Good morning, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this is Ahmed Hazem from EFG Hermes Research. I'd like to welcome you all on today's call for Nakilat's Q3 2023 results. We have with us on the line Mr. Hani Abuaker, CFO of Nakilat, Mr. Fotios Zeritis, Head of IR and ESG Reporting, and Mr. Wahid Siddiqui, Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. First off, I'd like to congratulate Nakilat on another set of strong results this quarter, and without further delay, I'd like to hand over the call to Fotios. Please, the line is yours. Thank you, Ahmed. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Nakilat's Q3 2023 Results Conference Call. For your convenience, this transcript of this call and presentation will be available on the company's investor relations section of our website. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, and the media and press is 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 2 and 3 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. Mr. Wahid Siddiqui, 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 an overview of the LNG shipping market, and finally, Nakilat's CFO, Hani Abuaker, will walk you through the company's business outlook. Then, we'll be happy to address your questions. Now, I would like to hand it over to Mr. Wahid Siddiqui, for his part. Wahid, please go ahead. Thanks, Fotios. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Nakilat's Q3 2023 results conference call. I'm thrilled to be here today alongside our CFO, Hani Abuaker, and our Head of Investor Relations, ESG Reporting, Fotios Zeritis. First and foremost, we would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to our dedicated seafarers and shore-based staff for their commitment to delivering clean energy to the world, always on time. Let's delve into Nakilat's remarkable achievements for the nine months of 2023, as Nakilat has had an exciting run. Shifting our focus to slide 8 of the presentation, I'm delighted to announce that Nakilat has reported a profit of QAR 1.19 billion, equating to 0.21 per share. This represents an increase of 4.8% year-over-year compared to the same period of 2022. Despite an unprecedented high interest rate environment, the tightening of monetary policies and geopolitical uncertainties, Nakilat has effectively navigated through this turbulence with minimal impact on its financial performance. Our operational cash flows have remained strong and stable, as evidenced from the year-to-date 2023 EBITDA, which stands at QAR 2.8 billion, a 6.1% year-on-year growth, and a current ratio of 1.12. Sustainable value add for our shareholders is further reflected in an impressive 13.8% return on equity. The slight increase in costs from the prior year is as a result of inflation and planned activities related to manning and vessel maintenance, with no concerning outliers. We have been proactive in our strategic decision-making, allowing us to manage costs by continually exploring procurement opportunities. The upturn in depreciation year to date is attributed to the new dry dock cycle, including the initial component, which has a shorter maturity, allowing us to maintain the proper carrying value of our vessels. In addition, Nakilat has strategically utilized its cash reserves to generate interest income from deposits, partially offsetting the high finance charges. As part of our long-term planning, we continually deleverage our balance sheet annually. Approximately 70% of our loans are hedged at the group level, minimizing our exposure to further interest rate hikes. Moreover, we have sizable cash deposits that allow us to take advantage of the current environment by realizing steady earnings to mitigate the interest rate exposure. Furthermore, our LNG and shipyard joint ventures have demonstrated commendable performance. These prudent management decisions have significantly contributed to our strong financial performance. Now I will pass the floor back to Fotios, who will provide you with an overview of the LNG shipping market. Go ahead, Fotios. Thank you so much, Wahid. Hello, everyone. I would like to provide you with a brief update on the LNG shipping market now. Energy security, decarbonization, climate change, geopolitical forces, economic growth will continue to support the global LNG demand. Furthermore, LNG will play a critical and long-lasting transitional role in ensuring energy security across the world. In 2023, European LNG demands is expected to exhibit greater stability compared to 2022. The continent has made significant strides in securing approximately 95% of its gas storage well in advance of the winter season, effectively alleviating concerns of supply shortages. Over the past decade, European gas inventories have maintained an average of approximately 85%-86%. In the Asian market, the top five LNG buyers, Japan, China, India, South Korea, and Taiwan, imported a total of 54.4 million tons in the Q3 of 2023. These figures represent a marginal 0.1% decrease year-on-year, but a notable increase of 7% quarter-to-quarter. Notably, China's imports have steadily rise from January to September 2023, marking a significant increase of 14% year-on-year growth. Market participants anticipate that Asia will continue to dominate the LNG consumption in the long term, driven by ongoing regasification capacity expansion and improved LNG supply. Now, let's turn our attention to the slide 13 of our presentation. According to Clarksons, the average spot charter rates for modern two-stroke tonnage in the first nine months of 2023 was around $108,000 per day. For DFDs, it was approximately $81,000 per day, and for the steam vessels, approximately it was $49,000 per day. Clarksons has assessed the average one year LNG shipping charter rates for 2023 at approximately $171,000 per day for ME-GI DFDs, $130,000 per day for DFDs, and approximately $69,000 per day for steams. This information serves as a valuable benchmark when discussing term charter opportunity with owners. Moving on to page 14 of our presentation, you will notice that the global LNG fleet has 662 vessels in operation during the Q3 of 2023 for conventional vessels, we are talking about. And with additional 319 conventional LNG carriers on the order book until 2028, as reported by Clarksons. This signifies the increase of approximately 48% in the total LNG fleet, specifically in terms of the number of conventional LNG vessels as of the Q3, 2023. The upcoming surge in global LNG supply over the next 5-7 years is anticipated to fuel the demand for LNG shipping requirements worldwide. In conclusion, market participants are expected to continue to securing LNG carriers through both short-term and long-term charters, aiming the ongoing market uncertainties. Now, I would like to hand it over to Mr. Hani Abuaker, our CFO, to give you an insight into Nakilat business outlook. Hani, please go ahead. Thank you, Wahid and Fotios. To begin, I will briefly discuss Nakilat business short and outlook to finish the year 2023. As the guys have said or highlighted earlier, in a world marked by challenging macroeconomic conditions, considerable turbulence and fundamental shift, we anticipate another successful year for Nakilat. This is driven by our ongoing effort to always maximize our fleet utilization, optimize expenses, and mitigate any potential interest rate risk. Furthermore, our shipyard segment is poised to continue benefiting from our dry dock activities initiated earlier this year. Also, we have invested in our human capital and processes to enhance our services and its, their efficiencies to all stakeholders. This refined balance has allowed Nakilat to stay at the forefront of LNG shipping. Nakilat solid foundation and free cash flow enable the company to seize attractive local and international business opportunities should they arise, and continue providing a sustainable return to our shareholders. To this end, Nakilat is continuously monitoring the global LNG shipping market for such opportunities. With that, I will ask the operator to open the floor for questions and answers, so please proceed. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, please press star followed by one. As a reminder, if you are using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question, and please do ensure that you are unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from the line of Taha Madani from SICO. Please go ahead, Taha. Your line is now open. Hi. Hello, thank you very much for having the call today. I just have a overall question on QatarEnergy recently signed for the 70 new vessel agreement with the Hyundai Heavy Industries, which brings the total contract to around 77 vessels. I just wanted to get an idea, is it possible that Nakilat can get any part of these 77 vessels if they were to get a contract with QatarEnergy, or would those have to be separate contracts? Good afternoon, thanks for the question. As we have mentioned in the previous calls, Nakilat does not comment on other projects. We are not the project owner of that, and generally, we don't comment any commercial decision of Nakilat or for any tender, anything related for tenders for commercial sensitivities. So we cannot comment of other people's project. I hope you understand that. Thank you. Thank you.... The next question today comes from the line of Santosh Gupta from Drewry Maritime Financial Research. Please go ahead, Santosh, your line is now open. Thank you. Hello, Nakilat team. I have two questions: How are LPG vessels doing, and what is the outlook on LPG shipping? And my second question is: How is new order win momentum for the shipyard business? Thank you. I can take the first question about LPG, and I'll let the second question to answer by Wahid or Hani. Sure. Regarding the LPG business, look, Nakilat currently operates just only four VLGCs, which means that our exposure on LPG spot market is relatively small. According to Clarksons, the average spot rates of VLGC was approximately $80,000 per day in 2023, which is actually very healthy and very high. And the current spot rates are approximately above $100,000 per day. What we see from the market is that from January 2023 until September, reports indicate that some vessels has come to the market, and LPG is quite strong in the following quarters, we expect it. And this is a very good for our ships, but you have to have it in your mind that our exposure on LPG is very small. Usually our charters that we charter usually these vessels is with one year charter party, and some maybe are have the kind of track, the monitoring of the market as one year charter, and sometimes you will see kind of pause. But generally speaking, the LPG market is currently very strong. It's expected to stay strong, but we are waiting to see how long term can be this one. I hope that answered your question for your LPG. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. I'll take the next one, which was regarding the shipyards. So the shipyards have performed well in keeping with the momentum coming from previous year. This year, of course, has had the increase in vessel volumes for the dry docks. And combined with Nakilat's fleet of not just the current year dry docks, but going into next year where the dry docks are continuing, the shipyard sector is utilizing all its resources to service all these work orders. So we expect the momentum which has been coming in from last year, ending this year and moving forward into next year as well. Hope that answers the question on shipyards. 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. Our next question today comes from the line of Mustafa Amer from Al Rayan Investment. Please go ahead, Mustafa, your line is now open. Assalamu alaikum. This is Rayan Lahbabi from Al Rayan Investment. I was just wondering why a Qatari shareholding company does not have a Qatari dial-in number? Thank you for the question. Usually, what we have seen is that the local numbers or sometimes other international numbers are not so much stable. For this reason, we have added our international numbers. Always, we ensure to inform our shareholders to have our investors to use the international number, which is more stable, in order to avoid any cut off of the line or to hear very well for that. I hope I answered your question. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, we have a follow-up question from Taha Madani. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Yes, your Q3 presentation mentions four newbuild LNG carriers that have been fixed on basically term contracts. So I just wanted to get an idea, are these the same ships that were delivered from 2020- 2022, the four ships, or is this some new JV or...? Thank you. No, you, we are talking about our new vessels that in the last 2 years have been delivered, the Global Shipping. This is the last 4 newbuild vessels that we received, and it's a joint venture with Maran Gas. However, we are the operator of these vessels, and these vessels currently are on term long-term contracts. 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. Our next question today comes from the line of Abdulelah Hakami from Hassana Investment Company. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Hello. First of all, thank you very much for the call and congratulations on the strong set of results. I have a couple of questions. The first one is regarding the North Field expansion that Qatar is pursuing currently. Are you actually bidding on that project? Are you interested in that project, or you don't see value in that project, given where the LNG newbuild prices are today? So that's my first question. The second question, I've seen somewhat of a fluctuation in the payout ratio on your JVs at JV level. This year's nine-month collection of dividends from the JV has been substantially lower than what we've seen last year. If you could just give us some color on that, and should that be a concern for investors? Okay. Maybe I'll take the first question, and maybe the second one, I'll leave it to Wahid. I think he can elaborate more. For us, we look at every single business opportunity to provide us the required rate of return, whether it's locally, regionally, and internationally. And we have explained before, you know, the range that we always try to really secure that good return for our shareholders. So we believe that such business or such segment of LNG shipping requires a certain rate of return in order for you to meet a lot of sort of covenants as part of your funding costs. So we believe, and we have seen, you know, now and in the recent history, that in order for anybody to be in this business, they should be able or capable to run these vessels, but the return is usually, is within what we expect and based on the current level of the price of the vessels. So we believe the price of the vessels will dictate for anybody to get is to consider a higher rate of return. Or not a higher, same rate of return, but in order for you to do that, you need to be compensated by a daily rate. So we... And that goes for any projects around the world. So we believe that something that we have noticed all over the years, that higher asset values will dictate a higher potential rate to compensate for the expected rate of return. I hope I answered your question, and this is, again, my answer is related to an LNG shipping globally, regardless of specific region or specific area. About the payouts, usually we have a lot of dividend payouts that comes towards the end of the year. So, unless last year, for instance, we had a special payout coming earlier, but I think Wahid can give more lights on that. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Hani. It's just a matter of timing, which is what you see here. Usually depends on the payouts of when the board meetings are set and when people are available, and it's decided to have the payout. So, this year is just a matter of timing. We have a lot of meetings scheduled for Q4, so we should expect by the end of the year that we should be in a good position, and no outlying concerns about that one. Thank you. Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Next, we have another follow-up question from Taha Madani from SICO. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Yes, can you just provide us some color on how you expect the depreciation expense and income from JV to look like going forward? I mean, in terms of depreciation, the last two quarters were slightly higher, and we saw the Q1 was very low compared to the fourth quarter of last year. So just talk a bit about the depreciation and operating income from JV. Okay. Thank you. I'm just gonna give a comment on what I have mentioned last quarter, and then however, we said, due to the drydock cycle and the initial component that we have, we should expect the depreciation in this quarter to be also the same as next quarter. And then we should really expect it to fall back to Q1 of this year. So you should see this coming up quarter, the depreciation will be the same as this quarter, and then it will go back beginning of the year, similar to the Q1 of this year. This is one. And related to the performance of the joint venture, we believe that it's... We're expecting it to be in line with the current performance, that we have seen in this quarter, to be the fourth quarter. So we should expect also a strong momentum on this quarter to the next quarter. Wahid, if you wanna add anything, you can go ahead. No, thanks, Hani. I think you've covered it. Sorry, there seems to be some interruption in the line, but hopefully you can hear me. As we mentioned in the H1 call, that this component one is just a one-time event, and it will stabilize following Q4 this year. As for the JV performance is concerned, as Hani said, we're continuing to see the favorable charter rates in the current market, and we don't anticipate any hurdles ending this year and going into next. Thanks. Thank you very much. Thank you. There are no additional questions waiting at this time, so I'd like to pass the call back over to Hani Abuaker, for any closing remarks. Please go ahead. Okay. I would like to express my gratitude to all of you for taking the time today to participate in our conference call. We're deeply committed to offering a top-notch investor relation coverage, and we're continually improving our IR practices. Please feel free to reach out to the team, Fotios, and Rabih, or even Wahid, if you have any further questions, and we always take your comments and suggestion or concerns to our management for further consideration. With that, thank you very much, and I'll give it back to Fotios. Thank you, Hani. Thank you so much for your active participation, and your time and input are greatly appreciated. We are thankful for your presence in this call, and hopefully to see you next quarter. Have a great day.