Ladies and gentlemen, this is Nawaf Al-Nasser. On behalf of all SABIC's employees, I would like to welcome you all. I will be your moderator for SABIC's Earnings Call for the Third Quarter of 2023. Today's call will be led by SABIC's CEO, Engineer Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh, joined by our CFO, Mr. Salah Al-Hareky, our EVP of Governance and [Controlship] [Ian Sloman] and our IRO, Mr. Moneef Al-Moneef. Please note that this call will be recorded and published in the SABIC website at sabic.com, along with the quarter-related documents. Now, please allow me to hand over the call to our IRO, to you, Moneef. Thank you, Nawaf. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today. I'd like you to note that any statements made during this call relating to matters that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. These statements are based upon assumptions of the management, which are believed to be reasonable at the time made and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. The actual results could differ materially from those forward-looking statements. Please refer to the statements in the presentation slides and our financial reports, which are available at sabic.com. For the quarter three earnings call, we will be starting with SABIC highlights of the quarter and also the ESG update. We will then cover the business environment, followed by key industries and trends, major petrochemical prices, and also market spreads for our key products. Later, we will focus on SABIC financials and also segments performance. Finally, our CEO will address the third quarter summary and the outlook for quarter four. We will then conclude the call with live Q&A, whereby participants will have the opportunity to engage and discuss the company's performance and any other questions related. We would appreciate to keep the questions limited to SABIC only. With that, I will now hand it over to our CEO, Engineer Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh. Thank you, Moneef. Ladies and gentlemen, good day to you all. I hope that you and your families are keeping healthy and safe. In this earnings call, we will shed light on SABIC performance during this quarter and the market overview. With revenues of $9.6 billion, we have generated an EBITDA of $1.5 billion, and reported a net loss of $767 million in this third quarter of this year. EBITDA margin has been improved in the Q3, driven by the increase in sales volume, supported by a decrease in our feedstock prices. SABIC is committed to driving greater sustainability in the global chemical industry, and this is our commitment that has been recognized by Forbes, ranking SABIC as first on the manufacturing list, Middle East's Sustainable 100 List. On the 3rd of September 2023, SABIC has announced signing an agreement with the Public Investment Fund, PIF, to acquire all SABIC shares in the Saudi Iron and Steel Company, what we call it, Hadeed. Hadeed is one of the SABIC first manufacturing companies and is a fundamental pillar to sustainable development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Since its inception in 1979 and the initial steel production that was in 1983, the company has been a major contributor to local, regional, and sometimes to global European developments. This is not just a big step forward in Hadeed's journey towards success, but a strategic leap that enables change, development, and growth in various areas. The transaction will foster new knowledge and experience that will contribute to shaping a brighter future for Hadeed and its employees. It will help realize SABIC's strategic goal, become the preferred world leader in chemicals and those of Hadeed to achieve long-term growth. Above all, this will enhance the strategic capabilities of the metals industry in the kingdom and ultimately fulfill the goal of the Vision 2030. Can we go to slide four? It always make me proud of SABIC when sharing the sustainability, ESG, and innovation development. I'm very pleased to share the latest development of our collaboration with BASF in Germany and Linde to build the world's first electrically heated steam cracker furnaces, which we have already been updating you on the last couple of years. Pleased to now confirm another success, a step on this breakthrough project, hitting an important milestone recently with the installation of the latest transformers for the demonstration unit of this furnace. This technology can potentially reduce the CO2 emission by at least 90% compared to the conventional technologies. The completion of the project is scheduled before the end of this year, followed by a stepwise commissioning and a startup. Our commitment to continued advancement and sustainability and innovation has been recognized once again by R&D 100 Awards, a global science and innovation competition, naming SABIC winner the 2023 R&D 100 Award for our innovation solutions in the mechanical material category. Our new grade of resin with a novel plastic-based design was distinguished for its highest performance compared to the other polymers and metal alternatives. Also, a recognition of the effectiveness of our governance, we have been awarded a certificate of completion of the compliance program by the General Authority for Competition in Saudi Arabia, which is an independent body that aims to enhance transparency, ensure fair competition, and combat monopolistic practices in the kingdom. Our contribution and innovation are also seen in this high-end strategic collaboration, where technology, sustainability, and mobility have come together in our recent collaboration with Formula E as the innovation partner to develop GENBETA. This revolutionary electric race car, drawn in our still expanding portfolio of thermoplastics, developed under our dedicated solution platforms, BLUEHERO for the electrification and TRUCIRCLE for a circular economy. Reinforcing the company ambition to accelerate the world, the world shifts to electrification and carbon neutrality. We are also committed to develop an innovative, sustainable solution for our customers. We are proud to share now of our bio-based versions of NORYL resin grades to further advance the bioeconomy of plastics. This specialty material with our bio-circular feedstock can serve a drop in the replacements for traditional grades with an equivalent performance and processability. The broad range of physical properties of NORYL resin supports the needs of emerging markets such as electric vehicles, solars, wind, and electric vehicles, batteries, and essential industry like water management, building and construction, and automotive. SABIC already offer NORYL resins with more than 25% post-consumer recycled content. The availability of bio-based versions have the choice of environmentally responsible material, helping our customers to meet increasingly rigorous sustainability goals. I'm confident that our commitment to innovation and sustainability will continue to drive our growth and success in the years to come. Thank you, Abdulrahman, and warm welcome to our Q3 earnings calls. I'm happy to introduce to you our latest financial results. Before we start, let me walk you through macroeconomic highlights during Q3 2023. The global economy started the year without significant positive momentum in the global chemical industry. Global GDP recorded a lower growth rate compared to the previous quarter, driven by lower services and manufacturing sector. Inflation responded to tightening lending policies, but still persistent on a high level and continued to weaken consumer purchasing power. Rising interest rate and generally high uncertainties is still slowing down investment, affecting the manufacturing and services sector adversely. As a consequence, we will, we still observe weak demand globally in our target market, with uncertainty going into the fourth quarter of the year. Oil prices increased by 10% to $86 per barrel, affected by OPEC+ curtailments that set the ceiling and reduction in the U.S. oil reserve by 9%. Moving into feedstock prices, naphtha prices increased by range between 6%-8% due to lower supply from OPEC+. Natural gas prices reduced by 9% in Europe due to high quantity being stocked in the European market and increased by 17% in the U.S. due to higher demand before the winter season. Moving into slide seven we will illustrate the global demand trend we are seeing in the key industries for SABIC. Demand in Q3 quarter-over-quarter showed different sentiment among the sector, an improvement in the automotive sector, while contracting sentiment in electronic and healthcare sector. As a trend, we are expecting moderated improvement in food and beverages. However, other sectors is expecting to be flat. Moving into slide eight. This slide shows the movement in market reference price for our key petrochemical products in key region, quarter-over-quarter in orange and year-over-year in blue. The visual in the graph alone implies a downward in the market across most products and regions associated with high inflation and elevated interest rate, along with lower demand and higher supply globally. Let us start with MEG. We have noticed prices decreased by 6% globally as a result of higher supply and new capacities, despite improvement in polyester fiber demand in China. Methanol prices decreased by 8% globally, driven mainly by ample supply, especially in the U.S., attributed to competitive natural gas prices. Although the prices in China increased by 2%, driven by higher demand from non-MTO, which offset the loss of MTO. For MTBE, prices globally increased by 17%, driven by the improvement in demand from driving season. For PE, prices decreased globally by 6% due to higher supply, although in China, prices was up by 1%, supported by slight improvement in demand. For PP, prices decreased globally by 8%, resulted from an ample supply across the world, given the major turnaround scheduled in the second quarter. For PC or polycarbonate, globally, prices decreased by 6%, driven by lower government investment and weak recovery signals. Moving into slide nine. This slide reflects the integrated spread of petrochemical benchmark prices over primary feedstock costs for our key product in key regions, explaining short-term market dynamics. You will notice that the chart illustrates historical data since full year of 2021 till this quarter. In third quarter, naphtha and propane prices were higher, resulting in a lower spread marginally for all products. Starting with our top line, compared to prior quarter, sales revenue increased by approximately 6% or roughly $500 million to $9.6 billion. The average selling price declined by 1% quarter-over-quarter. Our global SABIC sales volume was 7% higher quarter-over-quarter, supported by the higher sales volume in Chemical and Polymers segments by 8% and 15% respectively, mainly driven by higher production on glycols, PE and PP. Petrochemical sales volume increased by 11%, while agri-nutrient sales volume decreased by 12%, offset by higher average selling price in the Agri-Nutrients by 11%. As you can see in the table, EBITDA margin was higher at the 16%, 16% in Q3 2023, supported by the company efforts to increase the sales volume globally in Q3, despite the market challenges, supported by lower average cost of sales by 3%, in addition to incremental realization for synergy with Saudi Aramco of around $140 million. Percent for compared to the biggest quarter, driven by lower average selling price and lower sales volume. Going to the third quarter major event, the PIF acquired the entire stake of SABIC in the Saudi Iron and Steel Company, Hadeed. This transaction is part of the company's strategic portfolio optimization to bring more focus into SABIC core and strategic business. The cash flow estimated from Hadeed transaction, post-closure, planned in the first quarter 2024, is around $1.8 billion-$2.1 billion, which will be essential for funding our growth journey. The financial impact of the transaction in the third quarter was around $782 million, recorded as a fair value remeasurement. In addition, there has been non-recurring transaction during the quarter, mainly from recording a provision impairment in Europe assets as part of business ongoing portfolio optimization. This result in a net loss of $767 million in Q3 2023. However, SABIC net income from continuing operation was $143 million. For the nine months comparison, sales decreased by 26%, driven primarily by lower average selling price by 24%, in addition to lower sales volume by 2% across all segments, largely driven by polymers. We achieved EBITDA margin of 15% level, despite the lower average cost of sales by 16% and selling and distribution expense by 32% compared to the previous nine months. At the non-integrated joint venture and associate companies decreased by $762 million compared to the nine months of 2022. We recorded a net loss of $278 million in nine months of 2023. Our net income from continuing operation was $742 million, 82% lower than previous nine months. ... Before I move to discuss segment international, I would like to highlight that we remain focused on further optimization, working capital, and cost reduction, which improve our P&L and cash generation. Moving into segment financial results, starting with Petrochemicals. With a robust sales volume performance in the Petrochemical segment, achieving 11% higher sales volume quarter-over-quarter. Average sales prices in the Petrochemical business declined by 5% due to the stagnation in the global demand and higher supply. The EBITDA of our Petrochemical business in Q3 2023 has improved by 5%, along with a slight improvement in the market. Moving over to slide number 12, Agri-Nutrients business. Sales volume decreased by 12%, mainly due to lower sales in urea. In terms of performance, Q3 EBITDA was 37% higher than prior quarter, primarily driven by higher average selling prices, which increased by 11%. This was substantially due to the following factors: restocking, demand from key markets, India and U.S., supply tightness in Africa, China export limiting. In conclusion, SABIC will continue its effort to reduce costs, optimize working capital, maximize return, and progress into growth with the continuous effort to increase the sales volume facing the market and global economy challenges. This was demonstrated clearly during the current quarter, which has resulted in a better EBITDA margin, improved working capital, and increased sales. Thank you, Salah. Looking ahead, we remain to expect an average global GDP growth rate of about 2.5% for 2023. We continue to focus on our operation excellence, our capital discipline, and progressing on our growth despite the current challenging market. We remain disciplined in managing our CapEx, and we estimate around $3.3 billion-$3.8 billion to be spent in the year, in this year. Thank you very much, and back to you, Nawaf, for the Q&A. Thank you, Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh. Dear audience, if any would like to ask a question, you can simply use the Raise Hand feature available to you on the control screen. Please make sure to click the Lower Hand button once you have asked your question. First question, from Morgan Stanley, Ricardo Rezende, please go ahead. For taking my question. Couple questions on my side. The first one is related to this optimization that you're doing in Europe, and that you had a provision related to that in the third quarter. Would you be able to provide some more color on what's the magnitude that we're looking at, and potential capacity implication? And the second question, when we look at the CapEx guidance for this year, from $3.5 billion-$3.8 billion, should we expect any sort of a similar level for next year? Thank you. I think we get the first one, but the second... Can you repeat the second question, please? Yes. On the CapEx, when we look into 2024, compared to the guidance that you have for 2023, should we expect something across the similar level? Oh, okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, I get you. First of all, I mean, your question related to Europe, I mean. Europe remaining for SABIC is an important and a strategic region. As everybody knows that, I mean, the European region right now is facing a lot of challenges, including the increase in the feedstock. I mean, like the major one, that we are using, naphtha, or the energy prices that also use for our energy mix and also our utilities. And no doubt, I mean, that Europe will continue to be a major also base for SABIC in terms of innovations and continue our people and our assets in European, providing a lot of innovative solutions for our customers and our business partners. Our main focus right now in Europe is to continue with our safety as usual and to continue the reliability of the supply to our customers, and also to make sure that we have an optimization for our portfolio and our European assets, because I think this is an important for the long term of our existence in Europe. As far as the second question related to the spending in year 2024? ... I mean, in the run and maintain, we will keep the same way that we have done in the past two years, by continuing the discipline in our expense, especially in the run and maintain ones. And as far as the new and strategic growth, I think we are still at this point of time, reviewing our business plan for next year. And in our Q1 of next year, we are going to tell you more about how much is the size of our investments for our strategic growth. Next question from JP Morgan, Alex Comer. Can you hear me, guys? Go ahead. Okay, yeah. So, just a quick couple to follow on from my specific managers asked. Just in Europe, are you actually profitable at the EBITDA level at the moment? That's my first question. And then, you know, when we look at the supply/demand situation going into 2024, I mean, it could well get worse. I'm just wondering, when you look at your plans for next year in terms of plant operating schedules, et cetera, you know, are you anticipating maybe bringing forward some maintenance, maybe reducing capacity at all? And then my third question is: can you just give me an update on where we stand in terms of your expansion project, et cetera, when we might hear or when you might make FIDs on those projects? Alex, I have to admit that we have difficulty in the voice. I think it is from our side, not yours. So, I'll try to answer the question in a way with the way that I understand it, but please feel free, if I do not address your question well, then please just repeat it again. In terms of the EBITDA, I just want to inform you that the way that we manage our EBITDA and have it global basis for each one of our, our portfolio. And I have mentioned earlier that the challenges that we are facing in increasing the feedstock and energy prices, definitely, that put a lot of pressure in our margin and our European assets. We are trying our best to make sure that we continue to provide an innovative solution and also differentiated material from our asset in Europe, to make sure that we maximize our value from those assets. It is not something easy. It is very difficult at this point of time, but hopefully that is going to ease in the near future. I could not get in the second two points. Anyone from my colleagues here help me, what is the second two points of- I think, yeah, there was a question about, you know, the timelines for the recent announced oil-to-chemical projects. Okay, okay. As you may know, that we have announced that in November 2022 for the Ras Al-Khair, to convert 400,000 barrels of oil into chemicals. At that starting point, we start to develop the base case and feasibility study for that production, and also for trying to select the best technology that can apply for such kind of a huge complex. Provided that we need to make sure that we develop that technology based on the commitment for our sustainability and the commitment of the reduction of our carbon footprint. Still, at this point of time, we are in developing the business cases and the feasibility study, and we will announce at the right time when we are going to move into the next phase. Maybe Alex, if you don't mind, rephrase your second question, and if there is any other further questions, you could also address it at the same time. Yeah. So, given expectations of weak demand continuing, I'm just wondering when you're planning your outages for 2024, whether you intend to increase plant shutdowns to reflect the weak demand situation, or, you know, by bringing forward maintenance, whether you think that 2024 is going to be another year of strong operating rates? Clear, Alex. Actually, our outages for our continuous maintenance and turnaround, I didn't think this is would be impacted by the situation right now, because we have a rigorous, you know, plan for maintaining our plants, and that's long term. Most of the time, it has not been impacted by the situations. The most important thing that we try to maximize from each asset that will bring more values, not only to us in the company, but also to our customers, and making sure that we bring the best value to our customers. In the meantime, it has to be economical, and it has to be also bringing value to, to the company. Not expecting, you know, that, you know, major outage from our, plants is going to, to be happening. This is-... the other way around, trying to maximize the differentiated and higher added value portfolio out of our assets. Okay, next question from Bank of America. Shashank, please go ahead. I just have three questions from my side. I think the first one on CapEx is our understanding correct that currently you do not have any of the past many major expansion project? That's the first question. The second one is on your European restructuring, which you mentioned. I know they were mentioned earlier, but could you probably elaborate a bit more in detail on what are the steps you're taking exactly in terms of restructuring, and you know which in the countries you operate in Europe? The third question is just in terms of, you know, the whole national petrochemical strategy and the expansions, which was supposed to, you know, hear about this, is there any update there, and what are the timelines we should be looking at? Thank you. Thank you, Shashank. In terms of the CapEx, I think I have highlighted this, especially in the way that we continue with the discipline in making sure that we have a great discipline. As far as the new one, I think we are, at this point of time, in analyzing our feasibility studies and our business cases for the CapEx in the future. And as I mentioned, I think in the next quarter, which is Q1 2024, we are going to exchange with you our views about the CapEx for the year 2024 and after. As far as the research in Europe, this is the... Actually, the transformation of our assets in Europe has been started almost four to five years back, to make sure that we have the right transformation in our assets, and to make sure that we maximize the value that can be done for our stakeholders out of our assets in Europe. We will keep doing this, and this transformation is not only done because of the current economic situation, it is long-term. It is something that has been started, and it will continue. And the situation right now is not a trigger for us, and our restructure in Europe has been, as mentioned, is in the past and will continue. And if there is any major things that is going to be taking place, I think we are going to share it with you. What was the first one? The first question was about the national petrochemicals strategy. I think we don't have the, I can't now comment on anything the ministry is going to announce also. I think it would be, would be great to to ask this question to the Ministry of Energy or, if it's the industry, it is the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources. Okay, Shashank. We'll move on to the next question from Goldman Sachs. Faisal, the mic is yours. Starting off with just, you know, looking at the numbers so far this quarter, when you think about how, say, personally, there's been an improvement, if you can maybe just shed more color on what, where this improvement is coming from. Is it largely coming from the international assets, or is it coming from domestic assets? That's the first question. My second question is, is I think about more tools or asset sales. What are the... I would say, so we've seen you've identified it a few years back, but it's not core business. What are the other areas that we should think about that are not core to SABIC at this stage? And then the final question is just on the dividend. Obviously, we've seen an increasing focus on performance link dividends. Is this something that you would propose to the Board at some point, where we start to move from having what could be an ad hoc dividend policy to more of a performance link? Thank you. Thank you. First of all, I'll take the third question related to the, as you asked, that is not our core business, and the liquidity. So I think we have announced long time back that the steel business is not part of the business. So, that was the only one that has been announced. And at this point in time, if you look at our portfolio right now, you see, our three markets: basic chemicals and polymers, the second one is the agri nutrients, and the third one is the specialty, which is closely linked to our core business in the chemicals and polymers. So at this point of time, other than steel, the business portfolio at this point of time is the SABIC core business. Salah? Okay, thank you very much for your question. I think, you know, before jumping into asking, or answering the question around the portfolio optimization, because portfolio optimization is really very important element of our strategy going forward. But there are many elements of our strategy that actually, you know, we're very focused on in order to weather through very difficult time for the chemical business. One, for sure is reducing our expenditure, especially fixed costs and sales cost. And we have actually progressed very well. Our savings and reduction of cost, if I only take nine months, and this is a high level number, is around $350 million. So this is very important, very critical for us. Second is optimization of working capital. And we've done a lot of work in order to optimize our working capital, and we have actually made an improvement of around more than $700 million for the last nine months. Only for the first and the third quarter, we've actually managed to improve our working capital by around $250 million-$260 million. So these are very important. And now I go into portfolio optimization. As the CEO and the president, the CEO mentioned, we look into the portfolio optimization from a very strategic point of view. We are very long-term, whether it is in the region, when we talk about restructuring of Europe and restructuring our product output. But definitely, we are long-term, we want to remain and have a footprint in Europe. On the portfolio optimization, I think we've done a great job in SABIC in developing the steel industry. We would like now to focus more on our strategic business. We want to actually grow our business going forward. The liquid to chemical project is coming on the way, and we review project by project. As the CEO mentioned, that we are actually working on the feasibility study. So, Hadeed, although there is a disposition losses, which is an accounting losses that we have to record of around $780 million. The proceeds of this transaction that we expect to come at the closure of this transaction on the first quarter of 2024 is around $1.8 billion-$2.1 billion, which is really a great source for us to support our growth story. So we actually always look into optimizing our portfolio, whether project or region. And also, during this process, we will continue to turn around non-performing assets within our portfolio. So I hope I answered your question. Okay. Thank you all for your valuable questions. Finally, in the last slide, you will see our upcoming engagements, whereby we look forward to engage with you and continue the dialogue. We stay at your disposal for any inquiry or clarification you may have at any time through our open channels displayed in the slide. Thank you all for attending SABIC's earnings call for the third quarter of 2023. We will now be adjourning the call, wishing you all the best.