Hello and welcome to the Royal Vopak first quarter 2025 update. Throughout the call, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and afterwards there will be a question-and-answer session. This call is being recorded. I'm pleased to present Fatjona Topciu, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead with your meeting.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q1 2025 results analyst call. My name is Fatjona Topciu, Head of IR. Today, our CEO, Dick Richelle, and CFO, Michiel Gilsing, will guide you through our latest results. We will refer to the Q1 2025 analyst presentation, which you can follow on screen and download from our website. After the presentation, we will have the opportunity for the Q&A. A replay of the webcast will be made available on our website as well. Before we start, I would like to refer to the disclaimer content of the forward-looking statement, which you are familiar with. I would like to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements during the presentation, which involve certain risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, this is applicable to the entire call, including the answers provided to questions during the Q&A. With that, I would like to turn over the call to Dick.
Thank you very much, Fatjona, and a very good morning to all of you joining us in the call. Following our strategy update we presented at Capital Markets Day in March, I want to highlight our key strategic priorities before we dive into this quarter's results and achievements. First, we're focused to continue to improve the performance of our existing portfolio. This includes both our sustainability efforts and our financial results, with an operating cash return target for the portfolio above 13%. Second, we have the ambition to invest an additional EUR 1 billion in our industrial and gas terminals, bringing our total investment in this area to EUR 2 billion since 2022. Third, we reconfirmed our ambition to invest EUR 1 billion to accelerate towards energy transition infrastructure. Our improved, grow, and accelerate strategy underpins our resilient business model and provides a solid foundation to continue delivering value.
Now, let's move into the key highlights of the first quarter of this year. First, related to improve. In the first quarter of this year, the demand for our services remained healthy across the portfolio, resulting in a proportional occupancy of 92%, and we continued to serve our customers well. We reported strong financial performance, growing our proportional EBITDA to EUR 300 million, supporting an operating cash return of 16.8%. We're pleased with the signed agreements on the issuance of the new debt in the form of a USPP, which provides additional financial flexibility. Our joint venture, AVTL in India, has been granted conditional approval by the regulatory authorities for its proposed IPO, and we are confirming a full-year outlook subject to market uncertainty and currency exchange movements. Our next strategic pillar: growing our footprint in gas and industrial terminals.
Earlier this quarter, we announced an expansion for our Thai Tank T erminal in Thailand. This investment, which supports the import of ethane, is strengthening our industrial position in the Map Ta Phut Industrial Region. We've also commissioned expansion capacity in China and India. Let's move to the acceleration towards energy transition infrastructure. We're partnering with OQ in Oman for industrial and energy transition infrastructure development in the future. Today, we're pleased to announce an important expansion project in Alamoa, in Santos, Brazil, related to new capacity for low-carbon fuels and feedstocks. The project aligns with the growing demand for energy transition infrastructure in the region. Furthermore, we're taking another step forward in electricity storage with the acquisition of a 100% share in a battery development company in the Netherlands.
Our commitment remains unchanged to actively support our customers with infrastructure for the ongoing energy transition and to invest when opportunities arise at the right returns. Now, let's look at our financial performance. We see an overall strong performance, slightly higher this quarter than the same period last year. Gas markets remain strong, though our proportional EBITDA was down due to planned out-of-service capacity and the technical issues at Eemshaven, which was not the case in Q1 last year. The industrial terminals performed well, with solid throughputs year to date. In addition, we saw growth contributions from newly commissioned capacity, like Huizhou in China. Our chemical distribution terminals operated in a stable market environment. However, it's important to note that underlying conditions in chemical markets, especially in parts of Asia, remained soft. Terminals storing and handling oil products performed strong.
Global uncertainties and dynamics continue to drive the need for our infrastructure services. All in all, this has led to an increased proportional EBITDA of EUR 300 million and a strong operating cash return in the first quarter of 2025. Our terminal portfolio is well diversified in terms of geography, products, and contract duration. As you can see on this slide, our global portfolio is well spread over the globe in both mature and emerging markets. Approximately 15% of our EBITDA comes from the US and Canada, 30% from Europe, and around 40% east of Suez, of which 8% from China and North Asia. Also, from a product perspective, we even store and handle products for the energy and manufacturing markets. Looking at our commercial diversification, we have a strong portfolio of long-term contracts, with around 70% of our contracts exceeding three years in duration.
Around 80% of our revenues has a fixed take-or-pay nature. Our well-diversified network ensures stable returns, also in uncertain and dynamic times. Across the markets we operate in, there is uncertainty on trade tariffs. Vopak's strength lies in our well-diversified terminal portfolio, geographically, by product and contract duration. Our infrastructure solutions have historically supported the dynamic nature of supply chains and provided the security of supply for our customers. We currently foresee limited direct impact on Vopak in the short term. Our terminals in the U.S. serve mainly the domestic flows, and two-thirds of the proportional revenues from our China business come from industrial terminals with contracts longer than 10 years. We allocate capital and resources to navigate this volatile macroeconomic environment and continuously monitor developments, acting as needed based on their impact. The situation is evolving and remains dynamic.
Considering our current estimation of the impact of these developments, we are confident in reaffirming our full-year outlook for proportional EBITDA between EUR 1.15 billion-EUR 1.2 billion, subject to market uncertainty and currency exchange movements. Building on our proven track record of strategic execution, we're well positioned to capture growth opportunities in gas and industrial infrastructure, as well as infrastructure for the energy transition. This quarter, we announced three projects, totaling another EUR 209 million of investments. For our largest projects, such as Reef in Canada, we have a large part of the costs locked in, making us less exposed to market volatility. We made significant progress in our growth investments, committing EUR 1.2 billion over the last three years. This puts us firmly on track to meet our ambition of investing EUR 3 billion in growth initiatives by 2030. This quarter, we delivered expansion capacity in China and India.
At our Caojing terminal in China, we expanded with 110,000 cu m of industrial capacity, supporting our customer there. Also, in India, with our AVTL joint venture, we keep growing. Two locations in Mangalore and Mumbai commissioned new capacity for liquid products. Brownfield expansions are attractive growth opportunities since they benefit from common infrastructure and drive synergies. Now, let's move to Thailand. In Thailand, at our Thai Tank T erminal within the Map Ta Phut Industrial Cluster, we have announced an industrial capacity expansion for storage and handling of ethane. Vopak's share of the investment is around EUR 130 million. The project will increase the capacity of the terminal by 160,000 cu m and is underpinned by a 15-year contract. Upon commissioning of the capacity, which is expected in 2029, the terminal will deliver attractive operating cash return. Moving on to a strategic pillar focused on accelerating the development of energy transition infrastructure.
We've taken a final investment decision for an expansion in Santos, Alamoa, in Brazil. We will develop 66,000 cubic meters of capacity for low-carbon fuels and feedstocks to support the local ethanol market. Also, we acquired a 100% share in a battery development company in the Netherlands. This company owns land and has the permits and grid connection to develop a large-scale battery to store electricity, an opportunity we're excited about. Looking to the Middle East, we've established a strategic partnership in Oman. Our partner is OQ, a significant player in the region. In an exclusive partnership, we will explore future developments of both industrial and energy transition infrastructure. We are looking forward to a successful partnership in Oman, which is a new country for Vopak.
To wrap it up, we delivered strong results this quarter with a proportional EBITDA of EUR 300 million and an operating cash return of almost 17%. Our portfolio is well diversified and resilient to ongoing uncertainties and macroeconomic dynamics. We keep executing on our growth strategy by commissioning new capacity and announcing multiple growth investments. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Michiel to give more details on the numbers.
Thank you, Dick. Also, from my side, good morning to all of you. In the first quarter of this year, we saw continued strong performance from our resilient portfolio. Demand for our storage infrastructure resulted in a healthy occupancy rate, and we continue to generate strong cash flows. These results highlight the strength of our well-diversified portfolio in terms of products we store, geographies we are active in, and the role our infrastructure plays, particularly in times of uncertainty and volatility. In addition, we continue to invest in attractive and accretive growth projects while returning value to our shareholders. If we take a closer look at the performance of the portfolio, we can clearly see that the occupancy of our portfolio is both stable and high, reflecting the strong demand for our infrastructure.
This is also reflected in the proportional EBITDA, which increased to EUR 300 million in the first quarter of 2025, a slight increase year over year. This is mainly the result of a good contribution from our growth projects, partly offset by planned out-of-service capacity and technical issues at Eemshaven Energy T erminal. As mentioned, we continue to be focused on the cash flow generation of our portfolio. This is reflected in the solid operating cash return of 16.8%, which is relatively stable year on year. If we have a look at the proportional operating free cash flow per share, we clearly see that cash generation is strong and that our share buyback programs further support the per-share metric. Back to our global network. This slide provides a more detailed breakdown of the proportional EBITDA generated by our various business units.
We can see that the growth projects have positively contributed to the proportional EBITDA year over year. Our Asian business units saw stable performance. In the Netherlands, we had a weaker performance due to the temporary effect of repurposing capacity and some out-of-service capacity, as well as continued technical challenges at Eems EnergyT erminal. Moving on to the cash flow generation. Our cash flow generation was strong in the first quarter, resulting in EUR 303 million of gross cash flows generated by the group companies and stable dividend upstreaming from our joint ventures. Year on year, gross cash flows increased by 10%. After tax payments, derivatives impact, and other cash flow from investing and financing activities, we realized EUR 259 million cash flow from operations.
This is the available cash flow that we can allocate towards operating CapEx, which is our license to operate, growth CapEx, and shareholder distributions, all in line with our capital allocation policy. Capital expenditures and shareholder distributions were well covered by operating cash flow, resulting in a significant net cash flow of EUR 89 million during Q1 2025. It remains our priority to generate strong cash flows in order to fund operational CapEx, to pursue growth opportunities, and to deliver value to our shareholders. Proportional leverage, which reflects the economic share of the joint venture debt, decreased to 2.55 times compared to the end of 2024, when it was at 2.67x . If we exclude the impact of assets under construction, proportional leverage is at 2.2x EBITDA. Our ambition for the proportional leverage range is between 2.5 and 3x
To facilitate the development of growth opportunities that enhance our cash return, Vopak's proportional leverage may temporarily fluctuate between 3-3.5 x during the construction period, which can last 2-3 years. If we have a look at the currency exposure of our balance sheet, all of our US dollar-denominated external debt is used as a natural hedge, of which the biggest part is used for equity hedges. This strategy aligns our US dollar liabilities with our US dollar-denominated equity investments, reducing foreign exchange exposure and minimizing volatility in our balance sheet. This leads to a resilient balance sheet in a volatile market environment. Looking closer at our debt funding, we keep improving our well-spread maturity profile. Last month, we successfully signed agreements for a new debt issuance of around EUR 560 million equivalent, which was nine times oversubscribed.
The issuance consists of US dollar and EUR 160 million loans, of which EUR 160 million is subordinated. All loans have a fixed interest rate and maturities ranging from 5-11 years. Due to the recent volatility we have observed in interest rates and currency markets, it's important to highlight our sensitivities to these mode movements. Looking at the interest rate composition of our debt, roughly 80% of our interest-bearing debt has a fixed interest rate, which means that our financing cost has a low exposure to volatility in interest rates. If we look at the proportional EBITDA split by currency, we can see that 27% of our EBITDA is generated in euro, which means that for the rest of the EBITDA, we face translation risk in our P&L.
To be a bit more specific, we show on this slide the sensitivity of our proportional EBITDA to changes in US dollar, Singapore dollar, and Renminbi. The translation risk that arises from the recent currency volatility is something we take into account in our outlook for the year. However, from a business perspective, we continue to see healthy demand for our infrastructure while our growth projects deliver strong returns. We have updated the rates as per the end of March 2025, in line with the approach that we have used for currencies before as well. We confirm our proportional EBITDA outlook subject to currency exchange movements and market uncertainty. That brings me to the full-year outlook of 2025. We confirm our financial outlook with a proportional EBITDA range of EUR 1.15 billion-EUR 1.2 billion, subject to market uncertainty and currency exchange movements.
We expect proportional operating CapEx of around EUR 300 million and proportional growth CapEx of around EUR 600 million for 2025, updated from the range of EUR 500-600 million before. For the longer term, our ambition remains unchanged. We aim to invest EUR 4 billion proportional growth CapEx in industrial gas and energy transition infrastructure by 2030, while generating at least 13% operating cash return from the portfolio. Our ambition for the proportional leverage range is between 2.5x-3 x proportional EBITDA. Before moving to the final slides, I would like to highlight our capital allocation framework, which is structured with the following priorities. First of all, maintaining a robust balance sheet through a healthy proportional leverage with a target of 2.5x-3 x. Secondly, distributing value to shareholders via a progressive dividend policy.
As a result, we propose a dividend of EUR 1.60 per share. Thirdly, investing in attractive and accretive growth through focused investments with strong profitability and growth potential. We have already committed EUR 1.6 billion of proportional investments in gas, industrial, and energy transition infrastructure since 2022. Last but not least, generating additional shareholder value through annual consideration of share buyback programs. We allocated a total of EUR 400 million to buying back shares, of which EUR 300 million was concluded in 2024 and EUR 100 million to be done in 2025. Bringing it all together in this slide, we delivered on our financial performance with proportional EBITDA increasing year on year and a strong operating cash return in the first quarter of 16.8%. Our well-diversified portfolio caters for uncertainty and volatility in the market.
We are committed to capture new opportunities to grow in industrial and gas terminals and accelerate towards new energies and sustainable feedstocks. These factors combined with a strong capital allocation framework will create value to our shareholders. This concludes my remarks in this presentation, and I would like to hand it back to Dick for the Q&A.
Thank you, Michiel. With that, I would like to ask the operator to please open the line for Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you, dear participants. If you would like to ask a question, you need to press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To read your question, please press star one one again. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by, we'll compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now we're going to take our first question. The first question comes to the line of David Kerstens from Jefferies. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. I have a question on the tariff impacts. You highlight a limited short-term impact, direct impact, given your contract positions with long-term durations. How do you see the impact play out over the longer term?
Hi, David. Good morning. Thank you for that question. Indeed, shorter term, as far as we can see, I think maybe one step back. The first and most important thing is it's still highly uncertain what will happen and how this tariff war will play out. That is what we see when we speak to our customers. It's not that we see active changes at this moment in time of supply chains given the current uncertainty. I think that's the starting point. As you rightfully say, it's our strategy to invest in long-term infrastructure underpinned with long-term contracts. We see that we have a very well-spread global diversified network from a geography point of view, from a customer point of view, contract term, and from a product point of view.
Also, the type of terminals and the roles that the terminals play in the different markets is different and can be optimized given the need and the demand of our customers. What we see happening potentially is that supply chains over time might change and that people are looking and companies, customers are looking for different supply chains to cater for their own needs. What we can do at this moment is to stay in very close contact with our customers to offer the flexibility of our network, the different opportunities that we have in our network. Therefore, we say in the immediate short term, we cannot immediately see that it has a big impact on Vopak.
If you, however, would look at the medium to longer term, I think a lot depends on the macroeconomic outlook because obviously a macroeconomic downturn could have some effect on the demand for the end products that we store. At the same time, I think we have to take a look at what it will do to some of the supply chains that might change. With that, I also want to bring in the recollection to earlier moments that we've seen larger disruptions of supply chains during Corona, also during the geopolitical tensions that occurred in the Ukraine. We've seen changes happening. You also see that by and large when supply chains start to be disrupted and kind of like readjust to a new normal, it's not necessarily bad news for the infrastructure demand in all the locations that we have.
It's a bit of a long answer. I mean, it warrants a bit of nuance because it's not very easy to say exactly, obviously, what's going to happen in 2026, 2027. For now, the message is 2025 impact relatively limited. I hope that gives you a bit of a perspective.
Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you very much, Dick.
Thank you.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes to the line of Thijs Berkelder, Sell-side Analyst. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yeah. Good morning all. Congrats with solid quarter. Can you maybe give a bit more detail on where we stand in energy terminal in the Netherlands? When can we expect it to be back in business? Similar for the other out-of-service capacity in the Netherlands. Second question, can you provide us with a kind of outlook on your oil market view? Finally, are you seeing at this moment due to the geopolitical unrest that clients prefer to store extra inventories on your side?
Let me try to answer these questions for you guys. EET, so Eems EnergyT erminal is up and running. It is currently functioning. We are functioning within the expectations of how we set them for the year and how we also announced that and have taken it into account in our outlook, which basically means that the technical limitations that the terminal has at the moment are being solved by contractual discussions between us and our customers, which basically means we have a contractual arrangement with our customers with financial impact that is reflected in our outlook for the year 2025 to cater for the technical limitations. At the same time, we are moving ahead to actually make the necessary adjustments from a technical perspective so that in 2027, we limit the impact for our customers to a great extent. That is actually where we are today.
That is, I think, on EET. On Vlissingen out-of-service capacity, that is out-of-service capacity for we have two large LPG tanks, refrigerated tanks. One has been taken out of service at this moment. We do not have any revenue and income for that one tank. It is expected to come back into service in Q3. We take the lessons from that first project that we have had. Towards the end of the year and in 2026, we will take the second tank for a period out of service. I think that is the expectation for Vlissingen. That is, again, also what we have taken into account for our outlook as we have confirmed it. Maybe the oil market and your comments on the oil market. It remains actually quite strong, tight. Occupancy rates in the main hub locations, Singapore Straits, Fujairah, Rotterdam remain quite healthy, above 95%.
I think the expectation for the remainder of the year on the oil markets continues to be strong and quite healthy. What we also see is on the chemical distribution is also still, I would say, healthy and constant throughputs in that area. No big surprises over there. I think what you see on some of the oil capacity is the opportunity to repurpose part of that capacity. That is what you see happening in Singapore. That is what we have already done in LA. That is also the opportunities that we are looking at in a place like the Europoort. By and large, I think the oil portfolio is still continuing with solid and good performance. Your last question was related to whether we already see people making additional or creating additional stock positions. I think that is too early to tell.
The simple answer is we don't get very strong signals in a network that that is happening. I think it's probably, but that's my guess, a bit of a combination of the uncertainty, maybe in some locations also activity levels in Q2 onwards slightly less than what we've seen before because of the uncertainty. That's balanced out maybe with some additional stock for some of the products. Too early to tell, I would say. I hope that provides you with the right answers.
Yeah. Thanks.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The next question comes to the line of Philip Ngotho from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Good morning. I have one quick question. It's on the Indian JV. We saw that you received conditional approval to launch the IPO. Earlier, you indicated that you were expecting the launch to happen the first half of this year. I was wondering if you could just maybe give an update on your thinking there also in light of the conditional approval, but also in light of, of course, the current market volatility and whether you still expect it to go ahead in the first half year. That's it, my question.
Thanks a lot, Philip, for the question. Yeah, indeed, we got a conditional approval from the SEBI, the Indian authorities, on our draft prospectus. The process is moving in line with expectations. We're now working on the updated draft prospectus in which we will reflect the comments of the Indian authorities. We still are on track in terms of IPO in the first half of 2025. As you rightfully mentioned, let's say the market sentiment is obviously quite volatile at the moment. Most of stock markets are under quite some volatile movements. The Indian market has done pretty well in the last month, but it's very hard to predict what will happen in the coming months. Process-wise, we run into the right direction.
Sentiment to be seen what's going to happen in the coming months, whether that will give a climate to launch the IPO or not.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes to the line of Thijs Berkelder from Sell-side Analyst. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yeah. It's me again. Follow-on question on Canada. It all seems to proceed very well, quick, right on time, on schedule. Meanwhile, China having conflict with the U.S. will probably imply even bigger demand for LPG from Canada. What is, let's say, the time frame for potentially phase two of your terminal in Canada? Related to that, is there a specific reason why the growth CapEx for 2025 is now lifted from the earlier level?
Maybe Thijs, the first part I'll take, and Michiel will zoom in on the second part of your question. Current facility, RIPET, as we have it for the propane exports, is actually running at full capacity given indeed the demand that is coming from the North Asian side for direct exports. Reef currently under construction and going according to plan. There are initial discussions between us and our customer, AltaGas, on potential expansion. Too early to tell exactly when we expect to take a decision on that. We will obviously come forward once we see that there's a clear path. The excitement or the prospect for potential expansion is definitely there.
We, at the same time, want to make sure that we manage the execution of the current project and see what in the current setup is available for immediate expansion and how potentially a larger expansion could play a role in the further development of RIPET. As you know, there's plenty of land available and there's plenty of marine capacity, so jetty capacity available, which I think is important. It looks promising, but let's take it one step at a time.
Yeah. Maybe on your second question, Thijs, so indeed, previous outlook on growth CapEx was between EUR 500 million and EUR 600 million. Now we increased it to around EUR 600 million. That has effectively two main reasons. The first reason is that we committed to a few new growth opportunities, so that by nature will increase the cash out for 2025 because these projects will start relatively quickly. Secondly, we have updated the cash out on the Reef project, and that goes a bit faster, the cash out without, by the way, an overrun than we previously thought. As a result, we have updated this growth CapEx cash out for 2025.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes to the line of Kristof Samoy from KBC Securities. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hello. Good morning. Congratulations with the results. Regarding the tariff wars, yeah, we have the reciprocal tariffs and the fentanyl tariffs. What is your view on the potential U.S. port calls for China-linked vessels and how this could impact your business? Do you see major flows being rescheduled, risks for port congestion? On the tariff wars, I understood well from Michiel that for Reef, you are on track, you're on budget. There is no risk for tariff war-linked cost overruns anywhere linked to your projects. Secondly, on the guidance, if I recall on top of my head, the guidance you reconfirmed, but with a different effects rate. Now banks on a U.S. rate of $1.08 were currently higher. Can you stick to your guidance using the current dollar exchange rate?
On business development, if you could shed some light on where you see FIDs in the course of 2025. Thank you.
Thank you, Kristof. Maybe to start with the ships, that is indeed something that we are watching because it would imply an additional charge on every vessel that would call a U.S. port that has been made in China. There's still, as far as we know, quite a bit of lobbying efforts from some of the shipping companies that are ongoing. It's not confirmed. There's still a lot of lobbying going on to actually change this potential tariff, let's say. We are watching it. We're in close contact with our customers. We're in close contact with the shipping lines and see how this will further evolve. We stay tuned on that.
Okay. Thank you.
Good morning, Kristof. Maybe on the second, the third, and the fourth question on the Reef, yes, we are indeed on track in terms of timing and budget, and we do not see a significant impact on tariffs for the Reef project. By the way, we are looking at our full growth portfolio to see what the potential is of tariffs in terms of, for example, buying steel and concrete, things which might be subject to tariffs or are already subject to tariffs. That is carefully looked at and being monitored. Your third question is around the outlook. Yeah, indeed, we took a US dollar rate of $1.08 at the end of March. We are now running at $1.15. Can we stick to the outlook? Yes, we looked at that, and still we stick to the outlook.
As you can imagine, it will have a reducing effect on the overall EBITDA. With the 1.08, we were probably at the higher end of the outlook. With the 1.15, we're probably a bit lower than the higher end. Mid maybe to the lower end of the range. To be seen what's going to happen with the dollar in the coming period. That's also very hard to predict. Obviously, we have still some business growth to come as well in the coming quarters. I hope that gives a bit of clarity on how we looked at the outlook. The update on the growth projects for the rest of the year, we do not disclose any details on growth projects and which kind of investment decisions we're going to take. I can assure you that the funnel is still healthy.
We will carefully look at which projects are still feasible in the environment in which we're all in and what the impact is, as I said, of, let's say, certain of the tariffs on our growth projects. We still see a very healthy prospect for growth in the company. We still stick to our ambition of investing EUR 4 billion proportional CapEx up to 2030.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The next question comes to the line of Quirijn Mulder from ING. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Can you update us on, let me say, the situation with regard to the Eemshaven and the Veracruz ? It had probably some negatives. How long will that take to continue? How long will it take before it's solved? Sorry. Yes.
No, go ahead, Quirijn. Sorry.
Yeah. How long will it take before the problems are being solved? Maybe on Zhangjiagang, because it looks like to me that the utility station was already in the press in the last couple of years, and it's even worse than it is now in the last couple of years, in my view, if I read your text.
Maybe on Eemshaven, Quirijn, and good morning. The answer to the question I have given earlier, I think it was Thijs, is that we are currently working on a technical solution that we hope to have in place and working by the end of this year and the start of 2026. The outlook that we have provided includes the current impact as far as we can see that with our customers. Basically, that is taken into account already in Q1 and expected for the remainder of the year to continue. That is the situation around Eemshaven. Veracruz, first quarter of Veracruz has been without occupancy in the particular tanks that we talk about, and we are working, or the team is working very hard to find a customer for that capacity. That remains to be seen when and how that is going to develop.
I think that's the situation on Veracruz.
Sorry. Yes. On Eemshaven, you took an extra profit in the first quarter of €2 million. It was not clear whether it is part of the EBITDA. I also would like to know what is there still up there because it is related to the fact that you have signed a contract with them without the right infrastructure in accordance with the customer demands in 2022. I understand. How is the dynamics of that Eemshaven, let me say, when all the problems are over? Is that returning to a good profitability? Are we seeing the same level as we have seen in, let me say, for example, 2023?
Yeah. Maybe just on the last part, and I'll leave the explanation of the extra income in Q1 to Michiel. We have currently a discrepancy between what our customers are seeing in their contract and what technically we can deliver in the terminal. During the period that we do not have the right technical solution in place, which, as I said earlier, is underway to get in place end of this year, beginning of 2026. During that period, there is a contractual arrangement with our customers to cater for the fact that technically we cannot deliver on what contractually has been committed for. That is as we see it in Q1. That impact has been taken into account for the remainder of the year in the outlook. Michiel, you can talk about it. Yeah?
Yeah. I think the 2 million exceptional item was not in the EBITDA. Yeah, it is in the results, but not in the proportional EBITDA. It had to do with a settlement with Gasunie on the acquisition price of EemsEnergyT erminal.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Kiran, you also asked a question on Zhangjiagang. Zhangjiagang, I think the situation there remains unchanged. It's a challenged situation in terms of occupancy, which the team is working through. We don't expect any big changes in the situation in Zhangjiagang compared to last year. We keep on monitoring that and doing our best and our utmost to make sure that we commercially fill up the terminal again, but no breakthrough expected.
Thank you so much. There are no further questions for today. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.