Saudi Arabian Oil Company (2222) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Saudi Aramco's Full Year 2022 Results Call. We'll be holding a Question and answer session following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] I should now hand over to Mr. Fergus MacLeod to begin.

Hello, and welcome to this audio webcast discussing Saudi Aramco's full year 2022 results. I'm Fergus MacLeod, and before we begin, I have a few personal remarks. This is the final earnings call that I will be attending, as I'm retiring after 6 years as Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. It's been a great honor and privilege to have served as Saudi Aramco's first-ever Head of Investor Relations, setting up the function and executing the IPO. We've established an excellent Investor Relations team of whom we're all very proud. And now I'm happy to be handing over to the capable hands of my successor, Peter Hutton. Peter?

Thank you, Fergus. Our webcast today will comprise a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session, and we anticipate the entire call lasting around an hour. It gives me great pleasure to be joined today by Amin Nasser, Aramco's CEO; and Ziad Al-Murshed, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I would also like to remind you that this webcast and conference call is being recorded and to draw your attention to this cautionary statement. During today's presentation, we may make forward-looking statements that refer to estimates, plans and expectations. Actual results and outcomes could differ materially due to factors we note on this slide. Please also refer to our regulatory filings and website for more details. With that, I will now hand over the call to Amin.

Thank you, Peter. I would also like to thank Fergus and wish him well for the future. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. For Aramco, 2022 was a year like no other, with significant achievements on a number of fronts. Using our advantaged assets to provide energy security to our customers, while also doing our part to support a more stable, practical and orderly energy transition. These achievements, through the dedication and commitment of the people of Aramco and support from all of our stakeholders, and my thanks go to them. Let me begin by describing how we are delivering on our advantaged position. Financially, we come from a position of strength due to our long-standing discipline and our ability to deliver through oil price cycles. Operationally, we have embarked on the largest capital expenditure program in our history, driven by our growth strategy and net-zero ambition, and I'm pleased to say that we are on track. Furthermore, our performance has enabled us to strengthen our balance sheet, while executing a record capital program and at the same time, increasing the cash dividend by 4%, in line with our sustainable and progressive dividend policy. In addition, the Board recommended to the General Assembly issuing bonus shares in the amount of one for every 10 shares. Strategically, Aramco is exceptionally well placed with energy demand expected to keep rising and planned industry investment failing to offset natural oilfield depletion rates, the future would require low cost, low carbon intensive producers with the flexibility to supply market needs. We believe the extra capacity from Aramco will be important to the global energy mix in the years ahead. Overall, macro uncertainty is likely to continue. There are positive signs, but we have the flexibility to succeed in a volatile market. The rapidly rising inflation we saw in 2022 has moderated, but remains high. And tight monetary policy in 2023 creates downside risk to global growth. 2022 oil demand recovered to close to 100 million barrels per day despite constraints in some key areas, including China and jet fuel demand. Further recovery in these could erode global spare capacity. We believe oil and gas will continue to be part of the world's energy mix for the foreseeable future. We see trends in industry capital investment being insufficient to meet demand, and much is directed into projects with higher depletion requiring still higher investment in the future. For Aramco, projects are at scale and provide stable long-term reliability and flexibility and a unique window of opportunity for Aramco to invest and accelerate growth. This is driven by long-term value creation and anchor to long-term view through price cycles. We think beyond quarter-to-quarter, and we have been operating like this for 9 decades. Our position as one of the lowest-cost producers globally and with one of the lowest upstream carbon intensities is by design. We operate oil and gas assets, which have scale and concentration, which is unique in the industry. We optimize this asset with a forecast and control, which is hard to replicate, where others are split between different fields or Barco fields, infrastructure, processing resources between different operators, with competing priorities, resources and financial needs. This allows a long-term value-led and sustainable approach to the rest of our management. [ Doubled ] with our deployment technology solutions, ensures we maintain low cost with low depletion rates. This shows in the scale and longevity of our reserves. Our strategy aims to capture this unique window of opportunity by continuing [indiscernible] in our growing integrated portfolio by remaining the supplier of choice for conventional energy and becoming a leader for low carbon fuels and solutions. In conventional energy, we are capitalizing on the need for further investment by increasing our maximum sustainable capacity from 12 million to 13 million barrels per day by 2027. We aim to grow our gas production by more than 50% by 2030 with the objective of meeting demand for clean and energy, availing additional liquid volume for export and enabling a blue hydrogen value chain. Downstream, our focus is on leveraging our captive system to further derisk our upstream by capturing integration value and improving the balance of our product portfolio towards chemical. We are investing to become a leader in blue hydrogen, carbon capture and sequestration and renewable energy. Importantly, we are executing on our growth plans in the context of our ambition to be net zero by 2050 in our Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions. This is backed by a strong balance sheet, which enables us to invest efficiently through the cycle. The planned increase in MSC from 12 million to 13 million barrels per day is driven by world-scale project based on our existing infrastructure. We are making good progress and are on track with the first increment coming on stream in 2024, followed by additional capacity coming incrementally and reaching our target by 2027. We expect our gas production to grow by more than 50% by 2030 through both conventional and unconventional gas projects coming on stream between now and 2025. This is against the background of rapidly growing domestic gas demand that is based on the Kingdom robust economic growth plans to switch from liquid-burning to gas for power generation and the expansion of petrochemical production. Furthermore, Gas investments support the potential to build a hydrogen value chain and enable future export of blue ammonia. This growth brings additional benefits with additional liquids becoming available for expert through liquids to gas switching, yielding up to 1 million barrels per day and around up to 1 million barrels per day of associated incremental liquids by 2030. In the Downstream, we have 2 primary pillars of growth. First, we aim to increase the share of our crude placed in our captive downstream system, which increased from 38% to 44% over the last 3 years. We continue to expand our footprint in key demand centers in Asia and Europe with the recent investment in Korea, China and Poland as well as across the value chain in finished lubricants with our Valvoline acquisition. Second, we are balancing our portfolio to our chemical and noncombustible uses, which offer higher growth and lower full cycle emissions. Our plan is to increase our liquid to chemical throughput of integrated refining and petrochemical complexes to up to 4 million barrels per day over the long term. With the inclusion of SABIC, we now have more than 56 million tonnes per annum of net chemical production capacity, making us a pre-eminent global chemical company. In Low Carbon Fuels & Solutions, we aim to become a global leader in carbon capture as we aim to sequester up to 11 million tonnes per year of CO2 equivalent annually by 2035. This includes building one of the world's largest CCS hubs in Jubail, which will have a capacity of 9 million metric tons per year. These plans also directly support our blue hydrogen business as we are targeting to build blue ammonia production capacity of 11 million tonnes per year by 2030. We are investing in one of the largest solar power plants in the Middle East with a capacity of 1.5 gigawatts. Our target is to invest or take a final investment decision in the 12 gigawatts of net capacity by 2030. We have established interim decarbonization target as part of our 2050 net-zero emissions. By 2035, we plan to reduce or mitigate more than 50 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions while also reducing our industry-leading upstream carbon intensity by 15% from 2018 baseline. Our focus on [ SABTANK ] value is demonstrated through building integrated value chain in the Kingdom, where we have already achieved a localization rate of around 63%. We also remain committed to attracting and nurturing young talent and promoting diversity and inclusion in our workforce. Aramco is exceptionally well placed as we believe the future will most certainly favor low-cost, low carbon intensive producers. We aim to maximize long-term shareholder value by investing in our growing integrated portfolio. We aim to be the producer of choice with a low-cost resources and lower carbon solutions. Our focus is on addressing the energy trilemma of reliable, affordable and sustainable energy while also capturing value in higher-value markets with increasing consumer needs. Let me now turn over to Ziad to discuss our 2022 financial performance.

Thank you, Amin, and welcome, everyone. It's a pleasure to walk you through our 2022 performance and details of our plans, leaving sufficient time to answer your questions at the end. Let me begin by highlighting the significant progress in delivering our strategy in 2022. As Amin noted, we are executing the largest capital program in our history. Progress is on track to increase our crude oil maximum sustainable capacity to 13 million barrels per day by 2027, with the first increments coming on stream next year. In gas, we are on track towards increasing our production by more than 50% by 2030. Specifically, in conventional gas, we have started the commissioning of the compression project at Haradh and Hawiyah fields, and we expect to reach full capacity of these projects in 2023. In unconventional gas, the construction of the Jafurah gas plant is underway. For gas storage, the Hawiyah Unayzah gas reservoir storage facility is nearing completion. This is the first underground gas storage project in the Kingdom, which will help us manage seasonal changes in demand and improve asset utilization and cost efficiency by enabling us to produce gas at full capacity throughout the year. Our downstream growth strategy is also underway by continuing to grow our presence in key markets and developing prospects to reach up to 4 million barrels per day into liquids to chemicals facilities. We expanded our downstream presence with the acquisition of an interest in Poland's refining, wholesale and jet fuel marketing segments, along with PKN ORLEN as well as across the value chain and finished lubricants with our acquisition of Valvoline, which closed about 2 weeks ago. Through our S-Oil affiliates, we committed to a significant investment in South Korea to develop one of the world's largest integrated petrochemical steam crackers. In Saudi Arabia, we are partnering with TotalEnergies to add a petrochemical complex to the SATORP refinery in Jubail that seeks to convert internally produced refinery off gases and naphtha into higher-value chemicals, with commercial operations expected in 2027. Our integration of SABIC continues to progress ahead of plan, with synergies of $2.2 billion being realized in multiple areas. Turning to low-carbon Fuels & Solutions. We are executing our interim targets to achieve our net zero ambition. For example, we have a joint agreement with the Saudi Ministry of Energy to construct one of the world's largest planned carbon capture utilization and storage hubs in Jubail of Saudi Arabia with a capacity of 9 million tonnes per year of CO2. We also worked with SABIC Agri-Nutrients on the world's first commercial shipment of lower carbon blue ammonia in the fourth quarter of 2022. In addition, we recently established one of the world's largest sustainability-focused corporate venture capital funds with $1.5 billion. We are further strengthening the localization of our supply chain through the IKTVA and Namaat programs, where we reached 63% local content in 2022, and we are targeting 70% by 2025. It's worth noting that this accelerated localization has helped dampen the impact of global supply chain bottlenecks. Moving to the financial side. Optimizing our capital structure remains a key part of our financial strategy, and we remain focused on maintaining a high investment-grade credit rating. Overall, we are progressing very well in our strategy. Turning to our key operational and financial highlights for this year. In 2022, we continue to build on our strong performance record by achieving the highest net income as a public company. Our record-breaking results demonstrate the company's flexibility and reliability through changing market conditions while maintaining fiscal discipline and a strong balance sheet to position the company for a stable and inclusive energy transition. We generated a record $161.1 billion in net income, which is around 45% higher than 2021. And -- we also generated $148.5 billion in free cash flow, almost 40% higher than 2021. Our strong profitability and cash generation supported our dividend distribution of $75 billion for the year. We reduced our balance sheet gearing to negative 8% at the end of the year, down considerably from 12% at the beginning of the year. Having said that, we continue to stress that we are focusing less and less on current balance sheet gearing and more and more on maintaining a high investment-grade credit rating across the oil price cycles. We, therefore, look at balance sheet gearing across the cycle and more importantly, on ascribed gearing, which, as you know, is a more conservative metric to assess financial strength and is what is used in determining the credit rating. Our organic capital spending was $37.6 billion in 2022, which is 18% higher than in 2021 as we ramped up to execute our growth plans. We will be ramping up again this year as we promised, which I will explain in a few minutes. But before I do that, let me take you through the details of our 2022 financial results compared to 2021. As you can see, we had significant improvements in the profitability of both upstream and downstream as a direct result of higher volumes, higher crude oil prices and stronger downstream margins. Upstream delivered EBIT of $291 billion, which is around 46% higher than 2021. I -- this was largely driven by higher production volumes and an increase of $30 per barrel in average realized oil prices, but also importantly, constant focus on costs, reliability and value creation. Downstream EBIT increased by 27% to just over $21 billion. This was driven by a combination of stronger margins in the first half of 2022, realizing SABIC synergies and benefits from our portfolio-wide transformation program. It is important to note that this significant improvement in earnings is in spite of charges of around $3.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 from one-off nonoperating items, which suppressed earnings. You can also see that all financial metrics continued to improve year-on-year, highlighting an exceptional year for Aramco with stronger net income, stronger cash flows and a stronger balance sheet. Going forward, as I mentioned earlier, we will continue to ramp up our investment in growth to capture the unique growth opportunities available to us in order to create significant additional long-term value for our shareholders. As you can see from this chart, we are making good progress in implementing our plans, where in 2022, we increased our capital spending by 18% from 2021, which was already considerably higher than 2020. We plan to continue to significantly increase our investment in growth this year, and our 2023 CapEx guidance range is $45 billion to $55 billion, including external investments. As we guided before, CapEx will continue to grow until around the middle of the decade as we implement our growth plans, and we are confident in our capital discipline and execution capabilities, building on our track record of delivery. This growth CapEx is directed to oil, gas, liquids to chemicals and low carbon fuels and solutions, and we are confident that these plans will drive long-term growth in free cash flow. It is this confidence that forms the basis of our sustainable progressive dividend policy. Since our listing in 2019, our industry has seen considerable market volatility, but we remain firm and rewarded our shareholders with a sustainable dividend policy even during the downturn. While ongoing uncertainty persists in the global economy and energy markets. We intend to utilize the strength of our balance sheet to protect our growth plans throughout the cycle and the dynamic and volatile global economic environment. As a result of the strong performance in 2022, we are now in a very strong position to execute our growth plans throughout the cycle, while delivering on our sustainable progressive dividend. Specifically, we have increased our cash dividend by 4%, so we will now be paying a dividend of $19.5 billion for the quarter, which will be paid on March 20. This increase is in line with our sustainable and progressive dividend policy. In addition, the Board of Directors recommended to the general assembly the distribution of bonus shares in the amount of one share for every 10 shares which is the same ratio of the bonus shares granted last year. And similar to last year, this is, again, a signal of confidence in the company's growth plans. Let me recap on how we are delivering shareholder value throughout the cycle. First, our CapEx program has been designed to be robust to different macroeconomic environments. We have stress tested our investments to ensure we have the ability to deliver long-term value to our shareholders under various scenarios. Second, we saw record profitability in 2022. We are in a position of exceptional strength supported by our long-term through-cycle thinking. It is a priority for us to maintain a strong balance sheet to protect our ability to fund our investment program irrespective of the macroeconomic environment. And finally, as we move forward to capture these unique opportunities, our proposition to shareholders has also evolved, providing a balanced mix of growth and yield through a sustainable and progressive dividend policy on which we have started to deliver. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and we are now excited to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] I should now hand back over to Mr. Peter Hutton.

Many thanks. So let's open up for questions. And the first is from Iyad Ghulam from SNB Capital.

This is Iyad Ghulam from SNB Capital. Congratulations on the record results. I have a question regarding -- any clarification about the dividend policy, following to the increase by 4% in Q4? Does the increase indicate a one-off annual increment or a change from the guidance indicated at the time of IPO? And how should we think about it, especially that the gearing ratio improved significantly and free cash flow reached around $149 billion?

Thank you for your question, Iyad. The way we should think about this is a sustainable dividend that is progressive, meaning we aim to increase it over the years. The gearing that you mentioned, it is true. We have strengthened our balance sheet. What -- the way you should look at this is we're more focused on credit rating, which means that we include ascribed gearing or ascribed debt into the gearing calculations. So we look across the cycle. We want to make sure we can continue to fund our capital program because the opportunities that are being sought after in the capital program are: one, unique to us; two, value accretive. They can -- we believe they create significant shareholder value, almost irrespective of the economic situation because of our competitive advantages, which you're well aware of, including low cost, low carbon intensity and captive markets and the like. With that type of opportunity set, the most important thing in creating shareholder value is making sure that we can fund this program through cycles. So what we do is we run multiple scenarios of oil prices, oil production. And we get to a point where we're comfortable in our ability to fund the capital program across the years to come. Once we do that, we recommend to our Board a healthy level of -- or the appropriate level of dividends. But again, the intent is sustainable and progressive.

Next question is from Mazen Al-Sudairi of Al Rajhi Capital.

Congratulations for the great results. With the market with global uncertainties and the expected oil prices to be lower relative to 2022, what is your outlook short-term and long-term with lower CapEx from international oil companies?

Thank you, Martin. I would say the markets remained tightly balanced and we remain cautiously optimistic about the market. We see a sign of demand recovery coming from China reopening and returning to pre-COVID levels from aviation. As you know, aviation industry went from -- in terms of jet fuel, went from $8 million to around $4.6 million during COVID. We expect a recovery to reach close by year-end this year to around 7 million barrels. So that's a significant recovery. China, in particular, the expectation that there will be an additional demand of 1 million barrels. So if you take into consideration the upward from China recovery of our close to 1 million barrels and upward recovery in aviation jet fuel and the tight spare capacity of around 2 million barrels, and as you mentioned, lack of investment to supplement the supply, our expectation that the market will be tight and the balances that exist today will face difficulty in the mid- to long-term in terms of meeting the demand from -- global demand.

Thank you, Mazen, for your question. The next question is from Biraj Borkhataria of RBC Capital Markets.

I have two questions, please. The first one is on your CapEx budget for '23. $10 billion from the bottom end to the top end is quite a big range. And I know some of that is inorganic and those things can be lumpy. But could you just give a bit more color on the expected organic level of CapEx for 2023? And also what inflation assumptions are embedded in the guidance? And then the second question is just on the overall kind of strategy you laid out. You have probably the most significant energy expansion plans in the global market over the next 5 years. We've seen a lot of supply chain challenges, early signs of delays to some key projects in other regions. So can you just talk a bit about some of the risks you're facing, both on the MSC oil production side and on the gas growth there? And what Aramco is doing specifically to help mitigate some of those challenges and meet the time lines that you set out?

Thank you, Biraj. I will take the second question. Ziad will talk about the CapEx. With regard to expansions and our supply chain, we were -- the local content in Aramco reached 63%. So that's really helped us a lot to mitigate the concern and supply chain, and we are aiming for 70% by 2025. And we have mitigated the inflation by renegotiating some contracts and commissioned work at lower prices -- And MSC -- a lot of the contract for expanding our MSC from 12 to 13 happened in 2020 and '21 when the market was in the low side and helped us to really get very attractive contracts. So our plans to increase MSC from 12 to 13 million barrels by 2027 is progressing very well. We are on track for our gas -- to grow our gas by more than 50% by 2030, and that will help us to mitigate liquid burning and avail almost 1 million barrels of current liquid burning by 2030. And also avail additional condensates and NGLs as a result of expanding our gas close to 1 million barrels. So basically, you are bringing 1 million by expanding your MSC by 2027 from 12 million to 15 million, 1 million by availing gas and taking the liquid that is currently burned and market that liquid and use it for exports. And the additional 1 million barrels, that will come from the additional gas. Therefore, alone, it's bringing close to 630,000 barrels per day of gas liquids and condensates. And it's a $2 billion sales gas that will be coming by 2030, in addition to more than 400 million standard cubic feet of ethane. So significant amount of ethane, a liquid that will come from Jafurah alone, but there are other associated -- nonassociated gas that will come by 2030, and that will help us a lot. So we don't see any issues with our supply chain to meet our programs and expansions planned to grow our capacity. With our capital guidance, Ziad will answer that.

Thank you, Biraj. I actually want to start answering your CapEx from where Amin stopped answering the second question because you did ask about inflation. Like Amin said, the cost inflation is being experienced by the entire sector and actually all of -- everyone, all the players in the world. However, because of a big part of our capital program being in 2022, we're able to renegotiate contracts and specifically, the domestic sourcing. Domestic sourcing was 63% of goods and services in '22 were sourced from our inking on total value adds, so domestic or local content. To a certain extent, that mitigated the inflation. We do not disclose the specific inflation numbers that we've embedded into our plans, but that should give you an idea of, at least directionally, how this impacts our capital program. In terms of the big range between $45 billion and $55 billion, you're absolutely correct. This is due to external investments. I know you're looking for details about our organic program. We currently do not disclose the specifics of that. You'd appreciate that the inorganic opportunities are currently being negotiated. We have commercial negotiations actually get impacted by this information, which is why we don't disclose it. In 2022, both organic and inorganic came in at about $40 billion. This was the lower range -- lower end of the range that we provided for CapEx guidance or for investment guidance for 2022. Basically, some of our transactions closed in the first quarter instead of -- [indiscernible] in 2022. You've seen some of the announcements that we made on closing some of the transactions. This year, similarly, we're providing the range -- a wide range. But what I can tell you is the organic capital program is increasing as well from 2022. And the investments will continue to increase until about mid-decade, specifically until the peak, which is, as you can imagine, our capital program, most of the projects take 5 to 7 years to materialize or to come online. So we said our MSC is coming fully online by '27. The gas is going throughout. So the peak is around mid-decade.

I will add also, Biraj, that some -- the variation is because some of the investments we're looking at operational assets. So the amount of investment will be high when we finalize the agreements compared to a grass route, which the payments -- the equity payments will be over time until you complete, and these takes approximately -- it's about 5 to 7 years. But a lot of what's also being negotiated currently is also running assets, which means the minute we make the agreements, we have to contribute the full equity to that [ JV ].

Thanks, Biraj. The next question is from Karen Kostanian of Bank of America.

Congratulations on your record results. I have two questions. My first question is, previously, you had a priority list for any free cash flow that remained above CapEx, and one of the priorities was deleveraging. Deleveraging is right now done. Have you reviewed your priority list for any extra free cash flow that might be distributed? And my second question about the organic CapEx. Do you have a split on how this is going to be spent on oil, gas and downstream?

Okay. I will take the -- thank you, Karen. I'll take the second question. Capital, if you want the split, almost 50% -- 60% in the short term going to upstream and 40% between downstream and low carbon and others. In the long term, the CapEx split will be 50% for upstream and 50% for downstream and low carbon and others. For your first question, Ziad?

So Karen, the priority list on our cash flow has not changed. You are correct in mentioning that we have deleveraged the company a lot. But if I can remind you of that priority list, it starts with sustaining CapEx than the sustainable dividend and followed by investment in growth. And then we have always said that the priority is additional deleveraging and/or additional distribution. This year, or for 2022, as you can see, we've done both, deleveraging and additional distributions. And again, like I told Iyad in the beginning, these distributions are not a special dividend. This is part of a sustainable progressive dividend, which we -- as you heard in my prepared remarks, we started delivering on.

Thank you, Karen. And the next question is from Christyan Malek of JPMorgan.

So, I have three questions. Apologies. First question is just around the quantum of your -- the size of your dividend increase. The thing that I'm trying to sort of get the head around is in one plane, we're talking about underinvestment and clearly expressing that through the largest growth barrels for many major in the world. But on the other claim, it feels like you're quite nervous about the near-term outlook. And so how do I square that out in terms of just the fact that the dividend increase could have all been more than 4%? And that segues to my second question, which is what do you do when your CapEx peaks in 2025? Because my slight concern has then there's something you need to build, and we just continue to see CapEx rolling into higher and higher outlooks. Or should I think about this as peak as real peak? At that point, the excess free cash flow is there to return to shareholders because you effectively now are in the pre-escalate mode in your barrels, and there's nothing else to build or grow? And my third question is China. What are you seeing in terms of China's demand growth? Because it feels like it's a bit disappointed and demand is disappointing. And I wonder -- I know you had this big visit last month, I think it was. And it didn't seem anything came away industrially around -- investing in downstream or collaborating. So what happened in that visit? Is there something to follow on in terms of an industrial plan with China, given that's where most of the marginal demand growth is? I mean that -- vis-a-vis downstream, vis-a-vis gas or whatever?

Thank you, Christyan. I'll take the third question regarding China, and Ziad will take questions, the first and second questions regarding the size of dividend. Now China prior to COVID, in 2019, it was 14 million barrels approximately in total demand. Currently, it's around 16 million we're talking about in 2023. We're expecting 16 million. That's a growth of about 2 million barrels. So the -- but we are very optimistic about what's happening in China and the growth that we are seeing. And we think China will continue to grow in terms of demand. We have a number of investments that we cannot declare right now. But hopefully, as I mentioned to the media yesterday and in the next 1 to 2 years, even through 2023, we are going to have a number of investments in China. We are currently, and we have been for some time, negotiating. Some of it is grassroot and some of it is existing assets that we have. And we are reaching a good stage in our negotiation to finalize the agreements on these investments. So there will be a significant growth in terms of our downstream investment in China. And we are counting on that, especially in highly integrated complexes with liquid-to-chemical. These complexes, you are looking at more than 50% liquid-to-chemical, and we have huge interest in investing whether it's a grassroot or existing assets. Ziad?

Yes. Thank you, Christyan, for the first two questions. As to the size of the dividend increase, I want to take you back to our priorities on the cash flow because they explain exactly how we think about the dividend decision. It's fairly simple. First and foremost is the sustaining capital, then the sustainable dividend. Then we talk about the investment in growth. And your two questions are related. So what do we do once our CapEx peaks? If our CapEx peaks and there's a reduction on investment and growth, then the next priority is additional distributions and/or additional deleveraging. But the way we think about this is a sustainable and progressive dividend. We do not want to be in a position where we are not able to sustain our dividends because we want to fund our capital program or be forced to cut our capital program in order to meet the dividend. Those are truly our four priorities in this order. So if we -- if our capital program peaks, of course, we can't speak if we can't -- if we don't find unique opportunities at that time. Basically, when we are able to create significant shareholder value, then we believe that's a lot more value than increasing dividend in the short term. Right now, in 2022 and as we speak, we're able to do all at once. So we're able to strengthen our balance sheet, execute our largest-ever in our history capital program and, at the same time, increase distributions. So this is how we look at it. But again, we're not looking quarter-to-quarter or just this year. We are looking at the next 5 to 7 years, running a lot of scenarios, making sure that under worst-case scenarios, we are still able to execute the projects that will still be value accretive and create significant shareholder value. So that's kind of how we look at it. I hope this is helpful.

Also, I would like to add, Christyan, to what Ziad mentioned. In terms of opportunities, there is a lot of opportunities in the future, especially in hydrogen, in LNG and in carbon capture and storage and e-fuel. There is a lot of opportunities that require certain capital spending as we identify these opportunities over the long term.

Thank you, Christyan. And the next question is from Henri Patricot of UBS.

Thank you for the presentation. I have a follow-up on CapEx and production outlook. You talked earlier about tightness on all markets, both in the medium and longer term. And you're trying to get the MSC to 13 million barrels per day. In that context of tight market limited investments elsewhere, how you're thinking about actually raising the MSC above 13 million? What would be the main challenges due to [indiscernible] you decided to go with that?

Thank you, Henri. The government is always practically interested in terms of looking at the MSC, but this is a government decision. And there is no mandate currently to go beyond 13 million. However, as I mentioned earlier, we are bringing 1 million barrels of additional crude through this increasing capacity. We will be -- by availing additional gas in the utility sector, we will be bringing additional 1 million barrels of crude that's currently liquids that -- liquid that's currently burning and avail it for the export market. And the expansion that we are doing on gas will bring additional NGLs and condensate close to -- by 2030 close to 1 million barrels. So in reality, if you look at it, it's 3 million barrels that will be availed. And MSC, as I mentioned, it's a government mandate and a decision from the government. And currently, there's no mandates to go beyond it.

Thank you. Next question is from Alastair Syme of Citigroup.

Can you talk a little bit about the $2.3 billion of synergies in SABIC, where you think you've realized them? You just want to get a bit of color. And then secondly, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the agreement you have for the Ministry of Energy to construct the CCUS hub at Jubail. I guess what I'm interested in is if there's any underlying market price on carbon? Or how has the government provided some sort of guarantees that you get the double-digit return on investment that I presumed you're targeting?

Thank you, Alastair. I will answer the second question. The one with regard to the synergies, Ziad will answer that.. Yes, we are progressing doing the engineering for the project. It's 9 million tonnes that we're doing in alignment with the Ministry of Energy. It's a big hub in Jubail. That will take care of not only -- the majority is for Aramco CO2 storage, but some of it is also for SABIC and others. And with regard to the incentives, it will be copper pricing from the government. We are still in discussion, and the discussion is going very well in terms of receiving these incentives that will facilitate, as you mentioned, a double-digit rate of return -- or a certain rate of return for these investments. But at this point, in Phase 1, as the government announced the intention to go to about 45 million tonnes of storage by 2055. So then this is the Phase 1, but that hub will expand as we identified enough aquifers to accommodate this capacity of storage within the area.

Yes. Alastair, on your first question regarding SABIC integration and synergies. So as we've been saying since the transaction, the synergies potential is significant. Few reasons why. One is the concentration of assets in -- especially in Jubail and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia as well as a lot of value chain interfaces. And then as Aramco has been expanding into chemicals, then there is a big focus on similar priority markets and products. The SABIC synergies, as you correctly mentioned, we've reached about $2.2 billion, $2.3 billion on an EBITDA level. This is ahead of our plan to achieve $3 billion to $4 billion by 2025. But again, these are -- keep in mind, these are recurring EBITDA impact synergies. The main areas that we realize this is procurement where we're able to leverage the volumes of both companies. In a lot of cases, we're going to the same suppliers and so on. So we're able to leverage that. We're also able to leverage the best practices in procurement between the two companies, but also other areas like sales and marketing, supply chain. And then on the operational side, there's stream integration because we have these assets almost co-located next to each other in Jubail and Yanbu as well as feedstock optimization as well as maintenance and operations synergies. So those are the main areas of the synergies. Of course, there are other areas, but of less significance.

Thanks, Alastair. Next question from Kim Fustier, HSBC.

I have two questions left, please. The first one is, could you talk about the rationale for the 1 to 10 bonus share issue? And my second question is just going back to CapEx. Are you able to give any quantified guidance on the level of peak spending by the middle of this decade? And how long this plateau could be?

Thank you, Kim. Ziad?

Let me take both questions, Kim. Thank you for those. On the 1 to 10 share bonus, this is exactly what we did last year. The intent of the 1 to 10 bonus share, which the Board is recommending to do again this year and it's going to present it for approval of the extraordinary general assembly, the main intent is a signal of the Board and management's confidence in the growth plans going forward. We will -- if this is approved by the general assembly, we will again provide one share for every 10 bonus shares. This is going to be done through capitalizing retained earnings, again, as a signal of confidence in the company's growth plans. On your second question, an exact number on the peak, we do not provide at this time, but we're providing guidance that last year was a record program for us in terms of investment. This year is going to be a new record in our history. Next year, we'll be another record according to our current plans. And we'll continue peaking until mid-decade. And then as we deliver more on our -- especially MSC 13, then the spending will reduce on that. As we start delivering on our gas expansions, it will reduce further and so on. Mind you, this is with the unique opportunities that we see today. As you heard, Amin, say earlier, we're always looking for opportunities, but we're extremely selective. We have a unique set of opportunities. So we have the luxury of being selective and disciplined on the fiscal side. So I hope this sheds some light on it. But in terms of a specific number, we do not disclose at the current time.

Thank you, Kim. Next question is from Amy Wong of Credit Suisse.

Thanks for the presentation. I have one question on your upstream carbon intensity. So you have a long-term ambition to reduce it by 15%, and congratulations in getting down year-on-year as well. So I just wanted you to talk a little bit -- give us a bit more color on how you get that upstream carbon intensity down? Because it's still a large portfolio. It's really difficult to move. So would certainly love to hear how you guys are doing that? Perhaps on your procurement practices, what are you guys doing there? And then a second question, if I may, fairly unrelated, but just your comment on the credit rating. Are you actually looking to push, to say, move from your single-A right now to push on AA or AAA and the rationale for doing that?

Thank you, Amy. I will take your first question with regard to our approach to net-zero by 2050 and trying to achieve that by reduced -- I mean through a number of elements: first, reducing our upstream carbon density by 15% by 2035 and reducing close to 50 million tonnes by 2035 in absolute in Scope 1 and 2 emissions. And for that, we are using 5 million levers to meet our ambition, including nature-based solutions, [indiscernible] renewables. I just mentioned about carbon capture and storage, which is about -- this is the first phase of 9 million tonnes. There are other phases that will follow. Energy efficiency, which is also very substantially, talking about 11 million tonnes, as we have highlighted in our sustainability report that we issued second quarter of last year. And of course, renewable target of 12 gigawatts by 2030 will avail about 14 million tonnes. And in addition to the 9 million tonnes, there are programs -- as I said to go to additional programs. But nature-based solutions and offsets will give us also close to 16 million tonnes. So if you add them up all that, it comes to about 50 million tonnes. So it's a program that will continue to carry until we meet our ambition of a net-zero by 2050. This is in addition to other efforts to help in terms of our customers and reducing their scope free through different elements, like more efficient cars, by working on the efficiency through our R&D centers, through availing blue hydrogen; through our crude to chemicals through the nonmetallic and advanced transportation technologies. All these initiatives of our end-user products that can lower their carbon emission and enhance our strategic resilience by creating a more sustainable, lower carbon product portfolio. Ziad?

Yes. Amy, regarding your credit rating question, what we're interested in is maintaining a high investment-grade credit rating. We're not necessarily looking to increase that per se at the time. The way you should think about this is we are looking across the cycle. We're in an industry that has an average cycle length of about 7 years. So what we do is look at multiple scenarios of price and volume assumptions and plot our cash needs with our capital program. Again, these unique opportunities to create shareholder value, and we make sure that we have a very high probability of being able to fund through the oil price cycles and at the same time, maintain a high-grade credit rating. So we're not necessarily -- we don't necessarily have an objective of increasing our credit rating from what it is today. But what we do have -- what we are targeting is that across the cycle, we maintain a high-grade credit rating. So you can imagine at times like this, we delever. Keeping in mind that depending on economic conditions across the cycle, we may have to lever up again. But we want to make sure that if we have to lever up again, we're not forced to cut the capital program because we are still in a healthy range of gearing. And I'm not referring to balance sheet gearing, I am referring to ascribed gearing the way the credit rating agencies look at it. And so that we -- even during the down cycles, we continue to completely fund our capital program and continue to have a high investment grade rating.

Just to add, Amy, into our decarbonization efforts per se. Scope 2 will benefit a lot from the Kingdom effort to have the utility sector 50% by renewable by 2050. That will have significant impact on our Scope 2 emission, not to mention the gas growth by more than 50% also will impact currently a lot of liquid burning. It will impact the utility sector and enhance our Scope 2 emission as well by availing more gas.

Thank you, Amy. So we got time for two more questions. The first of those two questions is from James Hubbard at Deutsche Bank.

Thanks for the presentation. Most of my questions have been answered, but the -- I got two. The first one, the $3.3 billion noncash charges, could you just give a little bit of color on that? And the second one, I saw the announcement of -- preliminary announcements on a JV with Geely and Renault with regards to power chains. And I know Aramco has been looking at IZE power chains and mobile storage of carbon for many years now. So I'm just wondering, is this new JV -- potential JV an extension of your current R&D into mobile decarbonization solutions? Or is it a new tack you're taking and you're kind of giving up somewhat on the mobile capture of carbon?

Thank you, James. I'll take your second question. Ziad will answer the one on the $3.3 billion. Yes, we signed a letter of intent with Renault and Geely regarding a JV -- a potential JV in internal combustion engine. The two companies also, they are carving out that business. They benefit from the strength of boats and the R&D centers that both have. And Aramco has a huge interest, a lot of R&D and research being done by Aramco in improving the efficiency of internal combustion engine. So it's going to be intense. This carve out of the business is going to look at internal combustion engine and other ways of really improving the efficiency and plug in as well. And so it's going to be a big JV, hopefully, in the future, a potential JV. And Aramco's interest by capitalizing on the technology that we will be offering as part of the licensing to that JV, to help certain markets maintain the internal combustion engines in terms of performance and making sure that they continue to have a lower carbon over time in the future. So we have huge interest in that. And we are currently in negotiation with regard to that with a letter of intent on that potential JV. Ziad will take that question.

Yes. James, on your question about the $3.3 billion, this is mainly two parts. There's about $2.4 billion of unrealized noncash tax impact. And this comes from a revaluation in -- of both assets and liabilities that are part of a couple of long-term agreements that we have. The assets and liabilities happen to sit in different parts of the business, which have two different tax brackets. And as a result of increases in interest rates in 2022, the valuation of the assets and liabilities both actually changed by the same amount. But because they sit in two different tax brackets, then the tax impact was the difference that you see. But again, this is unrealized noncash. The second part of this is a $900 million impairment, and this is related to one of the assets in -- or one of the facilities in downstream. And it's basically your standard impairment assessment, and it was disclosed in the notes to the financial statements.

We'll move to our last question from Mohammed Al-Thunayan of Jadwa Investment.

Best of luck to folks as well. So given the healthy net and gross cash balance of Aramco, impressive gearing level and in light of the recent progress of increasing quarterly dividend, so if you quantify the increase on an annualized basis, it represents around 3.7% of the average annual free cash flow in the last 5 years. So given that the company prefers a sustainable and growing dividend policy as opposed to a special dividend, is it fair to assume that the company will grow its dividend by similar magnitude over the medium term, taking into consideration the strong financial position and gross cash position, which I believe cover around 2.5 to 3x of the company's -- for 2023? And just a clarity on the $19.5 billion dividends for the fourth quarter. Should we consider the $19.5 billion as the new run rate for 2023? Or the progress of dividend is limited to the fourth quarter of 2022?

I'll let Ziad answer that. Thank you, Mohammed. Of course, we are talking about sustainable and progressive dividends. And we need to take into consideration that we are really growing in all sectors. We are growing in gas. We are growing in oil. We are growing in hydrogen and carbon capture and storage and e-fuel, and that growth will really position the company over the mid- to long term in a much better position, considering the diversification, especially in the liquids-to-chemicals. So the company by reducing its carbon and the company today is the lowest in terms of carbon -- obviously in carbon intensity globally. And that further decarbonization by the carbon capture and storage and blue hydrogen and the renewables and the offsets that I talked about and the efficiency improvements, and this will require significant capital over the mid- to long term. And that's -- but these are important and critical for the health of the company, by ensuring that we can maintain while growing in all of these sectors and meeting our 4 million barrels of liquid-to-chemical by 2030. We can sustain that progressive dividends for our shareholders. Ziad?

Thank you, Amin. Mohammed, thanks for the questions. Yes, the -- our intent of saying sustainable dividend is, meaning we aim to sustain at this level. And progressive, meaning we aim to increase it over the years as the situation or as the cash flow priorities that I explained earlier. Now I want to encourage you to look at this the way we do, which is looking forward on our capital program and running different scenarios of oil price and production volumes as opposed to looking at it historically, what it is a percentage from historical cash flows. Because going forward, like I said, these -- although we are very conservative and fiscally disciplined when it comes to selecting investment opportunities, that means the -- but we have -- even though we're very selective, we have a lot of unique opportunities available to us that are very high quality to create shareholder value. What that means is that we have a set of projects that are creating significant shareholder value through price cycles. You know our production costs, you know our low carbon intensity of our barrels. So it makes sense for -- and you know how we think of the market developing going forward. So it makes sense for additional barrels or the marginal barrels to come from Aramco. With that in mind, the last thing we want to do is be able to -- be forced to cut projects because of funding issues. So our approach is to make sure that we can fund across the cycle both our sustaining CapEx and the growth. And then after that, we delever or go for additional distribution. The leverage that we have is -- I mean, you see the balance sheet gearing. Yes, it is negative 7.9%, but if you look at the ascribed gearing, where -- which is the way we credit rating agencies look at this, we're higher. We're still at very healthy levels. We have very healthy credit ratings. We're rated on a stand-alone level by Moody's as AAA, and issuer rating is A1. We're stand-alone with Fitch being rated at AA+, issuer rating of A. This is very healthy. But we want to make sure that we maintain such credit ratings through the cycles. As the cycle progresses and as our growth plans are being executed, we're reevaluating this every time and presenting -- having a discussion at the Board. And on that basis, the Board decides whether to increase the dividend or when to increase the dividend again.

Yes, just to summarize, Mohammed. If you want to think about it, this is sustainable and progressive while you are able to decarbonize, which is important for our net-zero for FY 2050. You are able to achieve a significant growth in different sectors, oil and gas, to chemical and you are diversifying your portfolio at the same time by getting into new sectors like significant growth into liquid-to-chemical up to 4 million by 2030, hydrogen, e-fuels and others.

Thank you, Mohammed. Thank you. And that's actually the last question [indiscernible]. Many thanks, Mohammed. Many thanks to all the questioners and participants. And I'd like to hand over to Mr. Nasser for his closing remarks.

Thank you, Peter, and let me summarize some of the key points of our call. 2022 was a record year, and we continue to highlight our strength going forward. In both the results and our strategy, we have spoken about the scale of our advantage and the significant opportunity and growth it provides. We reiterate our targets and remain on track across Upstream, Downstream and in Low Carbon. Our investment program is supported by a strong balance sheet and strong cash generation. With negative gearing, we have confidence in our ability to fund the program efficiently even in a downturn. We reiterate our commitment to our shareholders with strong capital discipline, a focus on returns and a sustainable and progressive dividend policy. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.