Thank you for the introduction. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

This is Zeina Fares from EFG Hermes Research speaking, and I'd like to welcome you all to Nakilat's first half of 2026 results conference call. With us on the line today we have Mr.

Hani Abuaker, the CFO; Mr. Fotios Zeritis, Head of Investor Relations and ESG Reporting; and Mr.

Kamaran Jomah, Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. Without further delay, I'd like to congratulate management on an amazing set of results this quarter, and I'll hand over the call to Fotios.

Please, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Zeina. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Nakilat's second quarter earnings call.

For your convenience, a transcript of this call and the accompanying presentation are available in the Investor Relations section of our website. Please note that this call is being recorded, and the media are not permitted to attend.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of our remarks today may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to uncertainties that cause actual results to differ materially.

For further details, please refer to the slide 2 on Investor Relations presentation. In addition, certain remarks may include non-IFRS financial measures.

A reconciliation of these measures is provided in the notes on the presentation. Before we proceed, I would like to note that Nakilat will not be commenting on geopolitical matters or developments, and our focus today will remain on the company's performance and overview.

I will start with a brief overview of the LNG shipping market. Kamaran Jomah, Nakilat's Financial Planning and Reporting Manager, will then walk you through the company's financial results, followed by our CFO, Hani Abuaker, who will provide you an update on the company's outlook.

Then we will be happy to address your question. Let's begin with LNG shipping market.

The LNG shipping sector remained constructive during the first half of 2026, with both spot and term charter rates continuing to reflect long-term market fundamentals. While market conditions have evolved compared to the last year, demand for modern and efficient vessels remains supported by ongoing growth in the global LNG trade and a balanced supply environment.

The global LNG expansion is expanded to underpin long-term demand for LNG shipping. At the same time, continuing investment in both liquefaction and regasification infrastructures reinforces the positive outlook for the industry and supports established operators with a strong track record in delivering safe, reliable, and efficient transportation solutions.

Moving to the slide 10, according to Clarksons, average 1-year time charter rates during the first half of 2026 remained at healthy levels across the main vessels categories. The modern 2-stroke vessels 1-year average time charter rate around $66,000 per day and DFDE vessels approximately $44,000 per day.

1-year charter rates also continue to provide a reference point to the market. On the slide 10, Clarksons reports that the global LNG fleet reached 826 vessels by the second quarter of 2026, with additional 292 vessels on the order book through 2031.

This reflects the industry's preparation for future trade growth and next wave of LNG supply projects. Overall, LNG continue to play important role in the global energy mix, supported by long-term demand growth, ongoing infrastructure development, and fleet modernization.

While near-term market conditions may continue to fluctuate as new vessels enter to the market and broader geopolitical economic uncertainties persist, the industry long-term fundamentals remain encouraging. With that, I would like now to hand it over to Mr.

Kamaran Jomah, Nakilat's Financial Planning and Reporting Manager. Kamaran, the floor is yours.

Please proceed.

Thank you, Fotios. Looking at the first half of 2026, Nakilat continued to deliver sustainable results, underpinned by our long-term charter profile, stable core operations, and a disciplined financial management.

I will now walk you through Nakilat's financial and operational performance for the 6-month period ended 30th of June 2026. Please refer to slide 12 and 13, which summarize the first half results.

Starting with profitability, Nakilat reported net profit of 857 million Qatari riyals, compared with the 860 million Qatari riyals in the first half of 2025, broadly in line with the prior period. Earnings per share stood at 0.15 Qatari riyals, compared with the 0.16 Qatari riyals a year earlier.

Annualized return on equity was 12.6%, and the group maintained a solid liquidity position with a current ratio of 1.39. On income, total income for the first half reached 2.3— 2.39 billion Qatari riyals, compared with the 2.27 billion Qatari riyals in the first half of 2025, an increase of approximately 5.5% year-on-year.

Revenue from operations amounted to 2.32 billion Qatari riyals, compared with the 2.2 billion Qatari riyals in the first half of 2025. The increase was supported by higher revenue from wholly owned LNG vessels, reflecting our fleet utilization, the continued stability of our long-term charter arrangements, and higher dry docking-related amortization revenue following the dry dockings which completed during 2025.

The LPG segment recorded higher revenue year-on-year, primarily reflecting the full 6-month contribution of the 2 LPG vessels acquired at the end of March 2025. This was partially offset by lower average daily charter rates during the period.

In the shipyard segment, performance in the first half of 2026 was affected by the ongoing geopolitical situation, which reduced activity levels across the shipyard operations and other marine services. As a reminder, Qatar Shipyard Technology Solutions has been fully consolidated since July 2025.

The current period therefore reflects its full results, while the prior period included only our share of results under the equity accounting method. Within the LNG joint venture portfolio, contributions were lower than the first half of 2025, primarily due to accounting treatment on finance lease revenue.

This was partly offset by lower depreciation and reduced finance costs across the portfolio, together with a gain of the disposal of 2 older steam vessels within one of our joint ventures, as we continue to renew our portfolio with more efficient tonnage across the group. Moving on to expenses, operating expenses for the first half of the year increased to approximately 530 million Qatari riyals, compared with the 414 million Qatari riyals in a year earlier.

The movement was mainly driven by the full consolidation of Qatar Shipyard Technology Solutions and the LPG vessels following their respective transfers, which introduced additional operating costs which were not present for the full year in the prior comparison. General and administrative expenses increased to 72 million Qatari riyals, compared with the 37 million Qatari riyals a year earlier.

This was mainly attributable to the full consolidation of Qatar Shipyard Technology Solutions, which introduced additional overhead costs which were not present in the prior year. This was partly offset by the continued benefit of cost improvement initiatives across the group.

Depreciation and amortization amounted to 460 million Qatari riyals, compared with the 434 million Qatari riyals in the first half of 2025, an increase of approximately 6% year-on-year. This mainly reflects the completion of the vessel dry dock cycle during the second half of 2025, which resulted in higher depreciation in the current period, as well as the recognition of the LPG vessels and Qatar Shipyard Technology Solutions following their full consolidation.

Interest, dividend, and other income were marginally higher year-on-year. Higher income was earned due to the increase in cash balance available for deposits, which was largely offset by the elimination of interest income from the joint ventures following their consolidation of Qatar Shipyard Technology Solutions, together with lower variable interest rates on short-term deposits during the period.

Bringing these revenues and cost movements together, EBITDA for the first half was approximately 1.79 billion Qatari riyals, around 1.4% lower year-on-year. The decline was mainly reflected due to the lower shipyard activity due to the current geopolitical environment, as lower contributions from the LNG joint venture portfolio mentioned earlier, and including the accounting treatment of the finance lease revenue.

These impacts were partly offset by higher revenue from wholly owned LNG vessels and lower vessel operating expenses within the existing fleet. Finance costs decreased year-on-year, primarily due to lower average variable interest rates, savings from improved loan margins under Nakilat's ongoing refinancing strategy, and scheduled loan repayments in line with the group's debt amortization profile.

These benefits were partly offset by lower capitalized interest and the inclusion of finance costs associated with Qatar Shipyard Technology Solutions following its consolidation. Turning to slide 14, which provides an overview of the balance sheet, property, plant, and equipment decreased during the first half of the year, mainly reflecting continued investment under Nakilat's newbuild program.

This is partly offset by the depreciation recognized across the fleet and operating assets during the period. Total cash and bank balances included deposits which increased compared to the year end of 2025.

This was driven mainly by the net increase in borrowings raised from the finance and newbuild program, together with cash generated from operations. These inflows were partly offset by installment payments made in line with the newbuild construction schedule and the payment of the 2025 final dividend.

Overall, the cash position demonstrated Nakilat's ability to fund ongoing investment commitments while maintaining a solid liquidity. Borrowing increased by approximately 1.8 billion Qatari riyals to 21.7 billion Qatari riyals, compared with the year-end 2025, primarily due to drawdowns relating to the financing of the newbuild program.

This was partly offset by scheduled loan repayments consistent with the group debt amortization profile. The movement in borrowing reflects Nakilat's disciplined execution of its long-term investment strategy.

As noted earlier, Nakilat continues to secure funding well in advance of the upcoming shipyard payment obligations for the newbuild program. Financing arrangements are in place to fully cover all scheduled shipyard payments for 2026, and the group continues to make additional arrangements to support future requirements.

This approach provides strong funding visibility, enhances liquidity planning, and supports orderly execution of the newbuild program. The Board of Directors has not declared an interim dividend in respect to the first half of 2026.

The dividend for the full fiscal year 2026 will be considered by the board at the year end. To summarize, Nakilat closes first half of 2026 with net profitability broadly in line with prior year and higher revenue from wholly owned LNG vessels.

This reflects its strength of the group's core operations and stability of its long-term charter profile, despite a more challenging environment for the shipyard activities. Looking ahead, Nakilat enters the second half of 2026 with a resilient earnings, which positions the group to benefit from the phased delivery of the new vessels and to continue executing its long-term growth strategy.

For the shipyard and marine segment, activity remains affected by the current geopolitical situations, and we continue to monitor developments closely while expecting a gradual recovery once conditions normalize. I thank you for your attention.

I will now hand it over to Nakilat's Chief Financial Officer, Hani Abuaker, who will discuss the group's business outlook and strategic priorities. Over to you, Hani.

Thank you, Fotios and Kamaran. Before I turn to the outlook, I would like to take a moment to recognize our seafarer and crew members.

Throughout what has been a challenging period, they have shown remarkable resilience, and their perseverance and unwavering commitment to operational excellence and safety have been an example to all of us. On behalf of the board, the management, we extend to them our sincere gratitude and appreciation.

As we have announced, one of our vessels was struck by a projectile while transiting the Strait of Hormuz. I would like to reiterate that all our crew members are safe and unharmed, that the incident resulted in no injuries, and that there was no environmental impact.

Our team are working diligently to accelerate the necessary repairs and to return the vessel to full operational service in the very near future. I would like to emphasize that the group maintains comprehensive war risk insurance, which was in place at the time of the incident and which we continue to hold to mitigate the financial impact of events of this nature.

Now turning to the outlook, in the first half of 2026, we maintained sustainable financial performance despite the ongoing geopolitical challenges. This reflects the resilience of the operating models and our ability to respond quickly to changing conditions.

We have taken immediate and effective measures to rationalize expenses and optimize operations across our business segments, helping to mitigate the impact on overall performance and protect our cash flow. In the shipyard segment, performance was impacted by the current geopolitical environment, which led to lower activity levels across shipyard operations and related marine services.

As a result, the contribution from this segment was lower year-on-year. Looking ahead, as condition hopefully stabilize and normalize, we anticipate a recovery to our shipyard activity levels, starting modestly and hopefully progressively building towards the normal operational capacity.

Overall, our priority remains clear: continuous, disciplined cost management, resilient cash flow generation, and maintain sustainable financial position as we navigate the current challenging environment. With that, I will now hand the call back to the operator to open the floor for questions, please do so.

Thank you, gentlemen, and congrats on the results, and God bless you for everything that you're doing. In terms of the newbuild program, do you guys have any plans to, let's say, dispose of some of the old vessels to maybe use that to reduce leverage later on once the newbuild program is, let's say, a few years into it?

If you have any comments on that, thank you.

Thanks, Nafez. As what Kamaran has said, if there's any of our vessels that is quite old, if they're not chartered right now, we will always look for an opportunity to really recycle these vessels by disposing them or selling them and let the new tonnage to come in.

That is what has Kamaran alluded to when we talked about our joint venture where we had a couple of steam vessels that we looked into dispose them or sell them when they came out of the charter.

Great. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon.

I've five questions, should I go one by one? Yeah?

Okay. Hello?

Sure. First questions is on the cost of good sold, which I saw that it's down around 6% Q-on-Q, despite revenue being flat.

Can I know what's the reason for this?

Hi. Are you referring to the Opex and G&A?

Yes, correct.

Yeah. So—

No. Not Opex.

The direct cost.

Which direct cost?

Cost of revenue. The cost of revenue.

I'm not sure which line item you're referring to, but we have the total income and we have expenses. If you're referring to— Gross—

so basically what I'm saying is your gross profit actually higher. Grew your gross profit higher Q-on-Q, but your revenue is quite flat.

What's the reason for this?

Yeah. There's two elements.

From the revenue section, as we mentioned, we have the inclusion of Qatar Shipyard and the LPG vessels, which weren't there in the comparative period. In terms of the expenses, as mentioned and as highlighted in the IR slides that we have published, it's due to cost optimization across the group.

Okay. Second is can you explain a little bit because I saw that there were increase in cost from the consolidation of Qatar Shipyard, but the revenue contributions it's not as good.

Can I know what's the reason for this?

As I mentioned during my part of the call, we had a reduction in the shipyard activity, and this was as a result of the geopolitical situation.

Do you expect this to basically, how to say, to improve upon this ease of the geopolitical situation, this current situation?

Once the situation eases, we expect a ramp-up back to normal operating activities.

Okay. In terms of for your share of profit from JV, it's down year-on-year as well Q-on-Q.

What's the reason for this?

Again, there's a couple of elements on this point which I highlighted and I'm happy to go through them again. Again, we had the exclusion of Qatar Shipyard, which in the prior year was included as share of profits from joint ventures,

okay,

as well as the LPG vessels, which were also included as part of the share of results from joint ventures, and both of those two elements now are fully consolidated in our financial statements and are reflected accordingly across the P&L, as well as the LNG joint venture performance. We had a reduction due to the finance lease accounting treatment, okay, and together that has resulted in the reduction.

Okay. On the ship that has been attack, right, I wonder will insurance going to compensate for that, and how much is the quantum, that's first.

How's that the payment like for these vessels, would you still get revenue and payment, or how does it work?

As per our war risk insurance, we get compensated for the damages and the repair. Now the magnitude of the repair is still being assessed by our team, and I'm sure they will conclude over the next 1 or 2 weeks how much is the cost.

The most important that is being covered by the war risk insurance. Our vessel is still on hire, or they will be compensated as part of the war risk insurance for the off-hire that potentially has resulted from this impact.

Okay. Can you also give some colors on the additional fleet timeline on your slide 7, because total you have 40 fleets, right?

In terms of deliverables, how many fleets of completion, this kind of colors?

It is as per the— I think— Go ahead, Kamaran.

Sorry, I was going to say if you can just refer to that slide, we've given, I think, a pretty good outlook of, in terms of the delivery of the 40 vessels. I think you mentioned 46, but it's 40 vessels that are being delivered.

You can see from there we've given by quarter and then long-term we've given an annual outlook of the deliveries.

Sorry, which slide is this?

This is on slide 16. 16, 16,

16. Let me see.

It's—

Okay. 16?

No, 16 is dividends. It's—

15.

15. 15.

Go to the page 15, page 15.

15,

15.

Okay. All right.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Hello, am I audible?

Hi, Nakilat management. Congrats on the great set of results.

I have two questions from my end. The first question is since you've mentioned cost reduction and, yani, can we expect more synergies to be recognized from the consolidation of Qatar Shipyard and more cost efficiencies in the next coming quarters, or is this, yani, a good indicator for the rest of the year?

My second question is about the tax expense. We've noticed an increase in tax expense in the second quarter.

What is the reason?

Hi, yeah. Let me just answer the tax question.

This increase in tax is relating to two elements. One is relating to the domestic tax portion, and the other is relating to the global minimum tax, which is minimal for us as our core operations is international shipping.

As mentioned, we have the consolidation of the Qatar Shipyard, as well as a slight increase in our core business profits, which has resulted in an impact in the tax estimate for the year.

In relation to the operating costs and G&A, yes, there's two factors here. There's one we have to take into consideration is that the reduced activities, which has resulted into a lower Opex for the first half.

In regards to synergies, if you look over the years, we always as a company, as we scale up in the number of vessels and by the number of years we operate, we usually find a way to optimize costs and use a lot of automation and try to find a way that we can really consolidate our procurement to really reduce our cost per unit for service and for spare parts. This has been an evidence that for the past many years.

You should always expect sort of improvements that comes from try to really capitalize on the synergy part as part of the group. Also you have to take into consideration that Qatar Shipyard did not have as much activities for the last 6 months.

Also you have to take into consideration that also our vessels has not been operating as compared to a previous normal year. We should really expect, going forward, the Opex to normalize, but there's always going to be a chance for us to really optimize our costs through synergy or through finding a better and smarter way to reduce our cost.

Thanks.

Fair enough. Maybe one one more question about the tax expense.

What would you guide for an effective tax rate given the consolidation of Qatar Shipyard and two portions of tax, the domestic and global? For the future, what kind of tax rate could we assume?

I think a good guide, Ahmed, would be to use the existing effective tax rate. If you were to take the P&L now and calculate

using

the existing effective rate. Perfect.

Perfect. Thank you and all the best.

Thank you.

Hi, can you hear me?

Can I just ask about the new ships? Have you begun or have you negotiated the pricing with QatarEnergy yet on the ships that are going to be delivered in the next sort of, let's say the next 12 months?

These prices has already been set on the date we got awarded the contract. That was already—

Oh, okay. That's already been agreed?

Yes.

Is that the case for all of the new ships, then? You're—

Lee, if you're looking for some guidance on that, again, if you refer to, as Fotios mentioned, slide 15, where we have Nakilat's newbuilds, you'll have a guidance there on the ship commitments.

I'm not looking for guidance on the CapEx. I'm looking for an indication of the day rates that you're going to receive when, if and when the ships actually get deployed.

The day rate has already been agreed from the moment we got awarded the contract. As we have said before, we always target something between 11% and 13% to 14% levered IRR.

This is exactly where the day rate has been set.

Right. Okay.

Okay. Is there a force majeure clause in those contracts?

The force majeure, yes, in the contract there's a force majeure. That's something that if they got called, there's a lot of long-term mechanism that they have to work on it.

Right. Okay.

Fair enough. Thank you.

Thank you very much, all of you, for joining us today, and we appreciate your time and continued interest and confidence in our company, Nakilat. We remain committed to maintaining open and transparent communication.

Our IR team is available for any further questions that you guys might want to ask, and in a very short period of time to provide you with that information. With that, thank you very much, and looking forward to see you in the near future.