Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding Company's third quarter 2022 results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press the star 1. Thank you. Roy Thomas, you may begin your conference. Hello, everyone. This is Roy Thomas from QNB Financial Services. I want to welcome everyone to Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding Company third quarter 2022 financial results conference call. On this call from Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding Company, we have Abdulla Yaqoob Al-Hay, the Acting Manager for Privatized Companies Affairs, QatarEnergy. Sami Mathlouthi, the Assistant Manager for Financial Operations, Privatized Companies Affairs, QatarEnergy. Rashid Hamad Al-Mohannadi, the Head of Investor Relations, QatarEnergy, and Riaz Khan, Investor Relations Officer at QatarEnergy. We will conduct this conference call with management first reviewing the company's results, followed by a Q&A. I will turn the call now over to Rashid Hamad Al-Mohannadi. Go ahead, Rashid. Thank you, Roy. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us. Hope you are doing great. Before we go into the business and performance update, I would like to mention that this call is purely for the investor of MPHC, and no media representative should be attending in this call. Moreover, please note that this call is subject to MPHC disclaimer statement as detailed on slide number two of the IR deck. On 25th of October, MPHC published its results for the nine-month period ended on 30th of September 2022. Today in this call, we will go through these results and provide you an update on key financial operation and operation highlights. Today on this call, along with me, I have Abdulla Yaqoob Al-Hay, Acting Manager for Privatized Companies Affairs, and Sami Mathlouthi, Assistant Manager for Financial Operation. We have structured our call as follows. At first, I will provide you a quick insight on MPHC ownership structure, its competitive strength, and overall governance structure by covering slides five till 10 and slide 41 and 42. Secondly, Sami will brief you on MPHC key operational and financial matrices. Later, I will provide you with an insight on the segmental performance. Finally, we will open the floor for Q&A session. To start with, as detailed on slide number five of the IR deck, the ownership structure of MPHC compromises of QatarEnergy with approximately 65% stake, and the rest is in the free float held by various domestic and international corporates and individuals. QatarEnergy, being the main shareholder of MPHC, provides most of the head office function through a service level agreement. The operation of MPHC joint venture are independently managed by their respective board of director along with senior management team. In terms of competitive advantages, as detailed on slide number eight, all of MPHC group companies are strategically placed in terms of competitively priced and assured feedstock supply under long-term arrangement, solid liquidity position with strong cash flow generation capability, and existing or the joint venture with very knowledgeable and reliable partners. Additionally, its partnership with Muntajat acts as a catalyst for its access to the global markets. As detailed on slide number 10, from competitive positioning perspective, MPHC ranks among top-tier companies in the regional chemical space across most of the matrices, and specifically leads the chart in terms of profitability margins. In terms of the governance structure of MPHC, you can refer to slide 40 and 41 of the IR deck, which covers various aspects of MPHC code of corporate governance in detail. I will now hand over to Sami. Thank you, Rashid. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us. Starting with macroeconomic environment, as detailed on slide 12, the macroeconomic climate remained favorable throughout the year, marred by geopolitical conflicts and recessionary fears linked to inflationary pressures and higher interest rate environment. Unprecedentedly high energy prices in Europe persistently weighed on European producers. Also, China's strict zero-COVID policy is bringing additional layer of pressures to the commodities. On overall, commodity prices declined on quarter-on-quarter basis, mainly due to cautious approach from buyers amid macro headwinds, coupled with comparatively lower crude prices. However, product prices for the group basket of products remained strong versus last year, mainly due to positive momentum carried forward from the latter part of last year. For the nine-month period ended September 30, 2022, MPHC recorded a net profit of QAR 1.5 billion, up by 2% compared to the same period of last year, as detailed on slide number 16. Group improved financial performance for the current period was largely attributable to improved product prices, which on an annual increased by 6% and translated into an increase of QAR 253 million in the group's net earnings, as you can see on slide number 17. On the contrary, sales volumes declined by 3% versus the same period last year, mainly driven by lower plant operating rates amid a large-scale turnaround carried out at Q-Chem facilities during the current period. Decline in sales volumes translated into decrease of QAR 160 million in MPHC net earnings. On the operational performance front, MPHC operations continue to remain robust and resilient, with total production for the year reaching 850,000 metric tons. Current period production volumes declined by 5% versus the last nine months of 2021, mainly due to the large-scale turnaround carried out at Q-Chem facilities. Moving on quarter-on-quarter performance, MPHC revenue inched lower by around 14% and net profit by 27%. Key contributors towards this decline in revenue and net earnings was mainly linked to lower selling prices realized during the current period versus the second quarter of 2022. Decline in selling prices was mainly linked to downward trajectories noted in commodity prices amid macroeconomic headwinds affecting global markets and comparatively lower crude prices. However, sales volumes improved by 12% compared to the previous quarter, despite demand-related concerns, where both the segments reported growth in sales volumes in comparison to the previous quarter. On an overall basis, our base case strategy will be to continue our focus on the strategic driver of operational reliability in terms of continued improvement in efficiency and achieving cost optimization, which would enable the group to contain costs while making strategic investments for unlocking further growth potential. I will now hand over to Adass to cover the segmental performance. Thank you, Sami. Starting with Petchem segment, as covered on slide 22 till 26. Petrochemical segment reported a net profit of QAR 966 million for the first nine months of 2022, down by 4% versus the same period of last year. This marginal decline in profitability was primarily driven by a reduction noted in segmental revenue, which decreased by 3% as lower sales volume weighted on higher selling prices. Segmental sales volume declined by 9% on year-on-year basis, as segment carried out a large-scale turnaround at Q-Chem facilities during the first quarter of 2022, and also affected segment production volume, which declined by 9%. On the contrary, product prices improved by 7% and offset the negative impact relating to lower the sales volume to an extent. Selling prices improved mainly on account of continued positive momentum from constructive macro drivers carried from latter part of last year. In terms of segmental revenue by geography, as detailed on slide 25, Asia remains a main market for the segment, along with Indian subcontinent and Europe. Moving on to Chlor-Alkali segment, as detailed on slide 27 till 31. Chlor-Alkali segment reported a net profit of QAR 471 million for the nine-month period ended in 30th of September 2020. Increased by 12% compared to the same period of last year, mainly due to better revenues. On an overall basis, revenue grew by 17% within the segment. This growth was driven by improvement in blended average selling prices, which increased by 11% versus nine months of last year, complemented by the strength from the end product industries such as alumina, aluminum, PVC, et cetera. Also, sales volume improved by 5% due to better production volume, which in turn grew by 3% on a year-on-year basis. In terms of segment revenue by geography, as detailed on slide 30, Indian subcontinent remains the main market for this segment. Now we will open the floor for the Q&A session. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment while we gather the questions. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. We appear to have no questions. I will turn the call back over to Roy Thomas for some final closing remarks. All right. If there are no questions, we'd like to thank the representatives of Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding Company for the results update, and I look forward to speaking to you all for the final quarter results. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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