Orlen S.A. (PKN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. My name is Anna Bockowska. I have the pleasure of welcome -- welcome to the presentation of Orlen Group's consolidated financial results for the first quarter of 2026. Today's event today's conference will be delivered by Ireneusz Fafara, Management Board and Chief Executive Officer; and Slawomir Jedrzejczyk, Vice President and CFO. We are very happy to see you all of you who are gathered in the room but also everyone who is listening to us live. Mr. Ireneusz Fafara, President of the Management Board, Chief Executive Officer, will now take the floor.

Good morning, everyone. Financial... Results. Consolidated Financial results after the first quarter of 2026, which was an exceptional quarter. Everyone knows what was going on and it was quite dynamic, especially in the last month of the quarter. It gave us a lot of emotional events which we did not expect. Listens to what the most important people in the world had to say about the ORLEN shares. I'm proud to say that this dynamic situation and volatility actually did not affect our performance. We have demonstrated our strength, our resilience, our preparedness for very difficult conditions. And we are happy to say that our investors still trust us and compiled. After we presented our new strategy, we are proud to say that our value went up by 200%, and we are among the fastest-growing companies in the world in the energy sector. Despite or irrespective of this volatile and difficult environment and despite what happened in the ORLEN shares, we managed to ensure availability of fuels to our customers. We decided that it is a priority in this very challenging period, full availability of all fuels and creating the most favorable conditions to offer the lowest prices possible to our consumers. We started by reducing our retail margin to minimum levels. We also launched practically from the very beginning, promotions, which I'll discuss later. And at the same time, the government at the end of March, published the CPN program, which allowed us to present what we see on screen right now. We have the lowest prices of fuel across the European Union. So together with the market, and following the decisions of the Polish government, we were able to offer such conditions, price conditions to our customers. Irrespective of this volatile environment, we delivered very robust operational results in which was contributed by all the segments. We are delivering better and better financial results without the support of one-off events such as compensation or the accounting for the PGNiG results. So if we deduct or disregard those one-offs, you will still see that our EBITDA LIFO was the strongest and the record-breaking EBITDA LIFO results in quarter 1. What makes us really happy is that our performance and effectiveness across foreign markets is going up as well. The share of foreign markets and our revenue went up to 32% and the structure of the consumer segment have changed as well. And that foreign markets are contributing very strong to our results especially in Germany markets. The Energy of Tomorrow is a very important program. This program will involve the highest number of Polish suppliers. This is why we started the Forum of the Suppliers of Tomorrow, and we are showing our investment program for this year and for subsequent years. Our expectations or requirements in relation with the way we can respond to their questions, their suggestions and their feedback. Around 500 suppliers took part in the program and the feedback is positive that this valuable and very helpful program. And this is why we believe that participation of the local content will be more and more important. We are planning to 3 conferences or events and different publish. While we speak about the investment program, we can now move on to the events of quarter 1. Let's start with the Energy segment. CCGTs in Grudziadz, both of them because we have 2. Grudziadz 1 is nearing its completion. And we believe we are sure that still in this year around summertime, the CCGT will be completed and we will have first fire. The second investment in Grudziadz is in the construction phase. Construction work has started, and we believe that in 2029, it will be completed. We executed or signed the annex with the general contractor Ostroleka, it is expected that it will be launched in 2026, we started first construction work. As far as Siekierki is concerned, the situation is quite challenging. We have applied for the environmental permit. However, it was objected to buy a single environmental we are working on it, and we believe that we will start construction work soon. Baltic Power is our offshore projects. We have 78 foundations already in place. We have 42 out of 76 turbines that were launched, and we believe that the first supply will start in the summer of 2026. As far as Baltic East and Baltic West are concerned, the technical analysis are underway, design work and permitting procedures as well. We are working on the launch of the Kolobrzeg Port project, and we have reserved the area at Kolobrzeg Port. So for Baltic West, we'll be able to use that 10 million which we secured under the national KPO program on the upgrade of our grid. We have already 1,000 kilometers of new and upgraded networks, and we also added 232 new supplies from renewable energy sources. As far as upstream supply is concerned, we are looking for new sources of hydrocarbons and focus on Norway and Poland in the Norwegian shelf we discovered 2 new field resources of hydrocarbon at Sissel and Frida Kahlo. This will add a lot of resources. We started new drilling work in Poland. We had first LNG supplies to Poland and the last 2 gas carriers were taken over in Korean shipyard. As far downstream is concerned, there was a major event in Q1, we finalized work in terms of the time line as well for the new chemicals project. This means that we will avoid the penalties and we managed to reduce the budget for this investment by PLN 16 billion while not reducing any of its scope. The HVO project was launched or the operation was actually open, which will allow us to upgrade our production and increase the share of bio components by 300,000 tons per year. Grupa Azoty Polyolefins, we signed a preliminary purchase agreement, and we have a vision of how this will proceed until the completion of work and procedures by all the supervisory bodies, we cannot manage this new asset, but we are getting ready for it, and we believe that we will soon be able to strengthen our petrochemicals product range in order to compete financial of foreign markets. effectively. We opened a new hydrogen station and we also signed a contract with the local municipal transport company, and that means that will be able to decarbonize even more effectively. Moving on to consumer products. We had record breaking both foreign market and in Poland. The share of German market in our consumer product structure went up very important. We are strengthening our electromobility offering. We increased the availability of e-mobility facilities in Germany, and we using our own facilities by 10%. We started the promotion for fuels in Poland. We launched it in March. It was supposed to be closed in April, but we prolonged it until the end of May and then until the end of the year. We are happy to see a number of customers joining or taking advantage of our both fuel and non-fuel offering. It's very difficult and challenging periods. We decided that the priority will be to ensure full availability of fuels to our customers despite this very difficult market, especially in the first month of the year and difficult supply of hydrocarbons to Poland. We had to -- we saw that 800 distributors had to be closed, but it was still something that we have overcome. And we also offered ORLEN new products for our customers. In terms of security, we had mild winters, and we did get used to it. We had, unfortunately, a couple of accidents here in terms of the safety of our employees. However, the safety at work indicators are still pretty low. However, we are unhappy to see that downward trend and the fact that we did have a couple of accidents makes us worried. We want to make sure that all our employees are safe at work and they go back home to their families every single day unharmed. We started the recruitment under the program of assistance to the Polish services. We also supported fire services, which extinguished fire in the Lublin region. We provided coffee and refreshment drinks free of charge as well as the fueling of the vehicles that took part in the fire extinguishing events. Moving on, the decision of the Management Board that we will recommend a record high dividend for 2025. This is not a final decision. You know that very well because we will have the General Shareholders' Meeting that will or may not approve our -- or confirm our recommendation. We want to transfer the success and the solid financial results to our shareholders. This is why we proposed such a high dividend, especially that the rating agencies analyze our performance and gave us quite solid assessments. That will be all from me. Slawomir Jedrzejczyk will take over to discuss our financial performance.

Thank you very much, Ireneusz. Ladies and gentlemen, everyone, I will now focus on the financial standing and financial position at ORLEN. Our revenue came in at nearly PLN 76 billion, which is higher than in previous quarters. It comes from the macro situation, higher prices of our products, but also higher volumes. EBITDA LIFO came in at PLN 14.1 billion, going up by PLN 2.6 billion year-on-year, and this solid result was delivered not only due to very favorable macro situation, but also due to the increasing operating parameters. The Cash flow from operations result at PLN 8.5 billion. This is pretty robust, and we had a certain effect of an increase of our working capital as well as deposits and derivatives. As far as CapEx is concerned, it came in at PLN 4.5 billion. We are gaining pace. We are accelerating our operations. I want to confirm that the investment plan that we adopted and published at the previous earnings call it is still in force. As far as net debt to EBITDA, we gained the additional PLN 600 million, and we improved our cash position by that amount. As far as our operating parameters, I always say that this slide makes us happy, really happy because it translates into our financial position. This shows that we are able to deliver those basic operating parameters despite the challenging environment. As far as upstream and supply is concerned in terms of hydrocarbon production, it went down a little bit. This is due to both planned and unplanned downtime. The plan for the entire year is to maintain production at the level of 2025. We had a pretty harsh winter, especially in February. It increased the wholesale of net gas. We are also showing a parameter that shows that we are increasing the LNG deliveries from the United States. As you can see on this slide, we're talking about 11 terawatt hours going up by 163%. We have 2 contracts in force, one with Venture Global, the other one is with Cheniere. And the second contract will be also added and the volume will be visible in 2027. In 2027, we'll have an additional contract with Sempra for 1.5 billion cubic meters per year. So in 2027, we will see the entire picture, the whole picture of our huge contracts with U.S. deliveries. In terms of downstream is concerned, we increased our crude oil throughput by 1%. And also we increased our fuel sales as well as petrochemical sales. As as energy is concerned, the production and sales of energy went up due to the harsh winter. So the same applies to heat production and electricity distribution and nat gas distribution. As you can see, heat production went up by 11% electricity production went by 10% and electricity distribution and nat gas distribution by 6% and 12%, respectively. We are also showing 0 and low emission capacity share going up by over 4 percentage points, coming in at over 64%. And something that makes us really proud, as Ireneusz said, our situation in Consumer and Products segment, we have very robust results for non-fuel sales. We have very high efficiency here. We managed to improve our breakeven and this allowed us to reduce the share -- the price of fuels by 35 gross per liter. As far as our distribution results are concerned, the situation is pretty positive as well in terms of nat gas sales going up by 11% and electricity sales going up by 14%. Moving on to EBITDA LIFO. We reported an EBITDA LIFO, which was higher than in the first quarter of 2025. For upstream, we reported result, which was lower by PLN 500 million due to lower prices. In terms of downstream, it was comparable to the fourth quarter of 2025. The downstream situation is pretty complicated or challenging. On the one hand, we have the revaluation effect, but it is partially offset by the currency conversion or currency exchange. and we are not able to catch up with the market and our margins are lower. We did not want to increase prices of our products to drastically. And this is why we had to sell the historic stock at the lower price. In terms of petrochemicals, we reached a breakeven, thanks to higher sales volumes and better exchange rate versus U.S. dollar. In terms of energy, both our large energy components went up. On the one hand, we have conventional energy, higher volumes of sales for both gas and electricity. On the other hand, we also have better results in terms of volumes. which were partially offset by lower margins on distribution and the higher costs set by PSE and gas system. For consumers and products, we reported PLN 1.7 billion, going up year-on-year. We had nonfuel sales increases and stable margins. The retail margins in Poland were lower than in 2025, as Ireneusz said, in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austrian markets, those margins went up. On the other hand, we had higher sales volumes in the nonfuel segment. Corporate functions, the result is lower than higher than last year, then this tells us that we need to focus on the costs as well as here in this particular segment. In terms of our CapEx, PLN 5.4 billion in the first quarter. Our target for the entire year was upheld, and we are showing our largest CapEx projects that were in progress, especially new chemicals, we want to spend about PLN 6 billion on this particular project, but we have other projects in downstream. We are continuing offshore projects in the Energy segment, the 4 CCGTs we talked about before and also in Consumer Products, we are expanding our fuel station network. We're moving on to discuss cash flow, which is very important because if we generate cash, we are able to deliver the historically largest investment project and also generate historically high dividends. There are 2 parameters which need to be discussed, especially the working capital at minus PLN 2.9 billion, which is only natural because we need more working capital. So the PLN 3.9 billion meant that we needed to freeze more cash and working capital, while when we stabilize the situation and reduce prices, some of that amount will be reversed. And the second figure that needs to be commented on PLN 3.9 billion for the valuation of deposits and derivatives. I believe that we have the most complicated policy in terms of hedging. We are hedging the prices of crude, gas and refining products as well as CO2 certificates. In March, we saw a high volatility on the one hand. And on the other hand, we saw a very dynamic situation in the market, and we had to have more deficits at PLN 3.9 billion. This does not mean that this amount will be reported finally in our financial statements. We'll see how the settlement will be handled. But I would like to confirm that this is our standard long-term hedging policy in order to flatten out the volatility. If there is a high volatility, which is favorable, then the hedging transactions act contrary to that trend and the other way around. So this is a very consistent policy that we have had for many, many years and will have it in the years to come. So as a result, PLN 14.1 million for EBITDA LIFO, PLN 8.5 million operating cash flow and PLN 7.5 million for investment cash flows, and this includes leasing. We also had PLN 0.4 million for interest and grants. This means that we had to have higher cash spending. But all in all, we managed to report an increase by PLN 600 million, and this is confirmed by the solid ratings from the agencies. Moody's gave us A3 with stable outlook and Fitch Ratings gave us BBB+ with stable outlook. This is an external confirmation of our financial strength. As far as our liquidity is concerned, just as in the last quarter, in the quarter before, our financing sources are well diversified. We have credit loans and our currency structure and bonds and our currency structure is adequate to our exposure we have debt in both euro and PN as well as in USD. And what's really important is the average debt maturity, which is 7 years. This shows that we have a very solid liquidity position, and this is why we're able to recommend the PLN 8 per share for a dividend. We are ready to make that payout still in June according to our proposal. The dividend record date is June 25. But obviously, we're waiting for the final approval of that dividend by the General Meeting of Shareholders, which was about to take place on the 9th of June. We are able to pay out that dividend while still delivering the historically largest investment program for the coming -- for 10 years. The last slide shows us key initiatives for 2026. This was discussed by Ireneusz before. I would like to emphasize very strongly, however, that in terms of our growth, we will deliver our investment program while maintaining cost discipline and very effective management of projects. We are convinced as the Management Board that we have streamlined, finally streamlined our processes that were launched years ago for those old projects. Those projects are now on the right track and the right trajectory, but we will still work on it. We will not rest on our laurels. We want to make sure that our investment programs are delivered as effectively as possible. And the second component I'd like to discuss is our operational excellence, the resilience and agility. I believe that we have managed in the first quarter, we have managed to be very effective here. and we are able to react effectively to the challenging situation. Our main goal was to ensure the availability of products and fuels as well as gas. It's difficult to make such a huge organization as ORLEN so agile, but we're doing our best to make sure that we are both resilient and agile. And the third component, financing, which is very close to my heart. Our goal is to secure financing to have refinancing as well in order to generate cash to pay out record-breaking dividends on the one hand, but on the other hand, to proceed with ORLEN's largest -- historically largest investment program. So thank you very much for your attention. And rest assured that we will continue to work on it.

Thank you, and thank you for your attention, and see you next time.