Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Ahmed Hazem from EFG Hermes Research. I would like to welcome you all today on the Nakilat second quarter 2023 results conference call. We have with us on the line Mr. Hani Abouaker, CFO of Nakilat, Mr. Fotios Rigas, Head of Investor Relations and ESG Reporting, and Mr. Wahid Siddiqui, Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. I'd like to thank the Nakilat management team for the call and for giving us the opportunity and congratulate them on the results. Without further delay, I'd like to hand over the call to Fotios. Fotios, speak now. Thank you, Ahmed. Hello, everyone. Good afternoon, and welcome to Nakilat's first half of 2023 results conference call. For your convenience, the transcript of this call and presentation is available on the company's website section on investor relations. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, and the media or press are not allowed to attend this investor relations conference call. Many of our remarks contain forward-looking statements and for factors that cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, please refer to slide two and three of our investor relations presentation. In addition, some of our remarks contain non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of this is included in the note of this presentation. Waheed Siddiqi, Nakilat's Financial Planning and Reporting Manager, will begin today's call with a brief discussion of the group's earnings results. After, I will give you overview of the LNG shipping market. Finally, Nakilat CFO, Hani Abuaker, will walk you through the company's business outlook. We'll be happy to address your questions. I would like to hand it over to Mr. Waheed Siddiqi, Nakilat's Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. Wahid, please go ahead. Thank you very much, Fotios. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Nakilat's first half 2023 results conference call. Our CFO, Hani Abuaker, and our Head of Investor Relations, ESG Reporting, Fotios Zeritis, and I will be your guides for today's presentation. We extend our sincere gratitude to our seafarers and shore-based staff for their dedication and unwavering efforts in delivering clean energy to the world without any delays. Moving on to the achievements of the first half of 2023, Nakilat has had an exciting quarter and a whole half to begin with. Our resilient business model has enabled us to navigate through STEM, high interest rates and inflation successfully. Turning to slide eight of the presentation, I am pleased to announce that Nakilat reported a profit of QAR 775 million, which translates to 0.14 per share. This represents an increase of 6.1% year-over-year compared to the first half of 2022. Nakilat operational cash flows remain healthy and stable, as evident from the first half 2023 EBITDA, standing at QAR 1.85 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6.3% with a current ratio of 1.03. With a resilient business model and focus on growth, Nakilat is well-positioned to create and a sustainable added value for its shareholders, as reflected in a 13.5% return on equity, 13.5% return on equity. Even in an environment with unprecedented interest rate hikes, Nakilat has successfully navigated these conditions, remained profitable, and cash positive. The slight increase in cost from prior year is a result of inflation and planned activities relating to manning and vessel maintenance with no concerns of any outliers. Nakilat continually monitors the market to take advantage of bulk spare purchases in order to curb any major adverse impact. The upturn in depreciation this quarter is due to the new dry dock cycle and accounting for previous component dry docks, which have a shorter maturity, allowing us to maintain the proper carrying value of our vessels. Furthermore, we witness a good performance coming from our LNG and shipyard joint ventures. Additionally, Nakilat has utilized its cash reserves to generate interest income from deposits, which partially offsets higher interest charges. Now I will hand it back to Fotios, who will provide you with a view of the LNG shipping market. Over to you, Fotios. Thank you. Thank you, Waheed. Hello, everyone. I would like to give you a brief update on the LNG shipping market now. The ongoing global energy crisis has brought to the foremost the critical importance of energy security and the significant costs incurred in its absence. LNG play a pivotal role in bolstering energy security and supplying energy to European consumers when they face a sudden supply shock. The industry showcased remarkable flexibility and agility, enabling the redirection of the global energy flows on an unprecedented scale within short period. This demonstrated the immense value of a functioning market in ensuring energy security. This event underscore the undeniable value of LNG as the optimal source of flexible, dependable, and efficient energy for the world. It represents the type of energy needed to sustain a secure and successful energy transition in the future. Europe and Asia will continue to influence the changing trade patterns for LNG as they are expected to remain the primary importing centers in the coming years. Asian countries, particularly China, India, Bangladesh, are projected to increase the reliance of LNG to decarbonize their developing economies, which is currently heavily depend on coal for power generation. This shift towards LNG will play a critical role in the efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Despite various challenges in the global energy landscape, the overall LNG market remained stable during the first half of 2023. This stability was attributed to the steady demand in both Asia and Europe, supported by healthy storage levels and mild temperatures. Now please turn to the slide 13 of our presentation. According to Clarksons, the average spot charter rates in the first half of 2023 for modern two-stroke tonnage was around $84,000 per day, $61,000 per day for TFDEs, and $39,000 per day for the steams. Clarksons assess the average 2023 one-year LNG shipping charter rates at $190,000 per day for MEGI/XDF, $145,000 per day for TFDE, and $72,000 per day for steam. This is a very helpful benchmark when an owner discusses term charter opportunities. On page 13 of our presentation, you can see the global LNG fleet that has reached 649 vessels in operation in the first half 2023, and another 312 conventional LNG carriers on the order book until 2027, sorry, as per the Clarksons. This implies an increase of 48% of total LNG fleet in terms of number of conventional LNG vessels as of the second quarter of 2023. The policy agenda of most countries will continue to prioritize measures that ensure energy supply security, particularly in the light of the increasing global demand for LNG and efforts to reduce carbon emissions. As a consequence, the long-term outlook for LNG market remain robust, and this is expected to drive the need for more LNG shipping. In conclusion, the combination of increasing global LNG demand and the ongoing efforts to combat climate change through carbon emission reduction is driving a positive outlook for the LNG shipping market. Now, we'd like to hand it over to our CFO, Mr. Hani Abuaker, to give you an insight into Nakilat business model. Please go ahead, Hani. Thanks, Wachis and Waheed. First of all, I'm pleased to see that we had a good start in 2023 and the momentum has continued for the first half. Despite unprecedented high interest rate environment, tightening monetary policy, and uncertainty, Nakilat managed to navigate smoothly through the volatility with minimal impact on its financial performance. Our business model have been strategized to be prepared of a high interest rate and inflation environment. We continue to deleverage our balance sheet, and we are hedged up to 70% of total loans that the company has in the group level. We have sizable cash deposits that allow us to take advantage of the current environment by realizing steady earnings to mitigate any interest rate exposure. These sound strategies and prudent management decisions have contributed to the strong financial performance. Now, I will briefly discuss Nakilat business short-term outlook for 2023. With the challenging macroeconomic factors, we expect to see another successful year for Nakilat due to our continued efforts to maximize our utilization of our entire fleet, optimize expenses, and mitigate interest rate exposure. Furthermore, as you have guys seen, our joint venture operation, particularly the shipyard segment, has continued what we have seen over the last two years, and they have started to even further benefiting from the Nakilat's dry dock, which commenced earlier this year. On last note, once again, it goes without saying that Nakilat is continuously monitoring the global LNG shipping market, and we will secure and capture and identify an attractive business opportunity for a long-term benefit for our shareholders. With that, I will ask the operator to open the floor for questions and answers. Please go ahead. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you choose to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone isn't muted locally. Our first question today goes to Santosh Gupta of Drewry Maritime Financial Research. Santosh, please go ahead. Your line is open. Thank you. Hello, Nakilat team. Can you please share a bit more details on your shipyard business and how is the order win, new order win for the shipyard business this year? This one is my first question. Second, how many vessels are expected to go for dry dock this year? Thank you. Okay, I'll take that question. For the shipyards, given that you've mentioned your second question, which is about the dry dock, the shipyards have been combining really well, the shipyard JVs, I mean. This is with the increase in the vessel volumes and Nakilat's fleet that has commenced the dry dock. The shipyard sector is utilizing all its resources to service all the work orders. They have performed really well so far, and the dry docks are continuing till the end of the year, so the trend is expected to continue. As far as the vessel count, this year, just on new vessels, we have 10 vessels dry docking and the remaining going into the next year and the year after. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment. We have a question from Brian Mugabe of Change Global Investment. Brian, please go ahead. Your line is open. Great. Thank you. I'm just curious on the interest rate hedges, should potentially we start to see rates moving the other way, how are you positioned to unwind those? What's the length of the hedge? Just trying to get a sense of how that will play out on the P&L. Thank you. I can start off that question. As mentioned during the earlier, the loans are about 70% hedged. Now we're seeing a good buffer from the high interest rates, where we're making some offsets on the balance sheet because of the high interest rates. In the past, over the past few years, pre-COVID, you would have seen the other situation on the balance sheet where the hedges were in place, but the interest rates were lower. Going into the future, if the interest rates drop, they're likely not be dropping to the level they were a few years ago. However, that drop will still keep us stabilized in terms of the flows. Every time we have a loan renewal, we continue to renew the hedge as well. As far as the impact from hedges, it should be consistent with what happened in the past and with what's happening now. Although the volatility will be streamlined, as is the occasion of Nakilat. We always try to streamline that and default on any negative variances and any negative impact from those cash flows. Does that answer your question? Yes, it does. Thank you. Thank you. As another reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment. Hi, maybe, before someone else gets a chance to ask a question, maybe I can ask one for myself. What's the going rate for a conventional LNG vessel now in terms of CapEx? Have we seen an escalation in CapEx per vessel, or is it starting to ease off a bit from the numbers? We've been hearing $260 million for a conventional investment. I will take this question. Thank you, Ahmed. We have seen a kind of increase in the price of a newbuild. Example, if a ship owner, let's say right now, a new ship owner wants to place a order, brand new right now, the value or the cost could be approximately $260-$270, depends, $265 million per vessels. It depends of the specifications, the propulsion system, et cetera. We have seen an increase on the cost of newbuilds. I hope I answered your question. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We have a question from Saugata Sarkar of QNB Financial Services. Saugata, please go ahead. Your line is open. Thank you. Hey, it's Bobby from QNB Financial Services. I just wanted to get a sense of the depreciation charge going forward. It's up a lot this quarter versus the first quarter, which had a decline from the fourth quarter, given that you had to accelerate depreciation into the year-end. What can we assume in terms of a normalized operating rate for depreciation, given the fact you're dry docking 10 vessels this year, 10 next year, and the 10 the year after? Thank you. I can take that question. The upturn in depreciation this quarter, as you rightly said, is because of the new dry dock cycle that's come in this year for the vessels, and it will continue throughout the rest of the year. We've also opted to account for a previous component dry dock, which have a shorter maturity, but we opted to take it this quarter and going into the rest of the year, which allows us to maintain the proper carrying value for our vessels. This is the reason you see the quarter-over-quarter jump, but this is a one-time event and will not continue in the future. In the future, as I think we've stated when we had the year-end closing call, that we are aiming to streamline our depreciation, and this has happened in the first quarter and will continue to happen in the next quarter barring this one-time event. You can expect the depreciation to be streamlined. I remember we gave an approximate expectation of what the depreciation would be during the previous call, but I don't recall the number at this point. It should be stable. It should not be fluctuating greatly, which is what we've made the effort to do. As far as the dry docking, it's not going to be 10 vessels dry docking next year. It's slightly less next year and the year after, I think it's about seven or eight next year, and then going forward, the year after is also seven or eight. It's not 10 next year. It's supposed to be less. Given that fact as well, our depreciation will be streamlined and not expected to spike going to next year and the year after. Okay. It's going to be closer to the first quarter, right? It's going to be closer to the first quarter than the second quarter going forward. Bobby- Correct. Just to be very clear. Yeah. Just to be very clear, you expect in starting 2024, you go back to the first quarter. I think what Waheed was saying is that we took the component for the short-lived items, which is a good practice from our side, just to make sure our assets and our balance sheet reflect the value of the vessel. Starting 2024, you should expect what you have seen in the first quarter going forward. Okay, understood. Thank you. Thank you. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question goes to Anil Tanwar of SAB Invest. Anil, please go ahead. Your line is open. Hi, gentlemen. Thank you very much for this call. Just wanted to follow up on the dry docking cost and the increase in depreciation. Over how many years do you amortize the dry docking cost? Five years. Five. Okay. Great. The quarterly volatility shouldn't be as much then, right? Yes. As mentioned previously also by CFO, yeah, it should not be, starting 2024. Oh. Sorry, Anil, you seem to be cutting off. If you had a follow-up question, I didn't hear it. No, it's good. Thank you very much. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. As another reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment. Thank you. It appears we have no further questions. I will now hand back to Hani for any closing comments. Okay. Once again, I would like to thank everybody for attending and taking the time today to participate in our conference call. We are deeply committed to offering a top-notch investor relations coverage and continuously improve our IR efforts. Our communication channels are always open. Please feel free to reach out to our IR team. If you have any question and answers that wasn't covered today, I'm sure they can help you with that. Rest assured that all kind of questions, answers, feedback, it gets communicated to our management and CEO for their consideration. Thank you very much for your time today. I would like to tell you thank you so much for your active participation today. Each member of the investment community has played a significant role in helping Nakilat achieve its goals of becoming a global leader and preferred provider. Your questions were all valuable, as Hani mentioned, we will share the capital markets feedback with Nakilat's management. Your time and your input are grateful, we are thankful for your presence today's session. Have a great day