Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call Conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Saras Second Quarter and First Half 2023 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Ilaria Candotti, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, madam. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today for this conference call on Saras first half and second quarter results. You should have received the press release together with the analyst presentation a few hours ago. You can also find them both on our website, either on the home page or in the investor relations section. Our agenda today will be the following: Mr. Franco Balsamo, Deputy CEO and General Manager of the Saras Group, will start with the highlights of the second quarter. Afterwards, Marco Schiavetti, Chief Commercial Officer, will provide an overview on the refining market and on the scenario expected for the rest of the year. Fabio Peretti, CFO, will follow with the financial of Q2, followed by the presentation on the results by segment and the guidance for 2023. At this point, Franco will be back with an update on the strategy of the group, including a description of the renewable expansion plan that we announced in May. Finally, we will be happy to take your questions. At this time, I would like to hand over to Franco, please. Okay, Ilaria, thank you very much. Good afternoon to everybody. We start the presentation providing main highlights of the quarter, and then I will leave the floor to Marco Schiavetti, our Chief Commercial Officer, to discuss the oil market and the evolution of refining market. Fabio Peretti, our CFO, will follow and will take you through the divisional result and the key potential point of our balance sheet. At the end, we conclude the presentation, providing an update of the pillars of our strategy. Now, let's start to the results of the second quarter and the first half of the year. The first half of the year was very positive, EBITDA comparable at EUR 312 million and EUR 140 million of net result. It's a very remarkable result achieved in a very positive market scenario, mainly in the first quarter. In the second quarter, market conditions became less favorable and the which set a quarterly average of $4.2 bbl, almost 60% lower than the $10 per bbl recorded in the first quarter. Indeed, the middle distillate weakening in the second quarter, due to combination of factors, affect both demand and supply. On the demand side, the industrial consumption of OECD countries suffer from deteriorating macroeconomic conditions. In terms of supply, notwithstanding the official start of the embargo against Russian product starting February the fifth, the European market continued to receive import flows coming mostly from Asia. This country continued to buy Russian product, and at the same time, boosted their export volumes toward Europe. Only May, export to Europe started to ease, allowing inventories to normalize and the middle distillate cracks started to recover. Sector analyst expected this positive trend to become even stronger in the second half of this year. What about our profitability drivers? We previously announced that every scheduled maintenance was going to take place in the second quarter, including various important refinery units and the multi-year turnaround of the power plant. Is essential to guarantee stability to the Slovenian power network. In addition to those scheduled activity, we also had some penalizations on our operating performance due to unplanned upset and external factors that That is more important in this quarter, we will lower. In any case, the margin on the industrial market, this segment stood at $7.9 bbl, with a premium of $3 and $7 bbl. That is above the EMC benchmark, but is in any case, slightly below our expectation for the quarter, but still on track with the full year guidance. Looking at the CapEx, in the second quarter, accounted about EUR 100 million, of which EUR 80 million were dedicated to the industrial and market segment, mostly for the turnaround and schedule and maintenance mentioned above, while EUR 23 million was the investment for our solar plant under construction. That the reconstruction of 80 MW solar is going ahead, and we expect commercial operations to start in the first half of next year. Finally, another positive information regarding our net financial positions, that now we're standing approximately EUR 590 million of cash out in the second quarter for the payment of the windfall taxes, current taxes, dividends, and other CO2 quotas and CapEx. Our cash flow remained positive at about EUR 74 million. Now, I leave the floor to Marco to discuss about the evolution of mine. Marco? Good afternoon, everyone, thank you, Franco, for the introduction. During Q2, the market found a new equilibrium after the effects on absolute prices and cracks due to the war between Ukraine and Russia. On the crude side, if you look at the chart, Brent has been trading in a narrow range between $75 and $80 per bbl throughout all the quarter, due to the effects of two opposing forces. On one end, there was there was a bearish effect due to uncertain macroeconomic condition on a global basis, on a global scale, Europe as usual. Then also USA is going down and then Chinese recovery scores lower than market expectations. On the other hand, we had the bullish effect during... due to the production cuts by, by OPEC+, plus the additional, unilateral cut by, by Saudi Arabia, of an additional 1 million bbl, starting from June, July 2023, and extendable from month to month, based on market conditions. Overall, this, this strong action by, by OPEC and, and, coupled with the additional cuts by Saudi Arabia, has been able to set, to set a floor on, on, on oil prices. We see also in these days, the, the bullish, bullish, bullish forces prevailing over the bearish with, with Brent moving towards $90 per bbl. In term of on crude differentials, the graph on the right side, OPEC cuts, coupled with the missing barrels from Kurdistan, created a shortage of sour grade in the med area, with a big reduction of discounts. As you can see, in the graph, Basra Medium discount in the med was around $4 per bbl in Q2, increasing significantly from -7 in Q1 2023. Almost $3 per bbl increase. Moving to the light sweet grade, we saw a return to values more in line with historical averages, in particular, at Urals, which is one of the main grades trading in the med. We saw premiums around $4.6 per bbl, down from $6 per bbl during the first quarter of this year, mainly due to middle distillate cracks returning to more normal levels. All in all, the combined effect of those of these changes in premium and discounts affected them negatively, Saras refining margin, reducing our premium versus the EMC. We will further discuss later on more detail the effects on our premium over the benchmark. Moving to next slide. Talking about cracks, middle distillates during the quarter moved back to pre-COVID levels in the range between $15-$20 per bbl, which is still a good and profitable level, but obviously below the highs, around $40 per bbl that we saw during, during the war. Gasoline continued to be, instead to be very strong, well above historical averages. More specifically, diesel crack average stood around $70 per bbl in Q2 2023. Risk premium induced by the war basically completely disappeared during the quarter. Because the market managed to find a new equilibrium, and at the end, Russian production of diesel has not been affected, basically, the volumes are pretty much the same. There's been just a reshuffle of volumes all around the, the world. This is the reason because, basically, cracks are back to historical, around historical averages. Moving to gasoline. Gasoline continued to be very strong during the quarter, well above historical averages. We had a very healthy demand in Europe, and, and also in the U.S. Coupled with an intense spring maintenance seasons at European and American refineries. Furthermore, there is a persistent global shortage of high octane components, also due to some missing components from Russia, which is strongly supporting the, the gasoline cracks, and this is really the positive news for, for European refiners. Quickly on energy costs, moving to next slide. Power and CO2 are the two main components for our variable costs. Italian electricity price was around EUR 115 per MWh, compared to almost EUR 250 in the same quarter last year. There is a continuation of the downward trend that started at the end of last year, and progressing also during the beginning or the first half of this year, thanks to the normalization of natural gas prices. The latter, the trend on the natural gas prices can be mainly explained with the successful replacement of Russian flows with high volumes of LNG imports. On top of floating regasification, terminals have been more in various European ports, including Italy. Also availability of gas in Europe proved to be sufficient even without the Russian volumes. In addition to that, Europe reduced its consumption, thanks to a particularly mild winter and a greater attention to energy saving by both the private and industrial users, which led to a reduction in demand around 20%. CO2 quotations are roughly in line with the previous quarter, around slightly below EUR 90 per ton. Moving to the outlook, we confirm our positive view for the second half of the year and also for 2024. Cracks of the main products expected to strengthen and stabilize at higher levels, so well above historical and seasonal averages. In terms of demand, prospects for the second quarter are extremely good. We have slowing inflation data, both in Europe and in the U.S., and so this is generating a positive market sentiment and expectations, and with the hope that the central banks could soon complete their cycle of interest rate hikes. This will eventually provide support to the broader economy, both for the business and for the businesses and for the private sector. We saw the report for the internationally, International Energy Agency, which is one of the most reputable agencies producing forecast on oil demand. This report, the last report published in July, has been very positive, with another 2% of demand, with a forecast of 2% demand increase up to, well, to 102 million barrel per day in 2023, with an increase of two million in excess of 2 million bbl per day compared to 2022. This is very, very positive. Middle distillates rebounded from the low levels touched in May. We are now trading above $30 per bbl. We are around $33 per bbl today. We, we basically, high inventory levels, which penalize cracks in Q2, have been drawn during the last part of the part of the quarter, which further support to the cracks and a strong support, I would say, coming from several unplanned refinery outages all around the world and in Europe in particular. Gasoline demand continue to be very healthy. Consumption is, in U.S., is extremely high, thanks to a strong driving season, several outages also in the U.S., to several FCC units, which are the main gasoline producers. Gasoline stocks were already below the five-year range in June, market conditions are set to remain tight for the rest of the year. The reasons are basically the same, I dimensioned before. There is a short of octane, which is going... is supporting, gasoline cracks, both in the U.S. and, in Europe. On the supply side, lower output from OPEC+, will keep the market very tight, especially for sour grades, notwithstanding, some, some incremental production from Iran. We saw official selling prices, increase from the main producers, including Saudi Aramco. We expect, we expect sour grades, increasing, the premiums or lowering the discount compared to the-... Let me pass, to, to Fabio for the financial review, please. Thank you, Marco. Moving to the group financial highlights, as Franco mentioned, the first half results were solid, showing a reported EBITDA of EUR 282 million and a comparable EBITDA of EUR 312 million. Notwithstanding the second quarter results that were affected by the heavy maintenance in the period. In the second quarter, the reported EBITDA amounted to EUR 35.6 million, which cannot be compared to the exceptionally strong results of about EUR 530 million in the same period of last year. Refinery runs were lower, albeit still within our guidance range, standing at 19.5 million bbl, compared to 25.9 million bbl in the same quarter of last year. Q2 results are mainly due to a weaker scenario, especially for product cracks and crude premium variations, and to the heavy scheduled maintenance, which included the multi-year turnaround of our IGCC plant, that was shut down from the 10th of May for the rest of the quarter, involved also one t opping and one mild hydrocracker. The industrial performance was also affected by other operational upsets, also due to external factors. At comparable level, EBITDA stood at about EUR 27 million, which compares with the record high of EUR 459 million in Q2 2022. We remind that the comparable EBITDA does not include the effect of the scenario on changing inventories, while includes the exchange derivatives, which are reclassified under the core business. The group reported net income was negative by EUR 16.7 million, compared to EUR 260 million achieved in Q2 of last year. Finally, as Franco mentioned, the net financial position before the IFRS 16 is positive at EUR 73.5 million, down from EUR 355 million at the end of March, even in consideration of the important cash out, and in view of our working capital release that we anticipated during our previous conference call, and on which I will give you more detail in a few slides. Going to the segment analysis and starting with Industrial and Marketing, in Q2, the comparable EBITDA was EUR 24 million. Within that, the marketing channel accounted for EUR 12 million. The reduction compared to last year results is primarily attributable to the scenario, and in particular, to the lower cracks, both for diesel and gasoline, while the benefit for the reduction of the Brent price was almost entirely compensated by the negative impact of higher crude premiums. Also, Saras' performance were weaker. From a production perspective, as we just said, the performance were affected by the higher maintenance activities and some operational upsets. Also from a trading point of view, the achieved results that were still above historical level, show a reduction compared to the, to the extremely high results of Q2 2022. The annual maintenance plan was reflected also in the fixed cost, which were higher by EUR 23 million. On the other end, we have a positive effect on variable cost, which decreased by EUR 36 million, thanks to the normalization of the electricity price and the higher allocation of free CO2 allowances. Our CapEx stood at almost EUR 80 million, given the maintenance activities carried out in the quarter. Finally, the remuneration of the power plant under the essentiality regime accounted for EUR 27 million, in line with the previous quarter, and this will lead the yearly power plant remuneration at EUR 108 million, up from EUR 63 million in 2022. If you look at the first half results, comparable EBITDA to the EUR 303 million, compared to EUR 499 million in the same period last year, with similar differences as those illustrated for the quarter, although as pronounced. Moving now to the Saras Industrial and Marketing margin, in Q2, it was $7.9 per bbl, down from $16.2 in Q1, compared to an EMC benchmark margin that was $4.2, down from $10.1 per bbl in Q1. As a consequence, our premium, which was $6.1 per bbl in Q1, reduced to $3.7 in Q2. The Q2 premium reduction is attributable to different causes. First of all, the FCC multi-year turnaround maintenance, which reduced our capability to process heavier and less expensive crude and increased our losses to fuel oil yield at the expense of gas oil. Secondly, the unexpected operational upset. Additionally, the crude runs that were not equally distributed, being higher in April with lower margins and lower in June. Lastly, the increase of the high sulfur fuel oil cracks that moved from - 21, sorry, - 25 in Q1 to - 14 in Q2. The sulfur fuel oil represents 7% share of EMC yield, while Saras Refinery typically does not produce it. Therefore, over the first half of 2023, the Saras margin was equal to $12.6 per bbl, compared to the EMC reference margin that stood at an average of 7.1, which resulting in a premium of $5.5, which is in line with our guidance of a $5-$6 per bbl premium on a yearly basis. For what concerns our renewable segment, Q2 EBITDA was $3 million, up compared to the $6 million in Q2 2022. Roughly 2/3 of the EBITDA reduction was driven by the lower production, that was 55, 54 GWh, compared to 68 GWh in the same quarter of last year. Such reduction was mainly driven by weaker wind condition that accounted for about 10 GWh, while mechanical availability reduced our production for the remaining part. Also, the power tariff reduced in Q2 2023, and was EUR 87 per MWh, compared to EUR 105 per MWh in Q2 2022. As a reminder, the lower zone applies, applied to 40% of the production, while the rest was capped at EUR 61 per MWh. It's worth to mention that both, both price capped, the one at 61 and the other at EUR 180 per MWh, were not extended to the second part of the year. Before moving forward, our production will be entirely sold on market price. Looking at CapEx in Q2, we invested EUR 23 million, as Franco said, they were mainly related to the development of our photovoltaic plant called Helianto. We move to the first half results, the EBITDA was equal to EUR 9 million, down by EUR 12 million compared to the results of the first half of 2022. For the same reason, reasons in which we discussed at the quarterly level, with another impact of the tariff reduction, that in the semester accounted for EUR 7 million. In the first half, the tariff reduction was higher, because in 2022, the price cap was applied only starting in February. For what concerns our net financial position, as said, we ended Q2 with a net financial position before IFRS is in effect of EUR 74 million, down from EUR 355 million at the end of the previous quarter. More precisely, during the second quarter, our cash out was negative for about EUR 280 million, and was mainly driven by the payment of dividend and taxes, which in total accounted for about EUR 490 million, plus additional EUR 100 million for the CapEx. On the other hand, the quarter cash generation amounted to EUR 310 million, and was mainly due to the normalization of our working capital. The working capital variation was primarily related to the reduction of our oil inventories, that in the previous quarter increased, also due to the heavy maintenance schedule, and to the rebalancing of our trade payables. Turning to the 2020, 2023 result guidance for our industrial and marketing segment, as anticipated by Marco in the previous slide, we expect a positive second half of the year in terms of crack spread and healthy margin available on the market. Saras Refinery will be fully equipped to exploit the favorable market condition, because we have already concluded the largest part of our scheduled maintenance. Hence, the second half of the year, we'll have higher round, bringing our full year round at about 93-97 million barrels, in line with the last year performance. In terms of margin, we keep our annual guidance for the premium versus EMC reference margin unchanged, in the range between $5 and $6 per bbl, notwithstanding the weakness of the second quarter, which is now behind the bars, and in line with the results of the first semester. Fixed cost guidance remain unchanged. We expect them to be in the range of $400 million. While for our CapEx, we expect them to be in the range of $180 million, at the high end of our previous indication, driven by higher maintenance activities recorded in the first half. For what concerns renewable production, in the first half of the year was lower than expected, mainly due to the unfavorable wind condition. As a consequence, we now forecast our full year production to reach approximately 270 GWh. CapEx guidance is reduced to EUR 50 million, that are largely driven by Helianto development, while the reduction is related to the delays in the additional authorization that were expected in the first half of the year. Lastly, based on our current market expectation, refining margin, and above mentioned as guidance on our performance, we confirm our target to maintain a positive cash position by year end. Let me now hand over to Franco. Okay, thank you very much, Marco and Fabio. We see we are in a track of a very good second part of the year, either in term of profitability, cash generations, and continuity in operations and CapEx. Let me, in this final part of the presentations, give you some updates about our strategic guide, guidance, guidelines, that was announced a few months ago around the three pillars. The first one was to ensuring continuity of operations on our refining and power activity, accelerating the development of renewables energy productions, and preparing the Group to seize opportunity arising from the energy transitions. Now, I would like to give you a brief overview of the progress. Now we stand in the short period of time, we made against each area. Let's start with the first pillar regarding the continuity of our activity. In second quarter, we carried out an important set of maintenance activity, as we have explained before. Aimed at extending the operational life of the plant and ensuring reliable and continuous operations. In particular, I would like to underline among the various multi-year turnaround, there was the entire power plant in IGCC turnaround that is now... A ble to guarantee our long-term power productions capability until 2030 and beyond, allowing us to operate the power plant availability within the essentiality framework for the stability of the Sardinian grid. Furthermore, in the quarter, progress was achieved also the optimization of industrial operations, with initiatives concerning capacity utilization, cost efficiency, as well as improvement in the utilizations of energy, with the scope to reduce the CO2 footprint, and energy cost. Second goal, on the renewable, the renewable growth accelerations, I remember with a target of 1 GW of installed capacity by 2028. This will allow us to reduce the carbon intensity of our power production by 40% by 2028. Indeed, we will adding approximately 2 TW of new electricity for per year of carbon-free power power productions. In the longer term, this in the longer term perspective. I would also would like to briefly highlight our value propositions. First of all, our growth, it will be mainly organic, located in Sardinia, concerning wind project. We have a pipeline of 600 MW in various stages of development. We see in the next, the next slide. The Sardinian focus, our pipeline, is a plus for us, because Sardinia load factor for wind and solar are higher than the average of Italy. Second, we are operating in these regions since more than 60 years. We are the largest corporations with a solid reputation of reliable industrial player. We build constructive relations with local authorities. Municipality have become our partner. They own the land. Together, we can truly optimize our positive impact on the local economic and social environment. The renewable is also in the medium-term internal edge. Once we will reach 1 GW of store capacity, this will produce, let's say, before, approximately 2 TW hour of electricity per year, and this will provide an edge for the power consumption of our refinery. Finally, in the long term, the system of integrations, increasing our renewable production, will provide opportunities in the long term for fuel, potential fuel, integrations. Some example, in the use of green power, biofuels, green hydrogen, green ammonia, and and and other. In this chart, as promised, last quarter, we would like to give some more informations about our, our pipeline. We have already requested the VIA for six wind projects, for a total capacity of 350 MW. This process is not our direct control, we do believe that approximately 100 MW are well advanced, and we are expecting to receive the authorizations by the end of the year. The other are, in any case, solid pipeline, the condition we have described before. For the other 444 MW of wind project, we have secured the land and the grid connections, we are presenting the various authorizations in the in line with the requirement. In in our point of view, these are very concrete initiative, and we are confident that our target will be achieved within 2028. Thanks also to development of additional project that we are looking not only in Sardinia, but also in Italy, where we are evaluating different opportunities in solar power generations that in order to improve the diversification our, on our, in our mix. Finally, let's talk about the opportunities stemming from the energy transitions, and we see last time, a project that will be in the next decade, but it is a very wide field that include among others, green, green hydrogen. We have a project that is continuing, will be approved at the beginning of September. We are still evaluating the opportunity of implementation of carbon capture and storage project as well as other other activities. regulations and technology development will determine which initiative will prevail in the longer term. We are studying different, different option, but at this stage, the initiative with the higher degree of technological maturity and regulation support that appears to be the most interesting for us now is to start the production of biofuel, in particular, HVO and SAF. Hydrodeoxygenated and vegetable oils and fat to produce pure renewable diesel is technologically well-established process. From a regulatory standpoint, the EU Renewable Energy Directive, the RED III, has a set ambitious target for the introduction of HVO and SAF. We will be probably modified by voluntary pledges by various users, creating robust demand for this kind of biofuel. Europe's HVO SAF supply capacity is growing with several announcement being made in the recent past. However, current planning capacity still fall below 2030 expected demand. There are room for new for newcomers. Therefore, this appears to be viable opportunity for us, for Saras, to enter this market with very pragmatic approach. We are studying the opportunity to upgrade some existing plant, in particular, the desulfurization unit without compromising their current operations and making a sort of no regret investment decision. According to the preliminary result of our study, with the limited CapEx, we can reach a production, approximately 200,000 tons per year of biofuel, of which 30%, 40% of SAF, within timeframe of two years. I can give, give you more details, if necessary, during the Q&A. Our presentation is concluded. We are ready to take your question. This is the Chorus Call Conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and Two. We kindly ask to pick up your phone when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We will pause for a moment as participants are joining the queue. The first question is from Alessandro Pozzi, from Mediobanca. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. I have three questions. The first one is on the performance of Q2 with regards to the premium. 3.7, quite well below the full year guidance, as you explained, there were a number of reasons for that: maintenance, maybe some operational issues, and the heavy light spreads. Maintenance is over. Those operational one-offs are also over. What is the impact, or can you quantify the impact of the heavy light spreads on the premium during Q2? If you can help us understand how that can evolve in for the rest of the year in terms of impact on the premium. The second question is, of course, Q2 has been really weak, but refining margins, as you just printed, witness a material rebound. Actually, in terms of dividend, potentially this year, but it may not be that far off from what you paid in 2022. If I think about the payout, is there any reason why I shouldn't assume a high payout of 50%-60%? Do you want to keep some resources in-house because you want to accelerate the renewables pipeline in terms of higher CapEx there? Final question: if pricing remains the same, how do you expect working capital to evolve during the rest of the year? Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Probably, Fabio can help us for this first question. Okay, yes. What concerns the premium, obviously, it's quite difficult to predict how the crude premiums will go. However, we can consider that roughly 25%-30% of this rate is done of heavy premium, of heavy, heavy crudes. Therefore, if there is a reduction of the premium, I would say of $2, then you have an impact of about $0.5 per bbl, just to give you the say, a really rounded number. Of course, as you have seen, we have not reviewed our guidance, giving a wide range of $5-$6 per bbl premium, because we are also pricing into that variation, the fact that the... The heavy sour crudes could stay, and we are putting in our model at the moment, -2.5 as a discount, and also about $10 for the high sulfur fuel oil. In that case, probably we will move closer to the lower bound of the guidance. Thank you. Marco, on the effect on the war? By effect on the war, as I mentioned during my presentation, are almost over. In the sense that, in the middle distillate, the upward trend that we see now is mainly due to a tight supply, and also to the fact that there is a lot of capacity, refining capacity offline due to various reasons. One of the main ones is the heat wave that we are seeing south of Europe, North Africa, Middle East, which is not allowing refineries to run at full speed. Also, we have all the refining industry under heavy maintenance and under heavy turnaround maintenance, because we are all coming back from two difficult years. Not only us, but also all our, all our other players in the market are trying to recover. There is a lot of capacity offline, and this is helping these cracks in particular. Okay, thank you. Working capital, Fabio? Yes. For what concerns working capital, it is really a difficult question because, of course, the way it moves, it depends from a lot of factor. What we now expect is that on the oil side, given the fact that probably the prices are higher than the last quarter, and also our rounds are increasing, because in Q2, we had the turnaround, as we just said, probably we could have an increase on the debt, on the oil debt. Instead, for what concerns the working capital related to the essentiality, we are now forecasting the payment of the outstanding debt of the last year in Q4, and we will also probably have an anticipated payment for the first half of 2023. All in all, this may be a gush out of around EUR 130 million. The third, the third part is related to tax. As you know, in Q4, we will have the advanced payment for VAT and excise duty that should account for about EUR 70 million. This will depend on price fluctuation, of course. Then we will have the advanced payment for the, let's say, income taxes, that should be around EUR 70 million as well. Okay. These are the rounded number for the next part of the year. Finally, your question regarding the dividend, of course, is only a month of June. But in any case, we are, our expectation is to have a very good EBITDA at the end, at the end of the year, at the end of the year. The policy on payout is at the time being, is unchanged, 40%, between 40% and 60% of the comparable EBITDA. In terms about the opportunity to lower the dividend in order to increase investment on the, on, on the renewables, that is not an option on the, on the table at time being, due to the fact that we have the capability to cover all the financial needs in order to complete the construction of the 80 MW plant, and that is expected to be on commercial operations by the end of June last year. The time being, as I said, also in the, including in our, in our guidance, for us, there is always the trade-off between growing and capital and capital allocation. I don't see the leverage and the leverage connected to the dividend policy. That's very clear. Thank you very much. The next question is from Niccolo Storer, from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. One question is, actually a follow-up from, Alessandro's on, on the, guidance on, on premium. If you can, explain again, what is helping you keeping the guidance, in a context where basically the premium discount structure is moving against, against you? The second one, is a clarification on, on wind business, and on, pricing. Basically, if I understand well, from H2 onwards, you're selling all the entire, production at, at market price. Is this right? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Niccolo. For, for the guidance, we kept the five to six, let's say, spread for our guidance, because this first half, we're closing at 5.5. I mean, we have tried different option on the market evolution on our model, and as we said, we are what we consider the, let's say, less favorable for us, which is to have really high crack of the is low sulfur fuel oil, a really low discount on the heavy sulfur that is still within our guidance. We kept it like this, and then we will see for the rest of the year how it will evolve. For what concerns the wind, yes, you are right. We are going to sell all the electricity price at market level for the rest of the year. If I may add, in any case, we have completed in the second quarter the main maintenance, so our colleagues in the refinery now are in the full capability to run the refinery. That will be, in any case, one of the most important issues in our within our management tools. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question is from Marco Cristofori from Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, everyone. Two question on my side. The first one, given that you should have completed the maintenance shutdown during the second quarter, and it was possibly the lowest in term of market scenario, let's say, do you agree that is right to say that you are expecting, expecting a higher comparable, comparable EBITDA in the second half of the year? That's the first part. My second question is if you can give some color on what you are expecting in 2024 in terms of market trend, at least. Thank you. Marco, for what concerns the comparable EBITDA for the second part of the year, it is really difficult to predict the level of the margin for the rest of the year. As you have seen, the EMC reference margin really increased a lot in the last couple of weeks, moving up to 15, I think is something around this value today. We think there will be a solid market in the second half, although we, I mean, we don't put number on this, let's say, on this value. We think that our performance could be in the same range, around $5.5 per bbl as well. As far as the next year, 2024, well, we don't have now a guidance, of course, because it's, it's too early. The framework of the refining margin nowadays is stronger, is solid, there is a strong demand, and the supply or refining is declining over the over the period. Based on these main pillars of our of our business model, we do believe that the market conditions will help our evolution of activity. Of course, as Fabio said before, it's very difficult to set in advance the precise level of any single crack, but the framework and the main fundamentals of our business now are solid. In spite of the absolute level of margin, of margin, we see in the future such a good favorable market for us. Thank you. The next question is from Massimo Bonisoli from Equita. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. I have two qualitative question, one on Trafigura. I would like to understand whether your level of activities and partnership with Trafigura has increased over the past few months, and if you have had any additional confrontation with them. The second question is on the heat wave you mentioned before regarding the stop of a few refineries and and capacity in Europe and in the Mediterranean. I would like to understand if you do share the same risk on the adverse weather condition, and if they may stop your operation as well. Okay, I, I answer to your first question related to Trafigura. As you well know, Trafigura is now more than 13% of our, our share capital. The scope of their investment, the official statement, is purely a financial, a financial investment. Our commercial operations with them is based on pure market, market conditions. We don't have any strategic agreement with them. We, Trafigura is one of the trader in the market. Our relations is good, is good, as we have a good relation with other, with other broker, nothing, nothing different. Of course, we are happy to have this important trader in our share capital. Because also give us the capability and the recognition of the good evolution of our, of our business in, in the future. In term of heat wave, I think everybody is affected in the same way. That we are all, south of the, south of Med, North Africa, Middle East, obviously, they are, they are all affected the same. This is something that we need to be prepared to cope with in the forthcoming years, in the case they materialize again. Can you be a bit more specific on the heat wave, in which sense it means that above a certain... Just simply to reduce production because the plants cannot run at maximum capacity. Obviously, I cannot be more specific on the technical side, but it's roughly the, roughly the effect. You need to go slower because obviously, all the machinery cannot, the, the machinery emissions and, cannot, cannot be the same and, cannot run at the same pace. It's very simple. Great, thank you. The next question is from Ram Kamath from Barclays. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have a couple, please. First of all, thanks for the disclosure on renewable project pipeline that you have in your slides. It's very useful. If I am reading it correctly, by end of 2025, is it, is it safe to expect around 250-360 megawatt projects operational, which is by end of 2025? What's your renewable power production in this year? I heard, if it's right, around 270 GWh, was a slide showing it as 300, if I'm reading it correctly. On the refining front, I see that average cracks have improved in July from the lows of April. I want to understand from you, your view on these cracks, and if this would encourage other European refineries to increase their utilization. Probably you have mentioned in the past that there are many additional capacities also coming up in Middle East and Asia. Would this increase the supply? Finally, on the follow-up of Trafigura increasing stake in your company, I just want to understand from you, how... I mean, what it means to Saras, and particularly if, if anything related to trading business. Thank you. Okay, thank you for your questions. I would answer to the evolution of our investment into the renewables. As we have seen, we are operating at the time being in Sardinia. We have various various project and most of them are in a sort of joint with local with local authorities. For the reason we do believe that the probability to achieve the final authorization are very, are very high. It's very difficult to set precisely the timing for this, due to the European acceleration of energy transition, also Italian government will accelerate the authorizations process. We are expecting a green light from the central government and we base our positive views on our strong relations with the territory in Sardinia. You know, it's always a long, a long process. Having said that, having said that, we do believe that 100, at least 100 MW of authorization will be finally approved by the end. If you consider 18 months, two years for the put in a commercial operation, let's say that 25 could be a reasonable time, time frame, and so on. Everything will be related to the length of the authorization process that we see the government very committed to accelerate the entire, the entire process. The second question was? No, there was a if I, if we well understood, there was a question related to incremental refining capacity in Asia. Yes, there will be incremental capacity in Asia in the forthcoming years, mainly China, which is the only country, which is growing demand, where there is a consistent growth in oil demand. What is positive is that incremental refining capacity will be in line with the incremental demand or even less. This is the reason because Franco was explaining, was explaining before, that we are positive in refining cracks, both gasoline and diesel in the forthcoming years. After next two or three years, where we spend the refining capacity, mainly in Asia, then we don't see any, any additional project in the pipeline, and this is even more positive for us. As far as the, the position of Trafigura, I can repeat what I said before, that their position into the company is purely financials. We have an activity, interactive activity with Trafigura and also with other traders. The time being is a commercial activity at arm, arm length. If you want to add something, Rafael? Yes, Trafigura is one of the major players in the market, worldwide and has been historically one of our customers, both on the crude side and on the product side. It's positive to have Trafigura as our shareholder, because we can... Definitely there is an appreciation of the value of our asset and our commercial activities, and this is pretty much it. Then only transaction are at arm length, nothing more than the usual cooperation we had in the past. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. Okay, well, in this case, I would like to thank you once again, everybody, for listening, and I wish everybody a good afternoon. We remain at your available for any question you might have. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Everybody, have a nice summer. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.