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

Welcome to Saudi Aramco's Third Quarter 2024 Results Call. [Operator Instructions] I should now hand over to Mr. Peter Hutton to begin.

Hello, and welcome to this audio webcast discussing Saudi Aramco's 3Q 2024 results. I'm Peter Hutton, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm pleased to be joined today by Ziad Al-Murshed, Executive Vice President and CFO. Our webcast today will comprise a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session, and we anticipate the entire call lasting up to an hour. I would also like to remind you that this webcast and conference call are being recorded and also draw your attention to this cautionary note on forward-looking statements. Please also refer to our regulatory filings and website for more details. With that, I will now hand over the call to Ziad.

Thank you, Peter. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our earnings call today. Aramco continues to show its resilience across cycles. Today, we have posted strong results for the third quarter, and we are progressing well on our growth plans. This success is driven by the quality of our portfolio, our financial strength, and the commitment of my colleagues at Aramco to provide the reliable and affordable energy our customers need. Let me begin by sharing some insights on global oil demand and supply. The world is seeing record oil demand. In Q3, demand reached a new high of 106.1 million barrels per day with similar levels expected in the fourth quarter taking the yield average to nearly 105 million barrels per day. In addition, this increase is on top of significant upward revisions by forecasters to 2023 base, both globally and in China, where we are seeing robust demand. Furthermore, this growth is more broadly based up in all areas, especially in Asia, which we expect to account for around 60% of growth this year. This growth is contributing to the ongoing drawdown of global inventories, which continue to be at the lower end of a 5-year range with both this near-term demand growth and our ongoing view of longer-term demand growth, Aramco is well placed to generate value. We have low cost, low upstream carbon intensity barrels today and our roughly 3 million barrels per day of spare capacity can be activated quickly and at limited incremental cost, allowing us to capture upside opportunities in addition to up to 1 million barrels per day of high-value liquids coming online by 2030 from our growing gas business. Our business remains resilient enabling us to drive further value through our industry-leading operational and financial performance. At $27.6 billion, our Q3 net income was robust. With oil prices down 7.5%, our results, excluding certain noncash charges of around $0.9 billion were just 2% lower than Q2 compared to down 8% for our peers. Aramco continues to deliver superior returns with 12-month rolling ROACE of 20.8%, nearly double that of our peers. And our balance sheet remains strong with gearing of 1.9%, the lowest among our peer group. With this high performance, we continue to reinvest in advantaged value-accretive projects. At the beginning of this year, we guided full year 2024 capital investments of $48 billion to $58 billion. We are well on track, and we are narrowing our guidance range to $51 billion to $54 billion for 2024. We also continue to focus on shareholder returns through a dividend framework that is designed to be resilient on the downside, and to share the upside. In Q3, we declared $20.3 billion of base dividends and $10.8 billion of performance-linked dividends relating to years 2022 and 2023 combined. Both dividends will be paid in Q4 this year. With that, let's turn to the third quarter highlights in delivering our strategy. Starting with upstream. Our projects are progressing well and are on track. Water injection operations started on the demand development Phase 1 as planned, and activities continue for Phase 2 coming on stream by 2027. Together, the two phases will add an additional capacity of 75,000 barrels per day. Other major projects, including our Berri, Marjan and Zuluf increments, are also progressing as planned. In gas, we are progressing well with our growth strategy. The first phase of Jafurah is set to commence operations in 2025, adding 200 million standard cubic feet per day of sales gas production. Construction and procurement activities are on track at the Tanajib gas plant coming on stream in 2025 to process associated gas from the Marjan and Zuluf fields. We also awarded contracts for the Marjan Gas Lift project, which is part of the broader Marjan field expansion. In LNG, we continue to expand our international portfolio and enhance our trading capabilities, which will capture opportunities from growing gas demand. In Q3, we increased our ownership in MidOcean to fund an additional 15% stake in Peru LNG. In Downstream, we are maintaining our focus on integration and liquids conversion into chemicals. This allows us to further balance our product portfolio between transportation fuels and petrochemicals and capture incremental value further down the hydrocarbon value chain. Our integration of SABIC continues to progress ahead of plans, with synergies being realized in multiple areas. We continue to look at stream integration synergies in other key assets, including in Jubail and Yanbu. In Q3, we saw continued progress with 53% of our crude oil production utilized by our own captive Downstream system. And I am pleased that so far, we have achieved almost half of our long-term liquids to chemicals throughput target of 4 million barrels per day. We expect to see more progress as we have 3 major projects: S-OIL expansion in Korea, Huajin Aramco petrochemicals in China and SATORP expansion in Saudi Arabia, all under construction and are progressing well as planned. In our New Energies business, we financially closed 3 solar PV developments expected to be operational by 2027, and these 3 projects alone have a combined gross capacity of 5.5 gigawatts. With our 30% equity stake, these 3 projects alone equate to a sizable 15% of our 2030 renewables net capacity targets. In hydrogen, we continue to advance discussions with a number of potential international customers to secure offtake agreements. These provide the anchor to the economic returns of our investments which, as we've always said, would only proceed with commercial offtake. In addition to the growth we are talking about, we further optimized our portfolio and capital structure. Our major subsidiary, SABIC, announced the sale of its 20.6% stake in Aluminum Bahrain for approximately $1 billion. This is in line with our previously communicated portfolio optimization strategy to unlock value by redirecting capital to opportunities with higher growth and higher returns. We continue to diversify our debt investor base with the issuance of a $6 billion conventional bond and a $3 billion international sukuk. Our unique credit proposition was well received by investors with both deals being 6x oversubscribed and enabling us to achieve superior pricing with negative new issue premiums. Overall, we are pleased with the progress of our strategy execution to drive incremental value. Turning to our key Q3 operational and financial highlights. As I mentioned earlier, we reported a resilient net income of $27.6 billion. Excluding the certain noncash charges of around $0.9 billion, our adjusted net income was down only 2% versus Q2. This compares favorably to the 8% decline of our peers. Our capital investments totaled $14 billion and our organic CapEx was $13.2 billion. As I indicated, our full year 2024 capital investments guidance is now $51 billion to $54 billion. Despite average realized oil prices down by 7.5% and our capital investments up by 12% quarter-on-quarter, our free cash flow was up by 15.8% at $22 billion. Our balance sheet also remains strong with gearing of 1.9% at the end of September. This quarter-on-quarter increase in gearing is in line with our plan to further optimize our capital structure over time. Our upstream EBIT was solid at $52.8 billion. Our Downstream EBIT was negative $1.8 billion, mainly as a result of continued weakness in both chemicals and refining margins as well as certain noncash items. Meanwhile, our 12-month rolling ROACE was 20.8%. This is well ahead of our peers, even though it is negatively impacted by almost $90 billion of assets under construction on the balance sheet that are not yet operational to generate returns. Without accounting for these assets under construction, ROACE would have been around 25%. Before we move to Q&A, let me summarize our key takeaways today. We are an organization that thinks long term, invests for the long term and serves our shareholders over the long term with the ability to deliver also in the short term. We are on track delivering our growth strategy, capturing advantaged unique opportunities. We continue to deliver exceptional financial performance and our ongoing focus is on generating shareholder value. Thank you very much for your attention, ladies and gentlemen. Peter and I are pleased to take your questions.

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

Thank you, Charlie. And our first question comes from Iyad Ghulam of SNB Capital.

[Foreign Language] I have two questions. The first one is about the increase in total hydrocarbon production reaching 12.7 million barrel of oil equivalents versus 12.3 million last quarter. So what is the main driver behind this increase? And the second question is about the ongoing losses on the Downstream. What is your plan to reduce these losses? And what is the SAR 3.4 billion or $0.9 billion one-off related to?

Yes. Thank you very much for the questions. The increase in total hydrocarbon production is basically just coming from gas and it's seasonal. You see that trend every year in the third quarter, not different this year. So that's where it's from, seasonal gas production increases. On the ongoing performance of Downstream, two things. You specifically asked about the noncash charges, that is basically -- those are basically impairment charges. And as for the performance of downstream, as you know, the entire downstream sector globally is experiencing low margins, both in refining and chemicals. Our Downstream business is not immune to these low margins. Having said that, we have -- or we are continuing to work on transformation of the Downstream assets. We're looking at -- we continue to look at asset by asset and improvement opportunities. We will -- or we have been reporting on some of these results in our annual reports. But the margins are low globally in all jurisdictions for both refining and chemicals. So that's -- that results in the performance that you see.

Thank you. And the next question is from Biraj Borkhataria of RBC Capital.

Just wanted to ask around the CapEx and how you're thinking about next year, in particular -- you already flagged with the lower MSC ambitions. You had lower spend. But I think directionally 2025 was still expected to be higher than 2024 CapEx. Is that still the case as you see things today? And then the second question is just on the LNG front. I just wanted a bit more color on your ambitions in this space in the next 5 or 10 years. Do you have an idea of portfolio size, structure you've won. You've made a few moves here and there. I can't say I fully understand the strategic rationale of some of them, for example, with Peru LNG the offtake goes to one buyer and a lot of the values in the offtake rather than liquefaction. So I'm just trying to get a better understanding of what you're trying to achieve on the LNG side?

Thank you, Biraj. On your first question on the 2025 CapEx. We are still expecting our CapEx program to peak mid-decade. So in that sense, we're expecting 2025 to be somewhat higher than 2024. Most of these are projects that are under construction as we continue to deliver on our strategy with the projects that we announced. The spending profile of these projects is such that the peak is approaching mid-decade, and as we said, so therefore, we're expecting next year to be slightly higher than this year. I must say this is what the current set of opportunities that we're looking at. As you may appreciate, and actually, as you would expect us to do, we're continuously looking for opportunities to add shareholder value. And so with the current set of opportunities, this is the profile we're expecting. I also want to remind you that, as we said earlier, the MSC 13 going to MSC 12 has resulted in savings in a 5-year program. And we said that a lot of these savings did not come in '24, which means that they'll start coming in '25, '26 and '27 and '28, mostly as those projects that were deferred would have ramped up. On your second question on LNG, look, our ambition is to create an LNG business that is tied through trading of LNG. We fully realize that most of the value is actually in the offtake. And that's what we're after the project that you referred to today doesn't have an opportunity for us to offtake. But going forward, it opens the door for us to get access to this offtake in the next few years. In general, what we're trying to build is LNG positions that give us access to offtake, and we're ramping up LNG trading capability within Aramco Trading to be able to capture this value from this portfolio. Also, if you then switch to the domestic, we can tie it to the domestic gas business that we have. We do look at it as one business. As we said earlier, we've earmarked a considerable volume of the gas that's coming out for the production of blue ammonia, blue hydrogen, going forward. And we've also said that, that will only proceed if we get commercial long-term offtake. So to the extent that this does not proceed, we would also then evaluate the option of LNG to the extent that these volumes are over and above the needs of the domestic demand.

That's very helpful. Just on the last point. Has there been any changes on the ammonia side on the commercial front?

No. We continue to work on discussions with potential off-takers of blue ammonia. I'm assuming you're referring to blue ammonia. We continue to feel that we're advantaged in the production of blue ammonia, blue hydrogen for several reasons. One is our capability in the group, specifically within SABIC Agri-Nutrients, the know-how to produce ammonia, the advantaged feedstock that we have in the domestic gas to produce this ammonia, the advantaged position that we have in carbon capture sequestration in order to turn this ammonia blue by capturing the CO2 and sequestering it. And so all in all, we continue to feel advantaged. But like we said, unless this is tied to long-term commercial offtake, we're not able to proceed with these projects. We -- nothing has changed yet in terms of the discussions with potential offtakers. We will have a much better view towards the end of the year. So we hope to be able to give you additional clarity with the year-end results earnings call in March.

Thank you, Biraj. And the next question comes from Michele Della Vigna of Goldman Sachs.

Congratulations on another stronger set of results. Two questions, if I may. The first one is on Downstream. You rightly highlight weakness across refining and petrochemicals. I'm wondering if you see any green shoots? There's a couple of areas like in diesel where we may seem to see a bit of a sign of recovery. And whether you're actually seeing any impact of the China stimulus really starting to accelerate demand there. And then secondly, you're starting to make the first important move in renewable power. I was thinking, do you see this more as something to integrate into your industrial activities mostly in Saudi or you potentially could see this as an independent profitable growing global business?

Thank you, Michele. On your first question, we are starting to see signs of improvements. You mentioned diesel. We're also seeing a little bit on jet fuel. This -- but not enough for us to be able to have a very clear picture on when the bottom of the cycle is really. We are starting to see -- to us, what we're seeing in China is a healthy demand growth. We see a lot of the numbers for growth actually being distorted by upward revisions of the base of 2023. And so figuring out what actual growth is in 2024 is actually a bit more complex than just looking at the growth numbers. I'm sure you've been monitoring the major upward revisions in a lot of the numbers for the base of 2023. So with these major upward revisions, it looks -- it makes 2024 growth look less than it actually is. If you look at China, specifically with 2023 data revised up compared to previous reports just 2 months ago, we see upward revisions of 700,000 barrels per day for 2024 and 500,000 barrels per day for 2023, and so -- sorry, it's actually 2023 that's revised upwards by 700,000 barrels in 2024, revised up by 500,000 barrels. And so that kind of distorts the picture. Having said that, we still see jet fuels not back to pre-pandemic levels, but we see it increasing. So we still think it has plenty of potential. And we're seeing signs that's -- or light at the end of the tunnel, if you will. But I can't say we're seeing signs clear enough that we're approaching recovery very quickly. On renewables, this program that we have currently, mostly in Saudi Arabia. We have a list -- a pipeline of projects that we're participating in, in consortium with the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia and ACWA Power to take us up to an equity capacity of 12 gigawatts by 2030. In the third quarter, the projects that we financially closed bring in 5.5 gigawatts of capacity, 30% of that is our kind of net equity capacity. That's 15% -- that alone is 15% of the total. But if you add the projects that we've signed so far, whether it's [indiscernible] as well as the 3 projects we closed in the third quarter. we're actually more than 1/3 of our way towards meeting our 2030 target with just the projects that we've signed so far. What we're planning to do with this is because mostly this is in Saudi Arabia, we're looking for opportunities to integrate with our business for areas that are not adjacent to our business and that are connected to the grid. We're looking to take the renewable credits and utilize those towards our ambition -- net zero ambition by 2050.

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

I've got 2 questions, please. The first one on shareholder returns and the dividend because we see that net debt -- you move back into a net debt position. It looks like the excess free cash flow could be quite limited or there could be no excess free cash flow this year because of the weaker oil price. So I was just wondering if you are able to give us some indication on the evolution of the dividend for next year in this environment and a financial situation, which we still expect to see some growth in base dividends? And then secondly, during your opening remarks, you mentioned SABIC and synergies. I was wondering if you can give us an update on how much more synergies you see and where this could be coming from?

Thank you, Henri. On the returns and dividends, the dividends that we're distributing this year, we've just announced a continuation of the dividends, both on the base and the sixth payment of the performance-linked dividends on next year with the full year results, we will be announcing in March the result of the calculations on the performance-linked dividends. And on the base dividend, again, it's a decision that's going to be based on our position we will announce it in March. What I do want to remind you is that our base dividend is -- continues to be intended to be sustainable and progressive over the years. And our performance-linked dividend is just a formula. So I'll leave it to your forecast of what happens between now and the end of the year in order to come up with your own conclusions on that. But the framework itself is not changing, and we will announce the numbers with the year-end results in March. On the SABIC synergies, we're progressing well on track. When we announced the SABIC transaction, we also announced synergies for the group to achieve $3 billion to $4 billion of annual recurring synergies by 2025. We're well on track to do this. So this is the amount that we expect fully realized on an annual basis by next year, so by 2025. Most of this value, the absolute -- the biggest bucket, if you will, comes from procurement synergies but also far to give you the top maybe 5 or 6 buckets, procurement being the largest one by far, but also sales and marketing, there's one face to the market and the streamlining of -- between Aramco trading company and SABIC, who's actually handling each product. Basically, roughly the solid products have gone to SABIC to market from the entire group and liquid products based on capabilities has gone with Aramco trading. So there's a lot of value generated there. Also, supply chain, stream integration, feedstock optimization and maintenance. If I focus on stream integration and feedstock optimization, we're really taking advantage of that all of SABIC's and most of Aramco's downstream assets are very closely colocated in 2 cities, [indiscernible] in the East Coast and Yanbu in the West Coast. So as a result, we're able to design and exchanging a lot of streams and integrating between the plants as well as optimizing feedstock and to also major, but to a lesser extent, maintenance synergies. Those types of synergies, especially on the stream integration and feedstock optimization, what have you, because they require some execution of capital projects that is -- those are the main ones that are taking us time, and that's why you see a 5- to 6-year plan. But we're on track to deliver annual recurring -- to reach the target of annual recurring synergies of $3 billion to $4 billion by next year.

Thank you, Henri. Thanks a lot. The next question is from Guilherme Levy of Morgan Stanley.

I have two, please. The first one, just thinking about working capital. I just wanted to pick your brain on how to think about working capital dynamics over the coming quarters, if the oil price continues where it is at the moment? And then secondly, the company is now halfway throw it's throughput target of long-term liquids to chemicals. And you mentioned a couple of projects currently under construction. So I just wanted to maybe understand a little bit better what you're thinking in terms of time frame for this project to be concluded and then next step for us to achieve the 4 million barrels per day goal.

Thank you. Let me start with your second question, and then I'll ask you to elaborate on your first question and what specifically you want us to focus on. But on your second question, the liquids to chemicals, we've announced a target of 4 million barrels per day as feedstock into or primarily liquids to chemicals conversion assets. We're about 45%, so roughly half of the way there. If you include the 3 projects that I talked about in my prepared remarks, so S-OIL expansion in South Korea, Huajin Aramco Petrochemicals in China and SATORP expansion here in Jubail in Saudi Arabia, that will put us well along the way. We also have a pipeline of investment opportunities mainly in China, but also elsewhere in the region that take us -- if they all materialize, it will take us above the 4 million, but of course, investment opportunities don't all materialize. In terms of exact target year, the way we think about it is 2030, but we do not want to put undue pressure on ourselves by having to either relax our capital discipline or enter into opportunities that are not shareholder or not value accretive in order to meet a hard target. So what we -- the way we think about it is 2030, whether we end up actually reaching the actual onstream dates by 2030 or FID by 2030, we remain flexible on that because, again, we want to maintain our capital discipline, and we want to only go after projects that create shareholder value. A lot of these pipeline projects are M&A-type activities similar to the one that you've seen us do in China. So a lot of them are equity-light investments that give us -- that are placement heavy and conversion to chemical heavy. So our ideal investment is something like the Rongsheng investment, where we had a 10% stake with a 60% placement right. So that one investment alone was 480,000 barrels per day. That by itself is a long way towards our 4 million barrels per day target and the liquid conversion into chemicals is well above 50%. So as a result, not much investment for a long way of achieving that target. We have a few of those lined up. We're in the middle of negotiations. And so I'm not able to predict as of now, which ones will actually materialize and which will not. But what I can tell you is the cover, if you will, of these pipeline opportunities is well above the target that we have for liquids to chemicals. So we can afford to maintain our capital discipline and lose a couple of these opportunities.

Guilherme, do you want to just -- can you just take us through that first question about working capital again, please?

Yes, sure. Just wanted to maybe understand what you're thinking in terms of potential working capital release over the coming quarters? Of course, we saw a release now in the third Q after some working capital view in the previous quarter. So yes, maybe if you can share some thoughts on if that is potentially continuing into the 4Q and in the first quarter of next year if the current commodity prices continue where they are?

Yes. So our working capital is very strongly correlated to oil prices. So in that sense, we're not really concerned when our working capital goes up because that means we have higher oil prices. But on a more serious note, what we are doing is looking for opportunities to optimize our working capital whether it is expediting our receivables, whether it is helping our -- a lot of supply chain financing and whether it's with our suppliers or our customers. That helps a bit. But the biggest thing that moves the needle on working capital by far is oil prices out there. So I know looking at working capital movements, nobody wants to see an increase in working capital, and we're no different. But in our case, it means that it's because oil prices will be moving higher, which is not a very bad thing.

Thank you, Guilherme. And the next question is from Kim Fustier of HSBC. Kim?

I have two, please. Firstly, could you talk about the cost environment as we're hearing of continued cost inflation in the region? Maybe if you can give us examples of how you're reducing cost in the upstream and extracting efficiencies? And with respect to the supply chain, to what degree are you successful when you're asking for discounts from your suppliers? Secondly, I wanted to ask about maybe discuss the rationale for the cancellation of the Saudi refinery and chemical projects. Is that because you're now more focused on Asia? And is it linked to the acquisition of an additional stake in “Petro Rabigh” as a way of managing your overall net exposure to the Saudi chemical sector?

Thank you, Kim. On cost inflation, as we've mentioned in the past, the cost inflation actually in Saudi Arabia has been much lower than globally. And with our local content, this program that we started thinking the total value add more than a decade ago or about a decade ago has really helped us because it increased our local content. Local content at the end of 2023 was about 65% and is inching upward. And so that means 65% of our spend is actually subject to much lower inflation rates because the inflation rates in Saudi Arabia have been lower. Of course, when we started this program, it had a completely different objective. It was to localize our supply chain in order to improve response times and improve our reliability and what have you. But this is a very nice added benefit that we started experiencing when global inflation started increasing. In terms of supply chain negotiations and discounts, I do not want to comment on what we're able -- we're not able to get from our suppliers specifically. What I can tell you is with the synergies that we talked about -- that I talked about a couple of questions ago, most of them coming from procurement all come from negotiations. So that covers everything in the group, except for upstream. On upstream, there are separate efforts to always optimize. We're always optimizing all inputs, including rigs and others. But I do not want to comment specifically on what discounts we are or are not getting. On the liquids to chemicals, I think I know which article you're referring to, but we do not comment on market speculation. But what I can tell you is that our liquids to chemical strategy remains on track. We continuously evaluate all opportunities, whether in Kingdom or abroad, whether greenfield, brownfield or acquisitions. And the intent is to create shareholder value. We continue to look at a lot of projects, both in Kingdom and out of Kingdom. And if we were to decide to postpone or cancel a project, we would announce it but we remain laser focused on our strategy.

Thanks, Kim. Next question is from Sashank Lanka of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Yes. Congratulations on another strong resilient results. I think most of my questions have been answered. I just have one question with regards to the Jafurah expansion. We obviously know there's a lot of liquids coming out of NGL. So the understanding was that would be used for the feedstock for the Saudi petchem industry, but are you also willing or looking to export that to the Asian market, especially as you grow your presence downstream?

Sashank, thank you. You're absolutely right. Jafurah comes in with a lot of liquids. In fact, that's where most of the value of Jafurah comes in, in addition to the ethane. So Jafurah, by the time it fully ramps up by 2030, is expected to come up with about 630 MBD of liquids and condensates and about 418 million standard cubic feet per day of ethane. On the liquids, we maintain the flexibility to either use it in our operations, whether as feedstock, whether in Kingdom or out of Kingdom or exporting it. Our objective is to maximize value out of this 630 MBD of liquids and condensates. So we're currently in evaluation of where to use this again, whether it's our own system domestically or internationally or exporting or other options. So all options are being considered right now.

Thank you, Sashank. And I think our last question is from Irene Himona of SocGen Announcement.

I had two questions, if I may, on the balance sheet. First of all, you referred to, I think, $90 billion of unproductive capital under construction. I presume that is above norm. I wanted to ask what would you expect to see as a more normal level of inactive capital through the cycle? And my second question again, on the balance sheet, you referred to working to improve an optimized capital structure. Indeed, gearing is very low. If we exclude leases, you remain net of cash, what is your view on the optimum range for gearing through the cycle?

Thank you for the questions. On your first question, $90 billion, I wouldn't call it above norm. It's just a function of our major CapEx spending because our projects take 5 to 7 years to complete. We've been spending CapEx at a certain level, it just adds up. So if you just take this year, we're narrowing our range to $51 billion to $54 billion, last year was slightly less and the year before was slightly less than that. So it just adds up to $90 billion. The reason I mentioned the $90 billion -- I know it's a lot of money. But the reason I mentioned it is because at the scale of Aramco and at the scale of our capital -- very ambitious capital program, this is the amount of assets under construction -- to us, it's normal. We are not concerned. It's just the spending profile of the projects. As our facilities start coming on stream, this number will drop drastically over the next couple of years. And so we'll see that. And the point I was trying to draw is that if you actually take out this $90 billion, our ROACE number would be 4 percentage points higher than it is reported. So even with that, we are -- even with the $90 billion there as capital employed, but not yet on stream to generate returns, we still have superior ROACE that's nearly double our peers. On the optimum capital structure, if you're looking at balance sheet gearing, we really don't have a target range per se. What we're trying to manage is the financial strength of the company across cycles. So because we're in an industry that has price cycles of 7 years-or-so, it is imperative that we take a cross-cycle look at gearing. And so we're -- you saw us increase the level of debt in order to execute the strategy that we told you earlier about targeting an optimum capital structure, but having a range of balance sheet gearing when we're actually looking at a kind of a credit agency definition of gearing is not very helpful. So we look at balance sheet gearing, but what we're actually managing is ascribed gearing if you will. And so what we're looking for is to maintain a high investment-grade credit rating across the cycle, and we are looking to maintain Aramco's financial strength be able to invest countercyclical because that is when the best opportunities come at the best valuations for acquirers. And the input cost of projects that we're executing drop. And so because our projects are value accretive and create significant shareholder value, we do not want to be in a position where we have to cut those projects in down cycles. So it is imperative that we keep the financial strength of the balance sheet to be able to do this. This is why you see us moving up in gearing. But I tell you, it's very difficult -- it's proving very difficult to increase gearing because of our cash generation ability. It's a good -- very good problem to have. But that's why it takes a while to gear up and we want to do it in a way that is conservative, so that we maintain the strength -- the financial strength of the company.

Thank you, Irene. And that brings us to the end of the Q&A for this call. Let me take an opportunity to say thank you to everybody for joining us this afternoon. And let me just round up by reminding you that if there are any follow-ups, any questions, we'll always happy in the Investor Relations to take those calls. So please don't hesitate to contact us. Thank you very much. Speak to you soon.