year share buyback program. In addition, we have the intention to invest €4 billion on a proportional basis by 2030 to grow our base in gas and industrial terminals and to accelerate towards energy transition infrastructure. That brings me to the outlook for full year 2026. As mentioned by Dick, the market indicators for storage demand remain firm, supporting the delivery of growth projects and the resilient performance of our existing business. However, we do acknowledge that the market has become significantly more volatile following the conflict in the Middle East. For now, we expect that the financial impact of the ongoing situation is absorbed by our strong underlying business performance and growth project contribution. This gives us the confidence to reaffirm our full year 2026 outlook with a proportional operating free cash flow projected at around €800 million and a proportional EBITDA expected to range between 1.15 billion and 1.2 billion. Bringing it all together in this slide, we are off to a strong start of the year with solid cash generation. Our portfolio remains well positioned to cater for increased volatility in the market. And last but not least, we continue investing in attractive growth opportunities while returning value to our shareholders. And with that, I hand over back to you, Dick.

Thank you, Michel. And with that, I'd like to ask the operator to please open the line for question and answers.

Thank you so much. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to slowly press star 1-1 on your telephone keypad and wait for a name to be announced. To withdraw a question, please press star 1-1 again. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone keypad. Please don't bother to compile the Q&A or studies. We'll take a few moments. And now we're going to take our first question. And the question comes from Christoph Samuel from KBC Securities. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. First of all, congratulations with the results. I have two questions to start with. If we look at the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, there are, let's say, two factors at play there which impact your business. First of all, positively, you have the rush for energy molecules, so energy security. On the other hand, you have uncertainty, which impacts the FID process that you are undergoing for certain projects. So my first step question would be, How's the process looking for Australia right now? Has FID become less likely or... all the more likely given the fact that Australia can simply import oil from its own, from another region in their country. And secondly, if you could comment on ING's energy terminal and the potential extension there, because we have seen the news that Exmark is progressing with the vessel conversion. And then the second question, We know that throughput rather than guaranteed offtake is more of a key driver for revenues in India. If we look at the drop in proportional cupency rates in the Middle East and India, could we say that this drop is still mainly linked to the Middle East and that the drop linked to throughput in India has yet to be reflected in the numbers? Thank you.

Christophe, good morning. Thanks for the questions. Yeah, maybe on your first question related to Australia and EET, and then specifically on the timing of them, I think for Australia LNG project, the way we would look at it is, and what we can see at this point in time, the need for that project is set up by the local Victoria state for gas, and that's just for electricity generation. So that is a need that is almost independent of what happens in the rest of the world. They have a very strong need to find substitution for a gas supply offshore that is depleting. So, there's no indication at this point in time that there is a fundamental change in the timeline of that project. So, we still expect to get back with more information towards the end of this year. I think that's around VVET, so that's the Australia Energy Project, and maybe through EET. So, Ames Energy, the extension over there, process is still ongoing. Yes, we've seen Exma making the announcement. We are not there yet to make any announcement. As you know, we ran an open season on the re-contracting of the capacity post the end of the current contract by fourth quarter next year. And that is a moment that we are still working through or a process that we are still working through. And once we have news to share, we will come back to the market and share that. I think then maybe to the lower occupancy rate, It has more to do with the fact that the Fujairah capacity in the first quarter was lower in terms of... also out of service capacity, then it has a direct impact of what's happening in India. I think still, if you look at Q1, it's a bit early to see the effect of any of the disruptions from the Middle East directly in our business in India. But indeed, the flows of LPG that flow to India have a lot to do with the source of origin, and that's the Middle East.

Okay, thank you. But for Eames Energy, You do not experience a change of attitude with your party in terms of the run-up to the FIP being taken, given everything that's going on in the Middle East?

No, I think many parties take for processes like these a long-term approach. They know that the capacity is available in 2028. As you know, a lot of the flow that was coming from Qatar is taken out. That has a massive impact, but it is also expected to have a massive impact for, as they call it, a bit of extra supply that was expected to come in towards the end of this decade. So you could almost argue that with all the repair and restoration that is going on it pushes out that supply extra supply a little bit further out in time and it doesn't necessarily have an immediate impact on for instance product that needs to leave the US and needs to find a home in Europe so I think it's a bit of a long answer to say for now we do not see a material different approach of potential customers towards AIMS energy okay thank you that's all for me for now No problem. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Seth Berkel there from Oddo. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Yeah. Morning, gentlemen. Congrats with the strong Q1 performance, especially chemicals. Can you maybe further explain why? was so strong and relate to that, can you explain what you now see happening in your deer park and European chemical operations given recent Middle East events? Second question relates to the strong performance in rest of world. Can you explain where that is coming from?

Hi Thijs, good morning. Thanks for that. I think on the chemical side, I would say overall, Deer Park has done quite well in the first quarter and the same goes for Vlaardingen specifically. that actually contributed quite strongly to the results in the first quarter. When it gets to the conflict and the impact of chemicals as such for our network, I think Geopark, although we do not see it yet fundamentally, but Geopark or the US in general, you would expect that they would benefit a bit from the fact that the US as a chemical producer has quite a competitive, strong competitive position in the current global landscape. So we expect that that will result in at least continued healthy demand for our services, especially Deer Park. I think that's one. So I would say strong performance there. I would say if you change that to Europe, particularly, I would say, Belgium. It's still hard to see, but quite a lot of the flows that are moving into Belgium are flows that come from the Middle East. It's a very strong market for Middle Eastern producers to sell product in Europe. That is subject to the disruptions as a result of the conflict. And what you see over there is obviously there's a lot of people that are trying to take positions, traders that try to take positions in that market to try to supply the demand for the end product that continues to be there. So it remains to be seen how that effect is going to balance out. Too early to tell in that sense for Belgium. If you look at it overall for the rest of the portfolio, I think what we said, it's still healthy demand on the main oil hubs in the first quarter. Singapore straight strong, both of them high occupancy, high activity, so pretty strong over there, and fuel distribution quite healthy across the board in the first quarter. So I think we are pleased if we look back at the first quarter, and I think, as we said, the outlook for the rest of the year, given everything that's going on, is within the range of what we said already in February. when we announced the 2025 results.

We also had a few growth project contributions in the US and India, which also helped on the chemical side. So that has led to an increase versus Q4 2025 as well.

Yeah, and rest of the world primarily driven by Belgium then?

Not necessarily. Not Belgium, I would say. I think if any, Belgium is a bit in the pressure first quarter. I think the rest of the world is just healthy across the board. Not a particular region, I would say, that jumps out. As I said, oil is stable and relatively strong and just a positive boot start of the year. China quite well. So nothing in particular that jumps out, Thijs, in an extreme way.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from . Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Hi, good morning. I have three questions, if I may. The first question is on China and North Asia. If I look at the consolidated numbers, you see the occupancy rate, it was already low last year, but it actually dropped further to 55%. So I assume it has to do with the Chinese terminals that are just generating or have low occupancy rate. I was wondering if you could share any, because in the past I think you also mentioned that the chemical market in China has been weak, and it seems that occupancy rate continues to drop further there. Do you have any, what are the projections for those assets there and could we be thinking of anything if it remains structurally weak that you might take some portfolio actions there? The other thing that I'm wondering about is what portions of earnings is really dependent on throughput levels rather than really take or pay contracts. And the last question I have is if a client would declare false mature and you have a take-or-pay contract with that client or the client is impacted by false mature and with a take-or-pay contract, what happens to the take-or-pay contract? Can you still incur revenues on that? Those are my three questions.

To start on, good morning, Philip, maybe start on the China side. Yeah, if you look at the consolidated occupancy, effectively, that's only one terminal. So we have a portfolio of eight terminals in China. But it doesn't give you a very representative picture of China. Dick already mentioned the China results were actually quite good and slightly above our own expectations. Indeed, that terminal is the Zhang Jigang Terminal which then has a relatively low occupancy because it's in a very competitive market and it's one of the distribution terminals. Most of the terminals we have in China are industrial terminals, so basically backed by long-term take-or-pay type of contracts. So you see that the overall portfolio is quite healthy. We don't have any immediate portfolio actions we're going to take in China. To the contrary, we commissioned last year a new industrial terminal in China. So that is an add-on to our portfolio. We still see quite a few growth opportunities in industrial terminal locations. And overall, the returns in China, if you compare it to the rest of the portfolio, is quite healthy. And we're quite capable of distributing our dividends from China back to the Netherlands. So that's maybe on the China side. On the earning side, yeah, there is always a component of throughput income. So even in contracts where people buy, let's say, effectively the capacity, we still have an opportunity that if throughputs are at a higher level than expected, that we will charge additionally for excess throughputs. So approximately 10% of the earnings are throughput-related. in some locations more throughput related than in others. For example, a location like Belgium is much more activity related than in another location. And some of the locations, like I just mentioned, some of the industrial or some of the gas contracts are very low in terms of throughput dynamics. So that's maybe on the portion of the earnings which is throughput related. And Dick, on the first measure,

Yeah, so force majeure, Philip, what we see happening is that some of our customers are declaring force majeure, but they are declaring it in all those cases towards their customers. So an inability sometimes to get product out of a region in order to deliver it to a customer that is further away that is not necessarily related to the type of services or obligations that they have towards us in the storage contract and arrangements that we have. So we obviously have to follow this case by case and understand very clearly what some of the situations of our customers are in this respect. And as was indicated, I think, in the presentation already before, we need to kind of like be prepared for those discussions because if the customers are under serious stress and under duress, we have to sit down and understand what we can do to support them. But legally speaking, the force majeure, there's very clear guidelines of what and how that applies in the contract obligations and responsibilities between the storage provider and our customers.

Okay, very clear. Just one follow-up. So far, have you had any clients where you already had to sit down and renegotiate terms or given that they were just faced with difficulties or challenges?

Yes. It's no comment on that. And the reason for saying it, I don't want to go into individual discussions and official. I think it's a bit of a gray area where there is obviously there are customers that say we're under a lot of stress. Can we talk versus how official that is and how official those negotiations are? I think this is part and parcel of what we've seen in previous crises. We are confident that we can manage through that. We're close to our customers and see where and when we can support them, while at the same time respecting and safeguarding the interest of Volpac, which is we make investment in certain infrastructure to support our customers in good times and in bad times. So no details. Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. And the next question comes from . Your line is open, please ask your question.

Yeah, good morning, guys. On the whole situation in the Middle East, can you give me an idea about, let me say, the first panic in the first week of March compared to what the situation is now? Are the customers still scrambling for products and has it impact on your throughputs in, let me say, mainly in the Far East? Is there, can you give me a view on what's in reality happening and what is, you take a cautious stance on the second quarter? And it looks like that, okay, the March was not the issue, but maybe April is more an issue than March. Can you give any feeling on what's the current situation for many customers and also the impact on your business?

Yeah, I agree. Good morning. Thank you for the question. I think first and foremost, as we already said, A key priority for us is to make sure that our people are safe and have been safe throughout the course of the conflict. The non-critical staff we leave away from the facility. We take non-critical staff not with a permanent resident in that region, take them out and move them back to their countries of origin. That has all been done. We monitor, obviously, the situation very closely, purely from a safety and security point of view, and do whatever we can to support our partners and our people over there. I think that's the first instance and first priority. If you look at it, what's happening at the moment, I think a few things to mention here. The amount of information that comes out of the region is limited. That's So what the exact damage is outside and far outside of the perimeter of the facilities that we operate is not publicly known, and it's also not always known to us. I think the second element is if you look at it physically, what's going on, people would like to remove product in a safe manner if that's possible as soon as possible in some instances, as we particularly have seen in Fujairah. while at the same time making sure that now that the ceasefire is in place, increased activities are happening. to make sure that as much as possible business continues as possible, as usual, with demand for fuel oil, demand for some of the products that need to be moved in and out. And that is, I wouldn't say, all back to normal how it was before, because that would be too strong a statement simply because the product is not always available. The product that comes out of the region is hampered and is limited and restricted. But slowly but surely, as we speak now, things are, people are trying to get back to normal and resume as much as possible normal operations with a cautious view and a clear view on the uncertainty that's happening in the region, as you can imagine.

Yeah, and that's in the region, but there's a ripple effect, let me say, elsewhere in the Far East. So, let me say, the situation in Australia and Sydney, et cetera, and let me say, for example, in South Africa, as you mentioned, and Pakistan. If anything, you can update us on the development there.

Yeah, so we continue. What you see, is that things literally move quite volatile and hectically, kind of like almost from week to week So let's take South Africa maybe as an example, dependent very much on imports from the Middle East. So in the first weeks of the conflict, you see product on the water still finding a home in South Africa. So first two weeks, it was almost business as usual. Then you have a period where there's no new supply coming simply because the supply was choked coming out of the Middle East. So then there's actually a bit of panic in the local market, what's happening and how can we supply new product. And then after a week, two weeks, you see that there's alternative supply coming into the market for different parts of the world. And for instance, West Africa is then becoming one of the suppliers of South Africa, which is then supporting over time it obviously needs to work out what it does to total volumes once things start to settle down. But the challenge is it's never clear of when things really start to settle down. And I think that's what we are working through. So I think that's the best way to characterize it. And I realize you maybe want to have maybe sustainable longer-term view of where this is trending to, that's simply too hard to say at this point in time. And we continue to support where possible. And I think, if I can take it one notch up, the general confidence that we have in the fact that we operate these critical assets at strategic locations, that support the primary needs in local economies continues to give us a lot of confidence on the medium to longer-term outlook for our network, but we have to navigate through the current circumstances.

But I understand, let me say, if I look at the second quarter, and especially the month of April, then thus far, Okay, there's a lot of uncertainty, but it's not very concrete impact there, if I understand. There's nothing that you see, let me say, really impactful, let me say, the business happening on your business, in fact. Is that correct?

No, I think it's, what we are saying is that with a lot of uncertainty and volatility in the market, we are certainly not immune for the supply shocks that are currently happening. This is not a relative easy exercise between brackets, easy exercise of rebalancing the remainder of the flows through the world. There's simply also a shortage of product in some regions, and that will have effect on the flows that are coming through some of our terminals, while at the same time, there's in some instances a rush for a particular storage position for a particular product because product is trapped and you need to find an intermediate source of storage. So I think it is too early still to tell. We haven't closed April yet. It's way too early to tell what the impact then will be. The assessment that we made is the assessment for the full year 2026, which is reflected in our outlook. And there we think that we are capable of absorbing the negative impact of the conflict in the outlook that we've already presented.

Yeah, because on the outlook, you may assume on the outlook that obviously, well, the first quarter was relatively strong. So if you compare it to the outlook we have given, it's at the higher end of the outlook. If you would have four of these quarters, but then we still have some growth coming on stream. and some positive currency exchange compared to Q1. So, yeah. And that will compensate for the potential impact of the conflict, what we feel could be the potential impact of the conflict today, because it's very hard to make an assessment. We don't know, let's say, how long this is going to last, how severe this is going to be. But we feel that where we are today and what we know today, those compensating factors are sufficient to absorb, let's say, the impact of the Middle East. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from David Constance from Geoffrey. If your line is open, please ask a question.

The other thing that I'm wondering about is what portions of earnings is really dependent on throughput levels rather than really take-or-pay contracts. And the last question I have is if a client would declare a false mature and you have a take-or-pay contract with that client or... It is impacted by force material with the take-or-pay contract. What happens to the take-or-pay contract? Can you still incur revenues on that? Those are my three questions.

Good morning, Philip. Maybe start on the China side. If you look at the consolidated occupancy, effectively that's only one terminal. So we have a portfolio of eight terminals in China. but it doesn't give you a very representative picture of China. Dick already mentioned the China results were actually quite good and slightly above our own expectations. Indeed, that terminal is the Jiangjiang terminal, which then has a relatively low occupancy because it's in a very competitive market and it's one of the distribution terminals. Most of the terminals we have in China are industrial terminals, so basically backed by long-term take-or-pay type of contracts. So you see that the overall portfolio is quite healthy. We don't have any immediate portfolio actions we're going to take in China. To the contrary, we commissioned last year a new industrial terminal in China. So that is an add-on to our portfolio. We still see quite a few growth opportunities in industrial terminal locations. And overall, the returns in China, if you compare it to the rest of the portfolio, is quite healthy. And we're quite capable of distributing our dividends from China back to the Netherlands. So that's maybe on the China side. On the earning side, yeah, there is always a component of throughput income. So, even in contracts which where people buy, let's say, effectively the capacity, we still have an opportunity that if throughputs are at a higher level than expected, that we will charge additionally for excess throughputs. So, approximately 10% of the earnings are throughput related. In some locations, more throughput related than in others. For example, a location like Belgium is much more activity related and then in another location and some of the locations like i just mentioned some of the industrial or some of the gas contracts are very low in terms of throughput dynamics so that's maybe only a portion of the earnings which is throughput related and dick on the first force majeure yeah so force majeure uh philip

What we see happening is that some of our customers are declaring force majeure, but they are declaring it in all those cases towards their customers. So an inability sometimes to get product out of a region in order to deliver it to a customer that is further away that is not necessarily related to the type of services or obligations that they have towards us in the storage contract and arrangements that we have. we obviously have to follow this case by case and understand very clearly what some of the situations of our customers are in this respect and as was indicated I think in the presentation already before we need to kind of like be prepared for those discussions because if the customers are under serious stress and under duress we have to sit down and understand what we can do to support them but legally speaking the force majeure there's very clear guidelines of what and how that applies in the contract obligations and responsibilities between the storage provider and our customers.

Okay, very clear. Just one follow-up. So far, have you had any clients where you already had to sit down and renegotiate terms or given that they were just faced with difficulties or challenges?

It's no comment on that. And the reason for saying it, I don't want to go into individual discussions and official. I think it's a bit of a gray area where there is obviously there are customers that say we're under a lot of stress, can we talk versus how official that is and how official those negotiations are. I think this is part and parcel of what we've seen in previous crises. We are confident that we can manage through that. We're close to our customers and see where and when we can support them, while at the same time respecting and safeguarding the interest of OPAC, which is we made investment in certain infrastructure to support our customers in good times and in bad times. So no details. Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. And the next question comes to the line of Quirin Molde from ING. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Yeah, good morning, guys. On the whole situation in the Middle East, can you give me an idea about, let me say, the first panic in the first week of March compared to what the situation was?