Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to discuss Neste's Q2 results that were released this morning. My name is Jukka Miettinen, Vice President for Investor Relations for Neste.

Here with me, we have our President and CEO Heikki Malinen as well as our CFO Eeva Sipilä. We are referring today to the presentation that was released in our website early this morning.

The key highlights of our presentation include, for example, the performance in the ongoing market volatility, our Q2 financial performance. We will be also discussing the changes in the RP demand outlook as well as opportunities and uncertainties.

We will have discussions with all of you, and please pay attention to the disclaimer as we will be making forward-looking statements in this call. With these remarks, I would like to hand over to our President and CEO Heikki Malinen.

Heikki, please.

Thank you, Jukka, and good morning to the folks in the US and good afternoon here in Europe. Hope everybody is enjoying the nice summer we're having.

Let's go into the presentation here and first of all, this Q2 was the best quarter financially ever for Neste. I'm really pleased with the results.

I have to say I'm also proud with the work that the folks at Neste have done. Things have changed quite a lot since the last few years, of course, we at Neste are very happy with the improved financial performance.

The market environment has been favorable for us, and we've been able to take advantage of the opportunities ahead. Also, strategically, I'm very pleased that the Renewable Energy Directive III decisions have finally started to be implemented in Europe, and also the RVO decisions in the US were a positive signal also for us for the future.

I think many of the stars around Neste are aligning nicely. Our financial position has strengthened, and Eeva will go into the balance sheet and cash flows in more detail later on today.

Then as said, the work on Rotterdam continues. As always, at Neste, we start with safety because that is our license to operate.

On the left-hand side, you can see our total recordable injury frequency rate, and for the second quarter, we had clearly better performance than we've had in the past. We had some cases, injuries, but I would call them minor, less risky.

Our focus, though, in terms of people safety is to make sure there are no fatalities and no serious injuries. Work continues.

We are striving for zero, but overall, direction of travel in the second quarter was good. On the right-hand side, you see the data for process safety.

We had very good performance for process safety in Q2, and we basically recorded no Category 1 or 2 incidents, very pleased with that performance. Then let's look at the figures briefly.

On the upper left-hand side, you can see our renewable product sales. We sold over a million tons.

In terms of our financial result, in terms of EBITDA, €1.2 billion, and that is record EBITDA for Neste. I'm very pleased with the RP margin.

I know a lot of us talk about the sales margin and follow that closely. $1,200 per ton is a record number.

I think the way I sort of see it is that it is a positive signal that we have been able to monetize the market opportunity that has been here in the second quarter. In terms of refining margin for OP, $25 per barrel.

Market conditions have helped. That is, of course, clear.

Overall, if I look at the first half of this year, Porvoo as a refinery has performed quite well. Overall, I'm personally pleased with the performance of the team in Porvoo.

As said, Eeva will go into the financial numbers more detail in a moment. Eeva, I hand it over to you for more detailed discussion.

Please.

All right. Thank you, Heikki, and good afternoon to everybody on my behalf as well.

I'll start with the reference margins. This graph illustrates the renewable diesel gross margins in the quarter, and you can see it was a volatile quarter.

Margins charged up quite dramatically in the early part of the quarter and then as the feedstock cost also kind of started to catch up, the margins did come down, but overall, the average was still well above $1,000 per ton. For Neste, our comparable EBITDA for the quarter was indeed the all-time high of €1.2 billion, and almost three quarters of that came from Renewable Products.

Oil Products enjoyed the exceptionally wide diesel cracks, whereas then Marketing & Services had a more challenging market with slightly lower volumes and tighter unit margins. We continued our strong progress in the performance improvement program, and annualized run rate impact, we reached €594 million at the end of June, whereas then the realized in-quarter impact was €145 million.

If one looks at the impact split, then 60% from cost reductions and roughly 40% from revenue and margin optimization. As you may remember, we are pushing this program until the end of this year, obviously now coming to the sort of late part of the program.

Moving then to the segments, and I'll start with the Renewable Products. On the left-hand side in the graph, you can see that volumes were up from Q1, sequentially up, but year-over-year slightly down.

Now, importantly, the blue line kind of shows really the continued uptick in the margins. On the right-hand side, then we can compare sequentially the main items that affected the result, and you can really see that it was a story of margin and volume.

Everything else was marginal. Starting from the volumes, the RD market continued to be the more attractive market, you see our SAF volumes were relatively modest.

Then looking at the main components in the margin, we all know diesel prices were high in the quarter. I would also draw your attention to the RIN prices.

We've seen a marked strengthening in the US market, started already in Q1 and continued in Q2, and that's obviously supporting our US business significantly. Then on the other hand, our utilization rate of 75% was unsatisfactory, and hence the work on operational reliability continues, and we are actually preparing now to implement broader upgrade work in connection with our upcoming turnarounds in the second half.

You may remember that we have discussed the fact that some of the improvement actions are, unfortunately, very difficult to implement while the refineries are running, they do sort of make more sense to combine with the turnarounds and when we have a general shutdown. Then moving to Oil Products.

Again on the left-hand side, the blue line shows our utilization rate. It was up to 90% in the quarter.

I think coming so close to the end of the catalyst, a very solid performance from the team to be able to drive at these levels. Again, on the right-hand side, if we analyze the main items explaining the result sequentially, indeed, you see slightly lower sales volumes.

This is purely due to the fact that we are preparing for the turnaround, and we actually sold very little spot volumes. We wanted to keep those in our inventory so that then we can fulfill our term sales promises to our customers in the third quarter.

Then on the total refining margin in the quarter, it ended up at $25.8 per barrel. Actually, despite the outlook looking tougher at the beginning of the quarter due to very high crude premiums when we met last time, those premiums actually came significantly down into the May-June period, which then supported the refining margin to actually improve on the already strong Q1 level.

Then finally, on the Marketing & Services. Indeed, a slightly more challenging market, and again, as you may remember, you can well see from the graph on the left-hand side that the Q1 was quite exceptional.

We had quite a bit of inventory profits hiking the result, and in that sense, we're satisfied with the €23 million million achieved. The high pump prices are having an impact on demand when it comes to in Finland and Baltics.

Then the fixed costs are here slightly up, and it's really the ongoing investments into the network to improve the customer experience that we have been working on for a few quarters now already. Then moving back to the group figures.

On the left-hand side, the cash-out investments, very stable quarter compared to Q1. Now as we have the plans ready for the turnarounds, we have been able to narrow our guidance on the full-year capex, and we have today guided you on approximately €1.2 billion, the upper range of the previous range.

As said, really we're trying to maximize the opportunity that those shutdowns give us to improve reliability. Then moving to the right-hand side, cash flow before financing activities.

Net working capital was a big mover in the quarter. The higher market prices obviously have an impact on all values.

They do tie cash, and especially then combined with the fact that we are, as mentioned, preparing for the turnaround in Oil Products, we have been running up inventories. The combination of higher volume and high prices had a significant impact on cash flow.

Considering all this, we have to be satisfied with the €164 million that we generated in the quarter really thanks to the strong profitability. Looking forward, we all know the recent reescalation in the Middle East makes obviously predicting market prices very very difficult.

I would think that we all agree that they're unlikely to come down in the short term. However, from a cash flow point of view, as we get into Q4, I certainly expect our inventory volumes to come down, and that will then ease the pressure on the cash flow late in the year.

Then to conclude, our financial position strengthened markedly during the quarter. We took our first concrete step in deleveraging by tendering €500 million of notes successfully in the quarter.

Now this took our gross debt down, and with a stable cash position, our net debt to capital went below 30 30%. I'm also pleased that Moody's noted our progress in strengthening our financial position with their recent decision from this week to confirm our A3 rating and with a stable outlook.

All in all, we are comfortably hitting our financial targets set for '25-'26. With that, handing back to Heikki.

Thank you, Eeva, for reviewing the financial details. Now let's move on and talk about some other topical themes and the outlook.

First, an update on regulatory environment. As we all know, it is very critical that we make progress in this area as well.

The important message to the market is that in terms of European Union, the RED III implementation progresses. You may recall that last autumn, after the summer, there was news that Germany was going to increase its mandates for renewable diesel.

It's taken quite a long time, but now in May, the German government and parliament then made its decisions, and we have a very positive outcome. Netherlands following, and most recently, Spain has also made a decision to implement RED III.

Gradually, member state by member state, the directive gets implemented, and overall, the decisions are very positive, very favorable for renewable diesel demand here for the coming years, and I will then go through that in a moment with some other data. In the US, the decision on RVO, as said, very favorable, significant anticipated demand growth expected, and it also takes away a lot of the uncertainty and ambiguity we've had regarding where will the policy go.

As said, decisions are very positive for this sector. Then with respect to Asia-Pacific area, it is, of course, a very large market, huge amount of population.

Australia is gradually moving forward. There are now discussions about a mandate for low-carbon liquid fuels, let's see how that moves and whether the Middle East situation will further accelerate the trend.

Then in SAF, Singapore, one of the leading countries in Asia in this area, is now moving forward then to implement, take the first step in the SAF mandate. Overall, compared to where we were a year ago, I think a lot of clarity.

I don't really see anything sort of negative. On the contrary, very favorable outlook, and in that respect, for Neste, as we are investing in this sector, this is very important and favorable.

Here in this chart, you can then see those legislated decisions being converted into absolute volumes. These are all our estimates.

On the left-hand side, you can see the global demand for renewable diesel. We're estimating it to be somewhere around 20 million tons, and with these decisions, we project demand to grow about 10% per year, heading then beyond 30 million tons per annum.

On the right-hand side, we have the situation on SAF. No major decisions announced this year.

We are on the current trajectory still with 35% increase. Still, of course, a small market, very nascent market.

Of course, recognizing that the jet fuel, fossil jet fuel market is huge and continues to grow, there is also significant upside potential in this area as we go forward. Of course, we are doing our own work to advocate the benefits of SAF and look forward to seeing the 6% then being implemented in 2030 in Europe.

Here is just an updated photo on Rotterdam. I don't really have anything new of substance to report at the moment.

As you can see from the photo, again, work continues. We have a lot of people on the site, a lot of activity.

The work continues. My own view, though, is that if you compare now Rotterdam vis-a-vis the decisions that have been taken, if you go back, remember a couple of years ago, there was discussion of whether it makes sense to invest in this sector.

Quite a number of companies have cancelled or postponed their investments. We made a decision to move forward, even recognizing some of the uncertainty.

It's my clear view that this was the right call to make at Neste, and the timing of this investment then in '27 with the startup, I think, will be well-timed now when the European demand outlook also looks quite favorable, or looks really favorable. Overall, very pleased with this work and decision.

Then a few words about opportunities. The topic of the time is, of course, energy security.

The situation in the Middle East raises, of course, a lot of questions about how much energy reserves and supplies countries should have. I personally, together with Eeva, we are of the view that this will increase the discussion about having more inventory, more production, buying more locally, and this in itself will also support the demand for renewables.

The volume increases coming from RVO in the US are substantial. That is going to help us also in our Martinez refinery in California.

We also see that the situation today is most likely going to continue for a while where the middle distillates market is tight, supply is reduced. For Porvoo in particular, Porvoo is very much focused and concentrated, optimized around middle distillates, Porvoo is also benefiting from this opportunity.

On the uncertainties, well, geopolitical tensions are high, and they are creating volatility in the oil market. It is, of course, many things are possible, but so far for Neste, the direction of travel has been very supportive.

The availability of production components is something we monitor carefully. We saw during COVID there were disruptions in the supply chains.

Far, we have not seen anything in our area, but we monitor very carefully that we have all important spare parts and chemicals and other things we need to produce, that we have them in stock in the right amounts. Feedstock prices, well, over the last year, if we look at Europe, we've seen feedstock prices maybe rise about 10 percentage, maybe a bit less than that; in the US, clearly more.

It would not be un-surprising if gradually also the pressure on feedstock price rises comes also gradually more to Europe, but so far in the first half, we have benefited from the fact that feedstock price increases have been fairly moderate. Of course, at Neste, we're buying from all sources globally, so that allows us to try to take advantage to optimize feedstock sourcing depending on where we see market opportunities to buy cheaper.

Then, of course, we have the question about inflation and the impact on macro if this Hormuz situation continues longer. Then my final slide on the outlook is that Renewable Products sales volume in 2026 are expected to be approximately at the same level as in 2025.

Oil Products sales volumes in 2025 are expected to be lower than in 2025 sorry, Oil Products sales volumes in 2026 are expected to be lower than in 2025 due to the planned maintenance turnaround in Porvoo. The group's full-year 2026 cash-out capital expenditure, excluding M&A, is estimated to be approximately €1.2 billion.

There are three scheduled maintenance turnarounds in the second half of 2026 with the following approximate durations: In Porvoo, we have an 8-week turnaround starting now end of August 2026. In Rotterdam, we will have an 8-week turnaround during the fourth quarter of this year.

In Singapore, we're going to have an 11-week turnaround starting in December 2026 for one of the production lines. In this stronger market, we have updated our plans on turnarounds, and we believe that there are attractive business cases to invest in Singapore and Rotterdam more, particularly because, first of all, of course, on safety, we always need to make sure we have good safety levels, but we also need to improve our utilization, and we believe these turnarounds will help that.

Secondly, we need to continue expanding our ability to process a variety of feedstocks, also more challenging feedstocks with higher biopremiums. We believe that the EU mandates are also driving towards that direction, those are some of the reasons for the longer turnarounds in Rotterdam and Singapore.

With those comments, I guess we move on then to the Q&A.

Yes, hello. Thank you for taking my questions and congratulations for this record results this quarter.

My first question is about the outlook for renewable products margins in the second half of the year. I know it's difficult and you try to be cautious, but if you can elaborate about how July started and your view about margins for the rest of the year.

The second question is thank you very much for this views about the long term demand for renewable diesel and SAF. Also interested in your thoughts about supply, because as you said before, there are many cancellations of projects, delays, it looks like the demand-supply could be quite tight in the coming years.

Your thoughts would be very welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. The first question is a tough one.

We've seen from the past that it is quite difficult to forecast the movements in sales margins. They can move fairly quickly.

Of course, considering the fact that underlying you also have the price of gasoil, that is also can be a very volatile. Anything you would like to add?

Because I am really more erring on the cautious side, but

Maybe, Alejandro, just to know that our base case assumption would be that during the second half, we see feedstock costs going up somewhat. Then the diesel prices is really now depending so much on the situation in the Middle East that I think we're all just need to kind of follow that very closely and then sort of discuss during then the quarter and as the second half goes how that looks.

On your question regarding long-term demand, the outlook is really, I think, even more favorable than we would have thought here a year ago at this time. On supply, of course, that's a good question and an important question because, of course, the commercial side is very much dependent on supply and demand.

I think as far as we can see, as far as large-scale projects like Neste Rotterdam 2, I don't think we can identify a single major one that's underway. Recognizing that it actually takes quite a long time to get these projects started, it is not that easy to start or even restart a project.

I think that does give us some sort of highway here to move. Co-processing is, of course, one clear potential source, and some refineries are doing that and will do that.

Then, of course, we have, when you look at the European market, you have the question of imports from Asia particularly, and then there've been some imports from North America. I think overall, if we look at the situation as it speaks, I would just say that I think Rotterdam 2 is coming online at a good time, and the demand looks to be out there, the timing is really good.

Thank you. Kiitos.

Hello, Heikki, Eeva, Jukka. Thanks for taking my questions.

At Q1, you highlighted priorities before considering the next phase of growth: bringing Rotterdam online, demonstrating returns on that investment, and continuing to deleverage. Since then, we've seen margins have remained exceptionally strong.

Assuming Rotterdam ramps successfully and the balance sheet reaches a level you consider appropriate, what becomes the company's next strategic priority given the structural growth outlook for renewable fuels and Neste's position as the market leader? Should investors expect Neste to pursue another meaningful phase of capacity expansion, or do you increasingly see the focus shifting towards maximizing returns from the existing asset base?

Thanks very much.

A very important strategic question. I think this is something we will have to come back to as we get into 2027 and 2028.

At Neste, our current focus is very much now on getting returns. We've invested quite a lot.

Don't forget, we also have the Singapore Line 2 investment. Both of these investments, we have to get into a phase where we get our returns up, so that is really the priority number one.

Then if we look beyond the 2030s, we have mentioned that we are looking at lignocellulosic as a new technology. That's out there in the public.

For me personally, for the next few years, it will be about deleveraging, getting our operational performance even higher, getting utilization higher. That's where our mind is set.

Thoughts beyond that, we will then have to come back to that at the appropriate time.

Okay. Thank you.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions.

Two from me, please. Just the first one, if you're able to provide some color on the turnarounds this year, particularly interested in what utilization rates could look like post the enhancements that you're working at Rotterdam.

On the flip side, appreciate you said there's a good business case for those turnarounds, but is there any scope to make those events shorter? Because obviously you'd be going offline at a time where pretty strong margins in the market.

Then just second one on OP, just to take a look through the numbers this quarter, the middle distillate sales volumes fell quite a bit quarter-on-quarter in your overall sales split. Obviously, this is a time where distillate margins have been very attractive.

A number of your refining peers have been maximizing their slates towards those products. Just want to understand what was the reason for the switch there.

Thank you. If

I just comment first on the on on the TA utilization, the timing of RD and Rotterdam and Singapore, and then Eeva can talk about

the

middle distillates and and where we are. We obviously recognize the the market situation and are not going to spend any extra days on on these turnarounds.

In terms of Rotterdam Line Number 2, the the we had the startup three years ago. This is the first major

Singapore. Singapore.

I'm sorry, Singapore, exactly. First Singapore Line Number 2, this is the first major turnaround that we have.

That is explaining, the turnaround duration. There's more work to do.

Then in terms of the utilization level, there are certain upgrades we have to do in the lines to get utilization to a higher level. I don't want to guide on on what on comment on what the utilization could be, but we do financially believe this is an attractive business case.

Then in terms of Porvoo

and

middle distillates. Adnan,

I mentioned a few points already. Obviously, in this market, I think everybody who has a diesel slate has been pushing to the max.

As I mentioned that we're coming so close to the turnaround, our catalyst is quite worn out. I think the team really did its utmost to sort of push for the sort of 90% utilization.

Then as said, whilst our sales volumes were down, we did produce, they are now in inventory so that we can then sort of deliver to our customers during the turnaround. With those two topics, I think we're happy with the outcome.

Indeed, recognizing that now our focus is on getting most out of the turnaround and then really sort of ramping quickly up for Q4 in case the market continues to be this tight in the middle distillates. Perfect.

Thank you.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions.

I would again come back to the turnaround activity. I just wanted to understand if you could provide more details on the issues that are actually affecting this lower utilization.

What is actually going wrong and why is utilization low? Is it more to do with some units not functioning well, and thereby, actually, for the turnaround work, how much of the work is affecting reliability and how much of that is actually improving the slate of feedstocks that you could use?

If you can provide some color on that. The second one was related to the 2026 capex.

Now it's at the higher end of the previous guidance range, wondering what was it that kind of got it to this higher end. Slightly related to that, if you could comment on where we are with the revised budget of €2.5 billion for the Rotterdam expansion plan, are we still within that budget?

If I start first, the Renewable Energy Directives are steering the market very much into more and more complex feedstocks. At Neste, of course, one source of competitive advantage for Neste has been that we're able to use a variety of feedstocks.

We source them from all over the world. We've been really trying to push to get into the more complex part of the market because also the biopremiums are higher, the margins are higher.

Legislation is directing the market towards that, but also we as Neste want to be the front runner. Consequently, the challenge to process these is higher, and that requires certain material upgrades in the lines.

That is what's driving that, and we believe there's a financial return for pushing in that direction with higher margins, but we need more volume, and that's why we need to get the upgrades into the lines. Then

to your questions on the capex, we started the year with a range of €1 billion to €1.2, and then now as the plans have become more concrete, we have sort of narrowed and wanted to be more specific on the guidance, partly also because our first-half spend is perhaps slightly lower so that you don't then assume that this is a linear development, rather that the second half is more heavy. As Heikki said, it really is just a reflection of now also all these sort of additional aspects.

These are not just sort of traditional catalyst changes that we're talking about, and that kind of explains the 1.2. Then on Rotterdam, no news to report, the €2.5 billion, we're still working with that.

Thank you very much.

Yes. Hello, everyone.

Thank you for the update. Two questions for me following up on the topic of the renewable product margin for the second half of the year.

Just firstly, when it comes to what we've seen in July, see higher diesel prices, you mentioned that you expect feedstock prices to likely be higher in the second half of the year. Is that something that has offset the higher diesel prices already in July, or are you just expecting that prices for feedstocks are likely to be higher for the rest of the year?

Then secondly, I was wondering if you can give us a sense of whether there's a difference in terms of the split between spot sales and term sales in the second half of the year versus the first half. Thank you.

Do

you want to take the first one?

I can take the first one. I would say now this sort of reescalation in Middle East, the feedstock markets haven't reacted that fast.

It's more the general trend that as we see the strength both in the US and European market, we're clearly seeing more buying of feedstock, and that's kind of a more sort of continue. You, of course, it's good to appreciate that we are hedged partly on the gasoil, these sort of spikes we suddenly get don't necessarily materialize in our margins.

That's maybe the cautionary comment on what's happened now in the past sort of week, week and a half.

Yeah. In terms of term sales, we mentioned, I think it was end of last year, that we have termed about roughly 60%.

I would use that number throughout the whole year. There are some months when we have a bit more, months a bit less, but that is sort of the rough number through the year.

Yeah.

Good afternoon, all, and thanks for taking my questions. I have two.

First, building on the last question, how are you guys thinking about term pricing exposure for 2027 given the strength of the market at present? Then second, could you speak to how you're thinking about the allocation of RP sales across your end markets, the regulatory markets, as you guys highlighted, are exceptionally strong here in the US and are moving higher to bid for imports?

Could you repeat the second half, please, one more time? The line was a bit unclear, please, the second, the allocation question.

Sure. Second, could you speak to how you're thinking about the allocation of RP sales across your end markets?

The regulatory markets here in the US are quite strong, as you guys highlighted, and are moving higher to bid for imports. Yeah.

No,

thank you. It's very quiet now.

Summer season is upon us, and most of our customers on vacations in August. I think we will then come back to this term question later in autumn.

As you said, it is, of course, clear that price level at the moment is on the higher side. We will have to have the negotiations as always with our customers and see then what are they looking for for 2027 and then customer by customer negotiate based on what type of needs they have.

I can't really comment on that, but recognize your question. In terms of allocation of volume, you may recall that a few years ago, we have to reallocate the Singapore volumes over to Europe.

European demand has been very good and continues to be very good, a lot of that, the European market continues to be very important for us. Martinez is now the primary source for our volumes in the US, and Martinez is running well, and that's basically the situation for Neste at the moment, nothing really to tell about that at the moment.

Hello, guys, and thank you very much for the time. Two questions, please.

The first is just to come back to margins and try to reframe the question. Can you give us any indication of what you've had in July?

Has July on average been better than what you got in 2Q as an average? That's both for the Oil Products business and the Renewable Products business.

Then I wanted to touch on the performance improvement program. I wanted to ask where we can go from here.

You're clearly making big savings and big revenue benefits from this program you put in place over a year ago. Where can we go from here?

Then secondly, how much of that is baked into the margins? How much of the costs and revenue over the past year are now coming through as a dollar per ton on the margin?

Thank you.

Maybe I'll ask Eeva to comment on the numerical side, and I will then talk about the performance improvement program, how we move forward.

I think what comes to July and a couple of weeks, obviously I would say that generally when you have a sort of sudden reescalation like we've seen in the Middle East, so, first reaction for customers is to wait and see kind of what's coming out of this. We haven't in that sense seen huge volumes, but I would say that no change in our RP, whereas then in OP, obviously the cracks have reacted, and that comes kind of quicker through.

Now then the question is what happens on the crude premiums in going forward on this, but that hopefully sort of, Paul, helps you forward. Then Heikki

on the performance. I think

on Well,

we kicked the performance improvement program at a time when the markets were very weak, our results were really poor, and we're trying to accelerate and extract value quickly. If you remember, we had the headcount reduction exercise.

We took out a lot of costs from sourcing and were able to capture some really quick wins. We've also been able to save quite a lot in optimize logistics and improve our commercial approach on the market.

I think these, in some ways, some of them on the sourcing and on the headcount, they're done, and that value has sort of been captured. I think going forward, though, our focus very much is in the refineries.

It is a longer-term journey. You are hearing that we say that we have these turnarounds.

We need a bit more time to do them. We need some money for that.

I think they are attractive investments. They will yield a better utilization, and it's clearly worth doing.

That is sort of a bit beyond the current program of performance improvement. I would say, though, that in terms of the, from a leadership standpoint, implementing this program has really shown that by being very systematic in driving performance inside Neste, we can yield a lot of benefits.

I think the Neste team has learned a lot from these two years of running the performance improvement program. We have hundreds of ideas.

We have hundreds of people contributing to that. We've been able to find a lot of things, turning every rock, and there are still many ideas out there that we will implement in the coming years.

I think as far as the program is concerned, the sort of the big push has now been accomplished, and we're gradually, as you can see from the Eeva slide, the cash is coming in, and we're booking them into the profit and loss statement.

Thank you, and good afternoon. In RP, if we look at the comparable sales margin versus your index, capture rose to 118% in Q2 from 102% in Q1.

What were the tailwinds here, and do you think that 118% is that a reasonable assumption or at least a reasonable baseline for the third quarter? Then my second question, you mentioned the strength of the US RVO.

Do you think the US is going to be short RINs at the end of 2026, or would you think that the RIN price will move to a level where the US will be attracting significant RD imports? Has Neste received any sort of interest from US refiners in terms of raising RD flows from Europe to the US?

Thank you.

Do you want to start?

On the RP margin, with all this volatility in and now in external markets, I would be cautious on drawing conclusions on a single quarter. This is hardly a normalized year.

I think the difference partly between Q1 and Q2 is that we had more levers in Q2. You may remember that Q1 it was a very heavy turnaround quarter, just kind of less levers to address.

I think in that sense, obviously very pleased that we're able in a very turbulent environment kind of really drive value. I think it kind of shows and speaks for the sort of improvements we've been able to push through in, for instance, in our commercial and feedstock operations.

As said, now sort of especially Q4 for RP will be sort of very much affected by the turnarounds, and by default, our levers will again be slower, so that's maybe good to take into account, Matthew.

Maybe a question about sort of allocation, I would just say that, the Martinez volume is about roughly about a quarter quarter of our sales. The last few years have been very tough in the US market, and now gradually that business is starting to, generate more value.

It also, of course, is then shown in our average sales margin. People easily forget that we actually have quite a large US presence through Martinez, happy to see that move upward.

For the coming, half year, with the turnarounds in Singapore and Rotterdam, we're pretty busy, taking care of our European customers, and and Singapore will be, contributing to this market. How does the world then look like in '27 later on, that is that is remains to be seen.

Singapore always has the option to to ship its products both east and west, but at the moment, our focus is pretty much more on the on the European continent where the where the demand is also very robust. Then Martinez, of course, is is now needs to start proving itself, also in know with with a better profitability.

Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. First, a question on dividends and buybacks.

Given your very strong year-to-date performance and earnings, how should we think around dividends and potential buybacks going into next year? Second question, that is just to follow up on capex guidance.

Is it any cost increases involved in the fact that you lift the low end of the previous guidance, or is it just more work to be done that has driven that you have removed the low end of the guidance? Thanks.

I can start with the latter. Now obviously, we gave the guidance in February, I would say that we had a pretty good view on the sort of cost levels of various components.

Naturally, the Middle East situation has stretched supply chains, we see inflation in certain areas, but as said, I think we've been just moving in the range we already guided on, it's more a proxy of adding more work in the turnarounds. That hopefully answers your question.

Then

Regarding your question regarding dividends and buybacks, if I recall, we paid for 2026 we paid 154 For 2025, we paid €154 million, right? Of course, looking to continue with the dividend payments this year, the absolute amount, though, we need to see how the year concludes, and then, of course, the board will make its own recommendation regarding dividend payout.

I think Eeva and I have been very clear that, at least management view is that we need to continue deleveraging the company, and we're not there yet, so that also needs to be factored in as we look at dividends. As said, we will come back to that later in the year when we have a chance to get a better view on how the year ends and then see our monetary requirements then for 2027.

Understood. Will you consider any buybacks at all?

I can't comment on that question. Sorry.

Okay. That's fair.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions.

Two, please. The first one is on RP term sales.

You lock in 60% of your volume in a lower-margin environment back in Q4, yet you beat the spot reference on slide 9, I remember, with record high margins this quarter. How should we understand the term sale impact on your margin going forward?

Or in another way, what have you done right this quarter to achieve such a big margin, and was there any favorable one-off items? My second question is on RP sales volume for the second half.

I understand there's heavy maintenance in Q4, but how should investors think about sales volume split in 3Q versus 4Q? How much flexibility do you have to front-load the sales into Q3?

Thank you.

If I Nash, try to answer both questions. You may remember that even in term sales, they typically the diesel component is open, obviously we we have benefited from that, partly hedged, though we haven't got the full impact, but still I would say that obviously in these markets, that has contributed to the term sales as as well.

We kind of haven't missed missed that component. Then like Heikki mentioned in the previous answers, the US impact, we're clearly in a much better place with our US US margins thanks to the stronger stronger market.

Really those those two. Not really any any sort of one-offs that that as said, I as I said in my commentary, really volume and margins, sorry, everything else was was pretty marginal in in the quarter.

Then what comes to the sales volumes, obviously we will prepare for the fourth-quarter turnarounds in the same way as we're doing now in OP so that we will produce in Q3 to to then be able to deliver to our customers in Q4. The sales volumes difference maybe is is not that not that significant.

Now our focus is is clearly in Q3 really to to optimize on on on the production and and drive drive utilization even if we are coming to the sort of end of the catalyst in in in in Rotterdam clearly now in in in the coming coming weeks. That really.

Then the better we are able to execute the turnarounds, then maybe we have some spot spot business in in in Q4 still still as an availability opportunity if if you may, if if the market continues to to to be this strong. That would certainly be something we would we would aim for, but maybe a bit early to comment on that yet.

Very helpful. Thanks, Eeva.

Thanks, Naish.

Hi. Thank you for presentation.

May I please follow up on Martinez and the US market? We've seen very strong RIN prices, but also quite significant rally in feedstock prices.

Is Martinez exposed to US domestic feedstock price rally, or maybe there is any opportunity to optimize to maybe import cheaper feedstock from abroad given where RIN prices are? Yeah.

Is it still basically margin dilutive to the overall margin or not anymore? Thank you.

For Neste, of course, if you recall, we also have our Mahoney business where we're actually heavily involved in the UCO collection ourselves locally. That gives us, in some ways, it's sort of a physical hedge because, as the prices go up, of course, we benefit from the Mahoney side, so that does adjust.

I think overall, the decisions on the feedstock choices are made by the joint venture, and they make their decisions independently. It's their decision then to decide how they optimize that.

Thank you.

Hi there. Two from me please.

The first one is just was there an impact of hedging on the results as you look for Q2? The second one, I think you mentioned earlier that you were looking at lignocellulosic potentially.

Could you give a little more color on that as a technology and how interesting you find it? Thank you.

Maybe you touch on the hedging and I'll comment on ligno.

Sure. It had less impact in the quarter.

The movements were big, but we had perhaps more netting than we even estimated ourselves in the sense that obviously from the gasoil hedges, we continued to take a hit. We have hedge that at very different levels before the Middle East crisis obviously, and that continues to come through.

Then again, on the feedstock side, we had a positive hedging result as some of the feedstock took quite a big jump, especially in the US market. The net impact was rather modest, and hence I didn't flag it earlier either.

In terms of your question regarding ligno, Neste is the world's largest buyer of these waste and residues. If we look into the 2030s, we still see ample supply available on these feedstocks, cooking oil, animal fats, and novel vegetable oils.

Of course, as we develop our business over decades, we need to also consider what would be the next source of feedstocks beyond. The ligno pool is substantially larger than what we have in waste and residue.

Technology is complex. We've been developing it for some years.

We believe we're onto something, but there will be phases where we will need to pilot this on pre-industrial scale before we really know. I would just say that we have wanted to mention ligno to provide the markets with an understanding that we believe there's a chance to develop a source for material molecules beyond waste and residue, and this is what we're driving for.

This is definitely a 2030s story. Before 2030s, we will not be in industrial production.

Thank you very much, and good afternoon. Just two more for me if I may.

Firstly, I appreciate, Eeva, you couldn't give us an update on the Rotterdam budget, but maybe you can talk us through the timeline. We've approached 2027 by another three quarters.

I wonder whether you can be more specific around when you expect first production and probably more importantly, about the expected ramp-up period because, as far as I recall, the Singapore new line that is now going back into maintenance did have a, let's say, rough start. I wonder whether you've taken any lessons from that in order to prepare for a smoother ramp-up, shorter ramp-up period in Rotterdam.

Then secondly, look at your H1 run rate for capex. Would it be fair to say that €200 million ex-turnarounds is a useful calculation to then say, okay, in the second half you're obviously busier on turnarounds, they'll cost you an extra €400 million?

Is that a fair calculation? Thank you.

If I take the first one and then you can take the one on the RD CG. Christopher, Q1 also had its turnarounds.

We had a turnaround in Martinez. We had turnaround on the other Singapore line.

I think drawing the conclusion that it would be sort of outside of turnarounds maybe is too bold statement. The big differentiating factor perhaps is just that the OP Porvoo turnaround we're talking about €400 million alone in that, and that really all comes in mostly in Q3, probably some tails cash out still in Q4.

Obviously, all the invoices will not come in in Q3. That really is the moving.

Then the slightly additional spend on the two two RP turnarounds.

Perfect. Yep.

Thank you.

The Singapore start was not the easiest. I think we've historically had a reasonably good track record, but Singapore was not an easy start.

Granted, though, we were also post-COVID. Maybe that time period added to some of the challenges.

We've done a lot of internal analysis and reckoning on what went well and what didn't well. We've moved a number of the people who are actually working on the Singapore startup.

They're now working in Rotterdam. We've tried to make sure that knowledge is and has been transferred.

I think that is an important step in terms of how they staff the team. At this stage, 2027 start is what we are able to communicate.

I may not able to give you a more accurate timing at this time. When we have a better understanding, we will, of course, be communicating to the markets, but still need to be patient.

Okay. We'll try.

Thank you.

Yes. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions.

Still two to go from my end. The first one is relating to renewable products.

Could you maybe comment on fixed cost outlook for second half of this year, and has there been something exceptional in Q2? Then coming to Oil Products, and could you maybe talk about opportunities to lock in product margins within the segment to any meaningful extent what comes to volumes, given the fact that spot margins are extremely high, also forward cracks have moved up quite substantially?

If I start with the fixed cost in our RP, obviously there's some seasonality in the quarter between the quarters. Then maybe a sort of positive issue per se, but obviously with the with the high high results from RP, we've increased bonuses, and and that's actually to to an extent that is visible if you compare Q2 and Q1 one fixed cost.

Everything else, I think, more more falls in the line of of the seasonality. Then, of course, the it it does a lower utilization usually brings us a certain sort of hassle hassle cost and these, and and we've had we've had some of that certainly in in the second first half, aiming for for a better better situation in second half, but that of course remains to be remains to be sort of proven.

Then on OP, well, in terms of our customer base, most of our sales are in the Nordic markets, and we have certain amount of larger B2B fuel distributors with whom we do business. These are usually annual negotiations for the following year.

I think your question was asked already earlier that these are sort of on the higher-level side. We just need to see how the conversations then go with the customers in the autumn period and what they need and what they would like to have.

Then we will make proposals and negotiate accordingly, and let's see where we end up for 2027, so.

Maybe just adding, Artem, to that obviously the turnaround kind of limits a bit our ability to use all the levers in a way. We have to be a bit cautious on how much product we have at hand because the turnaround success is obviously highly important to that.

Let's hope we have an opportunity to optimize then in Q4 when we're back up.

Yes. Great.

Thank you very much. That's all from my side.

Hi. Thank you.

I have a couple of questions, please. First, I would say more structurally, there's been a huge amount of volatility in prices.

Last year there was the rally into year-end, and then this year there's the Middle East, there's the ramp in the US mandate. I'm interested in do you see a change in consumer behavior?

Are people interested in locking in potentially longer-term supply contracts or to change pricing structures so they're less exposed to the volatility? Second, on the cost side, have there been any other costs other than feedstock that could affect capture rates in this disruption?

For instance, shipping, natural gas, hydrogen, interested in your views. Thank you.

If I start with the volatility, yes, of course, the problem is when you have volatility is what type of a scenario are you reacting towards or trying to mitigate or minimize. This has been a bit of a guessing game here because all of these I guess I could call them shocks in some ways have been coming from unexpected directions.

I have to say that our customer needs vary really significantly. There are some customers who much more want security and guarantee, and others who are big buyers, and then maybe the part they buy from Neste is more variable.

I cannot generalize because, as said, the customers' needs are so different across the spectrum of customers we have, so. I would agree with you that volatility has been significant, and it doesn't make the negotiations easier because you always are not sure exactly is this the right solution then for the next year?

I guess that's just the sign of times we're living now at the moment. Then,

Alice, to your second question, you raise a good point that shipping costs have obviously also been impacted by the disruptions in geopolitics, and we've seen them sort of hike up significantly. Now, fortunately, we've had since last year quite a lot of the performance improvement actions really on logistics, because clearly that was an area where we had to do much better, and the timing has been really right.

We really needed to sort of up our game in to face this year's market. It continues obviously as now with the reescalation continues to be something that we need to sort of be very closely monitoring and trying to optimize how we sort of route and how we plan for logistics.

Then as Heikki mentioned also in his opportunities and risks slide, that just the availability of certain components is in this type of a environment just very important. We have a lot of extra work going around just to sort of knowing exactly what we have, what we're going to need, plan ahead with the suppliers, working much more closely with them to ensure that we don't get any production issues, which obviously in this market would be extremely costly.

We're trying at all cost to avoid any disruption. It's certainly that's why we also highlighted it in the risks.

Thank you.

Hi. Thanks for taking the question.

I wanted to ask you about operational performance, the journey that you're on and how that interacts with future maintenance requirements on the renewable refinery assets. 8 and 11 weeks into the sort of the second half of the year respectively, obviously relatively long duration schedules.

When you look beyond the second half of this year, the investment and maintenance cycles for 2027+, should we expect sort of similar duration in the future is required in order to get the assets to where they need to be on a mid-term basis? Where also did you think sort of capex 2027, 2028 as Rotterdam phases off settles relative to the 1.2 billion for 2026?

Thank you.

If I just start with operational performance and then, Eeva, you can talk about the capex numbers, but I would go back to my earlier comment that the utilization levels need to be higher than what we see in RP, and clearly we have been on a journey. Of course, starting up these facilities, I think we talked about the Singapore challenges.

I think overall, Singapore has moved in a much better direction. The longer duration, as I said before, for Line Number 2, that's partially now linked to the fact that we have the first major turnaround after the startup.

Overall, we do see that the operational performance and utilization level is going to require making certain modifications to the lines and augmenting the materials, and that also relates to the fact that we're trying to push more and more into the tougher segments of feedstocks and tougher segments of the business where the premiums are higher. There's attractive business case for doing that.

The combination of monetary margin potential there, but then also just getting the utilization levels up, that's the driver behind the TAs. I can guarantee you we have looked at the time needed for these TAs with a really fine-tooth comb.

Every single extra day, if we can shorten it, we will do it. That is just getting a number of things into these refineries.

It's laborious. It takes people, and the installations have to be done really professionally and well so the quality of the maintenance work is high quality.

I'd rather take a few more days to make sure the work is really well done than maybe do a shortcut, and then we have issues. Ultimately, we have to run these refineries in a very safe way, and we're not going to take any risks on that.

Then

to your question on the capex, obviously the Rotterdam growth project has had a heavy impact on our capex needs for now a couple of years, and tails then still in '27, but then from '28 onwards that will move out. I think it's a bit early to guide on '27, '28 otherwise.

I just say that I think in our job with Heikki is obviously to drive return for our shareholders, and if it then requires capex where we have attractive paybacks, then we will look at them. You can expect us to sort of want to push forward with them.

Whereas then if we don't see the proper returns, then we will be much tighter on capex. There's good and bad capex in my books, and a lot of gray in between.

It's really how rather than focusing on the numbers. Especially I think we will be in a very different place from a financial position point of view at the end of this year, and I take that as purely a positive because it then gives us opportunity and options to look at, options that we didn't perhaps have a year and a half back.

I think the turnaround we've done has been tremendously important, successful so far, and really sort of will enable us to make then the right decisions for future returns.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking my question.

I just have one left on working capital. Inventory in the quarter was up nearly a billion year-on-year.

Could you give us a bit of an indication how much of that is finished products versus inflation and the mechanics of how that might unwind the timing in the second half? Thank you.

I would maybe sort of shy away from giving you exact exact numbers. It is specifically the the volume volume in in OP, but of course it is combined with the fact that we've added added volume.

You maybe you get a good proxy if you look at the sort of what we didn't sell versus produced, you get an idea on the in on the inventories, and and then obviously the sort of market prices. Whilst they were slightly lower at the end of the quarter, now they're they're back up again, so that's maybe good to good to take into account.

Both both both aspects were important. The one we can work with is is the inventory volumes, and that's where I said that we're obviously focused on delivering better cash flow then in for the full year.

That will very much sort of be a Q4 question, and and in Q3 then there's less less we can do, and and then we're more sort of need to sort of just see what happens on the on the market prices.

Thank you very much.

Hello, and good afternoon. I think now we've been addressing a lot of the short-term matters here in the call, but in a longer term, your market intelligence team has drawn very very well slide about demand growth, and it's quite the opposite to what we saw in '23 when they were hinting about that kind of the oversupply in the near term.

My question is that in a longer term, how do you see the SAF market growing? There is European demand growth, but is that taking place in 2030 when there is going to be a big jump in mandate, or is there more kind of linear path what you're assuming?

Then the second one, I'd like to still address about the volumes next year. I think, Eeva, you told us during the Q3 call that for this year, 80% utilization rate would have been justified.

If we think next year, is that something after the capacity creeps or debottlenecking that we could take as a baseline? Thank you.

I can maybe start with my previous comment that that's why we call 75% unsatisfactory, that we're not at a 80%. Then hand it to Heikki to the SAF question and how we see that.

We hope it would be more linear. At the moment, things are moving forward.

I think SAF is here, and I think that it is the mandates, we believe, will go up even though there's certain industry participants are pushing back on that. I do believe we're going to see higher mandates.

I would be personally very surprised if that 2030 6% were to be withdrawn. I think it's going to be more and more heading towards the 2030s.

As said earlier, for Neste, of course, the great thing is we can optimize between SAF and renewable diesel. This optionality is a real asset for us in the company.

Thank you very much for the call today in the middle of the summer. As said, it's been exciting quarter for Neste, all-time high results, something, of course, we're super happy about.

We're pleased about the fact that the financial position is stronger, and Eeva mentioned also the Moody's rating matter. On the regulatory development, I just want to underscore the fact that these are major decisions now that the member states have made.

We believe this is a strong tailwind for the sector, and the situation with Hormuz, of course, will then raise this whole question of energy security to a much more bigger topic. That's why I believe this tailwind we're getting from regulatory side will be strong and more durable than maybe in the past.

Overall, we're well-positioned to capture market opportunities. We will invest in these lines to get these utilization levels on RP higher, and I think that positions Neste really well then for the future.

When we add Rotterdam 2 line coming, I think that puts Neste in a good position for the coming years. With those words, I hope you all enjoy your summer vacation, and we will then see you again later in the fall when we report back on Q3 results.

Take care. Bye-bye.