Qatar Fuel Company Q.P.S.C. ("WOQOD") ($QFLS)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to WOQOD conference call. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd like to hand over to Phibion from QNB for opening remarks.

Thank you, Eli. Good morning to you all. I would like to welcome you to the WOQOD First Quarter of 2026 Earnings Conference Call. On the call today from the WOQOD's management team, we have the CFO, Pradeep Kumar; the Finance Manager, Abdulrahman Al-Hammadi; and the IR Officer, Ahmad Said Al-Mansoori. And as usual, they will first give us an overview of the first quarter, and then, we have a Q&A session afterwards. Let me turn over the call to Ahmad to begin. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Phibion. Good day to all the participants, and we hope everyone is keeping safe and healthy. We welcome you all to WOQOD's first quarter and March 2026 results conference call and appreciate your participation as WOQOD is committed to continuously enhance its investor relations initiatives. This has strengthened our communication and improved 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 statements that refer to expectations, projections, guidance or any other characterization of future events, including financial projections or future market conditions, 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 in Qatar Riyal and -- are in Qatar Riyal, and the conversion for the same to U.S. dollar is QAR 3.64 to USD 1. Now, I would like to hand over the call to our Finance Manager, Mr. Abdulrahman Al-Hammadi, to provide a brief overview of WOQOD and update on the key operation activities.

Thanks, Ahmad. Good morning, everybody. The key vision of WOQOD is to be leading petroleum product distribution and related services marketing company in the region. I'm on Slide 4, which shows the overview of WOQOD group. WOQOD started operation 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 130 stations at the end of March 2026. The chart on the right shows WOQOD station network. WOQOD also owns and operates 13 Fahes centers for inspection of vehicles across the state of Qatar. I'm on Slide 5, which shows the key operation of WOQOD Group. Key operation of WOQOD Group are diesel and gasoline fuel distribution and sales, jet fuel distribution and sales, shore-to-ship and ship-to-ship bunkering, LPG distribution and sales, natural gas distribution and sales, fuel bunkering, bitumen operations, C-store and auto care activity, vehicle inspection activity and office leasing. Turning to Slide 7, which shows the diesel and gasoline fuel sales volume trend analysis. As mentioned before, the core activity of WOQOD is fuel distribution and sales in the state of Qatar. Total fuel sales lower by 2% during YTD March 2026 as compared to the YTD March 2025, driven by current circumstances. Diesel sales volume decreased by 2% during YTD March 2026 versus the same period last year, mainly due to lower sales in B2B segment, driven by prevailing circumstances. Combined gasoline sales volume decreased by 2% during YTD March 2026 as compared to YTD March 2025, driven by market demand. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the first quarter 2026 diesel and gasoline sales volume decreased by 17% and 11%, respectively. Average fuel price for diesel and gasoline decreased by 3% and 8%, respectively, during the reporting period. Turning to Slide 8, which shows jet fuel sales volume comparison. Jet fuel sales decreased by 26% for first quarter 2026 as compared to the same period last year, driven by current circumstances. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, jet fuel volume -- jet fuel sales volume for first quarter 2026 decreased by 34%, driven by market demand. Jet fuel price for first quarter 2026 decreased by 7% as compared to the same period last year, driven by change in crude oil price. Combined sales volume of all petroleum products decreased by 15% during YTD March 2026 as compared to the same period last year. Turning to Slide 9, which shows the quarterly trend of retail fuel sales volume. Overall retail volume -- retail fuel volume of WOQOD petrol stations decreased by 3% during the first quarter of 2026, as compared to the same period last year, driven by current circumstances. Retail diesel and gasoline sales decreased by 4% and 3%, respectively, during the first quarter of 2026, as compared to the same period last year, driven by market demand. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the first quarter retail diesel and gasoline sales volume decreased by 16% and 12%, respectively. The market share of WOQOD in the petroleum retail market in the state of Qatar reached to about 84% during the first quarter 2026. Nonfuel retail sales decreased by 13% during the first quarter of 2026, mainly on account of decrease in Sidra and APC sales due to the market conditions. Now, I would like to hand over the call to our CFO, Mr. Pradeep Kumar, to discuss the key financial results.

Thank you, Abdulrahman, for all the volume updates. Good day, everyone. I would like to discuss the consolidated financial results of WOQOD for the first quarter '26. Slide 11 shows the revenue trend of WOQOD. Revenue from petroleum products account for nearly 96 percentage of the total revenue. WOQOD achieved total revenue of QAR 5 billion for the first quarter '26 as compared to QAR 6.3 billion during the same period last year, resulting in a decrease of 21 percentage. This decrease is mainly driven by the decrease in overall fuel sales volume by 15 percentage and decrease in average sales price by 7 percentage during the first quarter '26, as compared to same period last year. On a quarter-on-quarter comparison basis, the total revenue for first quarter '26 decreased by 26 percentage, mainly due to decrease in sales volume by 24 percentage and decrease in average sales price. Moving to Slide 12, which shows the net income trend analysis. WOQOD has made a net income of QAR 163 million for the first quarter '26, as compared to QAR 230 million for the same period last year. Net income lower by 29%, mainly due to decrease in overall sales volume and stock price variances. The detailed analysis of net income variance is given in the next slide. I'm on Slide 13 now, which shows the key variance analysis of net income for the first quarter '26, as compared to same period last year. Net income during first quarter '26 decreased by 29 percentage, that is QAR 68 million, as compared to same period last year, mainly due to following crisis. Net fuel operating income decreased, mainly driven by decrease in overall volumes by 15 percentage. Trading stock price variance is mainly driven by lower fuel prices during first quarter '26. B2B segment income decreased mainly due to lower offtake of volumes by the B2B segment, driven by the current circumstances. Nonfuel operating income and other segments decreased mainly driven by lower business activities due to prevailing market conditions. To conclude, WOQOD's results reflect resilience of our business, the financial strength and our continued focus on safety, reliability and operational efficiency. WOQOD's fundamentals continue to remain robust, and WOQOD is committed to meet all its strategic goals while placing safety as a top priority. WOQOD has strong leadership committed towards delivering the results to the shareholders. With this, we are ready for the Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Muhammad Adnan of AI Rayan Investment.

Just 2 questions. One, have you seen a recovery in the volumes since the situation -- the war situation has subsided? Are you seeing a recovery in the volumes? I'm assuming all this decline is primarily because of the war. And secondly, the jet fuel prices have declined again 7% this year. Do you see some improvement in these prices as oil has already increased? So if you could give some color on these 2 questions.

Muhammad Adnan, yes, regarding your first question, which is recovery of volume, I would say that jet fuel suffered the most, were 87 percentage down as compared to 2025 March. So that has shown some recovery in April. So we hope it will continue to improve in coming weeks. Regarding the other fuel, yes, I mean, it was not as bad as jet fuel, but that also shows the improvement trend in the recent weeks. So we are expecting to improve this in coming weeks. That's on the fuel volume recovery. On jet fuel prices, the prices are determined by Qatar Energy, and we are only a distributor. So they will decide the price after considering all the factors.

Your next question comes from the line of Rabih Moussa of QIC.

A couple of questions from my side. The first one relating to the stations, the planned stations at the beginning of the year that you plan to open. Are we still on track on this? And my second question is on jet fuel, jet fuel sales. What is the percentage recovery you're seeing in April?

On the petrol station development, yes, we are still on the plan. We don't see any issue with that. Regarding jet fuel recovery, yes, last month, it was only 13 percentage of last March, but right now, we see that considerable improvement. So as of now, I would say that it has recovered almost half of volumes. We don't know. We are closely watching the situation. It may go up or down. But we are closely watching it. Yes.

So you see half of the volumes recovered in April. Sorry, I didn't get that.

Yes. So far, that's a recovery trend. But, is it an indication? We don't know, but we are telling you based on our last 2 weeks of volume.

[Operator Instructions] Looks like we don't have any further questions. I'd now like to hand the call back to Phibion for closing remarks.

Thank you, Eli. If there are no further questions on the line, it brings us to the end of our call today. Many thanks to the management team for updating the market and responding to investor questions. And thank you all for joining us. And please do join us for the Q2 call. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.