Hello, and welcome to today's Nakilat's 3Q 2024 results call. My name is Bailey, and I will be your moderator for today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to today's host, Ahmed Hazem, with EFG Hermes. Please go ahead. Thank you, Bailey. Hi, good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Ahmed Hazem from EFG Hermes Research, we are pleased to once again host Nakilat on its third quarter 2024 results conference call. We have with us on the line today Mr. Hani Abuaker, CFO of Nakilat, Mr. Fotios Zeritis, Head of Investor Relations and ESG Reporting, and Mr. Kamaran Jomah, Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. I'd like to start off by congratulating Nakilat's management team on another solid quarter, without further delay, I'd like to hand over the call to Fotios. Please go ahead. Good afternoon and welcome to Nakilat's third quarter 2024 results conference call. For your convenience, the transcript of this call and presentation are available on the company's Investor Relations sections of our website. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, the media or press is not allowed to attend this Investor Relations conference call. Many of our remarks contain forward-looking statements, for factors that cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, please refer to the Slide two of the Investor Relations presentation. In addition, some of our remarks contain non-IFRS financial measures. A corresponding reconciliation of this is included in the note of this presentation. Kamaran Jomah, Nakilat's Financial Planning and Reporting Manager, will begin today's call with a brief discussion of the group's earnings results. I will give you an overview of the LNG shipping market. Finally, Nakilat's CFO, Hani Abuaker, will walk you through the company's business outlook. We'll be happy to address your questions. We'd like to hand it over to Kamaran. Please, Kamaran, go ahead. Thank you, Fotios. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Nakilat's third quarter earnings call. I am delighted to take you through Nakilat's financial performance today. I would like to ask you to turn to Slides 10 to 11 of the presentation. I am pleased to announce that Nakilat's third quarter results have maintained a positive trajectory, which has continued to be consistent. Nakilat reported profits of QAR 1.28 billion, equating to QAR 0.23 per share. This represents an impressive increase of 7.2% year-on-year. To elaborate on these results, the total revenue was reported at QAR 3.4 billion for the third quarter of this year, reflecting a marginal decrease of 1%. This is as a result of lower income received from our LPG joint venture due to two vessels dry docking, which occurred during the first half of the year, reduced charter rates, and the expected reduction in our shipyard income resulting from reduced activities. This decrease was partly offset by an improvement in the wholly owned and joint venture LNG vessels. Income from interest and dividends alongside other income totaled QAR 152 million. This represents a decrease of approximately 13.3% from QAR 175 million recorded in the comparative period. This is as a result of lower interest income received due to Nakilat's deployment of available cash towards the new build program, which was announced earlier this year and for the newly introduced issuance of interim dividend. Vessel operating expenses for the third quarter of 2024 totaled QAR 612 million, reflecting a slight increase of approximately 2.3% from QAR 599 million incurred during the comparative period. This is in line with our planned activities and reflective of annual inflation. General and administrative costs decreased by 13.5% for the period. This decrease is due to timing variation in costs and Nakilat's continuous cost optimization. Taking everything into account, Nakilat recorded an EBITDA of QAR 2.76 billion for the third quarter of 2024, which is a slight decrease of approximately 1.4% compared to the same period in the previous year. This was mainly driven by the previously mentioned lower interest income alongside reduced activities in the shipyard. Depreciation and amortization costs totaled QAR 621 million, reflecting a decrease of approximately 8.7%. This is mainly attributable to the one-off accounting treatment for the initial dry dock component, which was booked in 2023. Finance expenses for the period was QAR 865 million, which reflects an approximate reduction of 7.2% compared to the previous period. This reduction is primarily due to scheduled repayment of interest-bearing debt, as well as capitalized interest associated with the investments made for Nakilat's new-build program. Now turning to Slide 12, which illustrates the key areas of our balance sheet. Nakilat's property, plant, and equipment stands at QAR 24.6 billion, which has increased by QAR 3.6 billion, further strengthening our balance sheet. This increase is due to installments towards Nakilat's previously announced new build program, which consists of 40 new vessels, 25 of which are conventional vessels, 9 Q-Max vessels, four contracted with QatarEnergy, and four VLGCs with the capability of transporting ammonia and two LNG carriers. These have all been previously announced, and this increase was offset by depreciation for the period. Nakilat's cash balance stands at QAR 2.6 billion. This decrease of approximately 39.6% from December 2023 is as a result of installments associated with Nakilat's new build program and the newly introduced issuance of interim dividends. As of September 30th of this year, Nakilat's borrowing increased by QAR 1.8 billion, which is primarily due to drawdowns on new loan facilities, taken in part to finance Nakilat's new build program. This increase was partly offset by Nakilat's scheduled loan repayments. The net fair value of interest rate swaps liabilities increased by QAR 420 million to QAR 834 million. This is primarily due to the impact of Nakilat's new pre-hedges taken earlier this year in preparation for the new build financing activity. As a result of the fluctuation of interest rates, the mark-to-market valuation was impacted. Since the quarter end, we have seen interest rates increase, reducing our fair value liability exposure. Thank you. I'll pass the floor to Fotios, who will provide you with an overview of the LNG shipping market. Over to you, Fotios. Thank you very much, Kamaran. Hello, everyone. I'm pleased to provide you a concise update on the LNG shipping market now. Despite the geopolitical uncertainty, market participants remain optimistic about global LNG trade by 2029, 2030. According to Drewry, Asia will account over 70%-75% of the global LNG trade by 2029, with top importers such as China, India, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, commanding about 50% of the trade. While Europe's demand will remain steady, South Asian countries will expand their LNG infrastructure, boosting contracted supply and enhancing their footprints in the LNG market. Shifting our attention to the slide 16 of the presentation, Wood Mackenzie forecasts a robust growth in global LNG trade, with liquefaction capacity projected to surge from around 408 million tons in LNG in 2023 to approximately 672 million tons LNG by 2030, representing a 65% increase. This unexpected surge in the global LNG supply is expected to drive demand for LNG shipping worldwide with more LNG shipping requirements. Referring to the slide 17, as reported by Clarksons, the average spot charter rates for the modern two-stroke tonnage in the second quarter of 2024 stood approximately $62,000 per day of around $50,000 per day for DFDEs and $31,000 per day for STEAMs. Furthermore, Clarksons assess the average one-year LNG shipping charter rates for the same period at roughly $78,000 per day for ME-GI XDF, $62,000 per day for DFDEs, and $38,000 per day for STEAMs. These figures serve as a valuable benchmark for discussion on chartering opportunities. Moving to page 19, Clarksons reports that the global energy fleet consists of 712 vessels in operation in the third quarter of 2024, with an additional 345 conventional LNG vessels on order book until 2031. This represents almost 48%-50% increase in the total LNG fleet, particularly in the number of conventional LNG vessels as of the third quarter of 2024. Additionally, LNG carriers' new build prices right now for conventional size vessels is approximately QAR 262 million. In conclusion, the demand for LNG is expected to persist as the world shifts away from coal and oil towards cleaner energy sources. Considering these positive and fundamental developments, we maintain an optimistic outlook on the long-term prospects of LNG shipping. Now, I would like to invite Mr. Hani Abuaker to provide insight into Nakilat business outlook. Please, Hani, please proceed. Thank you, Fotios, and thank you, Kamaran. First, I would like to congratulate Nakilat and the entire team on delivering and maintaining such robust financial results amidst significant geopolitical uncertainties and ongoing economic volatility, particularly those impacting energy markets, which present complex challenges requiring us to remain agile in our operations and risk management strategies. The evolving macroeconomic environment, including inflationary pressures, demands close monitoring and adaptive financial planning. As a leader in the LNG shipping sector, our focus remains on maintaining consistent operation, safeguarding our global supply chain Ensuring a seamless flow of natural gas in the global supply chain. Given the volatility of interest rate, we're carefully assessing their impact on financial costs and future investment opportunities. To navigate such volatility, we have continued to prioritize liquidity management, capital discipline, and operational efficiency. These efforts position us to mitigate market fluctuations while delivering sustainable value to our shareholders and ensuring the reliability of our shipping operations. Our outstanding financial performance reflects our unwavering commitment to operational excellence, differentiating ourselves through a safety-first culture, superior reliability, and exceptional customer centricity mindsets underscore our long-term commitment to excellence in shipping operations. Nakilat financial performance highlights the hard work that takes place on a daily basis by Nakilat team to ensure our shareholders are rewarded. This was further illustrated by announcing our first time an interim dividend of 7% of the issued capital or by our capital price. As previously mentioned by Kamaran, Nakilat performance in 2024 has sustained its momentum with another record profit of close to QAR 1.28 billion for the third quarter of 2024. This result builds on our achievements from the second quarter of 2024, despite the challenges that we see in the geo-economic around the world. Our strong financial performance, coupled with the recent announcement of 40 vessels order book, mark yet another significant milestone in Nakilat's considerable growth story. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2024, I want to turn my attention to Nakilat outlook for the last quarter of 2024. Nakilat remains confident in the continuity of its business model and its management continued effort to maximize fleet utilization. In addition, Nakilat continue to explore any opportunities that will maximize our shareholders' return by securing pre-hedge for our potential financing costs, mitigating interest rate exposure. This allow us to secure our cash flow that we have already built in our projected economics, maximizing our rates of return on our recently announced new build programs. As expected, Nakilat shipyard segment continue its stable performance despite the reduction of the activities compared to 2023. We continue to forecast shipyard activities to be in line with the average performance that we have seen in the first half of 2024. Keeping each of these factors in mind, Nakilat expects to see another successful year by the end of 2024. From a long-term perspective, Nakilat maintain a positive outlook on its ability to secure potential upcoming opportunities. Our business model remains resilient and adaptive in securing new business opportunity if they arise. Part of this is due to Nakilat team being able to ensure the stability of our long-term cash flow, which offers assurance and security that benefits our shareholders, stakeholders, and our customers. We're executing our strategy by strengthening our global leadership in LNG shipping. Simply put, we're playing to strengthen our company and remain confident in our ability to generate a return for our shareholders while continuing to support our customer effectively. With that, I will now hand over to the operator to open the floor for questions. Please proceed. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question on today's call, 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 Rob Skepper from Ashmore. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Hi, everyone. Thanks for the call today. Just a quick question on CapEx. By the end of the first half, it looked like CapEx was about QAR 3.6 billion. By the end of the third quarter, after nine months, kind of QAR 4.1 billion. I just wanted to understand if there was any guidance for the full year and by implication, the fourth quarter. Also, is it too much granularity to look at CapEx on a quarterly basis through the new build program, i.e., milestone payments is quite lumpy? Thanks. Sure. Yeah, I can take that question. In terms of the remainder of this year, we are done with any CapEx investment required for the new build. We'll start to see a ramp-up of the installments towards the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter of next year. As we previously mentioned in our earnings calls, in Q2 and in Q1, the installments tend to be in batches of around 10%, depending on the milestones of the construction. As for 2024, we will not expect to see any additional CapEx investments. I hope that answers your question. Yeah. Great. 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 Mark Crombez from The First Investor. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Hi, gentlemen. It's a follow-up of the previous question, actually. If the property and equipment investment so far is QAR 4 billion, what percentage sort of down payment on the overall ships or the overall budget, the full budget, does that represent? Hi there. I'll take that one again. The installments for this year so far is a mixture of first installments on some of our vessels and even second installments. It's difficult to say the percentage or to disclose that percentage, but we've paid first installments for all our vessels as well as second installments for some of the other vessels. Are you allowed to disclose what the total investment size for all 40 ships will be? At the moment, as we go along throughout the year, we'll start to disclose that information. You can look at existing announcements in the press as to the average prices of these vessels, and that will give a great indication of the cost of each class of the vessels that we are building. Okay. If you allow me, Kamaran, maybe in the future, we will try to understand the complexity of it, because part of the vessel cost is including the interest cost that is going to be capitalized. That's something a little bit dynamic as per how the interest cost will evolve. Maybe, and we will take it as a note, we will try to really simulate a small kind of range of window going forward to say how big is that program of building 40 ships. We might say if the cost will be ranging or hovering between, let's say, a number, we will say within QAR 500 million-QAR 1 billion range. If it is between 10 and 11 or 11 and 12, what we'll try to do, we will keep you guys updated based on the recent proximity. Again, it depends on, as we said before, the cost of these vessels, but there's other variables such as the interest rate that get capitalized. We want to make sure that we always give clear and specific and precise numbers so you can consider that. Maybe we will highlight that in our next conference call so you guys can be more comfortable about the range of this program delivery. I just have one further follow-up question. Typically, what size of the vessel investment is paid in the first installment and the second installment? It's usually, as we talked before in our previous conferences, usually the distribution of the payment, it goes 10% with each milestone, and then on delivery, approximately close to 50%. Maybe I can have a follow-up question after the call, just to share with our dynamics. Thank you very much. Absolutely. Please do so, as you understand, the vessels, they don't come at once. They are staggered over seven years. We can give you, kind of the expected profile of the payment that we've seen, that should allow you to understand. It's just if you've paid QAR 4 billion that represents only 10% of the amounts, that would imply a QAR 40 billion investment. We're more thinking it's more like a QAR 20 billion investment if you calculate the approximate value of the ships times 40. That's just the disconnect, which I can't quite put my head around. I think Kamaran just spoke that the part of the QAR 4 billion, there's, I believe, a second installment payment on some of the vessels, not all of them. Something that for sure we can take offline and just give you more clarity. We will try to elaborate more to everyone in our next conference call. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. As a final reminder for today's call, if you would like to ask a question, please do press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Our question today comes from the line of Mohit Chaudhary from Lesha Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Hi. Congratulations first on the results. My question here was regarding the interest expense of the capitalization of the interest. By when should we start sort of seeing that impact hitting the P&L? Yeah. Hi. I think I already mentioned that we're already starting to see the impact of capitalized interest in my opening remarks. Of course, the capitalized interest is taking into consideration the WACC and any corporate loans taken towards the equity contribution of the new builds. I hope that answers it. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ashish Agrawal from The First Investor. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Please do ensure that you are unmuted locally. Oh, sorry. Thanks for taking my question, gentlemen. I just want to check my understanding regarding a particular area of your business model. I see that your interest rate swap liability has gone up. My understanding is that it's part of your normal style of working, wherein when you take on debt to acquire new vessels, it's already built into your calculations in your IRR assumptions, the cost for securing a interest rate swap. I believe I shouldn't look much into the increase in the interest rate liability. Can you please confirm that? Interest rate swap liability. You're absolutely right. When we build our models, when we're looking at these acquisitions, we factor in the impact of interest. As we are going throughout the year, we're looking at ways to maximize our IRR by securing pre-hedges. That's what we've done. Rest assured that you're right, it's factored in, and we're actually better off. We have a very robust model, and we are so far achieving that. All right. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. It appears we have no further questions, I'd like to pass the call back over to the management team for any closing remarks. Thank you all, I'm very happy for you to join us today. We will try to take the comments that came from you guys, and you can call Fotios and Kamaran and myself, they should be able to address some of the questions offline. We will try to take into consideration some of the questions that were asked about more details, we will try to be approximate in our answers just to give you the comfort about your own decision when you look at your models. Thank you very much, I appreciate that you're always coming here. We looking forward for seeing you or hearing from you or meet you in person in the near future. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines