Scatec ASA (SCATC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter presentation for 2026. The second quarter has been a good quarter with several important milestones that they have been achieving. We continue to deliver on our strategy to drive value-creating growth at a high pace across our geographies. So during the quarter, we have continued to move projects into operation. We have started construction of new projects. And we have also new projects into backlog. And we continue to see demand for renewable energy continuing to grow. And Scatec is operating in countries with strong and increasing underlying demand for clean, reliable and affordable renewable energy. And renewable energy is the most competitive source of energy in the markets where we are operating. And this is based on continued cost reductions and technology innovations across all the technologies, solar, wind and batteries. And based on this, we can deliver not only intermittent energy but also flexible energy and baseload energy at competitive prices in the markets where we are operating. Further, with the ongoing challenging situation in global energy markets, long-term predictability and energy security is increasing in importance. And this will also continue to drive the demand for renewables in our markets. And as a result, we see the intention now to accelerate the energy transition for economic reasons. And the case for renewables is becoming very strong and evident for Keith stakeholders and government officials and decision-makers in the markets where we are operating, and we continue to see the clear intention to accelerate the transition towards renewable energy in these markets. So I will take you through the highlights of the quarter. Asarco will take you through the financials, and then I will come back and take questions at the end. Our growth momentum continues. And during the quarter, we reached commercial operation for 3 projects totaling 705 megawatts of solar and 16-megawatt hours of battery storage. A major milestone for us was reaching COD on the full blist project, the Phase 2 of the Oblisproject. And this was done ahead of schedule and will well within budget. And I will come back to this shortly. On finals, we delivered proportionate revenues of NOK 2.3 billion and EBITDA of NOK 1 billion. And in our D&C segment, -- we recognized revenues of NOK 1.2 billion with an EBITDA of NOK 234 million, representing also and based on the gross margin of 24%. And this strong result is again a demonstration of the integrated model, the strength of the integrated model and the strength of our execution capabilities. We also have a record high backlog and near-term growth. And with the current backlog that we have, we are in a position to double our generation capacity over the next 2 to 3 years. And it is encouraging to see progress across all main technologies solar wind and battery storage also across multiple core and multiple geographies. And all of these technologies, as I said, will form part an increasing part of the future energy systems. And it's great to see that we continue to build experience, capabilities and track record across all of these technologies. And this morning, we also announced the intention to refinance our most expensive corporate financing, and this is in line with our strategy to continue to take down debt on corporate level and continue to reduce our financing costs. So reaching COD for the bliss project is a major milezone for us and obviously, a very proud moment for us. Obelisk is the largest renewable energy project in Africa. We expect it to produce more than 3 terawatt hours of energy annually. And we also expect it to contribute by reducing CO2 emissions in the range of 1.3 million tonnes annually. And again, this project is the evidences evidence of the strength of the integrated business model. with the integrated business model, we are able to move swiftly from development and into construction. We were able to control the quality and the pace of construction during the execution phase. And we are able to extract value creation in a capital-efficient manner through the projects. So Obelisk reached GLD ahead of schedule and below the construction budget. And from our signing the PPA in September 2024, we took around 9 months to get to financial close and notice to proceed, 17 months to reach Phase 1 COD, including 100% of the battery storage capacity and 23 months to reach COD for the full plant. This is a remarkable achievement of our team, also of our partners, and it's also evidence of the speed of deployment possible when it comes to renewables, which is a strong benefit of renewables. And you will also see based on our communicated numbers. the D&C margin that was communicated when we started the project was sufficient to cover the 40% equity stake that we currently have sold down to in the project. So we also from that point of view, capital neutral. And this is obviously before the additional value capture that we have achieved through strong and disciplined execution and the ability to also release contingency and reduce costs in the project. And looking forward, our intention is to apply the same model and the same approach to the next 3 projects that we have secured in Egypt. So these projects are, first of all, what we call the Dania project, the project with Egypt Aluminum, which is in principle a copy of the Obelisk project, that we have been building in Egypt over the last couple of years. Power production came in at 1.1 terawatt hours in the quarter. This is up 21% from 40 gigawatt hours in the same quarter last year. And the growth is primarily driven by new projects entering operations, which contributed to 278 gigawatt hours in the quarter. And over the last 12 months, A number of projects have reached operations, COD, we have rotation in South Africa. We have the Mandir solar complex in Botswana. We have 2 projects in Tunisia, sideband. And obviously, we also have the Olis project in Egypt. On the other side, we did see lower production from existing power plants in the Philippines Ukraine and South Africa, which partly offset the contribution from those new projects. Turning to revenues. Power Production revenues came in slightly above NOK 1 billion and this represents a 4% reduction relative to the same quarter last year after adjusting for the one-off effects that we had in the Philippines related to the tariff adjustment last year. New projects contributed then to NOK 83 million in revenues, and this was offset by a few specific nonrecurring effects, especially in Ukraine and South Africa. So in summary, the growth portfolio is now starting to contribute in a meaningful way as more projects reached COD over the coming quarters, the new product contribution will continue to build and we expect a growing and increasingly resilient generation base going forward. Let me now also make a couple of comments on our position in the Philippines through Snap, our JV with the Aboitiz Group. And in the Philippines, we delivered a good quarter. And here, we continue to improve the robustness of our hydropower and battery storage portfolio that we are having here. On volumes, the generation was lower due to hydrology and the early effects of the Alio with power produced only at 64 gigawatt hours relative to the 106 gigawatt hours that we had in Q2 last year. But despite significant lower water inflow and generation volumes, we're still able to generate NOK 244 million in revenues in the quarter relative to the NOK 262 million in revenues that we had last year in the same quarter. And we also had an EBITDA of NOK 201 million in the quarter. And this speaks to the value of our flexible diversified generation portfolio than ancillary services position and the merchant operations capabilities and the trading capabilities that we are having in SNAP. Ancillary services contributed to NOK 199 million, in terms of revenues, while contract and spot energy revenues represented NOK 45 million. Also spot prices in car was significantly higher than what we had same quarter last year. With NOK 9.6 per kilowatt hour relative to NOK 6 per kilowatt hour last year. And we've also seen that prices in the ancillary services market continued to be strong during the quarter. Obviously, we will come back to the outlook, but the probability of a strong line going into Q4 and also into 2027 is still quite high. On the other side, we also expect that prices will continue to stay elevated across both energy and ancillary services. And also by the end of the year, we are targeting to add more battery storage capacity to the portfolio. So then turning to D&C. We have also had -- or we have had very strong performance in the D&C segment in the quarter. In terms of the construction portfolio, we currently have 792 megawatts of solar, 77 megawatts of wind based on the announcement that we did yesterday evening and 571-megawatt hours of battery storage under construction across 6 markets. This is a high-quality and well-diversified portfolio. On financial performance, we delivered a D&C gross margin of 24% and including the contingency release in Novelis and with the underlying margin still at a solid 11%. On project milestones, Obelisk Phase 2, Orora and also Malades 2, all reach commercial operation during the quarter, while CWC 2 in Tunisia and Urlaskain Romania have started construction adding 120 megawatts of solar and 77 megawatts of wind to our construction portfolio. Another remaining contract portfolio has a value of NOK 3.8 billion. So we still have significant secured revenue outlook in the D&C segment, and we continue to expect 10% to 12% at least gross margins across the portfolio. And looking ahead now, we expect Mobile and being a best of the 2 best projects in South Africa and in the Philippines in to reach commercial operation by the end of this year, with 4 additional projects to follow in the first half of 2027 across the Philippines, Colombia and also South Africa. And I'm very pleased by the construction progress of the projects across our portfolio and I think our team is doing a tremendous job in keeping control and pushing these projects forward in a disciplined way. So let me also now walk you through our growth portfolio. So we now have reached 5.7 gigawatts of generation capacity in operation. And this is following the completion of Obelisk and Orca, and this is up from 5 gigawatts just 1 quarter ago. We now have 0.9 gigawatts under construction and a backlog of 5.8 gigawatts. And together, this gives us a near-term portfolio of 12.3 gigawatts representing a more than 100% growth that we target to realize over the next 2 to 3 years in terms of generation portfolio. Then on battery storage, the growth is even more striking. We have 1.4 gigawatt hours in operation, and 0.6 gigawatt hours in construction. And on top of this, we have a backlog of 4.8 gigawatt hours. So this brings the near-term portfolio in terms of battery storage to 6.8 gigawatt hours, and this is almost 5x what we have in operation today. And this reflects the strategic importance and competitiveness of battery storage in the Power Systems and it will represent an important value creation tool and area for us going forward. And behind this near-term portfolio, we also have a pipeline of 5.9 gigawatts and of generation capacity, and we also have a pipeline of 2.4 gigawatt hours of additional storage. And this provides further growth potential and visibility beyond our backlog and obviously, behind this, again, we continue to work actively on new project opportunities across our markets. And as I said, we target to realize the projects under construction and in backlog over the next 2 to 3 years. They are all meeting our hurdles, and they have attractive returns and margins and can be realized in a capital-efficient manner based on the integrated model that I have already talked about. Now let's take a look at what we are doing in Romania. So Romania is emerging as a very promising growth market for renewables. And I want to take you through some of the rationale behind our investments there. Firstly, Romania represents a market with attractive renewables growth potential. The market currently has strong tailwinds and significant renewable energy targets in the range of 8 gigawatts. The drivers for renewable energy growth in the market is obviously increasing electrification. The fact that they are phasing down and have a target to phase down on coal, they have a dedicated CFD scheme, contract for differences scheme for renewables. And this is a scheme which is being backed by the EU and funded by the EU. And on top of this, there are also incentives for storage. Secondly, the market offers contracted and predictable long-term revenues. The CFD scheme enabled long-term cash flows in hard currency and this obviously enables us to use our traditional model and secure nonrecourse project finance back in these projects. We are also able to implement our traditional integrated model so that we can also, over time, capture value through D&C service D&C and other services. And then finally, Romania also offers opportunities for additional value creation beyond the contracted cash flows. In Romania, there is a merchant energy market with attractive prices and in addition, price volatility across both the energy sales and also across ancillary services. And we can capture value from this based on a flexible and diversified portfolio of solar, wind and battery storage. And battery here is an essential element to the total portfolio. And obviously, our experience also with operating in merchant markets that we have, for instance, from the Philippines is also something that we can transfer into upcoming Ross markets like this one in Romania. So now we have 3 projects in Romania, we have Dublin and Sodova, 190 megawatts of solar, and we ask a win of 77 megawatts of wind that we already have in construction. And today, we are also announcing that we have included Buchumi, a best project of 178 gigawatt hours into our backlog, which we will also target to move into construction relatively soon. So this comprises a portfolio of projects with attractive contracted long-term revenues. At the same time, as we have the flexibility in the portfolio to protect ourselves from downside and to capture upsides in the energy market based on volatility of prices. So this forms a strong initial platform for further growth in a market where we see significant opportunities for further value creation going forward. So with that, I will hand over to Hans Jakob to take us through the financials.

Thank you, Terje. We delivered strong results across the group with high D&C activity in a good quarter also in the Philippines. I'll walk you through the group financials and the performance of our operating segments, and I'll also cover the improvements in our capital structure. Looking at the quarter on group level, we continue to generate solid revenues from our D&C activity with positive effect on proportionate financials. Consolidated revenue was NOK 1.37 billion compared to NOK 1.3 billion in the same quarter last year. This includes NOK 255 million in construction revenues related to our Lyra in South Africa, which has a lower EBITDA margin than our power producing assets. EBITDA reached NOK 824 million compared to SEK 1 billion -- the change is mainly driven by the one-off effect in the Philippines in the same quarter last year. Our proportionate revenues was NOK 2.3 billion, in line with the same quarter last year. and the proportionate EBITDA was NOK 1 billion compared to NOK 1.1 billion year-on-year. Now let me take you through the segments, starting with power production. We delivered revenues of NOK 1 billion compared to NOK 1.3 billion in the same quarter last year. This was mainly explained by the one-off in the Philippines of NOK 231 million last year related to the new ancillary services tariff. The EBITDA was NOK 805 million. And for the last 12 months, we have delivered NOK 4.2 billion in revenues and NOK 3.2 billion in EBITDA. The difference is mainly explained by the reduced revenues from divested assets and the one-off in the Philippines. Overall, we are very pleased with the value generated from our operating assets. Moving to Development & Construction. We have high activity and the proportionate revenue was NOK 1.2 billion compared to NOK 976 million last year. EBITDA was NOK 234 million compared to NOK 49 million. This was driven by NOK 160 million contingency release from Obelisk Phase 2. The contingency release is a result of timely and cost-efficient execution of the project. The trend from the last 12 months confirmed the long-term strength and scalability of our D&C business. D&C revenues the last 12 months, was NOK 6 billion, with a steady increase over the last quarters. Rolling EBITDA ended at NOK 720 million, with the contribution from high-margin projects, contingencies and what I call disciplined cost control. Looking at free cash on group level. Free cash position ended at NOK 1.6 billion in the quarter due to the following movements. We received NOK 334 million in distributions from power plants generated SEK 211 million EBITDA from D&C and Corporate, had SEK 873 million of reversal of working capital mainly related to Uber risk and paid NOK 215 million of interest. At the end of the quarter, we have invested approximately NOK 800 million of equity in our growth projects. We have also increased our RCF from $230 million to $350 million at improved terms. The increase is limited -- the increased limit provides a solid liquidity buffer and will support the execution of our record high near-term growth portfolio across geographies. Following the new RCF, we have a total available liquidity of NOK 5.1 billion, which provides a solid buffer and to deliver on these strategic targets. I would like to add a thanks to the banks for the corporation. Looking at proportionate net debt, which has -- first, starting with the gross corporate debt, that was reduced to NOK 6.4 billion, while the net interest-bearing debt increased due to the reduction of cash mainly driven by changes in working capital and investments. Over time, we have significantly reduced the debt on corporate level to increase financial flexibility and reduce interest costs. On project level, gross debt increased by NOK 100 million to NOK 19.6 billion due to new growth projects. Net debt for projects under operation was reduced by NOK 200 million, and net debt for projects under construction increased by NOK 200 million, and the cash held on PV increased by NOK 200 million to NOK 3 billion. Let me now take you through the bond refinancing activity, which is an important part of our strategy to strengthen the balance sheet and reduce financing costs over time. As you can see from the chart, we currently have 4 outstanding corporate bonds. Scatec I matures in 27 and carries out the most expensive margin at 660 basis points. over 3 months NIBOR. We are planning to refinance this bond with a new expected NOK 1 billion bond issue, which will extend our maturity profile to 2031 and and at improved margins. This is a rather straightforward and value-creating transaction as we are replacing our most costly debt with longer-dated financing and at better terms. The broader picture is encouraging. Looking across our bond stack, you can see a clear downward trend in financing costs as we have grown and strengthened our credit profile. Scago 5 carries 425 basis points margin, Scott, 315 basis points and Scatec, 285 basis points -- you get my point. This trend is progress that we have made by reducing also the risk and improved financial discipline. The overarching strategy is clear. Scatec is committed to reduce corporate debt and interest expenses over time, and the refinancing is a concrete step in this direction. Now let me take you through the outlook. We are maintaining our full year EBITDA guidance. In our Power Production segment, we estimate the full year power production between 505 and 35 terawatt hours, which is 50 gigawatt hours lower than the previous estimate due to lower expected hydrology in the Philippines. Our estimated full year EBITDA is kept at the midpoint of NOK 375 billion as the lower production is expected to be offset by higher Visa market prices. We have not made any adjustments to FX this quarter as the quarterly effects are limited. For the third quarter, we expect a total product reduction between 1,500 and 1,600 gigawatt hours and EBITDA in the Philippines between NOK 320 million and NOK 420 million. In our D&C segment, the remaining contract value, as Tavis said, is NOK 3.8 billion, primarily related to Takadu in South Africa, Balsalosa in Colombia and Cbus Indonesia. The estimated gross margin is unchanged at 10% to 12% on average across the portfolio of projects under construction. For corporate, the expected full year EBITDA is unchanged and at NOK 125135 negative. And these estimates reflect a strong base of operating assets, high construction activity and a healthy cost control, and then I leave it to you, Terje, to take us through the summary.

Thank you, Hans Jakob. And in summary, we are continuing to have an all-time high gross portfolio that we will continue to drive towards financial close and into construction. And this is going to, as we have said, make -- put us in a position to double our capacity over the next 2 to 3 years in terms of generation and increase our capacity in terms of battery storage by 5x over the next 2 to 3 years. And we have now, I believe, proven our execution capabilities in Egypt and across all the countries where we are operating. And we are, from an execution point of view, also ready to target this portfolio and move into construction across these different projects. And finally, we have also the financial flexibility. We are continuing to strengthen our financial position and increase our financial flexibility in terms of moving forward and managing this portfolio. So I believe that we are in a very good position to drive now this growth going forward. Thank you. And then I think we will open for Q&A.

Thank you, Terje. Yes, we will then open up for Q&A. We will start with questions in the room here, and then we have a number of questions also from our online listeners. [Operator Instructions]. Yes, Andreas.

Andreas Nygard. One question on the FIDs you're expecting to reach in the second half you're now having a SEK 3.8 billion contract backlog for D&C -- if you reach FID, what are you expecting to add to this contract backlog in the second half of this year?

Yes, we haven't provided any guiding beyond the contract value. So we will have to come back to more specifics. That's a short answer to that.

And then a second question for me, data centers, is that something that is currently in your pipeline?

Data centers is not in the pipeline specifically, and obviously, it always depends on what is included when you ask data center is it in our pipelines. Clearly, data centers is also being planned and developed in the countries where we are operating and will contribute to the demand for renewable energy also in the markets where we are. So we do absolutely see benefits also from us from the current growth in data centers on a global basis.

And given that you're underground, for instance, in Egypt and South Africa, how have the discussions surrounding data centers evolved over the last 6 to 12 months? And what is the potential scale for potential clients of yours with that regard?

I think we are not going to sort of provide any speculation on that now. We obviously, as I said, we do see that data center activity is moving also in our region and in our countries. And then we will rather come back to that more specifically when there are something concrete on that.

Anyone else would like to ask a question? In the room. Then we go over to our -- the questions from the from our online listeners. I have one question about Egypt Green hydrogen. What is the latest on Egypt Green hydrogen. One is an FID expected now you're on schedule for delivery for the deliveries planned under the H2 Global mechanism.

Yes, on the EG projects together with our partner foreglobe, we have everything prepared for that project, and we are now awaiting certain clarifications in terms of regulations from the EU. And subject to getting those, we will be able to move forward, and we will also be able to meet the contract obligations that Ferroglobe has towards a global.

A question about Nino in the Philippines. Can you talk about the expected impact of El Nino and potentially super El Nino on the Philippines business and other geographies such as Brazil .

I think all our current perspectives on El Nino and weather in general are included in our outlook and our guidance in terms of what we are seeing going forward. And as we've said in the presentation today, the probability of a strong El Nino in -- towards the end of this year and beginning of next year is still high. But also, as we have been presented when it comes to the Philippines, we have a technology portfolio, and there is flexibility in terms of how we operate in that market. So there are other ways of managing that portfolio.