Welcome to the OMV Group's conference call. If you'd like to ask a question after the presentation, you may register your request by pressing the star one button on your telephone at any time during the actual presentation or during the question and answer session itself. You should have received a presentation by email. However, if you do not have a copy of the presentation, the slides and the speech can be downloaded at www.omv.com. Simultaneous to this conference call, a live audio webcast is available on OMV's website. At this time, I would like to refer you to the disclaimer, which includes our position on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on beliefs, estimates, and assumptions currently held by, and information currently available to OMV. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that will or may occur in the future and are outside the control of OMV. Therefore, recipients are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. OMV disclaims any obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, revised assumptions and expectations, and future developments and events. This presentation does not contain any recommendation or invitation to buy or sell securities in OMV. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Florian Greger, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Greger. Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to OMV's earnings call for the second quarter of 2021. With me on the call are Rainer Seele, OMV's Chairman and CEO, and Reinhard Florey, our CFO. Rainer Seele will walk you through the highlights of the quarter and will discuss OMV's financial performance. As this is Rainer's last call as CEO of OMV, he will say a few farewell words before we are happy to answer your questions. With this, I'll hand it over to Rainer. Thank you very much, Florian. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and thank you for joining us. The second quarter of 2021 showed a broad macro recovery, although the COVID-19 pandemic still impacted demand in certain areas. Oil and natural gas prices rallied, and European polyolefin margins reached historical heights. Refining margins, however, remained weak. The strong macro environment, coupled with our expansion into the chemicals business, led to our highest quarterly earnings and cash flows ever. As usual, let me start with a brief review of the market environment. The second quarter of 2021 was the fourth consecutive quarter of sequential Brent price improvement. At $69 per bbl, Brent was 13% higher quarter-on-quarter and 133% higher year-on-year. Prices reached $76 per bbl, the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2018. This upward momentum was driven by demand optimism on the back of the first signs of an economic restart, as well as a strong OPEC+ quota compliance. European gas prices continued to rally. At EUR 25 per MWh, Central European gas prices were up 37% quarter-on-quarter and almost four times higher year-on-year. With prices increasing to beyond EUR 33 per MWh, already EUR 37 I have seen in July. At the end of June, it was EUR 33, the European gas market reached peaks not seen since 2008. The biggest driver of the price surge was the unusually low storage level in Europe, combined with cold weather in April and May. In addition, some global LNG restrictions, heavy maintenance, and limited Russian supply further supported this strong development. At $2.2 per bbl, the refining indicator margin in Europe was still quite weak. It improved by 32% compared to the first quarter and remained relatively stable year-on-year. The quarter-on-quarter increase was driven by higher gasoline cracks following the easing of travel restrictions. The diesel and jet markets improved slightly but remained fairly weak. Higher feedstock costs limited the upside to the refining margins. Ethylene and propylene indicator margins in Europe were above the previous quarter and the previous year's quarter. This was mainly attributable to a strong demand from packaging and hygiene, increased spending on home improvement projects, and the recovery of the automotive sector in Europe. Supply remained constrained due to the low inventory levels, unplanned cracker shutdowns, and plant maintenance. European polyolefin margins doubled compared to the second quarter of 2020, reaching the highest level ever. Healthy demand across all major segments and unusually heavy maintenance season, and limited regional supply kept markets tight. Prices were further supported by the absence of import pressure. The exceptionally high cost of marine transportation, driven by a shortage of containers, restrained the attractiveness of Europe as an export destination. At EUR 1.3 billion, our Clean CCS Operating Result reached an all-time high. It was almost eight times higher than the same quarter of last year and almost 50% higher than the first quarter of 2021. This was attributable to the exceptionally strong performance of Chemicals & Materials and a substantially improved Exploration & Production business. The contribution of the new Chemicals & Materials segment again represented about half of our earnings, reflecting the importance and weight of this business in our portfolio. For the second quarter in a row, we were able to deliver outstanding cash flow from operating activities, excluding net working capital effects of EUR 1.7 billion. Our Clean CCS EPS surged to EUR 1.97, up almost 9x year-on-year. Looking at operations, our E&P production was 6% higher compared with the second quarter of last year, primarily due to increased production in Libya and the commissioning of new natural gas fields in Malaysia and Tunisia. The production cost remains below $7 per bbl. The utilization rate of our refineries in Europe increased to 85%. In Chemicals & Materials, Borealis delivered excellent performance, driven by a very strong margin environment, especially in polyolefins. Polyolefin sales volumes increased in Europe, while those of the JVs recorded a slight decrease due to the implementation of an advanced ERP. We also made progress with our divestment program and took further steps to develop our circular economy portfolio. In May, we completed the divestment of our E&P assets in Kazakhstan and the divestment of our 51% interest in Gas Connect Austria. In June, we signed the divestment of our Slovenian retail and commercial business to MOL. Circular economy is a key element of OMV's strategy, and we are pursuing various initiatives in recycling, design for recycling, and renewable polyolefins. In autumn last year, Borealis launched the Bornewables product portfolio. These are premium polyolefin products manufactured with renewable feedstock derived entirely from waste and residue streams. They exhibit the same material performance as virgin polyolefins, yet have a lower carbon footprint. In May, a life cycle assessment study carried out by the German-based global i nstitute certified that carbon emissions of Bornewables are substantially reduced compared to polyolefins manufactured with fossil-based feedstock. Borealis also acquired a 10% stake in Renasci, a provider of innovative recycling solutions, and signed a supply agreement securing 20,000 tons of chemically recycled output material per year. We aim to make recycled polyolefins a significant part of our portfolio and more than triple the volume produced to 350,000 tons per annum by 2025. Let's now turn to our financial performance in the second quarter of 2021. Our Clean CCS Operating R esult rose sharply by EUR 1.2 billion compared to the second quarter of 2020, which was strongly affected by the pandemic. This increase was driven by substantially better performance of the Exploration & Production and Chemicals & Materials segment, partially offset by a slight decline in Refining & Marketing. The Clean CCS tax rate increased to 33%, which was 14 percentage points higher than in the same quarter last year. This was due to a higher contribution from high-tax regime countries in exploration and production, which turned from negative in the second quarter of last year to positive in the second quarter of 2021. Clean CCS net income attributable to stockholders surged almost 9x to EUR 643 million. Clean CCS earnings per share amounted to EUR 1.97. Let me now discuss the performance of our business segments. The clean operating result of Exploration & Production rose considerably to EUR 498 million from -EUR 152 million in the second quarter of 2020. The drivers were higher realized oil and gas prices and improved sales volumes, primarily on account of the return to full operations in Libya. OMV realized oil price increased by 134%, more or less in line with Brent. The realized oil price in the second quarter was negatively impacted by hedging, as a quarter of our oil production for the first half of 2021 was hedged at around $55 per bbl. Our overall realized gas price increased by 49%, while the European gas hub prices continued to rise strongly. We have seen this quarter that only 20% of our gas portfolio was directly linked to European hub prices. As we have explained in the past, half of our production volume in Russia is priced based on the BAFA benchmark, reflecting import prices and volumes in Germany. In the second quarter of this year, the BAFA benchmark remained unusually substantially below European hub prices, limiting the increase of our realized gas price. Our production rose by 26,000 bpd to 490,000 bpd due to a higher contribution from Libya, Malaysia, and Tunisia. This was partially offset by a natural decline in Romania, New Zealand, and Austria, as well as the divestment of our Kazakhstan operations at the end of May. In Russia, production was slightly lower than in the second quarter of 2020 due to the lower pipeline pressure. We plan to install a booster compressor in the third quarter during annual maintenance activities. After that, we expect production to increase again to around 100,000 bpd. Total sales volumes increased by 25,000 bpd following the production volume. The Clean CCS Operating Result in Refining & M arketing decreased year on year by EUR 51 million to EUR 181 million, primarily due to weaker gas performance and a lower contribution from our oil trading business, while we had benefited from the contango market situation in the second quarter of last year. The decrease was partially offset by a stronger retail business and a positive contribution from ADNOC Global Trading. Total sales volumes were 12% above the second quarter of 2020, with a significant increase in retail and a slight uptick in jet fuels. The retail business delivered a strong performance. This was driven by the increase in sales volumes and an improved contribution from the non-fuel business, partially offset by lower margins, which came down from the very high levels seen in the prior year quarter. The contribution from ADNOC Refining and Trading came in at -EUR 5 million, still burdened by a weak market environment and a one-month outage of the FCC unit. ADNOC Global Trading, which started its activities at the end of last year, provided strong support to the result. The contribution from the gas business fell from the very high level of 2020 to EUR 26 million. The result was impacted by weaker storage and trading results, a lower contribution from the power business in Romania, and the divestment of Gas Connect Austria. Gas sales volumes rose by 37% on account of higher sales in Germany and the Netherlands, and were slightly offset by lower sales in Romania and Austria. Ladies and gentlemen, the clean operating result of Chemicals & Materials increased remarkably from EUR 78 million to EUR 647 million. This outstanding development was driven by improved olefin margins, record high polyolefin margins, positive inventory valuation effects, and the full consolidation of Borealis. Let's now have a look at the different businesses in Chemicals & Materials. The contribution of OMV's base chemicals increased due to higher sales and higher margins. Borealis delivered excellent performance. Excluding the joint ventures, earnings grew from EUR 24 million to EUR 230 million. The Borealis base chemicals business improved due to higher margins and improved steam cracker utilization, as well as positive inventory valuation effects. Polyolefin earnings rose sharply, driven by significantly higher margins, a recovery in automotive volumes, and positive inventory valuation effects. Polyolefin sales volumes in Europe were slightly higher, and their composition changed as well. We have seen an increase in the automotive and advanced products specialty segments, while volumes in the consumer products segment declined. The contribution from the fertilizer business was slightly higher compared to the second quarter of 2020. The results benefited from positive inventory and valuation effects and the reclassification as an asset held for sale, partially offset by higher feedstock costs due to the increased natural gas prices. The contribution from Borealis joint ventures— Borouge and Baystar— came in at EUR 136 million, driven by higher polyolefin prices in Asia and the U.S. Polyolefin sales volumes generated by the JVs declined by 15% due to the lower volumes at Borouge. The decrease was caused by the implementation of an advanced ERP system, which went live successfully at the end of June, but caused some delays in shipments. The sales volumes at Baystar recovered from the negative impact of the Texas freeze in February and were stable year-over-year. Turning to cash flow is fun. Our second quarter operating cash flow, excluding net working capital effects, reached EUR 1.7 billion for the second quarter in a row, with around 40% contributed by Chemicals & Materials. Net working capital effects generated a cash outflow of EUR 164 million. Consequently, cash flow from operating activities came in at EUR 1.6 billion for the quarter, which is a new all-time high. Looking at the half-year picture, cash flow from operating activities, excluding net working capital effects, amounted to EUR 3.4 billion, a massive increase of almost EUR 2.2 billion compared to the first half of last year. Cash flow from operating activities increased by 58% to EUR 2.6 billion as net working capital effects showed a big swing. While in the first half of 2020 we recorded an inflow of EUR 397 million, we had an outflow of EUR 810 million in the same period of this year. The organic cash outflow from investing activities amounted to around EUR 1.1 billion, 20% higher than in the same period last year, primarily due to the investments in the PDH plant in Belgium. Despite the payment of a record dividend, the organic free cash flow after dividends for the first half of the year came in at around EUR 1 billion, thus contributing to the continuous deleveraging of the company. Net debt, excluding leases, decreased by EUR 722 million to EUR 7.1 billion. Consequently, our gearing ratio, excluding leases, defined as net debt, excluding leases to equity, decreased by another 3 percentage points to 34% compared to the first quarter of this year. If we consider the divestment projects already signed, which will lead to a further net debt reduction of around EUR 800 million, our gearing ratio, excluding leases, would be around 30%. Ladies and gentlemen, as promised, we are deleveraging fast. We are well on track to reach our target of a gearing ratio, excluding leases, of around 30% by the end of this year. At the end of June 2021, OMV had a cash position of EUR 3.1 billion and EUR 4.3 billion in an undrawn committed credit facility. Let me now give you an update on our divestment program. Since the announcement of the program last year in March, we have signed agreements resulting in a deleveraging effect of around EUR 1.5 billion. After the successful closing of two projects in the second quarter, we recorded a deleveraging effect of around EUR 700 million. In the second half of this year, we expect further closings with a deleveraging effect of around EUR 500 million. This includes the sale agreement for the retail stations in Germany, the oil field in Malaysia, and potentially the Maari oil field in New Zealand. The closing of the divestment of our Slovenian retail and commercial business is expected next year. The sales process for the Borealis nitrogen business is progressing well. The marketing phase started in the second quarter, and we are seeing lively interest from potential buyers. The fertilizer market environment continues to support the transaction. We are very well on track and are confident that the signed divestments will overachieve the target of EUR 2 billion by the end of this year. Let me conclude with an update on our outlook for this year. Based on the developments we have seen so far, we have updated our oil price assumptions for 2021. Now we expect an average Brent price in the range of $65-$70 per bbl. Our expectation for the average realized gas price is now above EUR 12 per MWh. We reconfirm the full-year production guidance of around 480,000 bpd in 2021, provided that Libya contributes around 35,000 bpd. In the third quarter, we expect production to be below that of the second quarter, as the maintenance activities in Russia are now planned for the third quarter. In addition, production in Norway is forecast to come down from the peak recorded in the second quarter. We expect the closing of divestments in Malaysia and New Zealand. We will also perform maintenance activities in Malaysia. For the remainder of the year, we no longer have any oil hedges in place, but we have hedged around 10% of our gas production at around EUR 20 per MWh in the third quarter and EUR 27 per MWh in the fourth quarter. We reconfirm our previous estimates for Refining & Marketing, with the exception of the refining indicator margin. We have seen still low diesel and jet fuel cracks due to the weak international travel, causing middle distillate cracks to remain depressed. We expect some improvement in the second half of the year, but now assume that the 2021 refining indicator margin will be at the previous year's level. In Chemicals & Materials, we increase our estimate of the European propylene margin. We now expect it to be above the previous year's level. Steam cracker utilization in the new KPI that we began publishing starting with this quarter is expected to stay above 90%. The construction of the 1 million-ton ethane cracker at Baystar in the U.S. was completed, and the startup process is now ongoing. The polyolefin market showed very strong performance in the second quarter, but prices are expected to come down, with supply beginning to normalize after maintenance shutdowns and the easing of logistic constraints. With expectations of a typical summer slowdown in demand, we assume a softening in the third quarter. Nevertheless, margins are anticipated to stay substantially above the level of 2020 for the remainder of 2021. The polyolefin volumes of Borealis, excluding JVs, are expected to be higher than in 2020. The clean tax rate for the full year is expected to be in the mid-30%. Ladies and gentlemen, as this is my last presentation to you as CEO of OMV, I would like to spend a few minutes talking about my journey over the last six years. Looking back to the beginning, I can see that OMV is a very different company from the OMV in July 2015 when I took the job. Before coming on board, I always thought of OMV as a sleeping beauty. In other words, a company with a lot of potential. The market did not believe it. Almost everybody had us on "Sell" in 2015. On "Sell". I took over in challenging times for the industry, or so I thought back then, when oil prices bottomed out at $27 per bbl. I could not imagine that I would end my tenure here in even more challenging times during a global pandemic. Despite these remarkably difficult times, OMV came out stronger than ever. From the very beginning of my journey, together with my team, we put in place three clear priorities: cost competitiveness, cash flow management, and profitability increase, while maintaining an integrated business. We had to make sure that the company would be resilient in a downturn and, at the same time, make plans for growth and pay attractive dividends to our shareholders. We set a clear strategy, and we executed it very fast, delivering on all our promises. We reduced exploration expenditures. We divested assets with high investment obligations and little production, such as our U.K. E&P position and non-core assets such as the retail network in Turkey. In turn, we acquired producing assets with lower cost, such as those in Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, or the stake in the Russian gas field, Yuzhno-Russkoye. We have redefined our core regions and expanded into new ones. From a company focused mostly on CEE, we expanded into hydrocarbon-rich regions and important growing demand centers around the world. As a result, E&P has developed into a high-quality, low-cost asset base focused on gas and has become more regionally balanced. We turned around the gas business and expanded fast to Northwest Europe. We significantly transformed our retail network, changing it into a material contributor to our profitability. The operating result per station almost doubled in the last five years. We made fundamental changes to our cost structure. We reduced our capital spending from EUR 3.6 billion at the end of 2014 to below EUR 2 billion without impacting operations. We conducted several efficiency programs totaling EUR 650 million of sustainable annual savings by the end of 2020. During my tenure, not only have we experienced a very volatile macro environment, but also a very fast turn in the industry in terms of climate change, something never seen before. We at OMV increased our efforts to reduce emissions. For example, we developed the ReOil project from the lab into refinery operations. We built a photovoltaic plant in Austria. We set clear targets for emission reductions by 2025 and a net-zero target in operations by 2050. The most significant change in terms of size and importance for the future direction of our company in a low-carbon world was in chemicals. Part of our 2018 strategy was to grow petrochemical activities outside of Europe. We explored various options. In 2019, we acquired a stake in ADNOC Refining and Trading as a platform for potential further expansion in a growing region. A great opportunity arose at the beginning of 2020 when we acquired the majority stake in Borealis, thus significantly increasing the chemicals business in our portfolio and extending our value chain into polymers. This was our biggest acquisition ever, done perhaps at the most difficult time, at the beginning of a global crisis. We were convinced that this transaction would add considerable value to OMV, while at the same time positioning us successfully for a low-carbon future. The extremely positive development of the chemicals market we have seen in the first half of 2021 supports our investment decision, and together with our rapidly executed divestment program, helps us to deleverage rapidly. As a result of all our efforts, the Clean CCS Operating Result more than doubled to EUR 3.5 billion in 2019 compared with 2015. This year, we were able to achieve some EUR 2.2 billion in only six months. My favorite KPI in running our company is the cash flow from operating activities, which increased from around EUR 3 billion in 2015 to more than EUR 4 billion in 2019. In the first half of this year, we have already generated around EUR 3.4 billion. We transformed the company into a tremendous cash engine, which is able to support our growth story and, at the same time, our progressive dividend policy. Our track record on dividends is unbroken for five years. In this period, we have increased dividends at an average rate of 13% per year. We were one of the few companies in the energy industry that did not cut dividends in 2020. This year, we were among the first to increase it, reflecting our confidence in the ability to generate cash despite the fact that the crisis is not yet over. Looking back, we have spent around EUR 9.8 billion on acquisitions and divested around EUR 4.5 billion. These figures alone can tell you the remarkable transformation that OMV has undertaken to a very healthy and solid company that is fit for the future. I believe that today we have a powerful investor proposition of growing sustainable cash flows and dividends while transitioning into a low-carbon world. OMV started a major transformation in the direction of chemicals and a circular economy. I am happy that the supervisory board appointed Alfred Stern as my successor. Alfred has extensive experience in chemicals and has been a driver for the circular economy in recent years. I warmly congratulate him and wish him all the success. I would like to thank my board colleagues and all employees. Together, we made this happen. I would like to thank you, the analysts and investors, who followed us, understood our story, and entrusted us with your confidence. Thank you for your attention. Now, Reinhard and I are more than happy to take your questions. Thank you, Rainer. Let's now come to your questions. I would like to ask you to limit your questions to only two at a time so that we can take as many questions as possible. You're, of course, always welcome to rejoin the queue for a follow-up question. The first question today comes from Mehdi Ennebati, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Hi. Good afternoon, all. Thanks for the presentation. I will ask two questions, please. First one, regarding the fertilizer unit disposal. Could you update us, please, a little bit more, and tell us if we should expect the disposal announcement in the second half of this year? Maybe, can you be a little bit more precise, please, regarding the profitability? You said during the call that year-on-year, the profitability of the fertilizer unit was more or less the same, slightly better. You also said that the current macroeconomic environment is positive for the sale of that unit. Maybe, can you just tell us if you expect a higher profitability this year from that unit compared to last year? Or is the natural gas price so high that it is negatively impacting the profitability of that unit? The second question is about the gas hedging. You said that you hedged 10% of your gas production. Are you talking about your total gas production, your global gas production, for the second half of 2021? Can you please tell us what portion of your European gas production you hedge? If you can answer those two questions, that would be great. I will finish by saying to you, Rainer, that I wish you the best for your next steps in your professional life. It has been a real pleasure and quite exciting, in fact, to cover OMV with you as a CEO. Sincerely, I wish you all the success that you deserve in your next position. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mehdi, for your personal wishes, which I will also revert to you. All the best to you. Enjoy the further development of OMV. To your first question, disposal of the fertilizer business. Yes, we are according to plan, and we would like to sign a deal if satisfactory offers will be received in the second half of this year, so until year-end. There's no reason to change our timeline. The process has started, and I think we are now moving into a phase that 1st non-binding offers are coming in. It's now too early to give you any kind of an indication. All I can say is, Mehdi, the timeline is set, and we are according to plan. When we talk about the market environment, yes, if you look into the fertilizer business, you have seen some price increases and margin improvements. We have to wait and see how this will further develop in the second half, because what I have explained is that especially the feedstock prices for fertilizers went up enormously. As a gas producer, I of course enjoy the EUR 36-EUR 37 per MWh. As a fertilizer producer, I really have to take a deep breath to pass this feedstock price increase to the customers. We have to wait and see. So far, I would say the business environment for fertilizers in the first half has been improved if we compare it with last year. Gas hedging, absolutely correct. 10% of the global gas production of OMV has been hedged. It's the entire global production as a reference to this 10%. European gas production, please forgive me, I don't want to run too much into details. It's because I have looked around the table already, and nobody can hand over a number to me. Mehdi, please forgive me. Nobody is giving me a number, so I can't tell you or answer your question. Yeah. I beg your pardon. No problem. I will forward it to the IR. Thanks very much, Rainer. All the best. Mehdi, we are happy to provide you with that information afterwards. The next question is coming from Raphaël Dubois, Société Générale. Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Loud and clear, Raphaël. Hello. Yes. Well, first off, let me tell you, Rainer, how much I enjoyed our interactions over the years, first as an investor and then as a sell-side analyst. Now, maybe back to my questions. The first one is very down-to-earth. You had some temporary hedging effects, negative ones in 2Q, EUR 92 million, if I'm not mistaken. It would be great if you could tell us a bit more about what happened there, and why it is booked into the special item category and not into business as usual? My second question is on the chemical business. Your guidance for the rest of the year in terms of margins is pretty wide. Can you maybe at least tell us a bit more about the third quarter, for which you should have good visibility? You talk about margins reverting to a more normal pattern. How fast is this normalization happening? What sort of margins do you think could be achieved for the commodity part of your business? Still related to chemicals, the specialty part of your business, I guess, there will be some resets at contracts. Could we expect a rebasing at a higher margin to somewhat reflect the strong environment we are in? Thank you. Yeah, Raphaël. It's Reinhard. Maybe take on the first question regarding your hedging questions. First of all, I think we have to differentiate between the realized and the non-realized part of our hedging that we have in our accounting. In terms of the realized hedges we have in the second quarter, some EUR 72 million. Most of that is coming still from the oil part, which has ended by the end of June, so there is no oil hedge in the group for the second half. This is that part, only a quite small part is coming from gas here. Now, for the special item booking, this is the non-realized hedges. There, of course, as we don't have any of the oil in there is just from the oil effect that part of that which was booked already as realized is reversed into special as a positive one. We have in total a special item of some close to EUR 90 million as special in there from hedging, and that is more or less the effect of our hedges for Q3, Q4, and partly Q1 of next year that Rainer has described already. However, that is, of course, only the accounting effect because we have to take it as a mark-to-market valuation from exactly the forward level by the end of the second quarter. This will then be revised and calibrated into the realized hedging results that you will see quarter by quarter. I hope that was clear. Very clear. Thank you. Raphaël, I'm now delighted to talk about chemicals. First of all, I will talk about two different margins, the polymer margins, more or less reflecting the main business of Borealis, and let me call it the basic chemicals margins, which reflect more or less the monomers, ethylene, and propylene. What we see is that in polymers, we have seen the peak of high margins in the second quarter. We don't expect to see the same margins in the third quarter. If I look into the pricing in July, so beginning of the third quarter as an indication, we do see already price reductions, especially in ethylene. The effect on polyethylene, sorry. In polyethylene, the effect on polypropylene is a bit less. That's why I think we have to prepare for a third quarter where the polymer margins are decreased, but I have to say, not brutally decreased. It will be a smile on the face for Alfred to present the Q3 numbers in polymers as well. Yeah. Therefore, don't be too drastic in your expectations. The polymer margins, the PE/PP polymer margins, were twice as high in the second quarter. There's 100% room left to come back to what you have set as the normal level of margins. I wouldn't expect that the margins will be half from Q2 into Q3. When we talk about the basic chemicals margins, it's more dependent on the development of the feedstock prices. So far, we have seen naphtha prices coming up to a level we haven't expected. I think we have seen $690 per ton. Naphtha increase was pretty high. On the one hand, you enjoy it as a refiner. On the other hand, you are starting to have no smile on your face as a chemical producer. This was the effect. It depends on how naphtha prices will move into the third quarter, more or less determining the margin performance in ethylene and propylene. What we have seen is that increasing naphtha prices could be handed over, at least partially, to the customers also in July. That's my indication, the basic chemicals margins, if we talk mainly about ethylene propylene, also the margins are not heavily reduced in the third quarter so far. All in all, I would say Alfred and the OMV board will also enjoy having fun in Chemicals in the second half of 2021. That's what I'm saying. On the specialty part of your business, maybe? I thought you might forget it. No, no. What I would say in specialties, what I can advise you, yes, there is a premium, yeah? I would advise you to see that premium more as a constant number and not as an increasing number, as we speak about looking down the road. Excellent. Thank you, Rainer. All the best. Thanks. Thanks, Raphaël. The next question comes from Josh Stone, Barclays. Thanks, Florian. Hi, thank you, Rainer. All the best to you as well. I'm sure we'll miss you on these conference calls. Just two questions from me. Firstly, on the Bornewables product you've launched. Are you able to say how much more expensive it is to source this renewable feedstock versus traditional feedstock? I think you mentioned a premium product. Are you getting price premiums on these more green polyolefins? In other words, are these margin-enhancing or are they margin-diluting? Secondly, on the downstream gas business had lower earnings. You mentioned storage was particularly weak. I wonder if you'd maybe just give a bit more information on why and to what extent you think things can recover in the second half of the year. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Josh. All the best to you as well. Renewables come with a premium in the price, yeah. How much it is, we would like to keep as a secret; all I can confirm is it is not margin dilution that we have in our plans, yeah. It adds value to and contributes value to the overall performance. We talk about the gas business, well, we have two main effects. On the one hand, I think a major part of the storage business is not in 2021 as a contribution to the overall performance. There is no summer-winter spread existing. Just look into the numbers. Nowadays, you are paying EUR 36 per MWh, the forward price; if you are lucky, you can get a EUR 30 per MWh. Yeah. What kind of business is it? You'd better keep the gas in the storage. I'm not very much optimistic for the summer-winter spread because you have to load your storage with high-priced gas in summer. Yeah. You have to bring in the EUR 36 per MWh, and you have to pray that the EUR 36 per MWh is coming back in the winter quarters. That's more or less what I have to give as a farewell message to the storage operators. It's not a big fun in storage. This is the translation of what I have said. The second part is that the power business in Romania was contributing less, and the question is, what is going to be the spark spread? The spark spread between running our gas-fired power plant is also pretty difficult because now we are talking about the price delta of natural gas to power. The message is not the same as in storage. I think that the spark spread has a good chance to come back in the second half of this year. Very clear. Thank you. We now come to Sasikanth Chilukuru with Morgan Stanley. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. First of all, congratulations, Rainer, on your successful tenure at OMV, and I wish you all the best for the future. I had two questions, please. The first was related to the dividend payments to minority shareholders for Borealis. You have highlighted dividend payments of EUR 38 million for the first half of this year. Could you remind us what the dividend policy of Borealis is and what payments we can expect in the second half of 2021? That would be helpful. The second question is related to the net working capital build of EUR 810 million in the first half. Do you expect this or a part of this to reverse over the second half? Thank you. Sasi, let me explain to you a little bit how the dividend policy works. We normally have a policy that we pay dividends once a year. There were some periods where there has been a split of the dividend with an anticipation of part of the dividend already in the quarter before. If we are talking about 2020 and 2021, that will be paid out in one tranche. It is not expected that there will be additional dividends to be paid out in the rest of the year. I wouldn't feel too sorry for Mubadala. They got a very rich dividend from OMV for that 24.9% share in OMV. The second question, could you please remind me? The working capital build. Net working capital. Yeah. The net working capital increase in the first half was more or less attributable to the very high price increases that we have seen, which came in both in inventories as well as in the ratio between payables and receivables. We are expecting that this eases out for the second half of the year. I would be too bold to say it reverses. As we are seeing that some of the prices are, I would say, weakening a little bit in the chemicals part, but on the other side, also on the olefin part, we are still seeing quite high prices. I would expect that there might be a little bit of a positive n et working capital contribution when it comes to cash, but not very high. Think of it as being rather stable for the second half of the year. Great. Thank you very much. Thanks, Sasi. We now come to Henri Patricot, UBS. Yes. Hello, everyone. Rainer, I wish you all the best as well. It's been an impressive transformation indeed for OMV under your tenure. A couple of questions. The first one, just on Chemicals. I wanted to follow up on the comments on the evolution in the second half. I wanted to have a better sense of the magnitude of the inventory gains in the second quarter, and whether we should expect these two to reverse in the third quarter, just based on the latest prices that you're seeing. Secondly, a couple of quick questions on ADNOC Refining. Noted the issue, the outage with the RFCC unit. Has that been fully fixed now? Secondly, was it considered a typical quarter in terms of the contribution from trading in the second quarter, or are you still kind of ramping up these operations? Thank you. Henri, regarding the magnitude of the inventory effect in Chemicals, it is around EUR 50 million for this quarter, and we are expecting that more or less to reverse. It is also very much in context with the question before from Sasi. We are expecting that the level of inventories will not be higher, both in terms of valuation as well as in terms of volume, and therefore we would not see such effect coming in the third quarter or in the fourth quarter again. Henri, first of all, thanks also to you, and all the best. Talking about ADNOC Refining, the FCC plant is back in operation. We have problems this time not to restart the plant, and problems with the catalyst, like the first time. This time we only had to fight against corrosion. Therefore, I don't want to say it was more easier done, but it was not the same kind of problem we had to solve as the first time. I do hope that this FCC plant will now reliably run into the second half with a contribution. As we speak about the trading activities positively contributing to the overall performance of ADNOC Refining, I clearly have to say this can't be the future model. We need to see an improving margin in ADNOC Refining to come up with more convincing numbers. The question is, of course, how do we see the refining margins in the second half of this year? This will be more or less the main factor determining the quarterly contribution from ADNOC Refining. Got it. Thank you. Thanks, Henri. The next questions come from Matt Lofting, JP Morgan. Great. Thanks for taking the questions, guys. Congrats on a super strong quarter. I think, Rainer, record numbers are very well deserved as a sign-off. Wishing you well. I have two questions, please. Rainer, first, I think as you referenced in your opening remarks, we've seen significant macro volatility through your tenure at OMV and also significant company transformation. At the same time, clearly, the whole industry is having to adapt to the transition. I wonder if you could share some thoughts on what some of the most challenging elements of the transformation of the company today have been, and perhaps forward learnings from that. Second, gas. Probably appropriate to ask you about gas. You flagged some of the drivers behind European price strength earlier on. Can you talk a bit about the outlook as you see it for the next six to 12 months and scope within that for further gas realization upside OMV versus, I think, low EUR 11 per MWh on the first half of the year, given the lagged mechanism in some of the pricing regimes. Thanks. All right. Thanks, Matt. Let me start with the topic of transition. I think the most challenging part, especially as we speak about transition into low carbon world, is, I think, timing. The expectation in the political arena and in the financial market is let's do it yesterday because we have to save our planet and do it as quickly as possible. What I have learned is that transformation takes time. It really takes time. What I can see in OMV, we have been, I think, more of an exception for a fast transformation. If you look at what happened and just see the first half-year results, 50% of our overall earnings performance is attributable to Chemicals. What I have learned is that if you would like to go for a quick transition, nothing goes quicker than M&A, and you have to be bold. The most challenging part is that you have to give up what you love. It's like a wedding problem I'm starting to talk about, but that's more or less what's happening. You can't imagine if you grew up successfully in oil and gas, and if you tell the people, "Hey, come on, in the long run, we would like to transition into a totally different business and into a totally different company," it takes time to convince people in the company, and you have to give companies and management the time to work on that job. Don't make too much pressure that you would love to see a transition happening from one day to another. It's impossible. Be impressed if a company is explaining to you a strategy that, via M&A, they are ready to reduce their traditional business, and they would like to fast grow into the new world of business. What I have learned is that when you are going to invest in a wind park, you are five years busy building that, and then you will enjoy, hopefully, having it in your numbers. A transition via investments, you have to take a very, very long breath. That's my experience. Transition is not an easy task for management to execute. The second, gas. What is my outlook for the next few months to come? I think, Matt, we are going to continue to see high prices in the natural gas market during the summer months. The demand for storage gas is absolutely high. The compressor capacities at the storage sites are limited to fill the storage. If the withdrawal season starts early, for example, if you have the scenario that in October we see the first snowflakes coming, we will have a very high gas price scenario for the winter quarters. An early arrival of the winter temperatures would feed an upside scenario, and you are going to see in the winter quarter, a spark spread coming back. We might see summer gas prices being topped also in the winter quarter, and it depends on an early arrival of winter. If you look into the forward curve, you will see that you have something around EUR 25- EUR 30 per MWh. As a gas producer in Europe, I would say a very healthy business is awaiting you. You will make good money as a gas producer in the next quarters. I don't see that there will be a drop in gas prices to a level we have seen last year, for example, in the low -10s of euros. More or less, my basic scenario is telling me we have to live also in the next months, with higher or lower gas prices. Not higher than we are seeing right now, but higher compared to the quarters we have seen last year. Great. Very clear as always. Thanks, Rainer. Wish you all the best. Thanks a lot, Matt. We now come to Michael Alsford, Citi. Hi there. Good morning, Rainer. I also echo others by saying I wish you the best in the future. I couldn't let you go without asking a question about Nord Stream 2. Given the recent developments, I was just wondering whether you could remind us of how and the timing of when OMV will get the financing back that they've provided for the project. If I remember correctly, it was just over EUR 700 million. Maybe you could explain that would be great. Secondly, just on the upstream maintenance in Q3, could you just maybe give a little bit more granularity as to how long the maintenance will be in Russia, and therefore what sort of the kind of targeted production in Q3 from that region? Thank you. Michael, thanks for the best wishes. The same to you. I'm delighted to talk about Nord Stream 2, of course. While we talk about the timing, I make reference to CEO Matthias Warnig, explaining to us that he is expecting that construction will be finished by the end of August. Beginning of September, I think the procedure of certifying the pipeline to be ready for gas in, we are going to see the first gas running into the pipe, hopefully in the second half of this year. Reinhard Florey explained already in the press conference today that he is expecting that we are going to get the first cash payments from Nord Stream 2 company in the second half of this year. We are going to tell you that cash is coming back, starting already with the second half of this year. I would say it's not only the EUR 729 million, which I would like to have back, Michael, it's also the interest rate on top of the EUR 729 million. It's really more than EUR 729 million. I can see Reinhard smiling just on the opposite side of the table here because he has an idea of how much it is. It's more than this. Let's talk about upstream business now, maintenance season. I think it will be a few weeks of interruption of gas production in Russia. A few is two to three, we have planned for the maintenance shutdown. Then, as you might remember, I have said that we are going to upgrade also the compressor station, and therefore we are back to a higher pressure in the gas system, so that after the maintenance season, we are back to 100,000 bpd contribution in Q3. Just to make the math a bit easier. If you take Q3 and the maintenance will happen, let's say round numbers, it's one month, then you have to calculate in this quarter two months of gas production from Yuzhno-Russkoye with a little bit drop on top as good vodka. Okay. That's the way I would do it. Great, many thanks. Have a good one. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Michael. We are at the end of our conference call. Thanks a lot for joining us today. Should you have any further questions, please reach out to the investor relations team, and we are happy to help you. Thanks a lot and have a good day.