Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C. (ALBH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Aluminium Bahrain Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Eline Hilal, Director, IR. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Melanie. Good afternoon, everyone, and good morning also. We are very pleased to have you with us today to go through Alba's full year and Q4 2022 financial results. Do note that this webcast will be chaired by Alba's CEO, Mr. Ali Al Baqali; and its Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Bryan Harris, as well as myself. If we may please go to Slide 3 of the presentation in front of you. So this is the contents page. I will be covering 2 sections as always, the industry highlights and Alba's highlights for the full year, in particular for the last quarter of 2022; followed by Section #3 on Alba's full year results. This section will be covered by our Chief Financial Officer, Bryan Harris. And industry perspectives and Alba's priority for this year will be covered by Alba's CEO, Ali Al Baqali. And the for the appendix, which is the last section, this is Alba's performance, financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2022. So without further ado, we move into Page 4 of the presentation about the industry highlights. Please note that whatever we have noted over this section, it's actually extracted from CRU market intelligence. So this is not Alba's view. We read different markets intel, and we rely mainly in this section on CRU. So if we move to Page #5. As we look at the backdrop of what has happened last year, so we have seen macroeconomic uncertainty and turmoil have hit hard the aluminum industry, and we have seen the growth up by about 1% versus a good growth that we have seen over the last quarters in 2022. Overall, 2022 has been known to be a volatile year. The impact of Russia-Ukraine war, the ongoing COVID-19 concerns in China, higher energy costs in Europe, rising interest rates in the U.S. and in Europe, fears of recession and the continuous supply chain disruptions have taken their toll of the aluminum market. If we go to the Middle East. The consumption in the Middle East was up by 4% year-over-year, and that has been fueled by higher consumption in the UAE, plus 7% followed by Bahrain and KSA, 1% respectively, year-over-year. The demand in North America was relatively good, plus 2% year-over-year, supported by infrastructure spending as well as a surge in the auto and the packaging sectors, while we see a -- we have seen a shy growth into Chinese consumption, plus 1% year-over-year, owing to COVD-19 lockdowns and logistic challenges. Lower power availability and higher energy costs and inflation continue to weigh on European demand, and the consumption was down by 3% year-over-year over the course of 2022. Moving now to Page 6 for the world market supply. So as noted before, the consumption was up by about 1% year-over-year while the world market supply was up by 2%. So if we look at the supply in China, the supply in China rose by 4% year-over-year following 2021 supply cuts and delayed ramp-ups. The Middle East supply have seen a modest increase of 3% year-over-year supported by UAE production, plus 6% year-over-year; and Bahrain, plus 2% year-over-year. The European smelting industry was hit hard by escalating gas at power prices, and that has led to more curtailment in the supply, which has seen a drop of 8% year-over-year. With regards to production in the States, it was compressed due to economic slowdown, and it went down by 3% year-over-year. Today, we've noted, by the end of 2022, the world market was a deficit with China, 420,000 metric tonne; and without China, 480,000 tonnes. And with that, we move to Page 7, with regards to the LME and premium. The LME cash averaged to almost $2,700 per tonne, and that was up by 9% year-over-year versus 2021. The inventories remain low at about 450,000 tonne by the end of 2022, and this is a drop of 52% year-over-year versus year-end 2021. The LME inventory is also -- the LME inventory today are at the lowest level in 22 years, while Chinese stocks are at 6-year low. If we look at the charts at the bottom for the Major Japanese Ports, U.S. Midwest and the DDP Rotterdam, we will note that there is a common trend among the 3 charts, and the premium is raising now due to weaker demand and a bearish market sentiment. Moving further to Page 8 for alumina price. Alumina price for Q4 2022 was $370 per tonne, corresponding to 16% of the LME price, as noted precious -- as noted in the first chart. The LME price averaged $2,324 per tonne while alumina averaged $370 per tonne, and that corresponds to 16% of the LME price. This is all for Q4 2022. And with that, we move into Alba's highlights. Alba's highlights, most of these updates have been made previously public. So what you see, these are Alba's news or Alba's official disclosures. We start always in the first slide of this section, it's about safety -- safety in numbers. So you will note in the chart on your left side, this is the chart for the total injuries, recordable injuries and LTI. We have had a record in our history of Alba for the last 51 years with more than achieved 31 million safe working hours without any LTI as of 2nd October 2022. Then we had 1 LTI, which we have communicated with you in the last quarter, I think in the Q3 results webcast. So we have ended 2022 with 1 LTI, 9 recordable injuries and 32 total injuries, which as you see at the chart in front of you. Then if we move into the chart on you right side, we wanted to show you the trend of the injury frequency rate. If you take a look at the x-axis, you see this is the year. And then you will note that the frequency injury -- the injury frequency rate in terms of Alba's production -- actual production year-over-year. What's interesting in that slide is that every year, as Alba's production increase, you will believe or you will think that our injury frequency rate will increase. But no, our injury frequency rate has dropped every time Alba has increased its production year-over-year. And if you see the injury frequency rate between 2021 and 2022, you will note a 57% decrease year-over-year. And with that, we move into some of our major ESG highlights for the period. We have emphasized on collective cooperation between the GCC Smelters for Sustainable Aluminium Production at the Gulf Aluminium Dinner, which was held in November 2022. We have been the recipient of the Volunteer Service Award by INJAZ Bahrain for the second year in a row. This award speaks volume about our voluntarism of our employees in impacting their knowledge and skills to the INJAZ students. As part of our decarbonization initiative, we have supported the second phase of Bahrain's national campaign for afforestation, Forever Green. This is in line with the Bahrain's objectives for net zero by 2060. We have won the prestigious Gulf Aluminum Council Health and Safety Award 2022 in November 2022 as well. We have also awarded -- have been the recipient of 2 major environmental awards from the Green Organization. We have also launched in the last quarter of 2022 a mini plant safety and ESG campaign, which we have done on the back of the LTI, which we have had in the last quarter, and it was Back to Core Basics. We ended the year by about 4 million safe working hours without LTI. And today, we have crossed the 5 million safe working hours as of today. We have released the sixth edition of the Sustainability Report with quality assurance in January -- in early January 2023. Our SPL Treatment Plant, which I'm sure you know about, which we have commissioned back in December 2021, have exceeded its target production by 3%. So SPL Treatment Plant was meant to treat 30,000 tonne a year as a target, while what we have done in 2022 is we have treated 31,000 tonnes versus 30,000 tonnes, corresponding to 3% exceedings in our target production. We have also promoted 679 employees for over the course of 2022, the highest ever recorded in Alba's history. Moving further into this slide. So this slide is a continuation over what we have started last year. Just to recap, we have rolled our ESG road map in April of 2022 to Alba's employees. After the approval of our Board of Directors, we have also hosted the Bahrain's Bank Association to discuss further about ESG road maps and targets and how we can solicit support of the banks for Alba's ESG or green projects. We have supported the afforestation campaign for the Forever Green under Bahrain's objective for 2060. And we have launched a mini plant safety and ESG campaign, which is called Back to Core Basics on the back of the last LTI in the last quarter of 2022. If we move further to Page 13, I'm sure you have read previously our press release of the production. So we have achieved an all-time production exceeding 1,600,000 metric tonnes, which corresponds to 2.5% increase year-over-year. We have put a press release in the first week of January of the back of this achievement. As stated, Alba has never reached to that number before, and this is all owing to Line 6 Expansion Project. This is a culmination of what we have done throughout Line 6 Expansion Project. We have seen our production year-over-year. It has increased first by 50% after the commissioning and the ramp-up of the project, and we've been able to slightly creep up year-over-year to get to that target. If we move into the operational highlights slides. Our sales volume rose by 1.1% year-over-year corresponding to 1,568,134 metric tonne. Value-added sales averaged 66% of the total shipments in 2022 versus 63% for last year. In terms of -- CFO can tell you more about that in his section as he speaks about Alba's performance. We have also reached the financial close for our Power Station 5 Block 4 Project, where we have solicited $225 million from the ECA of China, SINOSURE. This is a supported facility with a 15-year tenure, including a 3-year grace period. The same has been made publicly in the last quarter of 2022. We have also appointed International Bechtel Corporation to conduct the Line 7 Projects' feasibility study. We have also been the recipient of 2 major Investor Relations awards by the Middle East Investor Relations Association. And to accelerate our digital transformation objectives, we have awarded certificates to 65 employees from different departments following their successful completion of several Industry 4.0 training courses. This also sets us a very high objective for the CEO in our aim to hit the Industry 4.0 objective. Moving further into Page 15. This is our sales breakdown in respect to our geographic footprint and our product line, a very balanced sales footprint. So we sell directly to Bahrain, about 25%; we sell to MENA, about 21%; Europe, 20%; Americas, 18%; and Asia, 16%. With respect to the product line, as noted in the previous slide, we have achieved 66% value-added products. This value-added product comprised 37% of our sales were in billets; 17% were in foundries; and 12% were in slabs; while the rest has been divided between 18% for liquid or molten aluminum and 16% for the standard or T-ingots. Moving into some high-level KPIs about our financial performance. This is for Q4 and the full year of 2022. I will do this slide very quickly because the CFO will be giving us more details about our financial performance. Our EBITDA was impacted by higher costs. For the full year, it was down by 8% year-over-year. And for the full year, EBITDA was slightly higher than $1.5 billion. As for Q4, it was down by about 63%. And this is mainly because of lower LNG prices, and the EBITDA was $222 million. For the net income, it was driven by EBITDA. So for full year, the net profit or the net income was down by 8% year-over-year, and it stood at slightly more than $1.1 billion; while for Q4, it was $105 million, down by about 80% on the back of lower LME and lower EBITDA. For the free cash flow, it was impacted by our working capital changes. So for the full year, it was slightly above $1.2 billion. And for Q4, it was $507 million, up by 64% year-over-year. Also, our Board of Directors last Thursday of the 2nd Feb have recommended a final dividend of 3 -- sorry, total -- final dividend to be paid in March 2023. The dividend payout ratio would be 40%. This is taking into consideration the interim dividend, which we have paid in the third quarter of 2022, along with the final dividend. Moving now into the AL HASSALAH slide. So this is a regular update. I'm sure as you all -- as you remember, so the HASSALAH initiative have -- it's a 2-year program and has an objective to save $100 million without the one-off savings. The one-off savings are $10 million. So if we take the one-off savings, then the objective would be to save $110 million by the end of 2022. If we take a look at the bar chart on the left side, so Alba has achieved an equivalent of savings of $115.34 million for AL HASSALAH. This is inclusive of the $10 million one-off savings. And as you will note, so we have exceeded our target by about $5.34 million. And the target was $100 million excluding the one-off and $110 million including the one-off. If you want to know more about how we have achieved the $115.34 million, let's take a look please at the pie chart on the right side. So in terms of what we have achieved from operation, as you see, it's -- the savings were mainly derived from our operations, $60.02 million. For our -- from our sales, marketing and casthouse, it's $31.86 million. From our power generation, $21.46 million. And from our raw materials and sourcing, it's $2.01 million. Moving into our share performance throughout 2022. So we have started the year in 2022 with 800 Fils. And we have ended December 2022 with BD 1.09, this is a jump of 36% year-over-year. We have seen the highest ever share price in Alba's history in 2022, and the enterprise have reached at one point BD 1.808. The share price have closed last Thursday at BD 1.2. Looking at our operational activities throughout 2022. If we take a look at the total headcount, the bar chart, we have ended the year with full-time employees with 3,146 versus 3,135 for 2021. In terms of our external workforce, it was almost the same, 1,025 in 2022 versus 1,006 in 2021. With regards to value-added sales, I have spoken about that before, so we have achieved 66% in 2022 versus 63% in 2021. In terms of volume, it was exceeding 1 million tonne versus 978,000 tonne for the previous year. In terms of accounts receivable days' trend, this is a great performance. We have managed to reduce our accounts receivable days from 55 days in 2021 to 45 days in 2022. As for the inventory days' trend, it was more or less flat, 110 days versus 109 days for the previous year. Taking a look at our net debt to EBITDA trend. So as you see, this is a year to -- this is a yearly performance trend. So 2022, we have had a net debt of $1.4 billion. Our cash was $249 million. And our net debt to EBITDA was below 1 at 0.95, that's the ratio of the net debt to EBITDA. As you see, we have been doing exceedingly well. In the last couple of years, we have seen a good drop in our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, and we have ended 2022 with less than 1 for net debt to EBITDA. And with that, I will hand over to the CFO, where the exciting news -- where you can get to hear directly from the CFO about Alba's performance over the course of 2022. The stage is your, Bryan.

Thank you very much, Eline, and thank you all for attending. It's a pleasure to be able to present Alba's full year 2022 results to you. So the overall theme, if you look at Page 22, is a volatile and weak market sentiment. That was certainly true for the last 2 quarters, so for Q3 and Q4. Obviously, we did have a very strong first half of the year. And it is good to, as a side note, see some encouraging signs for -- so far for the new year in 2023. But looking at the sales bridge. So again, this is our sales bridge that takes us from 2021 to 2022 on the right-hand side. And there were significant increases in our sales, mainly due to the strong LME and premium prices. So our metal sales rose by $727 million, so that's a 17% increase in sales and reached of this high super sales of just shy of $4.9 billion. The main contributor was LME, which increased by roughly 9% versus previous year. And so that contributed $443 million. The product mix, which is a slight reduction. And then premiums was the other big factor, a positive $240 million. And the increase in volume of $47 million. So again, Alba's highest ever revenue for a year. Looking then at the next slide. So the sales is broken down by product line. As you can see, as Eline mentioned, an improvement in VAP sale. So that contributed 65,000 metric tonnes. Liquid metal went up by 9,000, and the reduction was on the below value-adding items, the standard ingots and P1020s, which went down by 57,000. On the premiums, that went up significantly from 296 to 447. And that was -- reason for that is twofold. One, the shift from commodities to VAP in Alba as a company. And then second, obviously, the global industry shift and improvement in market premium for the year 2022 compared with 2021. Moving on to the cost side on Slide 24. So again, this is a bridge looking at our direct costs from 2021 to 2022, and those increased as well. So we saw a significant shift in revenue, but also a significant shift particularly in the raw material prices. So alumina prices as well as CPC, pitch, alloys all went up significantly. And then obviously, we had the -- because we had the higher production, we had a higher production volume as well. So cost went up due to that. So in terms of the raw material prices, so this is for alumina and coke, that rose by $408 million. The energy prices went up by $31 million. That's because the gas price for 9 months in the comparative year would have been $0.25 lower at $3.75, whereas it was $4 the full year this year. Other raw materials, so that's mainly pitch and alloys, added another $375 million. And then we had positive savings on plant spending of $20 million. So then on Slide 25, we look at EBITDA as a whole. So you can see that, that went down slightly. So $1.5 billion versus $1.6 billion. So again, this is -- although it's a reduction, it still stands as the second highest in Alba's 52-year history. So still a very strong EBITDA result. The metal sales obviously contributed $727 million more than the prior year, but that was offset by at an almost equivalent increase in cost of $721 million. And then selling expenses went up by $94 million. So this is due to the increase in prices of containers and the general increases in global prices of shipping and tracking, with fuel being significantly higher in 2022 compared with 2021. And then the selling expenses also reflects higher duties with higher LME prices. So the duties would have increased. And then with the high -- with the shift from commodities and sales to traders towards sales to final customers of that product, obviously, that means that we're paying for more [ great ] to get to those final customers. Moving on to the Slide 26, which looks at the cash flow position. You can see our opening and closing cash balances were almost identical, $248 million at the beginning of the year and $249 million at the end. We generated cash flow from operations of $1.469 billion, as there was no impact for working capital of $77 million that was mainly due to inventory increases because our raw materials were much more expensive. And so obviously, inventory values were higher as well as we did have the shift towards more VAP product. And so we're holding inventory that's on the water and in warehouses for a little bit longer than if we were simply just selling into traders upon leaving Alba. CapEx spend, excluding Line 4 -- sorry, excluding our Power Station 5 Block 4 was $159 million. And then we also spent just shy of $100 million on Block 4 CapEx. Loan repayment, so this is obviously a big, big figure. So servicing our debt was $812 million. So this included interest, but obviously, the bulk of it was repayment, so both scheduled repayments. And we also -- you will pick up from the financial statements that, in fact, we did some advanced settlements. So we settled one of our ECAs early, the [indiscernible] ECA. And we also made an early repayment of $300 million towards our corporate loan just before the end of the year. So a significant reduction then in overall debt levels. Payments to shareholders. So again, this is dividends actually paid during the year. So that includes -- that $320 million includes the $200 million final dividend for 2021 paid in Q1 2022 as well as the interim dividend that was paid in September of $120 million. So our free cash flow then actually increased significantly from $587 million in 2021 to $1.233 billion in 2022 million. So just looking at the financial summary on Slide 27. I'll just cover the full year column. So you can see an increase in the LME prices from $2,475 to $2,707. For the average alumina prices also increased significantly from $325 to $420. Revenues, a record just under $4.9 billion. EBITDA, as Eline mentioned, $1.5 billion. And net profits, $1.107 billion, so slightly under the 2021 record for net profit of $1.202 billion. So thank you very much. And with that, I'll hand over to our CEO, Mr. Ali Al Baqali to take us through the prospectus for 2023.

Thank you, Bryan, and good afternoon, good morning, everybody. I will take you through on high-level perspective on the industry perspective for 2023. The sales uncertainties in the market because of the high inflation, higher interest rates and higher disruptions in the supply chains. And definitely, the Russia and Ukraine war also has impacted the market. That's why you will see there is a lot of pressure on the premium from last year's second half until now because of these uncertainties in the market. Because of all these reasons, the market -- the surcharge the LME for 2023 between the range of $2,200 to $2,400. And if you look at today's price, the LME or the [indiscernible] price, the LME was above $2,500. If we go to raw material price trend and other major raw materials, we notice that the alumina spot price increased in quarter 1 2023, which means January and February, anticipated above $365 per metric tonne. As a rule of thumb, we are using 2 tonnes of alumina in order to produce 1 tonne of aluminum. Aluminum chloride, also it is expected and forecasted to be on the higher range. All the black materials, which is GPC, CPC and even buying the anodes, are increasing because of the oil price increase. And this is like a direct correlation between both of them. And also, there is a shortage in the supply of this black material. Liquid pitch, also one of the major raw material using it to reduce the anode. Also, the price is high because China that cut some production, and that's how the price is in the higher range, maybe above 40% compared to 2021 prices. If we move to Alba priorities for this year, 2023. Definitely, we are going to continue our safety management to accelerate more. As you are aware last year, we achieved more than 31 million hours without lost time injuries. Today, we already crossed above 5 million hours without LTI. And our theme for this year is Safety is Operating License. We already have a big campaign in [indiscernible] in January -- beginning of January, and we get the high-level objectives. And all these objectives are considering the safety aspects as a top priority for us. In terms of the ESG, definitely this year, similar to last year also, we are focusing more on the ESG initiative. And we embedded all our ESG tools and initiatives in the process regardless of the then operations or maintenance or even our day-to-day activities. We also award the solar tender for the 6 -- for about 6 megawatts. It's a small megawatt, but this shows that our seriousness in accelerating our ESG road map towards the net carbon zero by 2060. Also, there is a good progress on Block 4 for the Power Station 5. And once we did this by quarter 4 2024, definitely, it will reduce our carbon emissions almost by 5 tonnes as carbon intensity. We are also focusing to exceed the production of last year. Last year, we achieved above 1.6 million tonnes. This is our objective. Our objective is to exceed the production of last year, and we are doing [ some ] of the internal initiatives by creating our hotlines and also recycling some metals to boost our production and to reduce our carbon emissions. And definitely at AL HASSALAH, it was ended last year. However, this year, our focus also on AL HASSALAH is to maintain the saving and benefit and top up what we achieved for the last 2 years. And our intention in [indiscernible] for 2024 is to go for a new initiative, which we -- it will be targeting Industry 4.0 and other traditional savings from our new [ accounts ] as well. We are going to continue to screen the market for any opportunity for upstream in order to secure our at least 1/3 of our alumina requirements or any other strategic material also. This is put also in place. However, for the last few years, we did not succeed because of the market. I mean to me, nobody will [ see ] any opportunity at the market or if they are benefiting a lot from the alumina, but we are putting our radar and we are coordination with all these big suppliers of the existing alumina refinary because our intention is to have an existing refinery not to involve, I mean, from scratch. We want someone who has the ability, has the control in the alumina and just want to secure the offtake in order for us to protect the company from fluctuations, from the supply side and from the price side as well. This is ASI, not capitalizing as we are already certified. We are also going in the recertifications. However, we are in sync with our customers in Bahrain also to develop new alloys. This will be a new material to be a deal and to be marketed. This will open new market share for us, and we are going to secure it to standardize our alloy element. Also, we are -- as you are aware, also we award the feasibility study to Bechtel for Line 7. It will take us until September, we'll get the result. And if all the result will be encouraging, then definitely we'll have a Board approval to progress with Line 7 in order to proceed with essential feasibility study and other studies. Last slide, just for your information. And I'll mention this -- [indiscernible] I'll mention this, I share my fourth high-level objective with all Alba employees. This is just a high-level objective and all the executives and the management that will execute or that will go down with these objectives in order to make it a department and the group objective. As we said, Safety is our Operating License. This is our -- in Alba culture, if you go to any shop with your employees and you ask them about safety, they use Alba principles by heart. If someone even the contractors, they can tell you in their language. We have more 5 language translated in this manner. And people, they have a full awareness in this. As AL HASSALAH took up, this is also to encourage employees to maintain what we benefited and did in 2022, 2021. We want to maintain the same savings in 2021 to go AL HASSALAH for a new initiative in 2024. Also, since we are approaching for a new expansion, a new project to be delivered, we also want our employee to be ready to change their mindset, to accept the change and to go forward and move for these initiatives. And always, we're encouraging people to train and to educate themselves. That's why I want this year also to embed it in their mindset that don't limit yourself. Any idea is a good idea. Don't be shy or don't be afraid to share any good suggestions in order to save the company and save your department and even to protect the people in terms of safety. By this, I'm ending the presentation, and I will give the floor to Eline to receive any questions from you. Thank you very much. Eline?

Yes. Thank you, everyone. I think we will start first with the questions that we see on the webcast. The first question is with from [ Aditya Dugar ]. And the question is, why do we have a 20% year-over-year decline in staff costs in -- for the full year of 2022? And why there was a 90% year-over-year increase in freight expenses, this is from the income statement? This because revenues from Americas increased. And is the America share expected to grow? So that's the first question.

Eline, let Bryan answer the first question. We will go for the second question.

No problem.

Great. So thanks for the questions. So first question, the reduction in staff costs. Actually, this was mainly because we -- in 2021, we accrued for a bonus, but the final bonus was less than what was accrued and so there was a reversal in 2022. So that was the main contributor. And we also had very modest increases in staff costs. We kept that very tight, obviously, because the economy was quite volatile, and we wanted to make sure that Alba remain very lean. Freight expenses, as I mentioned, this is mainly because of global increases in freight rates. So container prices went up. Shipping prices went up. Oil and gas went up. And so the cost of hiring ships and hiring trucks went up. But in addition to that, as we shifted from selling to traders, where the trader would basically take it from the Alba property, we now -- in order to attract more premiums, we would sell it to the final customer. And so a higher percentage of our product, we were now shipping over to U.S. and Asia and Europe, which obviously means -- and then putting it on trucks, and so there's increase [indiscernible]. But most of the increase was because of a global industry increases in shipping costs.

Thank you, Bryan. Another question from [ Aditya Dugar ]. What was the reason for the decline in the average sales unit in Q4 2022 relative to Q4 2021?

Right. So here, we're looking specifically at Q4 2022 versus Q4 2021. So in Q4 2021, the LME price was significantly higher. That obviously stayed high in Q1 and Q2 '22. But by Q4, that has dropped dramatically. So most of the reason was a reduction in LME and also premiums themselves dropped dramatically between Q4 2021 and Q4 2022.

Okay. Thank you, Bryan. Another question from [indiscernible]. What is driving the premium above the LME price?

There are different factors driving LME above daily price. Demand and supply is the most important. If there is a shortage in the supply, this is LME, premium will be shooted up. If there is a surplus in the market, LME will be dropped. The freight cost also is driving the premium to go up. If the freight is high, definitely, the premium will be high to cover the cost. These are the major things. Even the alloys materials also. If the alloy is increasing, definitely this will be reflected in the premium price as well.

Okay. So there's one question from [ Ali Tarrif ], which I will take myself. Thank you, Ali, for sending the question. He's saying that he hopes that Q4 2022 is not alarming indicator for the year of 2023. He's having 2 questions. Why Alba did release its Sixth Edition of the Sustainability Report for the year of 2021 in January 2023? First, I want to thank you for the question, Ali. And our response is as follows: Alba is the only company in Bahrain that does audit or quality assurance on its sustainability report. After working on the sustainability report, we undergo a massive exercise in terms of auditing our qualitative and quantitative disclosure. And after that, we request the auditor to provide quality assurance on the KPIs. So for the year of 2021, we have increased the KPIs, which are to be audited. So we went from 3 KPIs, which we have audited in 2020 to 6 KPIs in 2021. Yes, we released it late. It was a learning process for us because we have increased the KPIs. And it took us more than we should to finalize this exercise. However, moving forward, we do not anticipate the same hurdles, which we have had in 2020 -- over the year of 2022, and we should be able to release the sustainability report in the last quarter of each year following the successful audit of the report. With regards to your second question, you're saying that would it be possible for Alba's profit to hit the [indiscernible] backlog again, as is the $1 billion mark, given the fact that we expect weak market sentiment and the LME price which is projected to range between $2,200 to $2,400? So I'll leave this question to the CEO to answer it.

Okay. Eline, you are right. Yes, definitely, the LME, if it stays within $2,200, $2,400, it will be not good. However, what we see on the other hand, major raw material is increasing. This is a good combination, even the [indiscernible] is increasing, but the raw materials increasing. This is to reduce the margin. We'll not be having -- as you said, maybe it's very difficult to project, but it will be very, very, very difficult to cross $1 billion criteria of the market.