Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. My name is Mateusz Witczyński, and I have the pleasure of being a new spokesperson for ORLEN. And I would like to welcome all of you very warmly at the earnings call, which will summarize our performance in the first quarter of 2024. We have representatives of the management board of the group with us, Ireneusz Fąfara, CEO and Management Board President, as well as Magdalena Bartoś, VP for Finance, CFO. I would also like to welcome the representatives, as well as directors of the individual units of the company, as well as representatives of the media and all of our guests. We will start the earnings call with the presentation of the CEO and Management Board President, Ireneusz Fąfara. The stage is yours. Good morning. As far as the technicalities are concerned, and a request from me and Magda, we are here for the first time, so something goes wrong when we have a certain hiccup, or maybe we'll omit something by mistake, please bear with us and be patient with us. I'd like to welcome all of you at this very special place. In my career, I have been involved with the Warsaw Stock Exchange. I have a broker's license, very low number, by the way, in terms of the registration number, and the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Stock Exchange in general has always been something very valuable for the capital market, a symbol of corporate governance, openness, transparency, and building the value for shareholders. The fact that ORLEN came back to the Warsaw Stock Exchange is very important for me personally, but also as the management board, as employees, as the company in general, we treat it as a commitment towards you, towards the shareholders. So I'm very happy to be here. We'll move on to the presentation and discussion of our quarterly results, but before we move on to that part of the earnings call, I'd like to tell you a couple of words about our vision after a very short time with the company, because we're talking about only two months, maybe some of us even shorter with the company. And we'll talk about how we plan to run this company, to manage this company, and put certain accents on the growth of the company. Since we are here, we agreed with the management board to be with you today, the analysts, and everybody who looks at the company. We'll ask you to listen to us intently and carefully, but most of all, to take us or keep us accounted for it, maybe not within one quarter or two, but after some time, to look at our promises, at our commitments today. Because our commitment, first of all, is to accelerate or gather momentum. Why do we want to accelerate? Because we want to keep up with the energy transition. It actually exceeds the forecasts, for instance, presented by the International Energy Agency. If we look at the growth in capacities installed, across all of Europe, we can see quite clearly that it is faster than expected. It is real business, not ideology. We want to take part in this real business environment. First of all, we can make money on it, but secondly, it is good for us because we will create a better environment. We live in an environment. We want to therefore create a business and build a business and not ideology. We know that ORLEN can become one of the key players of energy transition in Central and Eastern Europe, and we are doing our best in order for ORLEN to be that player. However, we must remember that it is our challenge. If we look at the forecast by 2050, we will either achieve it with the new technologies that are being implemented, but there can also be only in the planning sphere. Therefore, the challenge that is ahead of us is a major one. Why do we gather momentum and accelerate? If we look at the group level, we want to accelerate because decarbonization goals are declared in our strategy, ORLEN strategy. They're still up-to-date and valid, and they are in keeping with the transformation directions, and we want to make sure that we keep up with it, but we see certain delays. We see that in a number of areas, we need to catch up in order to eliminate delays that occurred in previous years. And when we are unable to do that, and where we are unable to do that, we need to revise our strategy, revise our goals to make it up-to-date. We are accelerating where we can accelerate, when it is still economically viable. We want to step up on our growth projects, and whenever or wherever we are in doubt, we can revise them, and we will do that. We can accelerate in certain areas, in a number of areas. First of all, renewable energy sources. Our strategy envisages that we will increase the capacities installed in this area tenfold. This is an ambitious goal, but it is doable, mainly through the selection of our partners in order to implement those projects and looking at new projects. We will be actively operating onshore. We will be looking for projects and partners, and looking at the countries, our home countries, but also our neighboring countries. We are talking about half of Europe. This is where we will look for new opportunities. We will consistently develop gas-based energy or power generation. We have two projects, CCGTs in Ostrołęka and Grudziądz. We are working on the almost ready project concept for Siekierki, so as to make sure that we eliminate coal-fired sources by 2050. Being aware of the fact that fossil fuels will go down in history soon, and we believe that, we are adjusting our sales network to that trend. We are doing our best, and we're working on it, and we will achieve it soon, hopefully, that our network is the most modern retail sales network in CEE. And also, it will-- that it will include EV vehicle chargers, and it will also have a very solid non-fuel offering as a driver to our growth. In terms of biofuel projects, as well as renewable hydrogen projects, as well as carbon capture and storage, we want to step up on our activity and increase it twofold. We know that by doing that, we will drive down our emissions, both for petrochemicals and other units of our production, in order to also meet the decarbonization goals. Hydrogen is of major importance to us, as you probably have seen over the past couple of days. We have received the highest co-financing under the Clean Cities project, the EU project, and we want to follow that path. So both hydrogen and also EU projects are important to us, and we want to work on both these areas. Talking about it, I have to mention two major projects which make everybody emotionally very interested, and that is SMRs and petrochemicals. The strategy of our group envisages that by 2030, we will have one SMR brought on stream. We know that that deadline, given the stage of the progress of that technology, and also the regulatory environment and the permits that we need, is very challenging. However, we do want to emphasize clearly that we do see the need to develop that technology. We will develop it. We are looking very carefully around the world to keep a watchful eye of what is going on in the SMR area, and this is why we started negotiations with our partners on a new formula for this project. We started those negotiations, as I said, and I do hope that for this, in the sake of that project, but also for the sake of Poland, those discussions will be meaningful, and they are to be completed shortly. Obviously, the petrochemicals projects and development of the petchem area is also important. It evokes a lot of emotions. You do know that the quotas presented in the reports we communicated on, or the amounts we communicated, were very much different from initial assumptions. We made major, recognized major write-downs. This is not the way to proceed with such an important project. We want to streamline that project and announce the new petchem strategy still this year. The scale of our business, the know-how, the expertise we accumulated in this company, thousands of amazing specialists and experts we employ. Some of them are with us today, but they usually just sit behind their desks or work on production units, make us recognizable, and we can be recognized as a leader of energy transition in the CEE region. We will build solid foundations for this particular market position by verifying the paths on our roadmap, by verifying and revising both the schedules and the outlays, in order to make sure that we avoid certain situations that happened recently. For instance, to make a write-down on a project that hasn't been implemented and finalized, and only in this way can we be reliable and trustworthy for the market and for the investors, for the shareholders. What are our goals? In reference to what I said at the beginning, first of all, we need to put corporate governance in the company in the right place, in the center. We will make sure that all decisions taken in the company, on, within the group, are based on clear-cut, defined criteria. This is where we want to, and how we want to shape our internal corporate strategy, irrespective of the fact that we want to also focus on the environmental strategy, and also, keep good relations with our environments, this environment. Paradoxically speaking, maybe, but this is something that makes me proud, ORLEN has become a company whose managers are held accountable for the performance of the company. And I do believe that this only happened, had only happened, has only happened recently, where the metrics for the performance of our managers has become the only viable and important metrics.... We want to make sure that this company will not be forced to recognize millions in write-downs, as I said before. The next element is related to the safety of our staff. By our staff, I mean the employees of the ORLEN Group and also our associates. Their safety, security has been and will always be our priority and my priority personally. I have worked for, or at, Mažeikiai Refinery for eight years, and we weren't there for the first time, we saw that this refinery deviated, and the work at this refinery deviated greatly from the standards of work. After a couple of years of implementation of the Safety First program, we managed to achieve unbelievable results, 500, or even more than 500 days without any accident. I'm talking about it because the health and safety and life of our employees will be, and will remain, our company's and mine major priority. When we manage the ORLEN Group, we will focus on the most promising key areas of our businesses, as well as the most promising technologies and projects. Every single penny that we invest must be invested rationally, must yield return on investment within the schedule and within the budget. This is something that we will take no exceptions from. And all the elements I'm talking about will be reflected in our strategy, which we want to present still this year. As a recap of the strategy, let me tell you that our ambition is to, first of all, look at, the regular payout of a dividend, and also at a growth of our value to shareholders. Ladies and gentlemen, we came back to the stock exchange, Warsaw Stock Exchange. Our ambition is also to make sure that ORLEN is associated again with an image of a reliable and honest, trustworthy company. We want to make sure that these two traits of this company will be the real fuel for our growth and our acceleration. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much, and we would like to welcome to the stage, Ms. Magdalena Bartoś, Vice President for Finance, who will discuss in more detail our financial performance. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure and a great pride for me to be here with you again after many years in this room at the Warsaw Stock Exchange. I'd like to discuss, present, our financial performance after the first quarter of the year. As my predecessor, Ireneusz, mentioned, this is quite difficult for me, because these are the results and performance we cannot really take the full ownership for, but we want to present them, and we want you to understand what we are presenting as well as we can. Let me start by summarizing financial performance after the first quarter at a very general level. The group delivered the performance in this quarter that we can say was very solid in a very challenging environment, more challenging than in previous years, especially year-on-year, in terms of both macro and regulatory environments. Our EBITDA, that is, earnings that reflect our earnings as managers as well, came in at PLN 0.4 billion, which was down year-on-year. However, this decline was driven by two elements. First of all, the negative effect of macro that shape our prices, as well as the costs of our inputs that we use in our production units, and we are talking about PLN 6.6 billion. And secondly, the so-called Gas Windfall Charges, our contribution to the regulatory funds on production of hydrocarbons, and we paid PLN 7.7 billion in the first quarter under a Gas Windfall Charge, representing PLN 4.2 billion of an upward trend year-on-year. We generated quite a lot of cash. We're talking about a healthy cash generation from operations. We're talking about nearly PLN 12 billion. And as a result of our solid financial performance and a very reasonable management of our current assets, we closed the first quarter without any debts in the bottom line. This makes us pretty comfortable in the context of what Ireneusz has said, that is, before the review of our investment project, CapEx projects, for the acceleration of our energy transition. This solid balance sheet, the bottom line, also reflect are reflected in the two ratings, confirmed by both Fitch and Moody's. We're talking about historically record-breaking figures with a stable outlook. In line with our dividend policy, we recommended the payout of PLN 4.15 per share, and this is the decision or recommendation that we'll discuss with the general meeting of shareholders. The major impact on our performance was brought by the so-called macro factors, and I would like to discuss and explain our approach to, or the definition of macro elements and their impacts on each segment of our group. We are talking about four major macro elements that shape our performance. First of all, refining margin. In the first quarter, it went down by 13% to $16. Looking historically, this is still a very solid result. However, it was down compared to the previous periods, and the previous quarter specifically, and also year-on-year, that is, versus the first quarter of 2023. This effect of a declining margin is expected to continue. I would like to discuss the outlook for the coming year on the full year of 2024 later on, but we are talking also about the availability of refining products. We saw a number of attacks on Russian refineries in the first quarter of this year. We had certain breakdowns in terms of the shipment of the deliveries through the Red Sea. This all, however, that's obviously affected our margins, but this still remained quite solid. Brent crude oil, this is a cost for us, and this cost actually stabilized within a very narrow range at around $80+ per barrel. We saw a number of major drops in terms of the prices of gas and electricity. Those prices are going down. As a result, truthfully speaking, of the rising security and also availability of the product in Europe, we had quite a mild winter, the demand was quite sluggish. It's not recovering as expected. The stock levels are high. Therefore, as a result, the prices are going down. The price of electricity... We are talking about gas prices, whereas in terms of the price of electricity, obviously, they're impacted by the gas prices, but also by the prices of coal and CO2 emission allowances, which were lower year-on-year. Before we move on to more details, I would like to, first of all, recap our performance by segment. I've mentioned the regulatory and macro environment, and I mentioned that the first quarter of this year was very much challenging year-on-year, but still, our business is well diversified. We are talking about six segments. In the first quarter of the year, first segments, the four segments, yielded very solid results, especially in terms of Refining segment and the Retail segment, which delivered the performance that was up to our expectations. We're talking about EBITDA at PLN 2.3 billion Refining segment and PLN 0.5 billion for retail. Gas and Power segment or Energy segment are the two segments that actually exceeded our expectations in terms of their performance and the price of gas and electricity, as we said before, was at around 40%-50% lower year-on-year, which represents a major drop, and we still reported solid results. We're talking about nearly PLN 8 billion EBITDA in the gas segment and for PLN 2.4 billion in EBITDA in the Power segment. The major challenge in terms of our management and our performance was the Upstream segment. This is a segment that tackled two elements, that is the low gas price and a very challenging macro environment, but also the regulatory environment. We're talking about Gas Windfall Charge that had to be recognized in the cost base of this particular segment. The Petrochemical segment, obviously, was impacted by the macro situation, and the macro situation for the petchem segment was very challenging, and still, the segment managed to reach a break-even line. Looking at Refining segment, let me summarize the performance of this segment by saying that we had strong utilization and strong performance in the normalized margin environment. We have to remember that the macro indicators for the first quarter are more challenging year-on-year. However, they are still quite attractive. We're talking about a quite still attractive environment in this segment, macro environments. PLN 2.2 billion was the decline for the performance of this segment, this was due to macro factors. We're talking about EBITDA level, including PLN 800 million in terms of a change of crude processing structure. Throughout the past four quarters, we went from REBCO processing. Some of our assets in the Czech Republic still process REBCO. However, we need to remember about the loss in terms of the differential between REBCO to Brent, and we make less money on that. We also change the structure of our yield, the structure of our operations, and this also has a negative volume effect. However, the yields across all our company and all our units went up, which is a natural consequence of moving towards a higher quality crude processing, which brings higher margins in terms of the product. So these are the elements that kind of mitigates the negative effects of the change in the throughput structure, processing of crude. Lower refining margins. We're talking about an effect of -PLN 500 million in EBITDA. We are producing products that offer lower margins, they're still attractive, as I said before. Utilization of our assets was very solid. We reported 9.5 million tons in throughput, and we achieved 90% of utilization. All our units operated as planned, practically, and as I said before, we also achieved higher yields. So operationally speaking, the first quarter of the year was quite solid in Refining segment. Moving on to the petchem segment, this is a business, as I said, that was impacted by a very challenging macro situation. All petrochemical margins for all of our products were lower year-on-year. Even though we saw the logistical restrictions in the Red Sea, that the imports of cheaper petchem products to Europe from further markets, from the markets far away, went down. However, we had lower margins still, therefore, our sales did not contribute to our EBITDA in this segment as planned. The Power segment or the Energy segment, we have a couple of good news here, and we'd like to share it with you. We reported nearly 70% of production of electricity from low or zero emission assets, and as you heard from Ireneusz at the beginning, we are consistently developing the portfolio of our assets, renewable energy assets based on gas, but also on renewable energy, especially onshore wind farms. The production in the Energy segment went up by 12% as a consequence of cheaper gas, higher production on... Of gas-fired units, but also higher installed capacity in renewable energy sources. This is where we focus on. We are focusing on energy transition and not on the development of fossil fuel sources. We focus on renewable sources. We achieved a major milestone. We reported 1 gigawatt of energy installed in renewable energy sources. I love to share that news, that milestone with you. Lower prices, obviously, have impacted our performance. We are talking about the loss of EBITDA of about PLN 1 billion on account of lower energy electricity prices, but this was partially compensated by lower cost of CO₂ emissions. The next segment is retail. This is a segment that reported a solid, robust quarter, and this shows the effects of our work in this segment. We stepped on the volumes of our sales in this segment, both in Poland and also in other markets. We increased our retail and fuel, non-fuel margins as a result of a very effective work, but we also increased our business. We upscaled our business because from the very beginning of the year, we have been consolidating a few stations in Austria. So this team, the retail team, have really worked hard in this quarter, and this obviously impacted the performance. Obviously, the cost of operation of fuel stations is higher in the context of competitive pressures and inflation pressures, and the pressures on salaries and wages, the increase in minimum wage, but also this is the effect of upscaling of our network. So naturally speaking, the cost of operation of our fuel stations network must be higher. Moving on to the Upstream segment, this is a segment where we saw major challenges in the first quarter. We're talking about gas prices and lower gas prices, but also higher costs of regulations, regulatory costs. Our upstream business in the first quarter of the year fared well. Since the beginning of the year, we have been consolidating KUFPEC assets, that we're talking about Norwegian assets on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, but we also stepped on the production of Tommeliten Alpha, one of our fields. This enabled us to report 200,000 barrel oil equivalents per day. So this is another milestone for the group. Today, Norwegian assets and the production from Norwegian assets in the Norwegian Continental Shelf represents 54% of our total production across the group. Obviously, lower gas prices mean that we make less money on it on the produced gas, and we are talking about one quarter of our production here. As I said before, regulatory costs are another element. What does it mean, actually? In the first half of the year, we will be talking about more than PLN 15 billion of the so-called gas windfall charge. That is a charge that we have to pay to the regulator, to the manager of the settlements, in order to finance support programs. In the first quarter of the year, we were talking about PLN 7.7 billion, up 4.7 year-on-year. Taking these two factors into account, you can see the big picture, what impacted our performance in the Upstream segment, comparing this to the first quarter of the previous year. The last segment, last but not least, we're talking about Gas, Trade, and Storage, as well as distribution. This segment delivered the highest EBITDA for the group. We're talking about almost PLN 1 billion and 96 TWh of energy in terms of sales. We're talking about a decline of 2% year-on-year. However, what is the most important to us, and is most promising to us, is the fact that sales to our wholesale customers went up, and this is a good sign for the future, whereas the sales for other customer groups remained stable. Lower gas prices obviously impacted our revenue in this segment, putting a burden on our financial performance here. However, in this case, in the case of the gas segment, to a large extent, we were able to deliver our security policy, and also the strengthening PLN versus US dollar supported our financial performance in this segment. Therefore, this effect was very much mitigated by our trade and risk management efforts. Moving on to our capital expenditure. As a reminder, so to speak, I'd like to remind you that the group declared CapEx figure at PLN 38 billion in 2024, of which around two-thirds are growth CapEx projects. In the first quarter, CapEx stood at PLN 6.4 billion. But moving back to our prospects for the entire year, in reference to the information presented by the CEO, Ireneusz, I'd like to start with the Upstream segment. In 2024, the Upstream segment is supposed to have the highest contribution in terms of our capital expenditure, given our consistent focus and work on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. We're talking about the development of our production efforts, but also, we are also talking about our new efforts, new project for Alpha, Fenris, and Yggdrasil. These are the priorities for our Upstream segment efforts. The Energy segment is a segment that reports good progress in terms of the CapEx. We invested in gas-fired units in Ostrołęka and in Grudziądz. We also invested in capacity and renewable energy sources, but we also work intensively on our onshore wind farm projects. So these are the CapEx efforts that will be still made in the Energy segment. In the Petrochemical segment, we are talking about a year of intensive CapEx spending. Let me go back to the olefins projects and the revision of the olefins project. That is a major project in the Petrochemical segment. We're talking about the development of our capacities at the olefins units at Płock. We can expect this year that those CapEx figures will be higher year-on-year. However, we'll leave some room here in order to come back to you with the results of our revision process, during which we'll revise our CapEx projects. We are supporting our refining projects. We're talking about the quality of those projects, for instance, the hydrocracking unit in Lithuania. But this is one of our strategic goals as well, the development of our production capacities on biofuels. We're talking about two promising growth projects here, HVO at Płock and bioethanol generation unit or production unit ORLEN Południe in the south of Poland. Last but not least, something we want to discuss with you today, the outlook for this year, mainly against the background of our macro environment. We're talking about the regulatory environment. You probably know the regulatory environment for this year, more or less. You probably know the proposals you've heard about, the proposals from the government. In terms of the macro environment, we focus on the basic elements that are drivers of our performance. The Brent crude, as we said before, it moves in a very narrow range. In terms of a trend, we do not expect any major movements, especially given the demand globally speaking. This obviously will affect the costs to some extent, but this all boils down to geopolitics and the management of supply. In terms of natural gas, we do not see any signals that would cause a spike in the cost of natural gas. We have solid stock levels. The demand is still sluggish. It is recovering slowly. The refining margins, obviously, as a consequence of the lower availability of those products, globally speaking, we're talking about a solid double-digit figure. In terms of electricity, this will be obviously shaped by the prices of CO2, and the availability and the productivity of renewable energy sources. We expect that also in this particular element, the situation will normalize. And last but not least, the petrochemical margins. We are very hopeful for the future. We are looking for a recovery. We are expecting a recovery, a rebound, maybe a slight rebound on the back of higher demand, on the back of higher demand, and also recovery in Europe, and also, the gas prices, and the lower gas prices will probably, impact our petrochemical margins, positively. So that will be all from me. As a recap of my presentation, let me tell you that we have seen a solid quarter, a solid performance in a very challenging environment. Some of the elements of this environment were very difficult to manage, especially in the context of the prices, global prices of feedstocks and products, but also a major pressure in terms of, the Gas Windfall Charge in the Upstream segment. Thank you very much for your attention. Let us now move on to the Q&A session. In this part of our earnings call, we will have questions from our webcast viewers. We will show them on screen, and we will show you the answers to those questions at the end of our earnings call. This part will be hosted by Sir Konrad Włodarczak, IR Director. So let us welcome now on stage... Please give us a second. Need to sort out some technicalities. And also, let me remind you that in this part, we need to use microphones. So let me again welcome to the stage, Ireneusz Fąfara, CEO and Management President, and Mrs. Magdalena Bartoś, CFO, VP for Finance. Mr. Wiech will start the Q&A session. Jakub Wiech, Energetyka24. I have a question on the SMR project. I'd like to ask you, what do you not like in terms of the, the current formula? It will be revised, as you said. We're talking about Synthos Green Energy and maybe some technological partners, technology partners. What are the recommended adjustments to this formula so as to make it acceptable for the company? Thank you very much for this question. Answer will be very short. We are at a very initial stage of these negotiations, and at that point, I would not like to go too much into any details. Since I'm here in this part of the room, Puls Biznesu, a question from Magdalena Graniszewska. A question to Ireneusz Fąfara. You know the group very well, but from the period before those major M&A transactions. Looking very freshly at the structure of this group, which in the meantime entered some new sectors of the economy, very deviating very much sometimes from your core business. Can you tell us your opinion about the presence of ORLEN in this very broad spectrum of the economy and maybe the prospects for the future? I'm not talking about my plans, but the entire management board. Well, you are right. I joined the group that I knew in the past. In the past, it was quite simple. We bought, we produced, we bought crude, we produced petrochemical products, we sold those products and retail products and fertilizers. We started actually production only. Right now, we're talking about a major corporations with a lot of side businesses, and sense, or the goal of that is, let me put it diplomatically, quite doubtful. I'm not sure if ORLEN should be in publishing business, for instance, as an example. So these are the elements that we want to include in the strategy, strategy that we want to release by the end of the year. Simply speaking, I would say that we want to streamline this business to focus on what's the most important, the core business for this group. Mr. Kublik, Gazeta Wyborcza. Three questions. First of all, why did the company decide to set the dividend payout date, the end of the year, Christmas time, where usually we would have that date well ahead, before? So we're talking about, for instance, September. This caught me by surprise. First of all, the savings on crude imports for the first quarter of the year, due to the introduction of ethanol, that is the increase in the share of biofuels in the structure. And thirdly, do you want to continue on ORLEN Trading Switzerland operations? Let me start from the last question. So far, so good. Yes. We are in the middle of the audits, I have mentioned before. We will see what the effects of those audits will be. But as a rule, the corporations such as ours do have their own, trading, units, in addition to our headquarters. And the goal of those units, that is the trading companies, is to make money on the intermediary activities on trade. This was the idea behind this particular company. Where it went to, I'm not really, I don't really want to discuss it, until the audits are closed. But so far, yes, we will continue with this, with these operations. We have a couple of these companies, for instance, those that we inherited, so to speak, from PGNiG. Obviously, you can think about whether it makes sense to actually keep those companies all around Europe, those trading companies, that are into the trade of petrochemical production, for instance. So we will be verifying it. Right now, we are auditing this particular area, especially in terms of how we can recover the money that was pumped into dishonest intermediary business partners. So, two questions, two other questions. In the context of the dividend payout date, the date is in line with all the mandatory schedules or timelines, in accordance with the code. So if we want to look at the balance sheet, there is no reason, obviously, for us to postpone it, but since I wasn't part of this decision, I was not the decision maker, I can only guess that the management board wanted to give sufficient time for the new management board, for the new managers that will be responsible for this particular thing. And this is in my opinion, the only explanation or the viable explanation. In terms of your other questions, or question, biocomponents are usually more expensive, so the increase in terms of the share of biocomponents in our products means that we will pay higher costs. So this is not something that we can save any money on in terms of imports. The bio costs in the first quarter stood at around PLN 400 million, in addition, a side note. And maybe something I would like to add to your question concerning the dividend payout date. I was behind this idea, actually. We thought that since we would have the new managers, financial managers coming up and joining us, we would decide to postpone the payment date as long as possible. A question on changes in your employment. Business Insider says that 100 people had to be let go. Those were connected with the previous management and the Law and Justice Party. Is it all done? Are you still be doing this structure, changing the structure of your employment? The only measure and the metrics of the performance here is the quality of work. This is something I mentioned before. This is the only area that we assess our personnel on. If we decide that their contribution to the value of this company is insufficient, we will be letting them go. From this perspective, any change in any company is an ongoing process, but I do hope that this process will have the least impact possible. But I'd like to ask you about, for instance, the release of the son of Jacek Kurski or a relative of Mrs. Emilewicz. Is this competence-based or is it politics-based? I actually did not know that we hired those people. This was not the driver behind our decision. Mariusz Gierszewski, Radio ZET. I'd like to ask about the audits. How many audits do you have ongoing? And what areas do they focus on? Marketing, for instance, and what not? And when can we expect them to finalize, within the next quarter or maybe later on? So this is the first question. The second question: What is your assessment of the efficiency of, and the operation of the previous management board, headed by Daniel Obajtek? The media reported a number of irregularities and problems. You have been at the helm of the company for quite some time. Maybe you have reviewed the documents. What is your assessment of the previous government, headed by Daniel Obajtek? In terms of the audits, I do expect that you are talking about the audits of the activities of the previous government. Right, but we have a number of other audits as well. I do believe that you asked about the first ones, meaning the audits concerning the operation of the previous government, previous management board. We're talking about 8-9 such audits, and they relate to the areas that was discussed by the press, by the media, and I'd like to discuss them, but we have no hidden areas here. We are talking about the spending, we are talking about the reasonability and viability of costs. We're talking about everything that is connected with OTS sponsoring. So that would be it. The second question is, on the one hand, it is simple, on the other hand, it's quite complicated. It's complicated because the previous management board was at the helm of the company for at least 6 years, in terms of its term of office. And those were the... Those were turbulent times, let me put it this way... I can say quite clearly that, had I been at the helm of the company at that point, I would have done it differently. Definitely differently. And that's my answer. Marek Strzelecki, Reuters. This question has been asked before, but let me go back to it. Maybe you'll give me more details. Do you know what happened to prepaid money for crude oil for ORLEN Trading Switzerland? What do you do to recover that money? And at what point did they gone missing? Did they go missing? So you said that this is a quite a complicated thing and the network is quite complicated, but maybe you could give us some more details. You might not believe me, but it's true. It's not something that we deal with on a daily basis. We dealt with it at the beginning of March. We appointed the teams to handle that problem. We reported the issue to the relevant services. We hired advisors, well, good advisors, and we are obviously receiving reports on that matter. Obviously, I cannot give you all the details because those are the confidential information and the investigation is going on. But let me put it quite frankly, that the fact that the company such as ORLEN, one of the major players across Europe, 43rd player in Europe, one of the major refining company around the world, we're probably among the 100 players, made some prepayments for the products that were supposed to be brought to the company, is a scandal. And if somebody came to me today with such a proposal, I would take it as an insult, and this is something I would like to stress very much. And Magda, you would probably agree with me, and this is the opinion of the entire management board. We do our best, leveraging on the human resources brought to us from the major experts. We're talking about legal firms. If you ask how and when will we recover all that money, I'll tell you, I'm not really able to answer that question at that point, but this will be definitely a difficult task. Two questions. First of all, the decline in profits. The former CEO of ORLEN tweeted today about 70% decline in net profits. How can you comment on that? What is the source of those differences quarter-on-quarter, according to the management board? And also, I'd like to ask you about the negotiations with the Americans in terms of the delays and the, the lack of supplies of LNG to the gas port, signed by PGNiG. What is the stage of those negotiations with American partners? And also, you mentioned about 8-9 audits that are ongoing in the company. As far as I understand, we're talking about the audits within the letter of the law, not the reviews that you hire auditors for, that are supposed to verify all the documents. We're talking about legal audits, right? Let me start by the last question. The definition of an audit is not really well-defined. What you ask about are the audits that are internal audits by our employees, but also by our employees, supported by external auditors or globally recognized law firms, and some units that are experts in forensics. So this is a mixture of audits, simply speaking. Magda will probably answer the question about the decline in net profit. As you probably have noticed, we never comment on the comments made on our—by our predecessors. We want to focus on our business and our operations. We need to focus on what we do. But let me take this opportunity maybe to have one comment on that. Yes, we can have a decline in net profit, but what we see is a car that has been driven very fast, and when you put a brake on it and change direction, obviously you can have certain delays on the way. So that's my answer. Magdalena will answer, your other questions. I will just show you the whole truth. Our operating profit went down year-on-year by PLN 11.1 billion. That's the whole truth, nothing but the truth. You can see that on the lower chart, of which PLN 6.6 billion, attributable to macro and market conditions, lower margins, lower prices of gas, lower prices of electricity, lower the differentials. The remaining PLN 2.4 billion is attributable to our contribution to the support system in the form of, the gas windfall charge. This is organized by the state, by the regulator, and these two elements explain the decline in our profit. That's all. Any questions from the room? Tomasz Jóźwik, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. I have two questions on your financial performance. In your opinion, what are the standard annual performance of ORLEN? What is the level of the profit that is repeatable? A median, medium, so, level within the pros-let's say five years. And in terms of the settlements with the fund and the compensations, what will be the net effect this year? Let me start with the first question. So the prospects, midterm prospects, and a normalized level of our profits. As part of our communications on the revision of our strategy, the company said that after this expected normalization period, we were talking about around PLN 50 billion in terms of normalized profit. However, it is difficult for us to comment on it today. As Ireneusz mentioned before, together with the management board, we'll be looking at each and every individual investment in our CapEx plan. We'll be looking at both cash flows and returns on investments. This can have an effect on this amount that I mentioned, the amount of expected profits. But we will definitely address this question when we communicate the revised strategy. In terms of a second question, could you please repeat, repeat it? I did not jot it down. Yes, you were talking about the PLN 15 million in Gas Windfall Charge. What is the net effect in the prospects of one year in terms of the settlements with the fund? So you'll pay PLN 15 million, what will you get in terms of the compensations? In the first quarter, in the trade segment, we're talking about retail trade. We're talking about PLN 2 billion or more than PLN 2 billion, and total compensation is, that's PLN 3.1 billion for the year. However, we look at the gas windfall charge in a different way. We receive those compensations because we have a lower tariff. That means that in a standard microenvironment, our tariff would be higher. So this effect would be generated by the group at the level of revenue in the Retail segment. But the effect related to costs and, gas windfall charge is an increment cost, that is added to our cost base, and we're talking about PLN 15 million. Let me go back to your question on, standardization of your performance. Looking at the market consensus, for this year, EBITDA LIFO, prepared by the analysts, we're talking about around PLN 30 billion, and this figure actually includes a negative impact of a gas write-down of PLN 15 billion. So we are close to around PLN 50 billion, as the CFO mentioned. But, EBITDA is not something that we base the dividend on. I do not like to use EBITDA as a metric. I ask about net profits. So we're talking about PLN 50 billion in EBITDA LIFO, but my question was about net profits. No, we talked about PLN 50 billion in LIFO-based EBITDA. Bloomberg News. A question on your communication in terms of investments on CapEx. So on the one hand, you said that you are stepping up on it, but on the other hand, you are revising, your CapEx projects, for instance, in the petchem segment. What could the net effect be in terms of the level of your investments in the years to come? So is the fact that you will be accelerating, does it mean that the CapEx will grow next year? Or maybe it will stay the same level, or maybe it will be lower. For instance, if you decide to stop some investments in the petrochemical business, and what will be the effect on the dividend? Those decisions, if they are taken, if the CapEx is lower, does it mean that you will be able to pay out a higher dividend than the dividend that you planned in the strategy? I think it's too early to actually answer such detailed questions. If we look at the investments, we are looking at the investments, and we are revising them. We're not really sure, which investments will be continued. Some of them will require higher spending. What the effect on the future net profits and on the future dividend will be is difficult to tell. But as we said before, and Robert mentioned it, we are upholding the declaration from our strategy that we will pay out a dividend of 4.15 PLN on a yearly basis. Our dividend is defined as a percentage of free cash flows, but it also reflects a minimum dividend policy. And at that point, the minimum dividend is at 4.15 PLN, and the minimum level of the dividend should go up by 0.15 PLN year-over-year. And we are keeping to that promise stated in our strategy. Andrzej Kublik, again, Gazeta Wyborcza. I'd like to know whether you filed new applications, tariff applications for gas as of July the first, and what is the expected change in tariffs and revision in tariffs for gas for households, but also for gas delivered, in terms of the distribution tariff? But in PGNiG Investor Relations Office, the tariff process will start, because as of July the first, the tariff that is used right now will be eliminated. So we are preparing the group for the process. It is difficult to talk about the levels and the tariff amounts, depends on the contractual situation of PGNiG, the open position that the company has, based on which the level of tariffs will be calculated, and will be later negotiated with the president of the Energy Regulatory Office. At that point, therefore, we cannot give you any amounts we can expect new regulatory decisions. So yes, the application will be filed and will be analyzed. A technical comment. I will go back to Mr. Sawicki, and after answering that question, we'll move on from the room to unofficial part of this earnings calls, of this earning call, and we will have our directors and management board available to you for unofficial discussions. A question from Rzeczpospolita? About LNG contracts with— About NL— LNG, the contracts with the US partners in terms of the delays, because I did not hear any answer to that question. In terms of the contracts, we are in the process of arbitration as we speak. Thank you very much to all of you for the participation in this earnings call, and right now, we will have a couple of words for behind the scenes, unofficial meetings. Thank you very much for the participation in this earnings call, and goodbye.