Welcome to the Saudi Aramco's full year 2023 results call. We'll be holding a question and answer session following the presentation. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star, followed by one on your telephone keypad at any time. I shall now hand over to Mr. Peter Hutton to begin. Hello, and welcome to this audio webcast discussing Saudi Aramco's full year 2023 results. I'm Peter Hutton, Head of Investor Relations at Aramco, and it gives me great pleasure to be joined today by our CEO, Amin Nasser, and our CFO, Ziad Al-Murshed. Our webcast today will comprise a presentation, followed by a question and answer session, and we anticipate the entire call lasting up to an hour. I would like to remind you that this webcast and conference call are being recorded, and also draw your attention to this cautionary statement. During today's presentation, we may make forward-looking statements that refer to estimates, plans, and expectations. Actual results and outcomes could differ materially due to factors we note on this slide. Please also refer to our regulatory filings and website for more details. With that, I will now hand the call over to Amin. Thank you, Peter, and welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I am proud to report that Aramco had a strong performance in 2023, both operationally and financially. We continued to deliver on our strategy by growing our existing core business, as well as expanding into new geographies and working to develop new businesses. In 2023, Aramco stayed the course and focused on delivering both value and growth. We also believe we are well-positioned to continue to help meet the world's growing need for affordable and reliable energy. This belief is not just based on the quality of our assets and the scale of our ambitions, it is also based on the capabilities of our employees, to whom I offer my sincere thanks for our performance in 2023. We had another year of delivering value, and our growth strategy remains firmly on track. Our net income for 2023 was $121 billion, with free cash flow of $101 billion. Aramco's profit were the highest of any listed global company in 2023, and they were our second-highest profit reported. During the year, we continued to strengthen our upstream positions, delivering some of the most advantaged projects in the world to further build on the already low cost and lower upstream carbon intensity strengths. Earlier this year, we received a government directive to maintain our crude oil maximum sustainable capacity at 12 million barrels per day. This still supports delivery of our key projects under construction and delivering those which have not been commissioned. In parallel, we are making progress on increasing our gas production to more than 60% by 2030 from 2021 levels. This will help meet the in-Kingdom demand for gas, which continues to rise and avail additional liquids for export. We also continued the expansion of our downstream business, both inside and outside the Kingdom, with the aim of further integrating our business and also capturing returns in growing markets. In downstream, we continue to expand on our liquids-to-chemical program by increasing crude placement in China. In addition, we have announced opportunity-driven positions in Chile and Pakistan. The transaction in Chile closed earlier this month, and the one in Pakistan remains subject to customary closing conditions. In 2023, our focus on maximizing long-term shareholder returns remained firm as we worked to create and capture additional value from our operations. We continued with the implementation of the largest capital investment program in our company's history, increasing capital investment by 28% compared with 2022. With our confidence in the underlying strength of our business, we are increasing our base dividend, which we have always described as sustainable and progressive, by 4%. We will now be paying a dividend of $20.3 billion for Q4 2023. Finally, we introduced our performance-linked dividend mechanism last year to share the upside with investors. With the culmination of years 2022 and 2023, we are announcing the third payment of $10.8 billion, which is a 9% increase over the previous payments. The full year performance-linked dividend to be paid in 2024, including the $10.8 billion in the first quarter, is expected to be $43.1 billion, more than twice the amount paid in 2023. As a result of our strong financial performance, we paid base and performance-linked dividends totaling $97.8 billion in 2023. This translates into a 30% year-on-year increase and close to the $113 billion returns to shareholders in 2023 from the top five international oil companies combined. Both elements of Aramco's declared dividends will be paid by the end of March. On the macro level, global GDP in 2023 was close to the ten-year historic average, and forecasts show that 2024 is expected to be in line with 2023. Global oil demand was strong, reaching an all-time high in 2023. It is also expected to remain strong in 2024, with independent estimate ranging from 103.5-104.2 million barrels per day. We are seeing increased and strong demand for our downstream products in 2024, as the two charts on the right suggest. The demand for petrochemicals has been steadily rising in recent years, with a 23% increase since 2019, which is around 3 million barrels of liquid to chemicals, and demand for transport fuels is expected to reach a 5-year high in 2024. We continue to expect oil demand will likely to continue to grow in the mid to long term, and Aramco is well-placed to capture growth in demand. We have low cost, low upstream emissions barrels from operations which are highly reliable and flexible. We continued to progress successfully, developing our conventional and lower carbon businesses in 2023. We have embedded optionality and operational flexibility through our spare capacity of around 3 million barrels per day currently, which can be activated quickly and at a limited incremental cost, given it lies in various fields that are already operational. In addition, the ongoing growth in our gas production is expected to add up to a further 1 million barrels per day of high-value associated liquids. In terms of gas, we continue to work to grow our gas production. As I mentioned earlier, we now expect gas production growth of more than 60% by 2030 to meet the Kingdom's growing captive demand and reflecting our improved confidence level as we develop these resources. The Kingdom is one of the largest gas markets globally, with around 10 billion scf per day of gas demand. To put this into perspective, the planned production increase within the Kingdom is equivalent to the entire current gas consumptions of Turkey. We benefit from a large and growing captive market with stable and attractive returns on capital, and we will also reinforce our blue hydrogen value plans. For our downstream business, our strategy is also clear. Around 50% of our upstream production was delivered to our downstream operations, capturing greater integration value and providing more visibility for our crude. These volumes will continue to grow with the implementation of low equity, high offtake agreements such as those in China. We see further integration value in retail with opportunities to build in specific markets, which offer net short positions, thus creating synergies and value capture opportunities with our long refining and lubricant positions. We believe the same unique combination of resources, know-how, and infrastructure that underpin our advantage in conventional energy can enable us to be a leader in the global energy transition. Leveraging the Kingdom's advantageous geology, we are investing in carbon capture, which will also support our blue hydrogen supply chain. And in hydrogen, we are leveraging our growing low-cost gas production and strong ammonia positions. In renewable energy, we are investing in some of the largest solar PV plants in the world here in Saudi Arabia through the Public Investment Fund's Renewables Program. Solar is expected to be a key electricity source in the Kingdom, where conditions are very favorable, with the availability of abundant, flat, vacant land at very affordable cost and strong solar intensity. To state the obvious, the Kingdom's peak electricity demand in the hot summer months is during the daytime. This unique matching of solar supply and electricity demand serves to reduce the need for a storage facility, which could help make solar a very competitive energy source for the country. Aramco is unique in many ways and offers a highly attractive combination of both value and growth. We believe we are extremely well-positioned going forward because of our financial strength, which was clearly reinforced by our 2023 results, because of our track record of return, focus, and delivery... and because the world will continue to need the energy that we provide, even in a lower carbon environment. And finally, because of our commitment to continue creating value for our shareholders through the cycle. All in all, we are very pleased with the progress we made in 2023. With that, let me now hand over to Ziad. Thank you, Amin, and welcome, everyone. It's a pleasure to share with you more details about our 2023 performance and the progress of delivering on our strategies. Starting with liquids, the current level of available spare capacity, which is about 3 million barrels per day, provides significant scope for growth in crude oil production and flexibility to capture value from higher global demand. This should be further complemented by about 1 million barrels per day of associated liquids that are expected to come from the increase in our gas production, and yet another, about 1 million barrels per day of liquids that will no longer be needed, to be burned for utilities in our domestic market by 2030. The crude oil increments, which are under construction, remain on track, with the first phase of the Dammam development project expected to come onstream this year, followed by Marjan and Berri increments in 2025, Zuluf field in 2026, and the second phase of Dammam in 2027. These projects will help us maintain our maximum sustainable capacity at 12 million barrels per day, as directed by the government, and they support our unique ability to rapidly respond to changes in the market. We expect further optimization on our capital spending, resulting from this decision to maintain our maximum sustainable capacity at 12 million barrels per day, mainly from deferral of projects that have not yet been FID-ed and reductions in infill drilling. As a result, over the next five years, from 2024 to 2028, we expect about $40 billion associated with these investments would be reduced from our capital investment plans. In gas, as Amin explained, we have raised our sales gas production growth target to more than 60% by 2030 over 2021 levels. In 2023, we made significant progress in delivering our gas strategy. This included bringing 9 plants onstream at the Haradh and Hawiyah fields, commissioning of our Hawiyah gas plant expansion, the discovery of two natural gas fields in the Empty Quarter, and additional raw gas reserves of over 15 trillion cubic feet and over 2 billion stock tank barrels of associated liquids from Jafurah. These discoveries and increases in our gas and condensate reserves come as a result of a combination of state-of-the-art technologies, in-house expertise, and machine learning systems applied to unconventional resources for the first time in the industry, and this has potential to be deployed at scale. In unconventional gas development, we successfully produced the first tight gas from South Ghawar ahead of schedule, and the Jafurah project is progressing well, with production expected to commence in 2025 and gradually increase to reach a sustainable rate of 2 billion standard cubic feet per day by 2030. We also commissioned the Hawiyah Unayzah gas storage facility and achieved its maximum injection target of 1.5 billion standard cubic feet per day. This is the first underground natural gas storage facility of its kind in Saudi Arabia and is expected to provide up to 2 billion standard cubic feet per day of natural gas for reintroduction into the Master Gas System by the end of this year. Internationally, we announced the signing of agreements to acquire a stake in MidOcean Energy, which is in the process of acquiring interests in four Australian LNG projects with immediate cash flow generation. This transaction is subject to closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. In downstream, we continue to strengthen our portfolio to further balance our product slate between chemicals and fuels, which provides offtake security and incremental value. In 2023, 47% of our crude oil production was utilized by our downstream system, which is up 3 percentage points year-on-year and 9 percentage points from 2019 levels. We continue to push in this direction in a disciplined and focused approach. In this regard, we completed the strategic acquisition of a 10% interest in the existing Rongsheng Petrochemical Company and started construction of a new refining and petrochemical complex through our joint venture, Huajin Aramco Petrochemicals Company. Both of these assets in China enable us to enter into new long-term crude oil offtake agreements with a combined volume of 700,000 barrels per day. We also signed separate agreements for the potential acquisition of a 10% equity interest in Jiangsu Shenghong Petrochemicals and a 10% of Shandong Yulong Petrochemicals, which are two highly integrated refining and chemicals complexes with a total expected capacity of 720,000 barrels per day and high chemical conversion rates of over 50%. We are currently negotiating the amount of crude oil and other feedstocks we would supply on a long-term basis to both complexes. Close by, in South Korea, we started construction on one of the world's largest steam crackers, which is the first commercial deployment of Aramco's thermal crude to chemicals technology, developed in collaboration with Lummus. Here in Saudi Arabia, we are progressing with construction of the Amiral Petrochemicals Complex to be operated by SATORP in Jubail, for which EPC contracts were awarded in 2023, and commercial operations expected in 2027. As a result, our global refining and chemicals production capacities continued to grow and will continue doing so over the next few years. Since 2019, equity refining capacity increased to 4.1 million barrels per day, and equity chemicals production capacity increased to nearly 60 million tons per annum. This large and expanding downstream system is complemented by, and actually provides a significant competitive advantage to our large and expanding trading business. In 2023, we traded an average of 6.8 million barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products, which is a 51% growth over 2019 levels, and we traded 4.7 million tons of liquid chemical products, which is an 114% growth over 2019 levels. We intend to further strengthen and expand our trading business to take advantage of its strengthening competitive advantage coming from our growing downstream system, which will not only help us create additional value on the trading side, but will also help us enhance optimization of our global downstream assets. Further downstream, we are also growing our lubricants business. We completed the acquisition of Valvoline's global products business, leading to a material position in finished lubricants sales volumes, taking us further down the value chain to capture additional value. We are also growing our retail business, where we acquired 100% of Esmax Fuels retailer in Chile, in South America, which is a net importer of refined products, a short position in fuels that complements our long position out of Motiva in North America, and also provides growth opportunities for Valvoline lubricants into the market. We will continue growing our retail business. In the fourth quarter, we signed definitive agreements to acquire a 40% equity stake in a fuels, lubricants, and convenience stores operator named Gas & Oil Pakistan, which will provide us with yet another short position in a growing market that is close to our long positions in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, domestically, our fuels retail joint venture with TotalEnergies continues to rebrand and grow its network in Kingdom and to expand the range of quality retail services under the Aramco and TotalEnergies branded stations. In new energies, which we have now set up as a separate organization, 2023 had good progress and strong momentum toward delivery on our energy transition strategy. In renewables, we completed the financial close of the Al Shuaibah 1 and Al Shuaibah 2 PV solar projects with our consortium partners, PIF and ACWA Power, where we hold a 30% equity stake in these projects with a combined equity capacity of around 2.7 gigawatts. So we're making steady progress towards our planned target of 12 gigawatts of renewables by 2030. We also continue our drive towards lower carbon fuels and are focusing on synthetic e-fuels and blue hydrogen and blue ammonia. In synthetic e-fuels, we are excited with the results of tests by global automaker Stellantis on Aramco-provided prototype e-fuels, and we are working with partners to build two demonstration plants, one for synthetic gasoline for light-duty passenger vehicles, and the other for synthetic diesel and jet fuel for automobiles and aircraft. In blue hydrogen and blue ammonia, we successfully delivered three shipments of accredited lower carbon ammonia in 2023 to several key markets for both fertilizer production and power generation, and we signed an agreement with Linde Engineering for testing new ammonia cracking technology. Finally, we continue to focus on carbon capture and storage, where work continues with our partners on the development of a large carbon capture and storage hub in Jubail, with a target to begin storing up to 9 million tons of CO2 per year as phase one. With that, here are our key operational and financial highlights, showing very strong results. Following our remarkable performance in 2022, we are very proud to have delivered our second-highest annual profits of our published results since 2016, at $121.3 billion. In fact, this is the second highest in company history. During the year, upstream EBIT was robust at $230.3 billion, despite 17% lower realized oil prices and 7% lower liquids production volumes. Downstream EBIT was $5.6 billion, mainly due to lower refining and chemicals margins and inventory valuation movements. Our ROACE of 22.5% stands out among industry players, especially during a period of record capital investments, where we have significant capital investments that are under construction, thereby increasing capital employed that are not yet operational to generate returns. Free cash flow was over $100 billion for the year, and our balance sheet continues to be very strong, despite executing a record capital investment program that increased capital investments by 28% to about $50 billion during 2023, and also despite an increase in dividends paid by 30% to almost $98 billion. More on dividends in a minute, but let me first provide you with our capital guidance. In 2023, capital investments, including external investments, was about $50 billion, which was in the middle of our guidance range, and our projects are pretty much on track. This was an increase of 28% from 2022, and we expect to continue to increase our capital investment program this year with the CapEx guidance of $48 billion-$58 billion, including external investments. We expect about $40 billion would be reduced over five years from our capital investment program as a result of the MSC 12 directive. As we guided before, capital investments will continue to grow until around the middle of the decade. Of course, as we always remind you, this guidance, especially the trajectory beyond this year, is based on our current set of opportunities, and in order to maximize shareholder value, we continue to review our investment opportunities, and as a result, future spend could change accordingly. This growth in capital investments is directed mainly to upstream liquids and gas, downstream liquids to chemicals, and new energies. With that, let me turn to dividends, and I'll start with a reminder of where our dividends fit within our overall financial framework. We have a robust financial framework that is based on disciplined capital investments, a clear distribution framework, and a strong balance sheet. Our priorities for cash deployment have not changed much, although in 2023, with the introduction of performance-linked dividends, we have now clearly prioritized additional distributions over further deleveraging, given the massive deleveraging that we have executed over the past couple of years. The priorities are, first and foremost, sustaining CapEx, then the base dividend that we increased this time of last year by 4% to $78 billion, and are increasing it now by another 4% to $20.3 billion for Q4 of 2023, to be paid later this month. Then come growth investments, and our guidance is $48 billion-$58 billion for 2024. Then additional distributions through performance-linked dividends, and as we've now completed the full year 2022 and 2023 performance, I will explain this in more detail in a minute. And finally, further deleveraging, which we don't expect much, this year. Zooming in on dividend distribution, in 2023, we increased distributions to shareholders by 30%, or about $23 billion, to a total payout of $98 billion. This includes a 4% increase in base dividend from $75 billion to $78 billion, and the first two payments of our performance-linked dividend totaling around $20 billion. For 2024 distributions, the base dividend to be paid in Q1 has been increased again by 4% to $20.3 billion, and the performance-linked dividend is increased by 9% over each of the previous two quarters to $10.8 billion. Combined, Q1 distributions are $31.1 billion, an increase of 6%. Now, let me take you through the calculation of the performance-linked dividends and ask that you focus on the table on the left side of this page. Based on actual performance during 2022 and 2023, and due to the more robust cash generation in Q4, total performance-linked dividend for the combined years 2022 and 2023 performance are increased to $62.8 billion. Of this total, $9.9 billion was already paid in Q3 of 2023, and another $9.9 billion was paid in Q4, leaving $43.1 billion to be paid over the four quarters of 2024, of course, subject to board approval. So we have a robust dividend distribution framework that provides comfort on the downside through a base dividend that we have demonstrated to be sustainable and progressive, and shares the annual upside through a performance-linked dividend. Before we move to Q&A, I want to leave you with a summary of our investment thesis. Aramco offers a highly attractive combination of both value and growth. This comes from multiple dimensions, from our distinctive long-term competitive strengths, our differentiated growth opportunities, our advantaged position to maximize long-term value, and our focus on returns and strong financials. With that, Amin, Peter, and I would like to take your questions. Thank you. Of course, to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When asking a question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. As a reminder, that's star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. I shall now hand back to Mr. Hutton. ...Thanks very much, Charlie. Our first question comes from Michele Della Vigna of Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, Michele. Thank you very much for the time, and really congratulations on the very strong results. It's almost... It's always fascinating to look at the scale of the numbers generated by Aramco. I wanted to delve into one part of your strategy, which is evolving, which is the LNG strategy. I think you are progressing plans of potentially taking LNG from the U.S. and from Australia. I was wondering, as you also keep growing your gas production in Saudi, do you intend to effectively become an LNG exporter in the coming years, or do you prefer to continue using that energy domestically for the industrial growth in the country? So effectively, how do you think of yourself, especially as we're entering an LNG downturn? It could be an interesting time to build an LNG business for when the current gas market reemerges from the current bear market. But, it would be great to have your views and vision on that. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Michele. For sure, we are interested in LNG, and we are investing in LNG through MidOcean and Australia, and we're looking at opportunities, as you highlighted, in the US, and we are currently in discussion with different entities with regard to that growth market for us to build capacity for LNG. In the kingdom, yes, we are growing our gas by more than 60% by 2030. There is a 1 million barrel of liquid burning in the kingdom that will be phased out by utilizing more of the gas, and there is a growth in the industry that will utilize the gas, the gas in the kingdom. However, we are utilizing also some of that gas growth for blue hydrogen, and that is of an interest to us, and we are currently, with our partner, looking at the growth and the blue hydrogen, waiting for the customer's, offtake agreement that's currently under discussion in Japan and South Korea. So most of the growth that we will be seeing in gas outside the utility for phasing out liquid burning and growth in the industry will be utilized for blue hydrogen. And, expansion for LNG will come from outside markets for the time being. Thank you, Michele. The next question comes from Iyad Gholam of NCB Capital. Congratulations on the strong results. My question is about the CapEx for 2024. It is more or less the same or even higher than 2023. Despite the fact that the MSC will remain at 12 million barrels. So can you please shed some light on what will be the additional CapEx will be, and which will be compensating the reduction of the MSC 13? CapEx. Yeah. Thank you, Iyad. Yeah, the MSC, you know, the reduction of 1 million and the $40 billion that will be reduced, it will be reduced between 2024 and 2028. We would have come with a higher guidance for 2024, but we, we offsetted that by the reduction from reduction in MSC. So, but the value for out of the $40 billion in 2024 was not significant for that reduction in MSC in 2024 in particular. Otherwise, you would have seen our guidance slightly higher than $48-$58 billion. That was our original plan. We reduced it because of the reduction in MSC. Thanks, Iyad, and apologies, of course, I said NCB Capital there. I bit of dyslexia on my front there. Next question is from Biraj Borkhataria from RBC. Biraj, go ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I've got a couple more on CapEx, if that's okay. Is it possible to give a bit more color on what the trajectory would look like after 2025? Just thinking about, you know, as on the plans as they currently stand, where Safaniya doesn't go ahead, should we expect a plateau after 25 or a drop-off as those impacts or the reductions start to come through? And then secondly, just thinking about 2024 guidance, I think in the past, when you've given the range, you've sort of indicated that the bottom end of the range is the organic budget, and then the differential to the top end is any inorganic activity that you plan to do. Is that the case for 2024, or are there any investment decisions that could drive the organic number to, you know, towards the middle or top end of the range? Thank you. Yeah, I think, Biraj, the guidance is taking... You see the big difference. Like last year, it was, the guidance was $10 billion. And taking into consideration, as you highlighted, the bottom end of the range to cover for our organic capital program, and there is a lot of investment, depending on the regulatory process and negotiation. Some of it might happen, some of it might not happen. If you noticed this in 2023, we were exactly on the middle, $49.7 billion on a range of $45 billion-$55 billion. We don't give guidance for 2025 and going beyond that one, each year on it, on its own. However, we expect to see growth in 2025 and possible in 2026. It will all depend on the opportunities and our strategy for as we have indicated, you know, we are increasing our gas by more than 60%. We are looking at LNG opportunities in the U.S. and in Australia and other parts of the world. We are also looking at new energies as we create a new organization for new energy to invest in new energies outside the kingdom. So, the middle of the decade, we indicated before, will be the peak in terms of our capital program, and you are looking at 2025-2026 in that range. Thank you, Biraj. The next question comes from Mazin Al-Sudairi of Al Rajhi Capital. As-salamu alaykum, and congratulations for this great result, 2023. My question is, what is the range of CapEx that Aramco plan to do in the coming three years? You mentioned the '24 to be a range between $48-$58, which is higher than $23, and $23 was higher than $22. So what is the range for the coming three years, despite there is any delaying or cancellation of the some upstream expansion? Thanks. Thank you, Mazin. As I highlighted earlier, we will, we only will give the guidance for this year, which is 2024, the $48-$58. And as we highlighted before, that there will be growth in 2025 and possibly 2026, but we cannot reveal the number at this stage as we are evaluating all our investment plan and the opportunities that we have at hand. But there will be growth in 2025 and possibly 2026, depending on the opportunities. Many thanks. Thank you, Mazin. The next question is from Martijn Rats of Morgan Stanley. The $40 billion of CapEx savings looks a bit higher than I think many of us would have expected. So now I know that some of the projects that are now not going ahead already had contractor bids against them. And I can imagine that they may have come in quite a bit higher than you initially expected. So that raises the question whether the $40 billion of saving that is against the CapEx that you initially expected, or whether there is an element in there of it being relative to the bids that you've received, and that might explain why that number sort of looks quite high. I was wondering if you could provide some color on that. And then the other thing I was sort of quite intrigued about is where you currently are with the refining system, as in, how, you know, how strong is it running? Is there still a lot of spare refining capacity that could be utilized, say, over the summer or balance of the year? I was hoping you could say a few words about that. Thank you, Martin. This is Ziad. On the CapEx question, the $40 billion is compared to our original plan, has nothing to do with the actual bids that came in. On refining, we continue to optimize our throughput. We do not intentionally keep any spare capacity. Whatever the economic models actually call for in order to maximize value creation, we go for. So I wouldn't say we have any spare refining capacity. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. The next question is from Christian Malek of J.P. Morgan. Hi, first of all, Mabruk, and Ramadan Kareem, to you both, Amin and Ziad. I have a few questions, and I'm sorry to sort of go back to sort of the CapEx and capacity point. For years, you've talked about strong growth in oil demand, midterm, a very positive outlook, and now you've moved from a 13 million barrel to a 12 million barrel. So my first question is, I understand the diversity of the energy proposition that you're demonstrating, but what I don't quite, sort of, not clear in my head is what's changed from a macro perspective for you to pivot to a lower oil capacity outlook and then accelerate a greater investment in gas, when it's the latter that looks far weaker on a medium-term basis, given all the projects that are coming and some from Qatar. So I don't quite sort of want to square out the industrial logic of your oil capacity move vis-a-vis gas, and particularly, kind of, what would it take for you to go back to 13 billion barrels in the event that demand, as you have said, for oil continues very strongly in the medium term? The second question I have, if I may, is regarding the oil field services impact and what you aim to achieve on pricing. And I mean that in the context of, in affiliate, there's a huge saving in terms of not continuing to invest, to grow to 11, sorry, to grow to 13 on a sustainable basis. Does that make you provide, do you think that will provide an advantage in terms of pricing power for services, in the sense that there's a lot more capacity that you can take advantage of to invest in other projects across the energy value chain? What difference will it make, given the impact it has had on service company shares, in the last few months? Thank you very much. Thank you, Christian, for your question. With regard to the MSC, it's a government decision, you know, the MSC is the government, basically, as part of the mandate, you know, they can dictate what MSC levels we should be at. We have, you know, the decision is, it came based on we carry today, our production is around 9 million. We carry close to 3 million barrels of approximately of spare capacity. So the, based on that, with that strong, spare capacity that we have and our ability to come back, if the government decide to increase, to bring the MSC back, we can respond and bring additional barrels if required. But we have ample of spare capacity currently of around 3 million barrels. Now, with regard to your question about the gas, the gas, most of it is used in the kingdom, in utility and industry. In the utility, we have almost close to 1 million barrels of liquid burning. When we avail that additional gas, we will eliminate that liquid burning. So almost 50% of the utility will be in renewable and 50% will be in gas. That 1 million barrels of additional liquid can be used for export. So we will be having additional export available by eliminating the liquid burning in the kingdom. Also, some of that gas and we get good rate of return because it's a captive market, and we are the only player here. So we are not in the LNG, where we will be impacted in that market. We are utilizing that gas mainly for industry and utility, and some of it will be utilized for blue hydrogen for certain customers. With regard to your question, I'm glad you asked about oil field services. There shouldn't be a major impact, you know. Currently, we are using close to a little bit over 300 rigs. We will be dropping a little bit, few number of offshore rigs because of canceling Safaniya. However, we are picking more offshore rigs for gas and more onshore rigs for gas. So the total number of rigs will not change. The whole thing will not have any impact on the service companies because the number of rigs we are carrying between the drop will be slightly on offshore rigs for oil and the increase for offshore rigs for gas and onshore rigs for gas will equalize. We are not going to see... Our number of rigs we carry going forward is still going to be over 300 in the future. I hope that answered your questions, because I heard a lot of discussion about the impact on service companies, and we tried to explain that there shouldn't be an impact because of the growth on the other side. Can I just ask a follow-up? If you were to go back to 13 million, let's say the kingdom decides overnight to do that, how quickly would it take for you to do that, and how much more CapEx would it take? If I can ask that question, maybe I can't, but mm-hmm. You know, depending on the government, whenever they decide, usually it takes to carry out these projects between 4 and 5 years. Don't forget that we have an ample spare capacity, so we have a lot of space- Right ... to reach to erode that spare capacity. Not to mention, as we increase the gas, there is 1 million barrels of additional liquid that will be coming with that gas, and the additional gas will also eliminate liquid burning and will avail another 1 million barrels. So we're talking about 2 million barrels, and you are carrying a spare capacity of 3 million barrels. So you do have a lot of space to respond in the future, depending on the majority shareholder decision or the government decision, if they need, if they want to expand. But usually, projects of this size takes approximately 4-5 years to bring on. But we do have a lot of capacity currently, and the 2 million I highlighted, one coming from associated liquid that is coming with gas and eliminating liquid burning in the kingdom. Thank you. Thank you, Christian. Thank you. Thank you. And the next question is from Henri Patricot of UBS. Yes. Hello, everyone. Thank you for the presentation. Two questions, please. The first one, I want to follow up on, on gas, and if you can comment on, on the returns that you expect from, your investments in that, that business, whether that has changed. And looking back, you know, versus last year, when you had a 50% increase, so you are adding, BCF a day by 2030, to which end market is that additional gas going to be, you expect? And, secondly, I wanted to ask about the, the new, energies, to which you plan to dedicate about 10% of the, of the CapEx in near term. Is that a share that you expect to grow over time, and is it subject in any way to whether you'll be getting offtake agreements for the blue ammonia and I mean the renewable space, or are you quite confident that you can do at least 10% of CapEx? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And, you know, for new opportunities, for new energies, especially the wind also, we're looking at opportunities for the time being, and when we are close to closing any of these opportunities, we will highlight the numbers. But we are actively engaged with so many partners around the world with regard to new energies. In addition to our plans in the kingdom, in solar and wind, our plan is to have 12 giga, if not more, by 2030.... we are investing in blue hydrogen, we are investing in also carbon capture and storage, e-fuel, thermal and other projects in the kingdom. With regard to gas, we looking at a double-digit rate of return, it's a captive market. Most all of our gas is being utilized in the kingdom. You want to add anything, Ziad? Yeah, I would think about it as low double digits, so 11%-12% on new increments. The way this works is, we're the only player, and we have a captive market. A lot of the benefits out of the new gas that's coming in, the gas part, not the associated liquids, is going to displace liquids, liquid burning, like Amin said. Today, we get compensated through price equalization for these liquids. So, whatever the domestic price, the difference between that and the international prices, we get compensated for by the government, we deduct from taxes. And so, since the benefits of a lot of the liquid burning displacement comes from this gas, therefore, it reduces the compensation that we get. The government then puts in a price of gas to give us this double-digit return that Amin was talking about. That's the part that is going for domestic use. And then there is the part that Amin also talked about that's going, or at least for now, earmarked for blue hydrogen, and that is a you know, blue hydrogen, blue ammonia, is going to be exported, and so that's just a regular you know gas increment. It's gonna depend on what offtake we find. But again, we're targeting you know, if it's not commercial then it's not a viable project. Got it. And just thinking about the 60% increase, this is 50% last year, the incremental one BCF a day, where do you anticipate that to come from in terms of demand? A 60% increase in demand will be all in the kingdom. As I said, we have 1 million barrels currently of liquid burning. We are utilizing mostly in the utility sector, so that will be replaced with gas. So all of our gas is currently being used in the kingdom, and even the growth will be utilized in the kingdom with only this small part that will be utilized for blue hydrogen. That's it. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you very much indeed. The next question is from Kim Fustier of HSBC. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, just going back to CapEx, could you possibly break down the $40 billion of freed up capital between CapEx that was previously allocated to Safaniya, on the one hand, and to infill drilling on the other? And are you able to quantify the impact of the CapEx reduction in infill drilling on your managed decline rate? That's the first question. Secondly, I was wondering about the East-West Pipeline. I think yesterday you said 3 million barrels a day of oil is currently going through that pipeline. I'm guessing that's more than before the start of the Red Sea disruptions, but perhaps you could confirm that. And also, I think that the pipeline's nameplate capacity is 7 million barrels a day. Would you actually be able to operate at that level if necessary? Thank you. Thank you, Kim. Just to answer the second question, yes, we can go up to 7 million when required. We are slightly above 3 million barrels currently, which is almost the same. We didn't change any thing, but we have the capacity to increase if required. Some of it, it is utilized for in existing refineries in the western part of the kingdom and the central part of the kingdom. And the rest is being exported through the Suez Canal without passing through the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb. With regard to... We don't really, we don't have, we don't share the breakdown of MSC, the $40 billion between, but we are optimizing our... You know, we have a significant budget every year for maintaining potential, and that drop in MSC or on the MSC, or the growth that we are going to see from Zuluf, Marjan, and Berri, will be used and optimized in terms of our drilling. Ziad, you want to add something? Yeah, Kim, just one thing to keep in mind, this $40 billion is not all Safaniya. So, the increments that were not FID-ed yet, which ended up being deferred, included Safaniya. We just gave it as an example, but it also includes Manifa, and the balance of everything is a- Infrastructure project to expand the terminating and all of that to go to the 30. Okay, Kim, thank you for that. The next question is from Alastair Syme of Citibank. Thanks, Peter. One more question on CapEx. So could you break down the upstream CapEx that we'll see over 60% between gas and oil, roughly? That would be helpful. And then my other question, which is on the distribution policy, I mean, you've raised the base dividend by 4%, but raised the performance-linked by 9%. You know, given the balance sheet's probably in a much stronger position than it was when you released, when you went to the performance-linked dividends. I just wanted to know how you think about allocating more to performance versus base, because, you know, that obviously has implications about how investors think about the yield relative to, say, your debt. If I include the performance link, the yield's above the debt. If I don't, then the yield's below the debt. So how should we think about that allocation? Thank you. Thank you, Alastair. On your first question, you can think of the upstream 60% as 50/50 between oil and gas. Again, this is in the short term. In the long term, you'll see upstream as a percentage of our CapEx reduced to about 50%. On your second question, the way to think about it, we did not actually, you know, make a decision to up the performance-linked dividend. We promised you that the performance-linked dividends would be 70% of free cash flow after, you know, the certain deductions. And we told you that it would cover the period of 2022 and 2023. We started paying earlier, and so we depended on the performance of year 2022 and the first half of 2023. We based it on estimates now that we ended the year. We just redid the calculation, and the calculation, because of higher cash flow generation in the fourth quarter especially, it ended up being higher, you know, $62.8 billion. We then just did the math. We deducted the $9.9 billion that's paid in Q3. We deducted the $9.9 billion that's paid in, what was paid in Q4, which left $43.1 billion. If you divide that by 4 quarters, you end up with a quarterly payment of 10.8%, which happens to be a 9% increase from what was paid in the previous two quarters. Now, that leaves the rest of the amount to be paid in the, you know, Q2, Q3, and Q4, subject, of course, to the board approval. So this may be a question for the board, but, I mean, obviously, the performance-linked dividends are to the end of this year, formally. But, you know, if the board were to consider rolling forward beyond that, as the balance sheet improves, I mean, you know, that sort of, that 70% of free cash flow, would that be something that might be considered to change? I to up the base dividend portion. So if you're asking about, if I understood you correctly, if you're asking about the performance-linked dividend range, then, you know, depending on where we are, at the end of the year, we'll, you know, the board will deliberate on decisions whether to—where in the 50%-70% range to be. If you're asking about the base dividend, the way, we do it is we base it like we've done always, you know, making sure that we can fund our, growth, program and, you know, sustain this, base dividend so that, shareholders can hopefully depend on downside resilience so that they, you know, this is sustainable. And then the progressive piece, or the progressive part of the dividend that over the years, it would, increase. We base it on a long-term view, considering the financial condition of the company, not just this year, but through the price cycle. Alastair, thank you for that one, and that brings us to the last question that we have, which is from Shashank Lanka of Bank of America. Yes, thank you for the presentation. I just have two questions. So, you know, just, you know, listening to the answers you gave us, is it fair to assume that you're still maintaining the optionality to increase your MSC to 13 million barrels per day, given, you, you're developing all the new fields that passed FID, and, you also just talk about deferring Safaniya and Manifa versus canceling them? That's the first question. The second question is, the CapEx savings that you talk about, $40 billion, is quite substantial. So just wondering if you have any views on, further shareholder distribution through that CapEx at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Shashank. We are, yes, we are bringing a number of increments, but we'll optimize our drilling accordingly because you're talking about Marjan, Berri, and Zuluf. And yes, you are right, they were about to increase the MSC gradually. However, because of our requirement for maintaining potential, we will optimize our drilling in oil to capture that and maintain the MSC at 12 million over the next four years. The decision with regard to increasing the MSC is up to the government. Now, for the time being, we are at 12 million. This is our MSC. However, we maintain the flexibility if we are asked, because we do have the reserve base by the government to increase our MSC, we can increase the MSC. But for the time being, the MSC is, will be at 12 million barrels, and whatever increments coming will be utilized as maintained potential by optimizing our drilling activities in the offshore site. On your second question, Shashank, on the $40 billion, look, our priorities on the cash are clear, so you can go through that and... That has not changed. So with the current set of plans, what I can tell you is we were not capital constrained. We are fiscally disciplined, so we've sanctioned the projects that we think create shareholder value. So to that extent, you know, it's not like we suddenly are saving $40 billion, now we're gonna allocate it to something else. But keep in mind, this $40 billion, a very, a relatively small amount of it is this year. Because it was associated with increments of conventional oil, those increments of conventional oil have a spending pattern that goes over five years, with the majority of the spending in the outer years, so a relatively small component in 2024. This also depends on the set of opportunities that we have. So, if you know, if the same set of opportunities existed, then you can work through the cash flow priorities and it would lead to, you know, additional distributions. But if other attractive opportunities come over the next couple of years, then we would make the judgment of whether we're creating more shareholder value by investing or returning. That's why we share the cash flow priorities. Shashank, thank you for that. With that one, I would like to thank everybody for joining this call from outside, also to Amin and Ziad for the presentation and the Q&A. Of course, if there's any remaining questions that you haven't had an opportunity or that come up, the investor relations team is at your service, so don't hesitate. Please give us a call. Thank you very much indeed for your time this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.