Hello everybody, and welcome to the Borouge second quarter earnings call. My name is Sam, and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you'd like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'll now hand you over to your host, Ed Senior, Head of Investor Relations. Ed, please go ahead. Great. Good morning. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. As a quick introduction, my name is Ed Senior. I'm the interim head of IR for Borouge Plc. Delighted to have you with us for this, our first, presentation as a listed company. With me, I have Hazeem Al Suwaidi, our CEO, Rainer Hoefling, our Chief Marketing Officer, Louis Desal, our COO, and Saeed Al Dhaheri, our CFO. Before I start, I wanna draw your attention to the disclaimer accompanying this material and also a note on our disclosed financials. As you well know, Borouge Plc was only formally established a few months ago in May 2022, and as such, our statutory financials which we publish today only cover one month from April until June. To assist analysis, we have also prepared pro forma accounts showing the combination that forms the current business as if it had been in operation for all of the first half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 by comparison. Those have been separately disclosed. They've been released to the ADX, and you can also find those numbers on the company's IR webpage. So we'll be talking to those numbers rather than the statutory financials during the course of this call. Thanks for that. I will now hand you over to Hazeem to talk you through the key highlights and strategic overview for the first half of 2022. Thank you, Ed, and thanks everyone for joining us today. Today marks our first set of results as a listed entity following our successful IPO on ADX in June 2022. I'm very pleased to share that Borouge has recorded a strong financial and operational performance in the first half of this year, demonstrating a resilience against challenging market conditions in line with our strategic priorities. Our commitments to operational excellence and our differentiation customer proposition has translated into revenue of over $3.4 billion, a 16% increase year-on-year and an EBITDA margin of 44%. The strong financial performance and significant cash flow generation in the period, representing a cash conversion rate of 94%, enables us to reconfirm the outlook and dividends commitment made at the time of IPO. Now I will hand over to Rainer to take you through the market dynamics. Yeah. Hello. Welcome from my side. Thank you very much, Hazeem. Some good news here from my side. In the second quarter, we have experienced a tailwind from quite strong pricing environment driven by robust demand in our regions and the high level of crude feedstock prices. The good pricing environment also incorporates, of course, and also higher logistic costs, which in the majority pass on to our customers. Right. The underlying polyethylene, polypropylene benchmark prices both compressed in Q2 versus Q1, right. Based on a slower but now improving demand in China due to lockdown situations, but remaining at the elevated levels when you compare it to mid-term history. The current price levels reflect the global demand and supply situation and the industry-wide feedstock prices observed in the period. However, if you look at this slide, we continue really to achieve the premium over benchmark pricing, reflecting our differentiated product mix, how we approach the market, and with this, our capability and ability to capture regional price opportunities. If you look at the premium during the quarter, they increased in polyethylene and polypropylene towards $466 for PE and $318 per ton for polypropylene respectively. This is a fantastic result. That is reflecting higher premium compared to last year, quarter 1 2022 and the mid-term guidance. Louis will now talk through the operational highlights from the first half of the year. Thank you, Rainer, and a warm welcome from my side as well. I will cover the production-related information over the past period, and then I will hand over back to Rainer to discuss the sales performance. The slide is representing the sales volumes. At the high level in the first half of this year, our overall production has grown both year-on-year as well as quarter-on-quarter as we ramped up PP 5 and completed the turnaround of Borouge 1. As you will remember from earlier communication, our Borouge 1 assets went through a planned turnaround during the first quarter, which is a recurring activity every five years. This was now completed, and we're back on stream with all the units. We want to highlight that in quarter two, we were able to manage an ongoing propylene feedstock challenge brought on by constraints in ADNOC Refining. We did this through internally producing significantly higher internal volumes of propylene, converting ethylene via our Olefin Conversion Unit, which ran at near 100% utilization in the period. As you will remember from earlier presentations, we consider our flexibility to internally optimize feedstock production in circumstances such as these to be a key competitive advantage of Borouge. Availability of propylene from ADNOC Refining has resumed during the course of July, and propylene availability in quarter three of this year is anticipated to be unconstrained. We also want to note that our LDPE unit, one of the 16 production units in Ruwais, went into an unplanned shutdown in the quarter. As a result of this, we have excess ethylene, which as you recall, is based on significantly cost-advantaged ethane. We have been able to redirect this ethylene to the olefin conversion unit for conversion into propylene, as mentioned earlier. This internally produced propylene is cheaper even at conversion expenses than purchased propylene at current market price. This internal propylene production positively impacts overall feedstock costs in quarter two. I would like to hand over back to you now, Rainer, for the sales discussion. Yeah. Thank you very much, Louis. Let's stay on the same page and I would like to talk to you briefly around the shape of our sales for the period. Hazeem mentioned already that we have achieved revenue growth of 16% year-on-year, driven by robust sales volume and good price levels. Looking to this quarter two, the revenue growth of 18%, this was roughly, let's say, two-thirds attributed by the volume and one-third by pricing. In terms of volume, we had a very strong sales month in June, right? The largest volume sold in a month ever, right? In the history of Borouge. In terms of sales mix, important to highlight that the infrastructure, right, grew as a percentage of our sales in the half year we just passed. That now makes up 46% of our sales versus 38% of the first half year last year. It's evidence that we move forward with our differentiated product mix. In particular, we made significant sales volume of PE 100 during quarter two, but also quarter one was very strong, which is a key product in our infrastructure application and a premium product based on a very good production and a good market approach. We will talk about outlook later. Hazeem will lead through this, but it's important to note that economic activity in our core markets, Asia and Middle East, were relatively robust compared to other developed economies. As a reminder, 60% of our sales go into Asia Pacific and 32% into the Middle East. Now I hand over to Saeed, who will talk you through our financial performance during the period. Thank you, Rainer. As you can see, strong performance over the first six months reflect Borouge and differentiated positions. The resilient volume growth has led us to robust revenues and EBITDA profile over the period and strong cash flow generations. Revenue grew, as mentioned earlier, 16.4% to $3.6 billion on the first half, primarily driven by the volume and strong pricing environment. Quarter-on-quarter revenues increased 18% to $1.87 billion. Q1 had some interesting elements in the cost base, which I will speak about in a minute, but for now, we think Q2 is more a comparable period for the analysts to look at. EBITDA margin first half was 44%, a decrease on the same period last year, but expanded to 46% from 40% on quarter-on-quarters. Taking a more detailed look at our costs. Total cost of sales increased 24% year-on-year but 7% quarter-on-quarter. When we drill into it is important to look at the two components of cost of goods, which are the feedstock and other variable costs, separately. First, when the feedstock prices grew only by 6% in the first half of 2022 versus first half of 2021, this reflects our relatively fixed ethane feedstock price, with costs here largely tracking volumes. For the second quarter, you will notice a more significant rise in the feedstock expense. This is largely volume driven, as in Q1 we did not have Borouge 1 online and therefore there is a ramp-up effect on the cost of the feedstock in this period. The second component of cost of goods sold is our other variable and fixed production cost. While this looks like in first half of 2022 was high relative to the prior year, much of this is driven by the cost we incur in the Q1 2022, and which you could see a fall as a percentage of sales in Q2 2022. Within these costs, we have utility, catalyst, and additive that inflated the cost, but not as much as sales. This contributes positively to the margin growth. More importantly, in this cost line, we also have the cost impact of inventory movement. This was the cost in Q1 that's largely reversed into the credit in Q2 as we sold down inventories. This both drive the high overall cost of H1 versus the prior year, but also explain the return to more trend margin in Q2 versus Q1. Sales and distribution costs were up 8% over the previous quarter, but significantly higher year-over-year, reflecting the higher global sea freight rate where costs have been tripled on many. General and administrative costs decreased 31% on a quarter-on-quarter basis owing to the Borouge 4 carve-out, but increased 20% year-on-year due to the one-off expense related to the IPO. We are also continuing to achieve savings under our internal profit improvement program, which is aimed to optimize discretionary spending. Moving on to the CapEx and the cash flow. As you can see on the slide, CapEx decreased 30% year-on-year following the completion of PP5 and the carve-out of Borouge 4 in Q2. We actually had a negative CapEx in Q1 as a result of the carve-out. Working capital was a source of cash in the period as we reduced inventory level back to the level in line with our mid-term guidance. Cash flow generation remained strong with an operating free cash flow defined as adjusted EBITDA less CapEx at $1.42 billion for the first six months of the year and $914 million in Q2, reflecting a cash conversion rate of 94% and 105% respectively. As noted during our IPO process, Borouge generate a substantial free cash flow time. This is being supported by high profitability as highlighted in the slides, decreasing in growth CapEx as a result of the PP5 construction completion and limited maintenance CapEx reflecting our modern asset base. This strong cash flow generations support our attractive dividend policy communicated at the time of the IPO, which will be distributing to the shareholder $975 million for the financial years and at least $1.3 billion for 2023. I will hand back to Hazeem to comment on the outlook. Hazeem. Thank you, Saeed. Now looking ahead, as you'll see, our core IPO guidance around our dividend remains unchanged. We recognize the signs of a slowing economy or economic activities in developed markets. Our economic activity in our core Asia Pacific and Middle East markets remains robust with economic growth rates in excess of developed economies. We remain able to place our volumes and be tactical about the markets we address in response to changes in demand. While underlying benchmark prices for PE and PP have softened slightly, analyst pricing expectations currently anticipate a strengthening into the year end, reflecting a presumed resumption of economic activity in China in particular. In the mid-term, we forecast premiums to remain above our mid-term guidance of over $200 per ton for polyethylene and over $140 per ton for polypropylene. For volume, as mentioned earlier, higher sales in this quarter were driven by utilizing our inventory, by capturing market opportunities. However, going in Q3, we anticipate the sales volume will align more with production volume. Within our cost base, ethane costs will remain essentially fixed and under our long-term pricing agreements with ADNOC, which provides us with significant long-term visibility, a key competitive advantage. Propylene costs broadly track oil prices, which have fallen at the start of Q3, but remain elevated. We anticipate continuing to run our OCU at high level of utilization in the coming quarter, generating cost-effective propylene feedstock for our PP production. We anticipate logistics costs will continue to be elevated in Q3. Finally, as a side note, you will all know that Borouge 4 was carved out of the company before the IPO. We are continuing to make good progress on early works at the site, and we look forward to keep you informed of developments ahead. In summary, Q2 and first half of this year represents a good start for Borouge as a listed company. We have delivered a strong set of financial results and demonstrated operational excellence in spite of the broader macro challenges. We reported strong sales growth and maintained robust EBITDA margins, reflecting our driving volume growth, leveraging our feedstock base and continuing to achieve premiums for our differentiated products. The turnaround of Borouge 1 is now completed, and we are ramping up productions at PP5, putting us on a strong footing going into Q3. We remain highly cash flow generative business with ample dividend capacity for our shareholders. We are confident in the outlook and we remain focused on delivering value for all our shareholders. With this, I will pass it to our operator, and we are happy to take any questions. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your line is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from the line of Charlie Webb of Morgan Stanley. Charlie, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Brilliant. Morning, afternoon, everyone. Just one topic and maybe a few questions about it. Can you just help us understand how the kind of costs, those feedstocks, variable costs kind of evolved through the first half? Obviously you managed feedstocks to your advantage, presumably using the OCU. How, you know, was there any benefit, or was there a benefit also from selling down from inventory as in some of the inventory, you know, obviously was kind of built at lower cost versus what would be today, and therefore that had obviously a positive effect, as we think of kind of selling prices versus the cost of production of that inventory from last year. That's kind of the first part to it. Second part, just on other variable costs. At the time of Q1, you expected other variable costs, non-feedstock related, to be higher year-on-year, 2022 versus 2021. Is that still your expectation? Because it feels like they, the kind of some of the cost step-ups you flagged in Q1 haven't yet really, meaningfully materialized in the first half. Just wondering, just the kind of non-feedstock related costs, should we think they're more like 2021 now versus the kind of raised guidance you gave at the time of the first quarter? Thank you. Well, I think on the first question was related to the feedstock cost. Can you repeat the question, Sir, if you don't mind, the first one? The second one can be taken by The first one is just trying to understand was there a benefit on feedstock costs, or the spread, sorry, of feedstock costs relative to where they are today, given you sold a greater proportion out of inventory? Being that you built that inventory at a time when your feedstock costs, propylene prices, whatever, were lower, you know, a year ago, or not a year ago, but let's say end of last year, 2021, when you built that inventory and you were selling it now, it was the comparable feedstock cost of that inventory lower than it would be today. As in, is there an advantage from a feedstock perspective that you were selling a higher degree out of inventory in the first half of the year? Yeah. Perhaps Rainer and Louis can answer this one question. I think before Rainer, Louis take it. I'll take it and Ed, you could comment here. Basically, I mean, the feedstock is, as you could see that it's driven by volume, not driven by prices. We have almost constant prices here. What's different here, we took more feedstock here because Borouge 1 is zooming and PP5 is just added this year. That's basically what happened here from here. Ed, anything from your end? Yeah. Just to answer your question specifically, Charlie, yeah, we book inventory at average prices, so there is not a kind of old dated stock getting sold and benefiting margin story here. It's much quicker turnaround than that sort of production there than sales. That's not the driver. As Saeed said, there's you know, the feedstock costs have actually been relatively fixed for us through the year other than volume impacts. The selling out of a stock perhaps from a market perspective, right? We saw a very good opportunity in June, right? Lockdown situation eased a bit in China, right? There was good logistics availability, and customers across our regions started to refill their inventories. The inventories were relatively low and there was a good opportunity. I think we made a great job to sell for relatively good prices, right? Selling across the board our product mix and across all our regions. I think we were just faster than competitors and sold it. Sort of grew something out of the inventory also. Made them at least the best volume months ever in Borouge. It was taking a market opportunity. This is what I also said in previous guidance calls and analyst investor calls. I think we have a good capability, right? That's also how our setup is to manage these opportunities in the market because we have enough power on the field and this is then the result out of it. Yeah. If you allow me to add maybe just one element from the operational part. What we have also seen, and that is, a key advantage that we have as Borouge being part of the integrated network with the other ADNOC Group companies at the site, is we have seen very good availability of ethane feedstock for our crackers. We have been running our crackers at elevated rates. We see that we can benefit from that to produce really low-cost advantage ethylene. Which enables us then also, together with the other elements which we referred to run our OCU at maximum rate throughout the period. We are seeing here the real benefit of all the elements we have been discussing before. The flexibility of OCU, the integration with the feedstock supplier and of course, the feedstock advantaged cost positioning. No, that's helpful. Just on other variable costs. At Q1, you were kind of citing that there would be a meaningful step up year on year in other variable costs, non-feedstock related, plus a few of the other fixed cost lines. You know, how are we tracking on that first half, second half, you know, versus the guidance you gave at Q1? Yeah, I mean, related to the second half of your question related to the other costs. I mean, we are living in high inflation area and world, and we are witnessing some higher prices in terms of the utilities, additives and the catalysts going forward. You could see that the interest rate has been rising just to control the inflation here. On the other side of the shipping, I mean, it was elevated earlier, but we see stabilization still higher than before, but we see a stabilization there in the market on the terms of the shipping. We think it's gonna be remaining, I mean, flat at these prices. It depends on the development of the global economy, if they are gonna go into a recession, is it a mild recession or hard recession. Until now, we still navigate through. In terms of the other. Yes. The utility and the editors will be lower. The shipping, it's gonna be stabilizing. Okay. Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Dalal Darwich from Goldman Sachs. Dalal, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, and thank you for the presentation. This is Dalal from Goldman Sachs. I'm calling on behalf of Faisal Al Azmeh, who wasn't able to join the call. I just want to ask a couple of questions on his behalf and would appreciate. Just a couple of things. How has the lockdowns impacted the premium shipped over the past month and in July, have you faced any issues in? On LDPE shutdown, can you talk a bit about what is causing this, and does this impact your guidance on utilization rates from the IPO period? Yeah. Thank you. Perhaps I take the premium part. Did it have an impact on our premium? Does the lockdown have an impact on our premium? I think yes, the premium was ramping up, if I can say it like this. I think Borouge as such, right, if you look at the commodity market and the demand slowing down, you also saw the prices coming down, right? The benchmark price we have seen specifically in quarter two, right, in the second and third month, was coming down. While we in Borouge, in these particular months, we were even increasing our prices versus the benchmark prices and achieved a quite significant premium. Overall, I think Borouge is well and best positioned in a softer global environment. What I explained already in previous calls, we are predominantly working in differentiated markets. 80% of our products are differentiated markets, which are then also less volatile on the pricing side and are then a bit decoupled from commodities when they are coming down. This is based on our technology, the Borstar technology. You have seen in the infrastructure, right, as I said, we were ramping up our sales, right, to 46% in infrastructure versus we have been last year, 38% on this. We collaborate directly with the value chain partners and have a good access to this and combined with a good service level also in logistics. What we specifically captured also in June, delivering a significant volume, right? We deliver also sustainable premium. I think we can keep it on and above the mid-term guidance what we gave already. I could give you a number of examples where we also launched new products. 20% of our products are new products. We had a project with these cables, XLPE cables in a power plant in Abu Dhabi, right? Where we can provide now clean energy for 90,000 individuals, which generates premium. We have an example on the circular economy, where we made again a mono material solution, fully recyclable with our Anteo™. Also here we achieved versus the commodities quite a significant premium. This is a continuous process, right? This is how we achieved then also the premium in slowing down our market. Oh, very clear. Thank you. On the LDPE shutdown, does this impact your guidance on utilization? On the LDPE shutdown, as I mentioned, we have an unplanned stop of the unit. I mean the overall, it's one of the 16 assets. The overall utilization of our assets is not impacted besides of course the LDPE shutdown. There's no impact on our crackers. There's no impact on the other units. What the impact is on the OCU, as I mentioned, is that we are utilizing the OCU to the maximum to redirect the ethylene, which is not consumed by the LDPE unit, to benefit from this cost advantage to produce ethylene, to produce propylene at a significantly lower cost than the propylene which we are purchasing through ADNOC Refining. In that way we are evaluating the available ethylene and we are benefiting from the flexibility and the network. The LDPE unit itself had unplanned stop, as I mentioned. It's a technical failure which was happening. The anticipated original startup was anticipated to be in July. It will take longer to start up the unit. It will take the rest of the year to reinstate the asset to be able to produce again. However, we are also in the network together with Borealis looking to the possibility to benefit from the availability of feedstock through Borealis. Overall impact on our assets besides the LDPE is that OCU will run 100% over the rest of the period, and there's no impact on the way we are maximizing the crackers and taking maximum benefit from the cost-advantaged feedstock. Got it. Very it. Very clear. Thank you. As one final reminder today, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions, so I'd like to hand the call back to Ed for any closing remarks. Great. Thank you all very much. Appreciate the time you spent with us today, and I look forward to catching up with many of you in our upcoming investor engagements. Of course, there's investor meetings in the coming days. We're also gonna be attending the EFG Conference in Dubai and the Citi Conference in the U.S. both in the course of September, and look forward to publishing our Q3 results in the course of late October. Thank you all, and if you have any questions, please reach out to me directly. Happy to engage bilaterally. Thanks very much.