Qatar Fuel Company Q.P.S.C. ("WOQOD") (QFLS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Qatar Fuel Q4 2021 Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. And at this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Bobby. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, hello, everyone. This is Bobby Sarkar, Head of Research at QNB Financial Services. I wanted to welcome everyone to WOQOD's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2021 Results Conference Call. So on this call, as usual, we have Pradeep Kumar, who is the CFO at WOQOD; we have Sultan Al-Maadeed, who's the Finance Manager; and Mufaddal Jariwala, who is the Treasury Head and IR Officer. So we will conduct this conference with management first reviewing the company's results followed by a brief Q&A. I would like to turn the call over now to Mufaddal. Mufaddal, please go ahead.

Thank you, Bobby. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call. Good day to all the participants, and we hope everyone is keeping safe and healthy. We welcome you all to WOQOD's quarter and year ended December 2021 results conference call and appreciate your participation. As WOQOD is committed to continuously enhance its investor relation initiatives, this is in order to strengthen our communication and improve transparency with all members of the global investment community. The presentation of this call will be available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Any statement that refers to expectations, projections, guidance or any other characterizations of future events, including financial projections or future market condition, is a forward-looking statement based on the assumptions today. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. The company cannot disclose any commercially sensitive information due to the confidentiality agreement signed with suppliers. Please refer to Slide #2 for the full version of disclaimer statements. All figures expressed in this call are in Qatari rials and the conversion for the same to the U.S. dollar is QAR 3.64 to USD 1. Now I would like to hand the call over to our Finance Manager, Mr. Sultan Jassim Al-Maadeed to provide a brief overview of WOQOD and update us on the key operational activities.

Thank you, Mufaddal. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the conference call for WOQOD. The key vision of WOQOD is to be the leading petroleum product distribution company in the region. I am on Slide 4 now, which shows the overview for WOQOD Group. WOQOD started operations in 2002 with exclusive rights for storage and distribution of petroleum products in the state of Qatar. Operations started with 2 petrol stations in 2003 and has grown to 111 stations as of end of 2021. 3 new petrol stations were added in the year 2021. The chart on the right shows WOQOD station network. WOQOD also operates 13 profit centers for inspection of vehicles. I am on Slide 5 now, which shows the key operations of WOQOD Group. The key operation of WOQOD Group are diesel and gasoline fuel sales distribution, jet fuel sales, shore-to-ship and ship-to-ship bunkering, LPG sales and distribution, natural gas sales and distribution, fuel bunkering, bitumen operation, C-Store and auto care activities. Finally, vehicle inspection services. Turning to Slide 7 now, which shows diesel and gasoline fuel sales volume and product trend analysis. As was mentioned before, the core activity of WOQOD is fuel sales and distribution in the state of Qatar. For the year ending December 2021 versus 2020, diesel sales were higher by 4% driven by macroeconomic factors. Combined gasoline sales volume were up 9%, driven by market demand and easing of restrictions. Total fuel sales were higher by 7%, driven by market demand. Average fuel price were higher by 37% in 2021 versus last year. The diesel and gasoline chart on the top shows the trend over the past 5 quarters. Diesel sales for the quarter were up 1% compared to the same quarter last year. Combined gasoline sales for the quarter were up 5% versus corresponding quarter last year. The improvement was driven by easing of restriction and market demand. Turning to Slide 8 now, which shows the jet fuel sales volume comparison. Jet fuel sales were higher by 15% in 2021 compared to last year, driven by easing of COVID-19 related air travel restrictions in many countries. Sales of fourth quarter 2021 increased by 22% compared to the same quarter last year, driven by improved uptake from airlines. Combined sales volume of all petroleum products increased by 10% for the year 2021 as compared to last year. And now we would be turning to Slide 9, which shows the retail fuel sales volume comparison for 2021 versus 2020. Retail fuel sales volume at petrol stations were higher by 8% for the year 2021 versus last year driven by market demand. The share of WOQOD in the petrol retail market reached up to 85% in the year of 2021. Now we will be turning to Slide #10, which shows retail fuel sales volume quarterly trends. For the year 2021 versus last year, overall retail fuel volume increased by 8%, which was driven by the market demand. Retail diesel sales increased by 4% and gasoline sales increased by 9%. For the fourth quarter 2021 versus corresponding quarter last year, overall retail fuel volume increased by 5% driven by market demand. Retail diesel sales increased by 4% and gasoline increased by 6%. We would like to share some additional information on other business segments for the year 2021 versus 2020. Natural gas sales increased by 13%, driven by market demand. Diesel bunkering sales increased by 28%, driven by market demand. And finally, nonpetroleum retail segment increased by 3% driven by various initiatives. Now I would like to hand over the call to our CFO, Mr. Pradeep Kumar, to discuss key financial results.

Thanks, Sultan, for all the volume updates. Good day, everyone, and hope everyone is safe and healthy. Now I would like to discuss the consolidated financial results of WOQOD for the year ended 31st December 2021. Starting with revenue. I'm on Slide 12 now, which shows the revenue trend of WOQOD. Revenue from fuel sales account for nearly 96 percentage of the total revenue. WOQOD achieved total revenue of QAR 19.5 billion for the year 2021 compared to QAR 13.2 billion during the year 2020, showing an increase of 47 percentage. The main reasons for the increase in revenue are increase in sales volume by 10 percentage and increase in overall prices by 40 percentage. As compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, the revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 is higher by QAR 2.8 billion, representing an increase of 93 percentage, mainly driven by increase in prices and sales volumes. Turning to Slide 13, which shows the net income. WOQOD has made a net income of QAR 974 million for the year 2021 as compared to QAR 707 million during 2020, increase of 38 percentage. This was mainly driven by higher sales volume and increase in fuel prices. Additionally, improvement in nonfuel segment also helped increase the net income. WOQOD opened 9 Sidra convenience stores and introduce more WOQOD-branded products and lubricants, representing 13% growth during 2021 in that segment. The detailed analysis of net income variance is given in the next slide. Slide 14 shows the key variance finance of net income for year 2021 against last year. The increase in net income of QAR 67 million is due the following major factors. Gross profit increased by QAR 238 million, 38 percentage increase mainly driven by increase in fuel sales volume and increase in fuel prices. G&A expense lower by QAR 2 million driven by cost optimization and efficiency improvements. Others net higher by QAR 27 million driven by lower provisions, which were partly offset by other income driven by prevailing market conditions. WOQOD's fundamentals continue to remain robust. And WOQOD is committed to meet all its strategic goals by placing safety as a top priority. The company managed to reduce the negative impact of the pandemic by taking several proactive steps and initiatives to ensure continuity of its business under these critical circumstances. WOQOD has a strong leadership committed towards delivering the results to the shareholders. With this, we are ready for the Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from Mohamed Adel from Al Faisal Investment.

I have, first of all, my first question is about electric vehicles. Is there any news that the company is planning to enter into the superchargers? This is one -- this is the first question. The second question is on the net income. So now when you're saying the remarks, and then also on the results, you said that the net income was basically driven by volume and the prices. And what I know about WOQOD and what the management has been seeing, also since I have been following the company for the last couple of years, is that the price is relatively neutral to the net income. The company works that they give like a percentage. I don't understand it honestly speaking. If it's the company gets the retail, for example, like a QAR 0.05 on the retail as a margin, I don't understand how this work and I don't know if there's any analysts in the market understand how this works. Thank you.

On the first part of your question regarding EV segment. Yes, we are looking into the opportunities and we are in the process of partnering with one of service providers here in Qatar to explore the opportunities in that segment. Regarding second part of your question, the volume, yes, it has impact on the net income environment. The volume has impacted asset prices because we carried inventory. And whenever the price goes up to that extent, the profit will be impacted. On the other side, we have other products as well like bitumen, et cetera, which is purely market-driven. So price also has an impact on our net income to that extent.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from Zohaib Pervez from Al Rayan Investment.

Thank you, gentlemen, for the presentation. Now that we end 2022 with the World Cup around the corner, which segments do you think should benefit WOQOD? And how do you see WOQOD taking this opportunity and benefiting from. Thank you.

Yes, we are looking forward to the opportunities associated with this World Cup event. And we expect that definitely the retail [indiscernible] segment will benefit from that. And also depending on the market factors, jet fuel is another area that we expect to improve this year.

Do you plan on opening another 12 stations this year? Is my understanding correct?

That's correct. That's the plan, and it's in the -- it's in a very advanced stage of completion. It is expected to complete before the third quarter. That's the plan.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from Gus Chehayeb from Sancta Capital.

Just a couple of questions relating to your aviation fuel business. Has there been any recent renegotiations of your pricing and margin formula with Qatar Airways? I know there were a couple price negotiations over the last 5 years where your margin was compressed a bit to occasions. Has that happened recently given kind of the difficulty in the aviation sector?

This is Sultan speaking. The aviation price is set by state of Qatar, and there are no changes or such.

Okay. Okay. And then can you give us maybe if you have any clarity on the airline's expansion plans, I know that they were put on hold to begin the pandemic, and that was somewhat of a driver for your growth over the years as you grew along with them as they expanded their fleet. Any visibility there in terms of how the long-term outlook looks? I mean, maybe medium, long term in terms of what they've communicated to you?

As you're aware, we are a fuel distributor, we will be ready definitely in case of any expansion that takes place. But for now, we don't have the visibility.

Okay. And then finally, you have a good amount of -- you're very well capitalized with quite a bit of cash and also on investment book, on your balance sheet. Are there any -- do you have any intention of disposing of this? Or do you intend to retain your investment portfolio the way it stands?

At this point, we'll continue as it is.

As there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to your speakers for any additional or closing remarks.

This is Bobby again from QNBFS. If we don't have any further questions on the line, we can end the call for now. I want to thank management at WOQOD for taking the time to speak to us and investors about their financial results, and we will pick this up next quarter. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Bobby, and thanks for everyone who attended. It's a pleasure having you on the call.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.