Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C. (ALBH) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Aluminium Bahrain Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker, Anoop Fernandes. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Raazia. Hello, everyone. This is Anoop Fernandes. And on behalf of SICO, I welcome you all to Alba's 4Q '25 and Full Year FY '25 Results Webcast. So with us today, we have the management team from Alba, Ali Baqali, CEO; Ricardo Santana, CFO; and Eline Hilal, Director of Investor Relations. So without further delay, let me hand over the call to Eline. Eline, over to you.

Thank you, Anoop. Good afternoon to those who are joining us from the GCC and a very good morning to our participants joining in from Europe. As this is our first interaction in 2026, I trust we have had a great start to the new year. Before we start going into our presentation, I would like to extend our appreciation to Anoop and Alba's management, actually appreciation to Anoop and the entire SICO team for hosting Alba's Q4 and full year 2025 results webcast. As stated earlier by Anoop, this session will be cochaired by Alba's CEO, CFO as well as myself. We will begin this presentation by walking you through today's agenda. I will be covering the first 2 sections. The CEO will be providing you with a sneak peek into our executive summary for 2025. The CFO will then walk you through a detailed overview of Alba's full year 2025 financial performance. And last, our CEO will be sharing his outlook on the aluminum industry trends for the remainder of 2026 as well as outline Alba's key priorities moving forward. And before we move into the market fundamentals, the CEO, as stated, will walk you through the executive summary, which you may find on Slide #4.

Thank you, Eline, and good morning, good afternoon and Ramadan Kareem for everybody. First, 2025 was an exceptional year for Alba. We closed the year with a strong quarter 4 results, the highest quarter profit in Alba history as stated by our Chairman of the Board and as a press release yesterday and this is a solid foundation for 2026 target. This performance was driven by resilient earnings momentum and continuous operational excellence despite the ongoing global macroeconomic pressures. Second, Alba delivered highest record production of 1,623,139 metric tonnes in 2025, which is again, the highest production record ever in Alba's history. What makes this achievement remarkable is that we exceeded our target despite the late industrial fire happened in December '19. This reflects our team's operational resilience, discipline and cost management and solid commitment to reliability and safety. And for this, we -- today, we almost reached 44 million working safe hours with without lost time injury. Third, we continue to strengthen our ESG credentials in 2025 with the rollout of low-carbon aluminum products. Alba is as reinforcing its role as original ESG front runner. And finally, in the executive summary, I would like to go through capacity enhancement, the broader market diversification, we are building a scalable platform for sustainable long-term growth. By this, I'm concluding the executive summary for this IR presentation, and I'll hand over to Eline to go for the market outlook.

Thank you, Baqali. We will move now into Slide 6 to understand the aluminum market dynamics in terms of demand and the supply. Starting with the global economy, despite the challenges, 2025 proved to be a resilient year where inflation trends stabilized across different markets, creating a more supportive backdrop for commodity demand, including aluminum. On the policy and the trade impacts, as we all know, U.S. tariffs played a major role in shaping the market as they lifted domestic aluminum prices, tightened global supply and added more pressure on downstream margins. However, the upside in production growth remained relatively limited. On the demand front, global aluminum demand held steady, growing around 2% year-over-year. This was primarily supported by key factors such as packaging, automotive and electrical. Most regions posted mild consumption gains. More insights can be found on Slide #7, while with North America being the key outlier declining by around 3% year-over-year. On the supply side, global aluminum output rose by only 2% year-over-year. This modest growth reflects structural capacity constraints in China and slower-than-expected recovery elsewhere. Canada also saw a 1% decline due to the tariff related export adjustment. And the key takeaway on slide is we believe that market fundamentals remain favorable, disciplined supply growth and healthy sector-driven demand continue to support a constructive price environment. Moving now to Slide #8. In respect to the aluminum market dynamics, prices, inventories and premiums, starting with the LME price, LME averaged about $2,600 per ton for 2025, an increase of about 10% year-over-year. Prices were volatile throughout 2025, with Q4 ranging from a low of $2,700 to a high of $2,970 per ton. This movement was mainly driven by strong fundamentals as explained in the previous slides, fund inflows and persistent supply constraint. With respect to the inventories, global aluminum inventories declined sharply, down by 20% year-over-year to reach 509,000 metric tonnes. As for regional premiums, they remain strong overall. The U.S. Midwest premium stayed robust amid a reduced imports and ongoing destocking. European premiums, as you see in the middle chart in the bottom, saw renewed strength, driven by end user confidence and increased CBAM purchasing, while in contrast, Japan -- major Japanese ports softened due to oversupply and weaker regional sentiment. Overall, the pricing environment continues to reflect tight supply, healthy demand pockets and ongoing geopolitical influences. Continuing on Slide 9. We will notice that the LME price averaged about $2,828 per metric ton, an increase of $255 per ton compared to Q4 in 2024, while Alumina Price Index, or API, averaged $366 per ton in Q4 of 2025, down by about $200 per ton in Q4 2024. With this, we will move to the second part for Alba's major highlights in Q4. For reference, most of these updates have been released to the public throughout the last quarter of 2024, starting with safety first. Last and always on Slide 11, our safety performance continued to trend positively as we ended Q4 with 0 LTI and [ a few ] recordable injuries. And as mentioned earlier by our CEO, we have achieved 44 million safe working hours without LTI on 19th February of 2026. The next slide, Slide 12, highlights some of the key achievements, which we have had in Q4. I will read selectively, not line by line. In terms of our safety and operational excellence, Alba became the first aluminum smelter in the world to earn the British Safety Council 5-Star Rating. We have also successfully contained the power rectifier fire incident, showing an exceptional response capabilities. Then on the sustainability and environmental stewardship, we marked the National Tree Week through tree planting initiatives, and we signed a long-term MOU to secure a sustainable supply of liquid coal tar pitch. And of course, our was Power Station 5 Block 4 was recognized as Bahrain's Power Generation Project of the year at the 2025 MEED Project Awards. Moving on to Slide 14 for Alba's Q4 major operational highlights. Sales volume topped 1,613,360 tonnes delivering slight year-over-year growth despite market pressures. Our net finished production was 1,623,139 metric tonnes, the highest ever achieved in Alba's history, reflecting continued operational efficiency. In respect to our value-added products, they have accounted 74% of our total shipments with VAP sales reaching 1,196,000 metric tonnes, up by 3.3% year-over-year. As for our e-Al Hassalah, we've achieved $67.32 million in savings throughout Lean Six Sigma and artificial intelligence, exceeding our own target of 2025 of $60 million. These strong operational achievements demonstrate Alba's disciplined execution and continuous improvement across our operations. Moving on into Slide 15 for our sales by geographic footprint. As you see, we sold directly to Bahrain 30% directly to the local market, with the rest fairly distributed between Americas, 16.1%; Europe, about 27%; MENA, 17%; and Asia, 11.5%. Moving now into Slide #16 to have an overview about our sales -- sorry, Slide 15, our sales breakdown by product line. We've seen our liquid metal standing at 21%; our rolling slabs at about 13%; foundries 17.4%; billets 36%; and high-purity metal, 7%, while standard/T ingots at 5%. And with that, we move into the productivity metrics on Slide 17. Our total head count remained stable overall at about 4,347 in 2025, and that includes full-time employees as well as contractors. Value-added sales rose from 72% to 74% in 2025, demonstrating a strong shift towards higher-margin product mix. Accounts receivable days improved significantly from 54 days to 46 days, while our inventory days also improved from 113 to 105, reflecting stronger working capital management. This improvement highlights our ongoing focus again on our efficiency and commercial discipline. Last, in my section, I will go into Slide 18 for net debt to EBITDA. In this slide, we're showing you the historical trend starting from 2021 until 2025. So our net debt has declined sharply from $2.2 billion in 2021 to about $565 million in 2025. Cash on hand has also improved to $409 million. And most importantly, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio dropped from 1.36x in 2021 to just 0.52x in 2025. This places Alba as one of -- in one of its strongest balance sheet position, giving us more flexibility to pursue future growth opportunities. With that, I have concluded my part and will now hand over to our CFO, who will walk us through our full year 2025 financial performance.

Thank you, Eline. Much appreciated. Once again, I'm very happy to [ be here ] with our investors community. So good morning and good afternoon to all. As a context to our results, a short summary saying that 2025 was another year of records and solid performance for Alba. As previously highlighted in our presentation, we continued our outstanding safety performance by achieving the third consecutive year without lost time injuries, which makes us very proud that safety is the top priority for our organization. In 2025, we have achieved record finished goods production, record total sales and record value-added product sales, which allowed us to obtain access to higher margins. We closed the year with the highest quarterly profit in Alba's history, achieved in Q4 2025, $289 million of profit. We also achieved a very strong balance sheet and outstanding financial results despite the incident in one of our active farms. Going through the slide, Page 20. We see an increase of 10% in our revenues when we compare the figures from 2024, $4.3 billion roughly against $4.7 billion in 2025. The main factors from that is initially LME with a positive impact of $334 million. This reflects reliable operations, enabling us the possibility of benefits of almost $200 increase on the commodity price. We also see an increase in premiums, which positively affected our results to $95 million, as previously explained by Eline. It mainly comes from the Midwest premium. We also see higher VAP -- higher -- improved product mix due to higher VAP sales with a positive impact of $8 million on our revenue and $4 million of higher sales, we sold 1,000 tonnes additional compared to previous year. If we go to the next slide, Page 21, we can see a drill down on our sales. So we sold, as I mentioned before, 1,000 additional tonnes compared to previous year. 39,000 tonnes higher than previous year on value-added products, which again allows us access to higher margins. We supported our domestic industry with 24 additional 1,000 tonnes of liquid metal and both at the expense of commodity [ products, ] which have lower margin. At the right, you can see the premium increase of around 24% from $268 per metric ton against $332 per metric ton, again, mainly as a consequence of the increase of the premium in the U.S. Going to the next slide, Page 22. Our costs have roughly increased within 10%, so [ $3.2 ] billion in 2024 against [ $3.5 ] billion roughly in 2025. We see that the key element for this increase is related to major raw material prices, namely alumina. You might remember that mainly on the beginning of this year -- of the year of 2025, aluminum was being traded, basically, at the double of the price that we are trading today. At the same time, part of this impact was offset by a lower consumption of major raw materials, mainly green pet coke by the efficiencies on the power plant as the implementation -- as a result of the implementation of Block 4, decreasing our energy consumption. And we have some increase related to other raw materials, mainly the CPC imports with a negative impact of $9 million in our results. In the year of 2025, we have not had any sales of alumina. Therefore, you see a positive impact on our cost compared to previous year. And we also see an impact of $156 million of inventory absorption, which can be divided in 2 main factors. One is simply timing on the consumption of the inventories of alumina. So this is $73 million impact. And again, this is related to the fact that alumina prices were much higher in the beginning of the year, and we then consuming the inventories from the previous period in this year and at the same time, around $80 million related to higher costs as an impact of the tariffs in U.S. Important to mention that this tariff impacts were more than offset by the higher premium in U.S. Therefore, our entity in U.S. has a positive result of about $20 million. Others are mainly $14 million. It's mainly related to the euro appreciation impacting positively [indiscernible]. If you go to the next slide, Page 23, we can see that in summary, our EBITDA increases around 15% from #939 million in 2024 to $1.078 billion in 2025. $141 million come from the revenues as previously explained as a result of aluminum premium in Bahrain. We did not have any sales of alumina in 2025. And obviously, we have a negative impact compared to previous year. But if we see on the year, this $23 million, they simply offset the positive impact in the Page 22, therefore, impact in terms of alumina sales in our results in 2025. Our direct costs, as previously explained, were mainly impacted by higher alumina prices over the year. And we also had a positive impact on selling expenses, mainly related to lower shipment costs in 2025. If we go to the next page, Page 24, very positive cash flow for the year. We start the year with around $300 million in our bank account. We generate $1.1 billion from our operations. We had a minimal price impact on working capital mainly related to alumina -- sorry, to LME at the end of the year, where LME has increased compared to previous year. We had working capital change, minimal impact, mainly related to inventories. CapEx expense around $284 million for the year, divided between refining, maintenance and some growth CapEx as well. Financing, we basically followed our normal -- our ordinary program in terms of repayment of our corporate loan. And at the same time, because of cash availability, we decreased considerably our position in terms of short-term loan. We paid to our shareholders during the year 2025, $140 million of dividend. In the right side, you can see that in 2025, operating investing cash flow [indiscernible] $765 million for the year. If you go to the next slide, this is a simple summary where you can see the key data, our key performance indicators. We see, as we discussed, the positive impact on the revenue, a healthy EBITDA despite the challenges on alumina. Profits, as I mentioned, $289 million in Q4. In fiscal year 2025, in fact, $582 million. So a very strong year in terms of results. And you can see at the end at the bottom, the key drivers for our results, LME and alumina. With this, we will listen to now our CEO that will talk about the industry perspective.

Thank you, Ricardo, for your update on the financial metrics. Moving to Slide 27, which is industry perspective. What we see actually 2026, if we loot at it, it will be a year of still, I think -- or I believe it will be a strong despite a lot of challenges in terms of the geopolitics, in terms of the macroeconomics. However, if we look at the prices, CRU, they are expecting the price to be within the range of $2,650 to $2,750. However, if you look at today's price is above $3,000. And my personal opinion, I think the price will be above $3,000 or between $2,900 till quarter 3 of this year, then maybe quarter 4 because normally the customers and others, the demand will slow down, then maybe this will put pressure on the price to go below the level of $3,000, which is maybe it will meet the CRU expectation. Demand is good. There is a consumption, but also at the same time, because of the supply disruptions, especially China, they reached to the cap of their production. This will put some pressure on the supply side. And if you look at this stage, if you look at the supply, the market with China, it's balanced, but without China, it's deficit, mainly in Europe and in U.S. The premium, we noticed that the premium is reflecting with this market fundamentals. If we look at the premium in the Midwest in U.S., you will see that it's reaching more than $2,100, which is reflecting the full tariff of the [ 50% ] at the moment from the U.S. If you look at the MJP, which is the regional index for Asia, also, it's around $195 for quarter 1, and this is actually -- it's high. Typically, the MJP is in the range of $100 to $130 per metric ton. If we look at U.S. sorry, [indiscernible] the European index also, we see there's a big jump on that. This is all because of the market -- adaptation to the market fundamentals. If we move to Slide #28 regarding the input materials, actually 2025, and we are still in the same momentum. If you look at the alumina price compared to the -- price is almost 10% or low. This is -- I've never seen this in my working in the industry. And typically, this is good for us, but I don't think this -- it will continue forever till the market continue -- till the market is in surplus, especially the alumina starts reducing in Indonesia and other states, but [ reduced ] also due to expected closures of Mozal. This also will [indiscernible] some alumina in the market, which will make the price almost with the same level or lower. From the carbon, what I see the price is almost stable, similar to the last year 2025, liquid pitch also almost same. And if you look all these things, the black material, we call it, is almost there are some correlation between these prices with the oil price. Aluminum fluoride, almost it's in the higher trend, it will be than 2025, but this is manageable compared to the cost. Moving to Alba priorities, actually, the top priority for Alba is to maintain our safety performance, and this is the major target for us. We want to sustain our 5-star certification. And we have Ramadan today, definitely we have out of challenge. We're doing a lot of campaign in order to sustain our safety. In terms of growth, hopefully, this year, despite the interruptions in our production from the fire incident last year, we are targeting to exceed the production of 2025. And in terms of AL HASSALAH, we are entering the program this year. And hopefully, there is no red flag in our program, and we are managing the program very well with a lot of saving either benefit in the EBITDA or saving directly in the bottom line. If we look at our strategic growth, we almost completed the feasibility study of a new replacement line across the 3 estimate, and we have some final touch. And definitely in the next Board meeting, we'll have the clarity to go ahead and to proceed or not on the funding of the feasibility study. Lastly, I have -- the last slide I would like to share with all of you. This is my objective for 2026. I select 4 objectives. These are the theme for my objective. But after that, every executive, all directors, managers, they will take these objectives and they draw down the objected from their area. Safety 5 star, this is one of the objectives we want to maintain the 5 star certifications and to have the 0 LTI for the third year, consecutive year [Foreign Language] in 2026. Think global, we are -- this is actually a team of -- not to look Alba as a local industry, but to look at it from different regions, and we have a lot of initiatives to think global in order to change our culture platform. E-Al Hassalah, this is the last program in AL HASSALAH to achieve the $130 million. And lastly, the objective of the skill level. Our objective this year is to inject more women inside the [indiscernible] and the operation area to support the women and to put an equalization between men and women. And to have this, we have to do a lot of things in order to make the foundation right for the ladies to have a good timing for their wellbeing. By this, I end the presentation for today, and then we'll leave the floor for any questions from your side. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions]. We are now going to proceed with our first question, and the questions come from the line of Shashi Shekhar from Citi.

Yes. Congratulations on an excellent set of results. I have a couple of questions. First, could you please provide me an update on the feasibility study of the new replacement lines and also the update on the DMTT tax implications? And second, are you contemplating any capacity expansion given the net debt levels have reduced drastically and aluminum prices are at higher levels?

Okay. For the new replacement line actually for the feasibility study, as I stated earlier, we are at the final stage of concluding the feasibility study. In the last Board meetings -- not this Board meeting, but in the last -- in November. In November, we requested our practice to give us like final tuning based on the Board of Directors' comment. And that job requires at least 6 months to finalize that. At the same time, also, we are in progress to work with the [indiscernible] study to see how we are going to finance. By next Board meeting, we have a clear [ visibility ] on how we are going to finance and how we are going to proceed with the new replacement line, to proceed or not to proceed. What is the second question? From the DMTT side, we continue working with [ MBR. ] At this stage so far taking into consideration the regulation that was published, no DMTT is considering our [ P&L. ] There was a third question, right? So can you repeat the third question, please?

Sure. My second question was, are you contemplating any capacity expansion project given net debt has declined substantially and aluminum prices are at higher prices? So I'm expecting a FCF generations going forward?

Yes. This is [indiscernible] the new replacement line. As we stated that this -- if we go ahead, it will increase our capacity by 380,000 metric tonnes approximately, okay? But provided that, we have to maybe close the old line, line 1 and 2 and 3.

Shashi, what I would recognize, as stated by our CEO, the current feasibility study that the Board has mandated [indiscernible] in their meeting last November is not yet completed. And the feasibility study was started, and it's actually in progress in parallel as we try to complete the feasibility study. So at the moment, we have not provided updates during the Board because the new update will be coming in May Board meeting. And as such, our management will be having more clarity. Hopefully to address your question and answers by our CEO, we will have, hopefully, the feasibility study fully completed. We will have a gist about the feasibility study, how to proceed, how to finance. And accordingly, our Board of Directors will be in a position to either recommend or not to recommend to proceed with the new replacement line.

We are now going to proceed with our next question, and the questions come from the line of Aakarsh Tomar from SICO.

This is Aakarsh Tomar from SICO Investment Bank, Bahrain. Congratulations on a great set of results. I have a question on the premiums that are currently there. So first is on U.S. premiums, though you have higher premiums, but there are tariffs also, right? So what is currently the net impact on your profits that you are making? Are you making the same as you used to that the tariff is being offset by the higher premium? Or is there a net loss kind of situation there? And the second question is also on premiums on the European premiums of the CBAM impact. So where is Alba placed in terms of CBAM? Like do you qualify for the cross-border tax mechanism? Or how will that impact your profits? These 2 questions, please.

Okay. On the first question related to U.S., in fact, it's -- thanks for asking that because it gives us the opportunity to recognize a very strong year that we had in U.S. So our sales team achieved, in fact, the record performance in the U.S. And despite all market volatility in the year, the impact, we managed to offset -- more than offset the impacts of the tariffs as the premium has increased significantly. And in fact, we had a positive impact -- net impact over the year, estimated around $20 million positive in U.S. So it's, in fact, a very good start for the year despite the market volatility. In terms of GDP and in terms of CBAM, as you know, it's very new in terms of the impact. We cannot yet do any type of prediction of what will happen. This time, definitely, we expect that GDP will increase with the CBAM implementation, but this is something that we need to see how it unfolds during this year. So far, we are prepared. We are very strong in Europe. We have a very skilled team, and we are present in Europe, and we are very well positioned to take benefit of this improved GDP.

We have no further questions on the phone line. So I'll hand back to you for the webcast questions.

Thank you. So we have a question from Jose [indiscernible]. Do we see any increased demand as a result of increased AI and data center investments across different markets?

Definitely, aluminum is the preferred metal in the market. Any expansion in terms of AI or any data specifically need aluminum also. Aluminum a crucial part for this. I'm expecting, yes, if there is an increase in AI or data center increase on aluminum demand also.

Thank you, [indiscernible]. One question from [indiscernible]. Congratulations on the fantastic performance. Given the current environment pricing, it looks like we are likely to generate a lot of cash flow in 2026. Given the balance sheet looks very healthy, how do you think about dividends versus further deleverage?

See, thanks for the question. Definitely, as you mentioned, we have a very strong balance sheet. We are -- as Ali mentioned and Eline mentioned, we are working on the projects of NRL, and we have some projects ahead. We'll be during the year assessing the situation. And we obviously take into consideration that we -- all the opportunities should deleverage and to ensure that we'll be using the cheapest available low interest rates in the market. So at this stage, what I can say is it depends on how the projects will proceed if we get the green light or not on this project. But definitely, we'll be considering all possible scenarios for the year in terms of deleverage, okay?

Thank you, Ricardo. One question from [indiscernible], which we have already tackled. An update on the new replacement line and what is the range of CapEx? At the moment, the CapEx is not yet clear to us. So hopefully, we'll be able to answer this question in a better way following our Board's meeting in May once we have better clarity on the feasibility study and the bank feasibility study. With that, we move to one question from Dan [indiscernible]. What explains the quarter-over-quarter sluggishness in sales volume 440,000 metric tonnes in 2025 Q4 versus 414,000 metric tonnes in Q3 2025. While historically, Q4 was higher than the third quarter. Why was also there is a decline in the VAP sales volume from 388,000 to 298,000 quarter-over-quarter?

'25 was a year of records for both VAP sales and also for total sales. And this year, we had a very strong start. So the main impact related to Q4 is, in fact, the timing impact. We don't foresee any specific challenge in terms of demand. We see very [indiscernible] individual, but nothing that impacts our view in the future. At the end of the day, what really matters is that we achieved record sales on VAP and total sales, and we had a more balanced sales profile over the year.

Thank you, Ricardo. One more question from [indiscernible]. Given that Q4 2025 alumina price was $366 per ton and now hovers around $310 per ton. Should we expect further decline in cash costs in Q1 2026?

As explained in other calls, we have a profile in terms of alumina costs, which takes around 3 months, 4 months, depending on the profile of the sales as well, that the price impacts our results. We do not share any type of prediction in terms of cash costs or any other line. But I can say that your statement makes sense. So it can be considered as a fair statement, okay?

One more question from Dan. The second half of 2025 earnings grew by about 92% year-over-year, while the announced dividend increased only by 65% year-over-year. What explains your conservatism on dividends? And if the feasibility falls through, could the interim dividend be higher than $62 million as announced and EBITDA as announced last year -- as announced, sorry now?

Okay. In summary, we have been consistent in terms of payments of dividends. We are considering 35% of payout ratio. So that's basically we have been paying over the last years. So if you see, obviously, there is a disconnect when you consider the year cash flow because we paid earlier in this year part of dividends from the previous year. But once you look -- take into consideration the net income for each half, you'll see that we're very consistent when we have our payout ratio of 35%.

What would be the impact -- also one question from [indiscernible]. What would be the impact expected from the new utility prices, which is the gas price in the Bahrain?

Yes. As we stated before, we have FX rate price for the gas contract. And till now, we didn't receive any notification from the government or from the SEC authority to increase the gas price.

The same question was also flagged by [ Hassan ] in addition to one more question about the introduction of the corporate income tax.

Yes. In terms of corporate tax, [indiscernible] has already talked about the gas price. So talking about the corporate tax, we are following with NPR, the legislation. We don't foresee based on what was published so far, any impact which is part of 2026. We see what will come in terms of legislation over the year, but no impact at '26 at least.

Another question by Dan. Why was such a pronounced decline in natural gas costs in the last quarter of 2025, down quarter-over-quarter or 14% down year-over-year per tonne of aluminum -- of produced aluminum?

Because our gas consumption in quarter 4 because of the incident in December declined. That's why we have a lower cost of the gas.

One question flagged by Amir is from National Bank of Kuwait. How do we think about the dividend payout for 2026? I think our Chief Financial Officer stated that our dividend payout ratio is 35%. So that was answered before.

But it depends on our profitability...

Yes. How high is the LNG price. The same question also was flagged by Dan. So I don't think we will cover it again. So at the moment, we're waiting for the regulation. One question from Ajith. Given that Alba has a very comfortable debt to EBITDA, is the company considering an increase in dividend amount and/or frequency and perhaps a special dividend to reward shareholders on the back of the increase in aluminum prices?

We have discussed that before, right? So we have some projects in front of us. We'll see how the year unfolds. But At this stage, no projections of any extra dividend.

And by the way, this is like smelting industry, the 35% payout ratio is [indiscernible] ratio.

Yes. From a benchmark perspective, you guys know very well that it's very fair.

You should also look at our dividend. Our dividend is was also very high in additional to the payout ratio. One question from Mohammad. AL HASSALAH program performed quite well last year, and this year's target is ambitious relatively. Why would 2026 be last year and not continue?

No, the last year for this program. But definitely, as the management, we have our own new program to launch its own. We are in the preparation of that. And definitely, we are going to share with you once we get a Board approval on it and before we launch it [Foreign Language]. It will be continuous, and continuous improvement always will be there.

Thank you, [indiscernible]. One question from Johannes. Are there any plans to change the listing cross listing in JSE and/or increase the free float?

This is a shareholder matter, actually, but what we are doing it's already in our radar, but [indiscernible] for the shareholders.

Last question, you were linked with the sale of aluminum [indiscernible]. Would you consider M&A to buy capacity...

Actually, this is a rumor. There is no official press from us. We don't have any information on this.

No, we have -- to just to add...

But in terms of considering an M&A in future, yes, we are -- part of our strategy is to grow inorganic. But at this stage, we don't have anything in our hands.

We don't entertain -- we do not entertain market rumors.

Yes. Eline and management, just one question from my side. This is Anoop. Regarding the December incident, is the production now back to normal? Is it 100% now? And was there any impact on the costs, one-off maintenance or that cost bump in the fourth quarter? And do you expect to receive insurance payments for whatever production was -- must have been lost or any issues that surfaced during that time because of the disruption?

Yes, Anoop, as you are aware that it happened to one of the R42 transformer, okay? It's a big fire. It took us a few hours to fight the fire. Definitely, it affect our production in December. But because we are ahead of the production, we meet the target. Now we are in recovery stage. There is some impact, but it's already insured and covered by insurance fully. And we are expecting to get some insurance this year, yes, you are right.

We have no further questions at this time on the phone line or on the webcast. So I'll hand back to you for closing remarks.

Thank you very much for hosting the call. I would like also to thank on behalf of Alba's management, the CEO and the CFO, everyone who took the time today to join us for our webcast. We trust that we have answered your questions, and you found today's webcast constructive. We will stay in touch for sure. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to drop us an e-mail at [email protected] or [email protected] and we shall address it. And until next time, we hope you keep well and safe, and we will see you again or we'll hear from you again in our upcoming webcast for Q1 2026 financial results. Thank you very much, and have a lovely day.

Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you, and have a good rest of your day.