Ampol Limited (ALD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Ampol Limited Half Year Results Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Matt Halliday, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Matt Halliday. I'm the Managing Director and CEO of Ampol Limited, and welcome to our 2023 half-year results call. I'm joined by our CFO, Greg Barnes, who will discuss the financial results in more detail and following the presentation, we'll take your questions. Also joining us on the call today are Brent Merrick, Andrew Brewer, Kate Thomson and Lindis Jones who's taken over as EGM for Z Energy. During the presentation, we'll be referring to the documents lodged with the ASX and the NZX this morning. I'll start out now with our safety performance on Slide 3. As you know, personal safety remains a key focus for all of us at Ampol. I'm pleased to report that, we are either at or close to our best ever performance levels in all parts of the business. But it's important that we remain vigilant to ensure everyone goes home safely at the end of their day's work. Our annual safety improvement plans are effective in strengthening key controls and driving continuous improvement in performance. And it was particularly pleasing to see the safe execution of the repairs to the FCC slide valve at Lytton, noting the elevated risk that arises in undertaking work with less preparation time and at the heights involved. When it comes to process safety, we have again extended our run of no Tier 1 process incidents, a track record we have maintained now since October 2018. And our comprehensive Spill Prevention program, which includes working closely with our carrier partners has now been embedded into business as usual. Turning now to the performance highlights on Slide 4. Looking at our financials first, we've delivered another strong performance. RCOP EBITDA was $798 million and RCOP EBIT was $576 million. We saw all parts of the integrated value chain contribute to this result with strong performances from the non-refining businesses of F&I, Convenience Retail and Z Energy. Lytton's performance was impacted by the outage to repair the FCC slide valve, while refiner margins also eased from the record levels we saw in the first half of last year. Statutory NPAT was $79 million, primarily due to inventory losses as crude and product prices declined through the half. Total fuel sales increased to 14.4 billion liters, which is our highest ever volume for a half, due mainly to the ongoing recovery we've seen in jet fuel sales, the addition of Z Energy and ongoing growth in international sales. Leverage was at 1.8x on a last 12 months basis and net borrowings were just below $2.4 billion, which Greg will talk to more in a moment. The strength of our financial performance, the balance sheet and the outlook has given the Board confidence to declare an ordinary interim dividend of $0.95 per share, representing a payout ratio of 69% of RCOP NPAT, excluding significant items. This is towards the top of our payout range. The interim dividend that's been declared releases a further $97 million of franking credits as we continue to meet our commitment to shareholders to release available franking credits in the most efficient manner. Turning now to our strategic priorities, the strong performance of the business reflects the ongoing delivery of our strategic objectives. This includes continuing to build our international and retail capabilities that provide strong foundations for further growth. The key achievements this half include the delivery of the Z Energy benefits and synergies on an exit run rate basis, the opening of the Pheasants Nest highway sites and the expansion of the on-the-go EV charging networks across both Australia and New Zealand. Earlier this year, we released our refreshed sustainability strategy, which continues the Ampol sustainability journey. The strategy covers 5 focus areas and sets targets out to 2025 and looks to longer term goals out to 2030. The focus areas are wellbeing and inclusive workplaces, indigenous partnerships, supporting communities and nature, circular economy and de-carbonization. Our support of the communities in which we operate continues, as does our focus on safety. In Australia we celebrated 25 years supporting the Westpac rescue helicopter, contributing to community safety, and in New Zealand Z responded to the impacts of the extreme weather events in the first quarter, contributing New Zealand $65,000 to the response and of course ensuring essential supplies were available to affected regions. Turning now to Slide 5, the benefits of our integrated supply chain were on show again this half as we responded to the unplanned FCC outage in Australia and extreme weather in New Zealand. We were able to maintain secure supply to our customers and at the same time deliver another strong financial result. Earnings were more than double that of the first half 2021 and in line with the second half last year at an RCOP EBIT level, albeit they were down compared to the record first half we saw last year. Pleasingly, the result demonstrates a much stronger composition of earnings reflecting the strength and quality of the business right across the value chain. Total sales volumes are the highest they have ever been for a first half and the improvement in Australian and New Zealand volumes is tracking well as the COVID recovery continues. I'll now hand over to Greg to take you through the details of the group and segment performance.

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. We'll go to Slide 7 where you can see the details behind the fuel sales volumes. Group volumes were up 25% to 14.4 billion liters, inclusive of a full 6 months of Z energy of 2.2 billion liters for the period. While we didn't own Z for the full 6 months of the first half in 2022, its volumes were up 23% on a like-for-like comparison for the full 6 months. Australian wholesale volumes grew 17% with growth across petrol, diesel and particularly jet fuel as air travel continued its recovery. Convenience retail fuel sales grew 1.1% at a headline level and 2.7% on a like-for-like basis after adjusting for network changes. Taking both these markets into account, the combined Australian sales grew 13%. International sales were up 10% due to increased crude and product sales, including the one-off sale of FCCU feed in response to the outage we had at Lytton. Sales through the U.S. operation also rose. We turn to Slide 8. You can see our results. In July last year, we sold Gull and for the purposes of this slide, it's shown in the comparative half as a discontinued operation. So with that, RCOP EBIT for the group was $576 million, which is a very strong result, particularly given the unplanned refining outage. To put that into context, it is more than double the first half in 2021 and it's in line with the second half result last year and therefore equal to our second strongest half ever. In terms of year-on-year performance, we're comping a period of refining margins, which when combined with the impact of the refining outage this year, saw us down 17% on a continuing basis. The overall result reinforces the strength of our value chain and our ability to manage what we can control. You can see here, we had strong growth on a continuing basis from F&I Ex Lytton, convenience retail and we benefit from both a strong performance and a full 6 months contribution of Z Energy in our New Zealand segment. I'm going to talk more to each of these segments in a moment. Just on this slide, we reported an RCOP impact of $330 million and a statutory impact of $79 million. The statutory result includes $220 million of inventory losses after tax, reflecting the adjustment to bring cost of sales to the historic cost for statutory accounting purposes in the period, where refined product prices trended down over the period. It also includes significant items of $30 million after tax, the bulk of which relates to unrealized losses from the mark-to-market of our power purchase agreement in New Zealand and you should note we had a much larger gain in the previous period. Slide 9, the waterfall there shows the key movements in group EBITDA and EBIT. This slide reflects continuing operations only, and therefore, we've excluded goal from the comparative just to simplify. We've obviously experienced an extraordinary period of refining margins in the first half of last year, which this graph highlights. However, what's really pleasing as a result -- in the result is how well our sourcing, distribution and retail businesses are performing. Each of the teams have done a terrific job of operating in some pretty challenging markets. So I'm going to step through those in the next few slides. But on this slide, you can see we continued to invest in future energy. We're doing this very much in a measured and targeted way, and we've made some really good progress in e-mobility in particular. The spend this half is consistent with the run rate in the second half of last year, which was the guidance we provided at year-end. And Matt is going to update you on the progress the team are making later in the presentation. So Slide 10 looks at the F&I result in more detail. As I've said, and I think Matt commented as well, the quality of the result was particularly pleasing, including within F&I. I'll talk to some of the specific components of F&I Ex Lytton in a moment where we had really a strong performance across the board, be it distribution, supply into Australia or in our international business. On Lytton specifically, the refiner margin averaged USD 10.29 per barrel for the half, and it includes the impact of the FCCU outage in the second quarter. Refining margins were USD 4.90 per barrel for the first quarter and USD 5.66 per barrel for the second quarter, with the second quarter impacted by both weaker Singapore cracks and the mix of product we're able to produce during the outage. I mean, Matt noted this earlier, but we're really pleased with how the team responded to the repair and to the demands on our supply chain to ensure there were no impact on our customers. The refinery was back in full operation in June. Refining margins also recovered to USD 12.69 per barrel in the month of June, and they've strengthened further in July and further again in August to date. So on Slide 11, just to step through some of the key components of the balance of F&I. Collectively, EBIT grew 54% compared to the same time last year on a continuing basis. It's also 35% higher than pre-COVID levels on a continuing basis. As always, there's a number of moving parts in this part of the business. In Australia, we saw increased volumes largely from aviation recovery and a more favorable buy sell balance. Margins improved as markets rebalanced post Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which in turn reduced the volatility in quality premiums. The team has also made significant progress in improving both commercial terms and risk management practices to reduce the impact of this sort of volatility. As I mentioned earlier, supply benefits provided some mitigation for the refinery outage and the Singapore team we're also able to price risk manage effectively. In international, we also -- it also made a significant contribution to the group's performance. And if you look at that slide and back in prior years, you can see it's really grown to be a meaningful contributor to group results. Within this performance, I'll just highlight a few things. Sales, particularly of diesel to third-party customers was strong over the period. The team continues to generate incremental margin through sourcing of components and blending of fuel, a capability the Singapore team has really built out in recent years. We've also continued to build our capability in sea freight trading, including increased utilization of time chartered vessels. While this is first and foremost, a risk management initiative, it is also a meaningful contributor to the result. And as I mentioned earlier, we saw a strong performance in the U.S. trading office, which contributed directly to group profit through crude sourcing in particular. Being situated in the world's largest oil market, the office is also contributing significantly to the broader team's understanding of global dynamics and therefore, its performance more broadly. As I discussed earlier, the international business did benefit from a one-off sale of FCCU feed as a result of the outage. Slide 12, we just look at our KPIs on convenience retail. It's been another really strong performance in retail this period and Kate and the team are really delivering very consistent improvements across our network. As you can see, we're providing with a little bit more information than we normally do, just to assist you with the modeling and understanding of the business. From a results perspective, strong operational execution was compounded by a more favorable retail fueling environment for the half. These factors combined to produce a 31% increase in earnings this year. Total fuel -- retail fuel volumes were 1.9 billion liters. That's up 2.7% on a like-for-like basis. Pleasingly, premium fuel sales penetration increased by 2 percentage points to 53.2% for the period. The prior year was impacted by very high board price, as you might recall, in the first half last year. But pleasingly, the result is also up compared to the first half in 2021, where it was 52.6%. And I think that's a really good reflection of how well the brand is performing. The good progress in shop performance continued. To give you more color, we've presented shop sales this period on a pre and post tobacco basis. And the number we're most focused on is ex-tobacco, where shop sales grew by 5.6% on a like-for-like basis. Tobacco sales fell by about 19% during the period as the cost of this high-value product to consumers sent demand into nontraditional markets and to things like vapes. Sales in the more immediate consumption areas such as coffee, snacks, beverages, may continue to grow in both volume and value terms. This was supportive of underlying growth in sales as well as gross margin and average basket value, which is a measure we're particularly pleased with. Our network rationalization is essentially complete. 643 stores remain in the company controlled network. That's a reduction in store count of 3.7%. And obviously, the benefits of this are playing out in improved profitability. You'll also see in our release today that Woolworths and Ampol have mutually agreed to cease expansion of the MetroGo store model. The initial 50-store pilot or rollout has been the subject of review this period. And at the end of the day, returns were simply not meeting either parties' expectations. As a result, the existing stores will be rebranded to further in the months ahead, and we'll continue to partner with Woolworths on Everyday Rewards loyalty and redemptions. Matt will talk more to this in a moment, but it fair to say that this decision gives us greater flexibility over our network and how we execute the next phase of our strategy. Okay. Slide 13 just shows some trends in key metrics really since the transformation began of our retail operations. You can see the marked improvement in gross margin and the growth in sale of other products as our reliance on tobacco sales is reduced. You can also see that improvement I spoke to a moment ago in average basket value, which has been very consistent. The impact of network rationalization is most pronounced in fuel sales volumes as the network has been rationalized down from nearly 800 stores in 2019 to the 643 we have today. We're really pleased with the progress and quality of the network, the capability we now have in the organization and we really feel set up to take the next steps. But it's selectively growing our premium store footprint, increasing QSRs on our network where it makes sense and exploring a more tiered approach to our offer. Slide 14, you can see the contribution to improvement in those convenience retail earnings. After a pretty challenging retail fuel environment in the first half last year, conditions were much more favorable this half. As I mentioned, the strong shop performance continued with an increase of $2 million despite the tobacco decline. And I could also see here, we've successfully managed an increase in electricity costs and the resumption of normal marketing activity following our rebrand. So turning to the New Zealand segment on Slide 15. The segment includes the contribution from both Z Energy and the trading and shipping contribution from our supply chain. The acquisition of Z Energy completed on the 10th of May 2022 and so we only have 2 months in the comparator here. We're obviously very happy with the business, and we're delighted with how the management team have delivered on the benefits and synergies expected, including the transition to Ampol supply. Total fuel sales were 2.2 billion liters for the period of ownership, which is an improvement of 23% on the same period last year on a pro forma basis so on a like-for-like 6-month basis. Z's strong market share performance continued, reflecting the quality of its infrastructure in key markets. And the RCOP EBIT from the New Zealand segment was $122.8 million, including the contribution from trading and shipping. I will just flag there was a small adjustment related to purchase price accounting of $1.7 million and we don't expect this to be a material adjustment going forward. Okay. I might turn to our balance sheet and cash flow on Slide 16. We finished the half pretty much in line with the opening balance for net borrowings. Our half year operating cash flows were pretty pleasing overall. We had a strong RCOP EBITDA performance which is broadly illustrative of pre-tax operating cash with inventory losses in the statutory results largely mitigated by lower inventory values in operating cash. We did a pretty good job of keeping inventory volumes down particularly in crude inventories, which are increasingly coming from out of the region putting some pressure on our working capital cycle. We expect this underlying trend to continue. However, a combination of our U.S. office to access advantage crudes for Lytton and a returns focus sort of process are working well in response to this dynamic. A couple of things I just should call out. You'll obviously see the increase in tax paid. That's on the back of a record earnings result last year. And capital expenditure was $160 million in the period. We expect this run rate to increase in the second half. We're still looking at CapEx in the order of up to $450 million for the full year. Cash outflows from dividends during the period represented the final dividend for FY '22, which was $1.05 per share and the special dividend that we paid at the end of FY22 of $0.50 per share, which was paid at the same time. The payment of the interim ordinary dividend of $0.95 per share was declared today that will fall into the second half cash flows. And finally from me just to round out on capital management. As the headline says on Slide 17, we're really just striving to get the balance right between delivering for today, rewarding our shareholders and investing in the future in a measured way over time. As Matt said and I just touched on, we've declared a $0.95 per share fully franked interim dividend and that's at the top of our payout range. We exited the period with net debt of $2.4 billion and leverage of 1.8 turns of EBITDA. This has enabled the dividends we declared today and we continue to target leverage sustainably towards the bottom end of our 2 to 2.5x EBITDA range by the end of 2023. So thanks for listening. I'm going to hand back to Matt to complete the presentation and I'll come back for questions. Thanks.

Great. Thanks for that Greg. So we'll now turn to Slide 19. So before we close the presentation and go to questions, I'd just like to provide an update on our strategic objectives and how they position Ampol to deliver ongoing strong financial performance. At our 2020 Investor Day, we unveiled a new purpose and strategy, designed to build a more resilient business, to deliver growth in the medium-term and then to evolve the business for the longer-term. Our strategy revolves around 3 pillars. That's enhancing the core business, then expanding from a rejuvenated fuels and convenience platform and evolving the energy offer for our customers as their needs change. As you can see on the slide and from our financial results that we're presenting, the strategy is delivering. The rebrand to Ampol has been successfully completed, as demonstrated by the growth in retail earnings, the volume performance of the business that we're seeing coming out of COVID and the growth in Amplify premium fuel penetration now at 53.2% of fuel volumes. The network rationalization and non-fuel EBIT uplift strategies have led to a near doubling of earnings from convenience retail from the first half of 2019 to the first half of 2023. This includes the delivery of the $85 million per annum non-fuel EBIT uplift target 2 years ahead of schedule and reflects the fact that the performance and returns from our core Foodary offer have materially improved. Ampol completed the 50 MetroGo store pilot late last year prior to committing to a broader rollout. While 50 -- while the MetroGo stores showed improved sales and were profitable, as Greg mentioned, the return on capital employed did not meet expectations. Both Woolworths and Ampol worked to adjust the model to improve the level of returns, however, with the improved performance of Ampol's own Foodary offering the returns from the MetroGo stores were not sufficient to warrant further investment in a broader rollout. The current cohort of MetroGo stores will be rebranded to Foodary now over the coming months. The relationship with Woolworths remains very strong and we will continue to partner on Everyday Rewards, loyalty and fuel redemptions and will continue to look for opportunities to partner on meaningful innovation that drives customer engagement. Ampol has made significant progress in recent years in developing its fuel and convenience offer. And we enter the next phase of our strategy on a much stronger footing and with some very good momentum. Importantly, with the clarity on the MetroGo relationship, Ampol gains much greater flexibility in how we leverage our network in executing the next phase of our strategy. Our strategic focus is going to be centered on profitable growth across 3 key areas. #1, investing in high quality highway sites to deliver strong returns. Secondly, by unlocking the QSR potential across more of our premium network. And then finally, through a tiered Foodary offer with the potential to take a more refined micro-market approach where appropriate. After making the decision to keep Lytton open, the refining supply-demand balance has swung into a more favorable position and the fundamentals actually look supportive longer-term. The 2 Australian refineries that remain are in a unique position with the support from the fuel security services payment should the refiner margin environment deteriorate unexpectedly. We have continued to apply a disciplined focus on the Fuels and Infrastructure business in Australia, which has had a few challenging years due to COVID impacts on throughput in particular. You can see the marked improvement in the performance of F&I Australia as volumes have improved and with the normalization of quality premiums and freight rates following the disrupted market we saw last year. We are also delivering on the strategy to grow international earnings with the step out through the Z Energy acquisition, building on organic growth in trading and shipping. International earnings have now tripled in the past 5 years when comparing the first halves of 2019 and 2023. This is really testament to the capability we have built to leverage the strength of our demand and infrastructure assets in Australia and now New Zealand and to build on them in optimizing system flows and growing third-party customer volumes in the regions where we operate. As we look to the future, we are evolving the business to support our customers through the energy transition. As I mentioned earlier, the on-the-go public fast charging network rollouts are now progressing in both Australia and in New Zealand. We know that EV charging will also occur at third-party destinations, and we have established our first major agreement with Mirvac to provide fast charging at their shopping centers. We've also entered our first back to base charging services agreements with Asciano and Outbound in Australia and with Europcar in Australia and New Zealand. We are making good progress on our own decarbonization objectives through projects to reduce emissions intensity in our own operations with initiatives including the Australian depot fleet replacement project and LED installation in retail. We'll now move on to Slide 20. I think this is a really important slide in our pack. We have certainly built a more resilient business over the last few years by growing both convenience and international earnings. We are now over 5 years into the Ampol retail transformation, having transitioned to company operations from what was largely a franchise network and rationalized site numbers to retain the most profitable and highest returning sites as well as rebranding the entire network. We have significantly improved our retail capability, which is reflected now in a strong track record of growing shop gross margin and earnings and which leaves us very well positioned to continue to grow this part of our business. I talked earlier about the success of the Z acquisition, which provides further non-fuel earnings growth, as you can see in the chart. The management team at Z are doing a great job executing their own retail improvement strategy. The international growth strategy is another good story, as we leverage the significant short we control in Australia and in New Zealand. The trading and shipping team continues to take advantage of organic growth opportunities across geographies, products and customers. This has been supported by the opening of the U.S. trading office in Houston, which is improving crude sourcing capabilities and has facilitated the establishment of storage capacity and blending capabilities in the Asian and North American regions, improving both available margin, but also the number of supply options we have available. Moving on to Slide 21, we have provided the data on EV penetration through to June 2023. You can see the increase in EV adoption as supply chains have freed up and more affordable EV models are entering the market. Despite this, EVs still remain a very small proportion of the total fleet and as our scenario analysis presented in the climate report showed, we expect fuel demand to be robust well into the 2030s. The right-hand side shows some key statistics for our public fast and ultra-fast charging networks, which stand at 34 bays in Australia and 37 bays in New Zealand at 30 June. These numbers continue to increase further as the rollout gains momentum. It's very early days but the stats are encouraging both in average charge time and charge session size. You can see the dwell time is circa 25 to 30 minutes even for fast chargers, and we continue to work on the convenience offering to benefit from the opportunity this presents. McKinsey is forecasting that as the EV percentage of total fleet increases, the demand for on-the-go public charging will increase to about 40% of charging sessions into the 2030s, as the take-up extends beyond the early adopters to those with less opportunity to charge at home. We can see from international experience that fast charging infrastructure is lagging the uptake in EVs, which reflects many of the grid, real estate and capability related challenges in the build-out of this capacity. We also know that the uplift in shop sales from an EV customer looks favorable as that dwell time increases. This reinforces our belief that building out this capability, as we are doing, will generate attractive returns over time, with quality of network and convenience offer being critical success factors. I'll now talk to our key priorities for the rest of the year on slide 22. We are still to make our final investment decision on the Lytton ultra-low sulfur fuels project, but the CapEx is included in the guidance that's been provided today. We have a clear organic growth strategy for the Australian convenience retail business with a focus on developing premium highway sites, and with a view to enhancing our network segmentation to refine the micro market offer across the network. There are limited inorganic options available in Australia, but we will explore them where they are value and earnings accretive and can deliver attractive returns. We are also conducting the QSR pilot with Hungry Jacks and will report back on that with some details at the full year. Z will focus on delivering its near-term convenience retail growth targets and refining the segmentation of its offer between the premium Z brand and the lower-cost Caltex offer. We will continue to pursue our organic growth strategy in F&I International, building on the capabilities that we've developed and the strength of our combined demand and asset position across the region. The progress of the EV fast charging networks will be a key focus over the next couple of years. And we will explore solutions for hard-to-abate sectors with a focus on the potential for production of SAF and renewable diesel at Lytton. I'd now like to close out today with a view of the current trading conditions and macro outlook. On Slide 24, we show the regional fuel demand picture baseline back to 2019. You can see the dramatic impact of COVID in early 2020, particularly in jet and petrol. The recovery is largely complete, but we expect continued growth in jet fuel and petrol demand from increased mobility and the impact of net migration, which is now returning quite strongly. Diesel demand has remained relatively robust throughout, and this is a market where Ampol has a higher than industry market share due to our Ampol card offer. On Slide 25, we show the historical and forecast position from Facts Global Energy for global refining measured as crude distillation unit capacity. I think the first thing to note is the adjusted vertical axis, which is presented to show with better clarity the changes in overall capacity. For the majority of the last decade, supply has been over 100 million barrels per day. As you can see Facts now forecasts supply to grow modestly through to 2030, but to be outpaced by demand growth, which is shown in the black line. Refinery additions have typically been slower to arrive than forecast due to project delays and reliability issues during ramp-up. So while the near-term outlook shows a level of spare CDU capacity, it is important to consider the realization of this capacity. Utilization rates have been impacted by unplanned outages, as the whole sector has been running hard coming out of COVID in a bid to benefit from the higher margins. It's also important to note the fact that some of this capacity is focused on petrochemical feedstock and not transport fuels. And of course, the actions of China on exports will be another important factor, which impacts the regional balance for product markets. All that said, I think, the key takeaway is production capacity relative to demand is expected to remain tight. Moving on to Slide 26. And this slide really demonstrates that we've had a strong start to the second half, which is very encouraging. LRM in July increased to USD 15.31 per barrel, which is well above historical levels. August has also seen a promising start with strong crack levels. But as I indicated earlier, in the short-term, we need to consider China's export intentions. Announcement of the latest product export quota numbers was delayed with domestic inventory levels in China for gasoline in particular at low levels. The safeguard mechanism has come into effect with a refining baseline still to be determined. However, indications that we have that our own decarbonization plans will put us in a good position for the early years. F&I Ex-Lytton should benefit from the ongoing recovery in fuel demand in Australia providing the operating leverage missing for the COVID impacted years. The B2B team have made some very good progress with contract wins and renewals and are making good gains in commercial share. Third-party retail exposed resellers will also benefit from the net migration that we're seeing. The MSO also came into effect from 1 July. We're well positioned for the first year of the program and have commenced the fortnightly reporting regime. Convenience retail has had a slightly softer start to the second half as fuel margins came under pressure due to rising wholesale fuel prices, as you would expect. We expect immigration to support volumes and also continued strong shop performance. Ampol has made significant progress in recent years in developing its fuel and convenience offer. And as we enter the next phase of our strategy, we are on a much stronger footing. Importantly, as I mentioned earlier, clarity on MetroGo for Ampol means that we have greater flexibility on how we leverage our network in executing the next phase of our strategy. The outlook for Z is net positive with increasing immigration post-COVID helping to counter any potential impact of weaker economic conditions. And the fuel excise in New Zealand was reinstated in July. And to complete my comments on outlook, we expect CapEx to be skewed to the second half and to be between $400 million to $450 million for the full year. That ends our presentation. Now Greg and I will take your questions, and we also have Brent, Andrew, Kate and Lindis online, and I may direct questions through to them. So with that, we'll take our first question please.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from Michael Simotas at Jefferies.

Can we start on convenience retail, please? Quite a nice increase in shop margin. Can you give us some indication of how much of that was underlying improvement versus the mixed shift away from tobacco? And given that increase, do you think you can continue to grow shop margins? Or have you got closer to maxing that out?

Maybe I'll pick it up in the first instance. What I would say, rather than sort of getting into the ins and outs of it, what I would say is tobacco's contribution to margin is about half what it is to revenue. And so you can see underlying, it's been a very strong improvement in the sale of those immediate consumption products, whether it's beverages, or snacks, or bakery and coffee. They've been the 3 big drivers where we've seen genuine margin improvement, not just recovery of inflation. And then that flows through to average basket value where we've done a very good job of sort of optimizing both product mix, but what's sold in a given transaction, including what might be given away under certain contractual arrangements with people like Uber. So they're really the 3 big drivers. But a big part of the contribution has been genuine margin increase in store in those immediate consumption products, and obviously, the mixed shift to tobacco is the other contribution. Kate, do you want to build on that?

Yes. The other build on tobacco is that our average basket size has held up regardless of the decline in tobacco. And products that are traditionally attached to tobacco, such as milk impulse are still performing quite strongly despite this impact. So whilst we see continued headwinds, we expect those products to still perform.

And do you think you can continue to grow shop margin?

I think, Michael, we think that where we've got to today with Metro gives us a lot more flexibility and that enables us to pursue an even more segmented strategy in terms of our offer going forward on the premium end in particular. We continue to see there's potential through the optimization work that has been a journey for us, but you can see coming through the result despite tobacco, we're outrunning that. That's down 19%. Yes, it's a lower margin category, but you can see the momentum in the balance of the basket that is coming through quite strongly and we see strategically plenty of potential to keep getting it further growth in that area.

And then following on from that, how should we think about cost outlook for convenience retail? And I guess it's probably worth talking about MetroGo and the changes there. Underlying wages are obviously up, rents, you've called out electricity. Do you have any programs in place to try to offset some of that cost inflation?

I think the main thing, Michael, is it's just -- it's an ongoing process of continuous improvement. So if we talk about underlying performance and next phase of strategy, I think, a key component is the opportunity to flex and tier our offer and continue to invest in premium fuels. From a cost perspective, you're getting a good look this period with energy and marketing back in. That's not going to change. That's a good guide of what we look like going forward and then the team just continue to get the basic right, which they've been able to do pretty consistently over the last few years.

Kate?

We still have some opportunity to look at labor and how we do things differently in the way we operate. We've also got wastage opportunities, particularly in the premium sites as we transition out of MetroGo. Inventory is also an opportunity as is our maintenance total spend. So a lot of things that we're still going after to counteract that inflationary pressure.

So I think the change, the MetroGo outcome does position us again, Michael, to some costs were a bit of a challenge for us on that offer. We've learnt a lot. There is potential obviously at the upper end of the network in what we do. We now have more flexibility in terms of how we go about it. And we now have the capability in our view to go about delivering that, including on the cost front.

Your next question comes from Tom Allen at UBS.

There was a strong interim dividend announced today, leverage below the bottom end of your target range. Can you comment on how management and the Board might weigh up investment in future growth? And where that growth might be focused, including where you see further consolidation opportunities as compared to investing in additional shareholder returns via capital management?

Yes, sure. Look, as always, we'll be quite disciplined around where we look to grow. We can see opportunities within the business to continue to grow. Convenience retail on both sides of the Tasman, actually, we can see attractive opportunities to continue growing the international part of our business. And we'll look, in addition to those organic plans, at inorganic options where they make sense. I think, we've got a reasonable track record of delivering returns when we have moved in organically, but it's a very disciplined process that we go through. We look at stuff, but we test ourselves always in terms of the level of value accretion and returns to shareholders. And we weigh it up against capital returns and special dividends, as we demonstrated in the full year last year, being our preferred mechanism there. So that's everything that we weigh up. We've got a range of good options, but I think we'll continue to be disciplined around how we use the balance sheet. Greg?

No, I think, that's the right call. We've said we target towards the bottom end of the range. So I think that gives us flexibility, and you can see us actively doing that. Now, our dividend today would take us back up somewhere at around 1.9 turns, and we'll just consistently look to do that.

Can you please share some additional color on the CapEx outlook? So recognizing Ampol hasn't yet taken FID on the low sulfur upgrade. So by the end of this year, what proportion of the total CapEx required to deliver the low sulfur upgrade and the new aromatic standard will be complete? Just keen to understand if there's still be a big capital commitment for these projects still to deliver in FY '24?

Yes. So the first thing, I'd say is, we guided for the year to somewhere around $400 million to $450 million of spend. If I were to be candid, I would say our track record of hitting those numbers, we tend to come in at the lower end. And that is in part just the ability to move at the pace we want to because of either site constraints or labor. So my hunches will be somewhere towards the lower end of that $400 million to $450 million, but that spend we are looking to make, and it's just a question of whether it's this year or slips in the next. That will be the first thing I'd make. Where is that spend going? Well, you touched on one of them. I think the step-up in the second half is a combination of continuing to roll out our highway sites, the low sulfur project as you touched on. And you can see we're making progress in e-mobility. We had at 30 June, about 34 bays up and running. It's about 54 today and we're in the middle of our federal and state government backed rollout. So you'll see some step up there, and then the rest of it's the usual operational things we need to do. Specifically on low sulfur fuels, I wouldn't want to be too specific until we fully understand where the final legislation and fuel specs land. But you have seen some guides out there in the past from others in the market of sort of a $300 million spend on the program before our aromatics. I think that's probably not a bad guide of what we've got to go somewhere in that sort of $300 million to $350 million range would be indicative of what we would need to do over the next 18, 2 years, say, to deliver an integrated project. So by that I mean low sulfur fuels and aromatics. We're doing an integrated project, and that's why we've had to delay FID is we needed to understand the final specs, funding and regulations, if you like, around the transition both to low sulfur and aromatics, which we expect to get clarity on very soon. In the interim, we're continuing to progress the project, and the CapEx guidance I've given you for the year includes spend on that project.

And just to build on that, Tom, those CapEx numbers are gross. So just a reminder that the government will contribute $125 million for the low sulfur project and to be determined through ongoing discussions a contribution to the aromatics component.

Your next question comes from Adam Martin at E&P Financial.

Look, your commercial business, so F&I excluded Lytton, obviously, going really well, so annualizing over $400 million. Haven't seen that since 2018. I suppose the question is, how sustainable do you think that is? Is there any one-offs you want to call out in that business? And just a bit of color there, please.

Yes. So, look, we're really pleased with the business and how it's performing. Matt and I, we touched in the call on the capability build there, both in Singapore and more recently in the U.S. So, we're very much encouraged by how it's performing. That would be the first point I'd make. In terms of one-offs, with the refinery outage invariably trading and shipping and supply generally benefited from both the importation of more products to supplement that and also the export of some of the semi-processed products. I'd put that in the realms of sort of 15 to 20 of one-off benefits. And then just on translation and currency, there's a benefit of sort of in the 10 to 15 range flowing through that part of the business from currency benefits. So I think the most important thing to draw on beyond that is we've really built momentum in that business, right? So it will move around period-to-period, but I do expect if you look through sort of period-to-period results, you should see good improvement in that business over time. We think the Australian part of the business can keep pace with inflation or sort of call it low to mid-single digits and then the international business, we'll be expecting sort of mid to high single digits over time. But it will bounce around a little bit with market conditions and we have a natural offset with the refinery, which acts as a strong, I guess, mitigant, if you like, where markets dislocate for a little bit, for example, and we're in a situation like we are today where we're probably more exposed to spot supply, we've been a beneficiary this period. In the previous reporting period, we were a beneficiary in the refinery as a result of that. So we have that natural sort of shock absorber, which helps offset it.

And I think, Adam, what you see in that business is, and as we mentioned in the presentation, the return of scale and the quality of the underlying asset position that we've got and customer position that we've got. I think you can see that we've taken that into New Zealand now and the combined position that we have, together with the capability build that has been in place in the international part of the business for a number of years now. We're in a very strong position to be able to take that forward. And I think that's really testament to a capability build that has occurred over many years now and is really coming to the fore after what's been a very choppy set of results for a whole range of factors when we look over the last few years.

Now, that makes sense. And just quickly on New Zealand, I mean, you flag there you've delivered the $60-$80 synergies. Anything else to sort of think about in the next 12 months or any other growth that we should be thinking about for that business? Obviously, you've timed that deal well, but just any more to think about there, please?

Yes, I think, look, the business is performing well. We've only owned it for 14 months. We're really pleased with how that's going, the integration of supply, and it really fits into that kind of how does that business help build our scale and enable us to be even more competitive in and in developing the international part of our business, really happy with all of that. That's really been a significant part of our focus. I mentioned in the presentation that, and you can see it on Slide 20, I think, which is a nice slide and an important slide for us. That's another significant convenience retail business within Z, and that business has got a strong momentum and track record similar to what we've seen in Australia. So we'd continue to see a refinement of the segmentation approach, as I mentioned. And continuing to look to grow that business in a premium Z brand, a lower cost Caltex brand, and a move into automated or unmanned supply. There are already a few sites into that, but we can see some good potential in that area and leveraging some of the learnings that we've had out of Gull. So I think there's some good potential there. We're really happy with the quality of the team and the assets that we've got. And I think the timing was good, as you mentioned, because we can see share growing. We would have probably considered Z to be a circa 4 billion liter business in terms of total fuel volumes, but you can see 2.2 billion liters in the first half. So the share and the performance on the volume side is actually pretty encouraging for us.

Your next question comes from Dale Koenders from Barrenjoey.

Just maybe more of a question for Greg. Just wanted to better understand, what is the right level of gearing or leverage for the company going forward? I guess, your comments of getting towards the bottom end of your range is barely, barely in the range. You've sat below that target leverage range of 2.0x, 2.5x for the better part of 6 to 12 months. Is this a phase of being more conservative for energy transition or current CapEx or inorganic growth opportunities? How do you marry all of that together?

Yes. So I think somewhere around the 2 turns is right. We've talked a little bit on this call where we're a good cash generative business, but we are also entering a period where we're probably investing a little bit more than average in capital expenditure, things like low sulfur fuel, e-mobility, some of the store rollouts and highway sites we're pursuing in convenience retail, so, nothing that hasn't been telegraphed before. I mean, I think the market's been a somewhat volatile market for the last 18 months. We're just minded to be have a slightly more conservative posture. That's both good from a resilience perspective, but also I think opportunistic -- gives us a position where we can be opportunistic if we do see opportunities to grow. And there's potential to grow in convenience retail, I think, internationally in an organic way, which would be more of a storage and inventory type of play. And that's -- and then, of course, future energy, we'll just get through this first phase of e-mobility rollout and the test and learn work we're doing, and we can have more to say on that at year-end, but that's an obvious source of growth over the longer-term.

If the way you've positioned it is that there's not really a lot more balance sheet capacity left, is any large scale M&A, is that going to have to come with equity raising?

I wouldn't leap to that conclusion. And certainly, we're not contemplating anything that requires an equity raising. Really, that's just about keeping a little bit of powder dry and continuing to leverage both ordinary dividends as a first port of call. And then, as I've said previously, I think special dividends are the next logical move where we have surplus capacity as the most efficient way to get franking credits back. But no, I wouldn't buy into any thinking that, one, that we're going to be acquisitive in the short-term, or in particular that it would require a capital raise of any sort. That's not in our thinking.

Or put another way, Dale, we'll be happy to use our balance sheet, but we'll also be very disciplined and ensure that as and when we do, the returns are right, and Z was a good example of that.

And then just on the Woolworths deal that sort of ends the go relationship, a bit of a frustrating 5 years, haven't really got a lot out of that partnership. Can you confirm, is there any cost what's the CapEx cost for rebranding? Is there any operating cost savings you'll make by terminating this? And is there any kind of penalty payments you need to make?

Yes. So look, pretty modest capital cost to rebrand 50 stores. So there's nothing really to report there, and no material P&L impact. What we were really driven by, as Matt's touched on, was we're a very returns-focused business, and it just wasn't delivering the returns, which is a combination of both the profit and the capital we're putting into it, because it was a slightly higher labor cost model. So there's nothing really to report there. I think the real positive factor around this is the clarity it gives us around our network and what we can do with it. And it's obviously been comping against a very much improved future performance. And that combination, I think, is a real positive for the business going into the next phase.

Your next question comes from David Errington at Bank of America.

Greg, can I follow on from that liners discussion or been a keen follower of your retail strategy for many years now. And whilst I understand the tone of the word flexibility and giving you the opportunity to rebase and reposition, the other line of thinking there is that there's just been a clear now lack of strategy or direction. And look, one thing about retail I don't want to make this too much of a statement, but I know a little bit about retail that you've got to have a clear offer to your customers. It has to be clear. It has to be consistent. And it just seems to me that that you just seem to be in pilot mode, as Dale mentioned, at least 5 years, probably 7 or 8. So when are you going to settle this down? I mean, Foodary, I thought you've given up on Foodary and moving over to Woolworths Go, the Star Mart. It just seems really complex, really complicated -- and it just seems to be -- I don't know where you're going with it, to be honest with you. And given the competition is now going pretty hard and on the run, they've at least got a clear strategy, whether it's a good one or not, we'll wait and see. But at least they've got 1. You guys don't seem to have a strategy. Now, I know that seems harsh, but maybe you can elaborate where this business is going to go for the next 3 to 4 years because it just looks like it's just lifting in the wind at the moment. And to walk away from Woolies that's a disappointing day. So could you go in maybe a retail it, maybe she can talk a bit about it because -- just a bit flat today on that, I must say?

I'll start, David, and then I'll hand to Kate. Look, I think where I would start is reflect on the journey that we've been on, which is 5 or 6 years ago, this was a franchise business. This was not a business that was branded Ampol and there was a Woolies arrangement in place and a contract in place that we've worked our way through. I think if you look at the underlying performance of the business, we've got a -- we've got a good track record of delivering strong returns out of that business. And I think that is borne out over a number of consecutive halves now. I think when you do look at the Woolies arrangement we take a lot of learning's from it. But I don't expect, and it's never what we would do given the disciplined approach that we take is that you're going to go and roll out an offer that wasn't delivering the right level of returns. Now, we have worked our way through that. We've done what we said that we would do. And we can see some real opportunity, but that was not the right model to make it work. What we do have is very strong foundations in terms of company operations capability, and we have good momentum within the business. You can see now, if you're on the -- on the highway at to Canberra, you can see some flagship sites at Pheasants Nest that have been a long time in the making, and I think demonstrate a very high-quality offer within the premium end of our network, and we now have the flexibility to take the premium end of our network forward in a very clear way, and there's a very clear opportunity there for us, both in terms of upgrading the nature of the offer at that level and also demonstrating the QSR potential, which we're quite excited about. On the M1s in September, you'll be able to see Hungry Jacks operated by Ampol on one of our key sites heading north out of Sydney. And so that's what we mean in terms of having more flexibility. We did our best to make it work with Woolies. We'll keep the best parts of the Woolies arrangement and their relationships in a good place. But we can see that, there is a good opportunity to get out in a more tiered Foodary offer. Foodary is now the offer across our entire network, but that consistency for the customer is now an opportunity that opens up for us as we move on beyond MetroGo. Kate, do you want to make some comments?

Yes, so our first priority is maintaining our current performance as we face into this inflationary environment, and then, as Matt said, performing against all of the tiers in our offer. So we've got the highway strategy, which is exciting to see our Pheasants Nest sites, the M1 sites will be the next ones that we redevelop, followed quickly by the M4. We have a great opportunity in QSR with Hungry Jack's in particular, that we'll launch at the M1s, but then we'll assess before we roll out further. And then there's the tiered opportunity across premium, mainstream and small format sites where we clearly differentiate between those tiers to deliver consistency for the customer. So a bit on the go.

I mean, as I said, Kate, it just needs consistency, I suppose. You need a run of consistency with a good long-term offer, and it sounds like at least you're on the way. Hopefully, you can see where I'm coming from as well. But if I may ask a second question, it's on the F&I. It's a follow-up, I suppose, to the previous, I can't remember who asked it, that Fran and I used to joke a little bit that with F&I in the last 3 years, the dog away deep, the homework somewhere along the line. But this year, everything seems to be settled. Is it -- is it all -- like I remember there's a lot of coats here, and I'm not an oil person, I'm more of a retail person, but there seems to be things that outside of your control are now back in your control, like whether it be the moderation in oil markets post the invasion and the onerous contracts. I'm looking at the SMO arrangement. I'm hopeful that that's going to be a big opportunity for you guys to get a competitive advantage. It just seems that that business is now more stable. Things are in your control now, whereas in that COVID period, there was just so much instability that it was just a real mess. Is that a good cop? Is that a good way of looking at it so that we can look forward with stability and that something won't come out of the woodwork and eat our homework? Or are you in it? Or is it always going to be a business that we should always factor in a bit of volatility?

Yes, maybe, David, I'll have a go. The first thing I'd say is, yes, we've taken a number of steps to address volatility that's emerged through COVID, which was really COVID and then the Russia-Ukraine challenge, which was the complete dislocation of market balances that led to a lift in quality premiums, which is the price over and above the market, the quoted market price, which was something that happened very quickly, really quite unique, and was a factor that we needed to respond to really quickly. Now, we were a beneficiary of some of those dislocations across the refinery, but from a F&I ex refining perspective, you get caught in the short term to the extent you weren't termed on supply. This time round, we've got the opposite happening, where markets have softened, we're competing against people that are termed, and we're in a strong position, but we're also risk managing those factors better, whether it's tighter commercial arrangements that address it or in terms of how we just price risk manage generally. So, that'd be the first point I'd make. The second point I would make is, this business we expect over time will show consistent improvement. It will move around period-to-period, but that movement will be explainable and will also have its natural offset and shock absorber, if you like, with the refinery. So, the combination of the value chain is valuable. The business is on a more stable footing for the reasons I've just said. It will move still from period-to-period, as we were a beneficiary this period, but it will be explainable, just as it has been today, and with the capability we have there internationally in particular, we expect we can grow that business over time.

Your next question comes from Mark Wiseman at Macquarie.

Yes. Thanks for the update today, and congratulations on the result. Firstly, I was just wondering if you could expand on Slide 22 on the next stage of the convenience retail strategy. Could you maybe just outline how big is the opportunity from new to industry sites and QSR and the cost out from the micro market offer? Is this a small, gradual, incremental pivot, or is this going to be a big program?

Yes, thanks, Mark. Look, we can see really good potential from the delivery of the strategy, the highway sites where we see material opportunity, and obviously we're some way along that journey with Pheasants Nest now open. We talked in the presentation to the pipeline ahead. QSR, equally, we've got sites that are very high quality at the premium end. We can see we've got a good partner. We're working closely with them, and we'll be up and running at one of our large sites in September, and subject to good results, we can see a meaningful opportunity in that space also. And then the segmentation of the network. Look, we've now come to the end of the MetroGo arrangements. We've learnt a lot, but the upper end of our network, we can see a real opportunity in premium at the right investment point and at the right cost point. We think we've got a pretty good idea of what that looks like, and we'll have more to say in time as we look to roll that out.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Gordon Ramsay at RBC Capital Markets.

Just earlier on, Matthew, you said you're committed to releasing franking credits in the most efficient manner going forward, and Greg has said the goal is to do that through ordinary dividends or special dividends. Let's just look at a scenario. What if at the end of the year, your adjusted net debt to EBITDA is well and truly below 2% companies previously said when it's got a range of 2% to 2.5% when it's below 2%, you will undertake capital management. What can we look forward to? Are we going to be looking at a 70% payout ratio or would you go beyond that level if the earning stability and the margin and the operating part of the business just looks so well? Can you just give us a feel for what it means in terms of capital management if that scenario eventuates?

Gordon, it's Greg here. Look, I think year-end was a good steer of what we will do, and there's a graph in the back of the presentation from memory that shows our track record of returning surplus capital when the opportunity arises. So reiterate a couple of points, payout ratio 50% to 70%. Last year end, we took the full year dividend after an interim of 60%. We took the full year to 70% in a record year and then we distributed another $0.50 per share special. So if we find ourselves in a circumstance where we're below our targeted leverage range, we will obviously assess growth options, outlook and operational factors as you've said. But if we find a situation where all those things are normal, then we would first go to the top of the range as we've done this half and then we would look to special dividends as the most efficient vehicle to get credits back. And that's on the back of a change in legislation that's removed the ability to distribute franking credits through an off market buyback, which is why we now talk to special dividends. So hopefully that answers your question and our view hasn't changed on that and I think our track record is very strong in doing that in recent years and most recently at year end.

Your next question comes from Scott Ryall at Rimor Equity Research.

I just wanted to ask the related questions on electrification. You gave some really interesting statistics there on the early performance of your charging network. I was wondering if you could comment on what proportion of the electricity that you've sold through your fast charging network has actually been generated by yourself. And then the other part of that, if you could just comment on where you are with your fleet strategy and being able to track charging at home for your fleet customers as well, please.

I might pass that one to Brent.

Scott, so we're pretty careful to make sure that we don't misrepresent that the energy we create on our sites may be consumed in the store as well. So in our de-carbonization strategy, we are rolling out solar panels on sites where we look to be effective in our capital deployment and considering charging where appropriate batteries and solar panels. So it's not a deliberate strategy to try and generate everything ourselves. It's more of a decarbonization strategy on generation. And so that's for that one. In terms of the second question around the fleet strategy, it's an important part of our business today and it'll be an important part tomorrow. You know, I think it's widely discussed about the importance of fleet in the early movers in energy transition. We see ourselves as quite a big transport energy supplier to businesses today as businesses look to move ahead with the changing of their fleet. That fleet will continue to be an important part of that offer for us as well. Nothing I can refer to for you today, but we are quite aware of the role it plays in the energy transition and the early parts of transition in particular. And we're mindful of that as we build offers suitable to really make life easier for business customers we have today as they take on the challenge of a mixed fleet into the future of continuing to buy petrol, diesel and bring in new energy sources for their transportation in the future.

And I think the only things I would build on that to say, Scott, are some encouraging signs in terms of the offer that we're trialing with back-to-base and home charging solutions with Asciano and Outbound, as I mentioned in the call, in Australia and then Europe Car in Australia and New Zealand. So we'll learn through the arrangements with those customers and getting integration of electrons into our card will be another -- is another key step that we're pursuing.

Your next question comes from Rob Koh at Morgan Stanley.

Congrats on the result. I kind of wanted to ask a question about the feedstock for the SAF, but given that I've only got the 1 question, I'm going to ask a question about your effective tax rates with the Singapore entity and the ruling and the release of the provision. Should we be thinking that your effective tax rate is or the effective tax rate in the first half is the rate going forward or how should we think about that 1, please?

It's Greg Barnes here. Thanks for the question. Look, the tax rate in the first half is low because of the composition of earnings. Essentially, the refinery was down and we had 2 months of pretty soft cracks and then we had a very strong performance out of Singapore and the U.S. and a full 6 months of Z. So we had a strange and unusual composition of earnings, if you like. I still think the best guide, and it is a guide, it'll move around period-to-period, but it's somewhere in the order of 27% effective tax rate in normal conditions over time is the best guide on a go forward rate. Obviously, that's lower than Australia. It reflects the lift of New Zealand as a contributor, which is sort of a 28% effective tax rate. And then we have both Singapore earnings that pay Singapore tax and then top-up tax in Australia, as you noted. So I think 27% thereabouts is the best guide and the half was lower for the reasons I outlined.

That does conclude our question-and-answer session today. I would like to hand back to Matt Halliday for closing remarks.

Thank you very much. So thanks for attending. Thanks for your questions. Look, I think it's a pretty strong result. It demonstrates growth across all parts of the business, ex-refining and demonstrates the increasing diversity and resilience that has been built up in the business in recent years. And I think the outlook is one where we've started the second half strongly, and I think we've got good momentum in terms of delivering on our strategy. Thanks for your time. Look forward to talking to you soon.