Operator: [Foreign language]
Operator: Today's speakers include Ireneusz Fąfara, CEO, and Sławomir Jędrzejczyk, CFO. Before we move on to the substantive part of today's conference, let me invite you to a short film that was filmed by our amazing marketing team.
[Video Narrator]: [Foreign language]
Operator: [Foreign language]
Operator: Now we will start this substantive part of today's conference. Mr. Ireneusz Fąfara, CEO and President of the Management Board, the floor is yours.
Ireneusz Fąfara: [Foreign language]
Ireneusz Fąfara: Good evening or good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the earnings call devoted to the financial results of the Orlen Group for Q3 2026. We all are aware, I believe, that this was an exceptional quarter. The prices of crude went up, and the same for prices of diesel oil and gasoline. At the same time, we heard about a lot of disruptions in terms of the access to crude because of the disruptions in the supply chain on the freight roads and pipelines. I believe that these disruptions were even more serious than in 2022. It has two dimensions and angles. From the perspective of energy powerhouses and companies, their results are going up. From the perspective of stabilization of the global markets, global economies, and national economies, this means destabilization in a stable development growth in the economy.
Ireneusz Fąfara: The situation on the global commodities market impacted the fuel sector in Poland, and for Orlen, obviously, we focused on two goals: the access to hydrocarbons, to gas, and crude oil. This was our major point because, as I said before, both transport roads and pipelines, the roads for transmission of hydrocarbons, were seriously disrupted and under serious pressures. However, the second goal and the second priority for us was to continue something that we discussed during our previous earnings call. So the focus on foreign markets. Again, we reported a record-breaking number or a figure. Almost 30% of our revenue comes from abroad. This is not the end. We will continue to expand internationally.
Ireneusz Fąfara: As a result, we managed to generate and report a profit that will allow us to meet all the regulatory obligations related to windfall tax and to pay PLN 4.2 billion in windfall tax. Thanks to this event, which was the consequence of the CPN program, Poles have access to the cheapest fuels across the board in Europe. We were able to offer the cheapest fuel products, and at the same time, we managed to reduce the pressures on inflation and to support growth. I mentioned the focus on foreign markets, but we need to also mention the increase in profitability of our foreign network. It actually recorded and reported gigantic growth. As you can see on the slide, the increase in profitability in Germany and Lithuania is almost twofold, and just short of 50% of growth in Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.
Ireneusz Fąfara: Also in Austria, it is up by 60%, but the Austrian market is a small market for us. Well, this impacts how we are perceived by capital markets, and our focus on the expansion is highly valued by investors, as exemplified on this slide, up by 200% since we announced our strategy, The Energy of Tomorrow Starts Today. Diving deeper for Upstream & Supply. Thanks to our high activity, and especially in Norway, intensification of drillings and good appraisal work, we managed to increase the accessible resources up to six million bcm, especially in Norway. So 6 bcm for Norway, which is very important in the context of destabilization of global markets. We signed another agreement on LNG supplies and petroleum products to Ukraine. Let me dwell a little bit on it.
Ireneusz Fąfara: In the third quarter, Ukraine actually became our third most important foreign market, better than or more important than Lithuania. This is the effect of our strategy to focus on the Ukrainian market, and we will not rest on our laurels here. Something that you have seen with us when you went to Wierzchowice, we expanded the warehouse, the storage capacity by 25%. In Downstream, the situation was pretty similar. We focused on the broadly understood security. We signed a contract with Equinor for the three-year supplies of crude to satisfy potentially one-fourth of our demand in our refineries in Poland, Czech Republic, and Lithuania. We must mention Aramco. I talked about it before. We had disruptions in the supply of hydrocarbons, both by sea and by pipelines, and Aramco talked about it. I would like to emphasize the important things.
Ireneusz Fąfara: The partnership with Aramco is very constructive, exemplary even. When disruptions started, first of all, we were able to use crude supplies from other markets. Secondly, after the repair of the pipeline, Aramco closed the deliveries or actually continued the deliveries from previous months. So we are very sure that our refineries will work at full speed. In Mažeikiai, we opened a PV farm with a capacity of 42 MW, thereby continuing our decarbonization program. We continued the hydrogen program. This is not a big business for us. We opened a hydrogen station in Gorzów. In energy, as we said, we brought on stream 76 turbines. They have been commissioned. We are sure that early into 2027, this farm will be fully able to be a part of the Polish energy system. In terms of Baltic East, we are closing or almost closing the purchasing procedures.
Ireneusz Fąfara: For Baltic West, we submitted environmental reports, which was another milestone. In terms of CCGTs, in Ostrołęka, it will be technically ready in Q1 2027. In Grudziądz 2, construction work started. As you know, there was an event in Grudziądz 1 CCGT. We are working intensively to execute, or I am sorry, enforce the commitments made by our supplier back in the production phase of this project. So we do hope that by the end of June, the CCGT will be fully operational. In Gdańsk, we finished the foundations and the key infrastructure. In terms of the modernization of grid, we had additional 1,200 modernized networks, 260 MW of connected sources of renewable energy, and 140 MW of new conditions for connection of renewable sources.
Ireneusz Fąfara: In terms of consumers and products, in a situation where we have high prices of crude and high prices of hydrocarbon products as well, we continued our vacation or summer promotions for 3.3 million clients with just under 9 million coupons used. We also had the first Polish public fuel refueling station for ORLEN Charge and MCS for trucks. We are focusing on our offering both in fuels and energy. This is what Q3 was like. Stable growth, solid profits, which will enable us to meet windfall tax requirements, and security of hydrocarbon storage in Poland. The details now will be discussed by Sławomir Jędrzejczyk. Sławomir, the floor is yours. Thank you, Ireneusz. Ladies, gentlemen, everyone. It is true that Q3 was a quarter when we worked in a very dynamic macroeconomic situation and environment.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: However, we managed to generate more than PLN 80 billion in revenue, EBITDA LIFO at PLN 14.8 billion, and operating cash flows at PLN 12.7 billion. Our CAPEX program was at PLN 7.8 billion. In Q3 alone, over PLN 2 billion was spent. Operationally speaking, this quarter was a challenge for us due to maintenance shutdowns, both planned and unplanned. We also see the effect of high prices of products on consumption. Starting with Upstream & Supply, the production of hydrocarbons was down by 7% due to mainly maintenance shutdowns in Poland, Norway, and Canada. The wholesale of gas went down by 15% due to lower exports, but also lower sales in the market. In terms of LNG, this is an exceptional situation.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: Saint Barbara, which is the name of our gas carrier, it is the first time that it will be tanked with gas under two contracts with Venture Global. One of them is for 2 bcm, and the other one has just been launched last November, and this one will cover 5.3 bcm. We can expect more supplies of LNG to Poland. In terms of Downstream, we had downtimes, prolonged downtime for the steam cracker. In Mažeikiai, the capacity was at 100%, and there were no major maintenance shutdowns. The refining product sales were low because of lower throughputs and also lower trading volumes. We had backwardation, so we were pretty cautious here in terms of sales. In terms of petrochemicals, this is still a challenge, so it went down by 6% for sales.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: The energy segment, production went down by 4% because we had more capacity from renewable sources, so our CCGTs were not used to the full capacity. The production of heat was down by 4%, and distribution of energy and distribution of gas were up by 6%, but down by 3% respectively. Energy in general fares pretty well, so the consumption of energy went up, as I said, by 6%. It was really important, the share of low-emission sources and renewable sources is going up by 5 percentage points, up to 65% already. At consumer products, our consumption goes down, especially in Germany. The retail sales of fuels went down by 1%. The retail sales of gas went down by 3% due to lower consumption. On the other hand, we had good results in terms of sales of electricity up by 10%.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: In terms of LIFO-based EBITDA by segment, this is proof that we have a fully diversified business model which is resilient to volatility. We are talking about Upstream & Supply at PLN 4.7 billion with lower sales. In Downstream, we reported PLN 6.3 billion, but this does not include windfall tax. The windfall tax is at PLN 2.4 billion, and it will be posted only for the last quarter of the year. You have to remember that the result generated and reported for Downstream is higher because windfall tax is not yet included. The energy was at PLN 2.7 billion, which is higher due to the share of renewables.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: In consumer products, we are talking about PLN 1.5 billion going up by PLN 200 million, mainly due to non-fuel sales and sales of electricity. In terms of our CAPEX spending, this is the record-breaking CAPEX spending for a company, PLN 22.5 billion.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: For Upstream, it is PLN 6.6 billion, of which PLN 3 billion invested in Norway. In Downstream, PLN 7.7 billion. We spent PLN 4 billion on the New Chemistry program. In energy, for the first three quarters, we spent almost PLN 4 billion on the development of grids, and we also spent just PLN 1 billion on the CCGTs. We always gave you a target for the entire year. It was at about PLN 36 billion. It is November, so PLN 36 billion, this target might not be achieved. It might be, at the end of the year, lower. Now, cash flows. This is very important for us, especially given this very volatile environment that we operate in.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: Our EBITDA came in at PLN 42.8 billion for the first three quarters. We had a LIFO effect of PLN 4.2 billion, and also the working capital due to higher prices of hydrocarbon products.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: Let us just take a look at how these funds were distributed. Almost PLN 24 billion on investment program. This includes leases and also the buyout of minority shareholders. As a result, we managed to bring down or take down our debt. Had we paid windfall tax for the third quarter, this level would be pretty similar. So, our cash flows from operations were at PLN 36 million. Our dividend we paid out was at a record high level of PLN 9.3 billion, and we will pay windfall tax in November, so it will be posted for the last quarter. The rating agencies maintain a good outlook, A3 from Moody's with positive and stable outlook, and BBB+ from Fitch Ratings with stable outlook. So this makes us optimistic for the future. Last but not least, sources of financing. As we said, we have well-diversified sources of financing.
Sławomir Jędrzejczyk: The issues of bonds, both in PLN and in EUR, were successful. We want to be permanently present in financial markets, so we have all the different kinds of sources of our financing. As a summary, this was yet another dynamic quarter. The third quarter started very interestingly. We had a volatile position at the beginning of the fourth quarter. However, we are well-prepared both operationally and financially, and we are highly focused on the future and pretty optimistic, and we want to prove that we can function and navigate in this very volatile and challenging environment. Thank you very much for listening. That would be all from me.
Ireneusz Fąfara: Thank you for the presentation, and thank you for your attention, and we will see you next time.
