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.