Hello, and welcome to the Royal Vopak Q1 2026 results 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 2026 results analyst call. My name is Fatjona Topciu, Head of IR. Our CEO, Dick Richelle, and CFO, Michiel Gilsing, will guide you through our latest results. We will refer to the Q1 2026 analyst presentation, which you can follow on screen and download from our website. After the presentation, we will have the opportunity for Q&A. A replay of the webcast will be made available on our website as well. Before we start, I would like to refer you to the disclaimer content of the forward-looking statements, 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 hand over the call to Dick.
Thank you very much, Fatjona, and a good morning to all of you joining us on the call this morning. I would like to start with the key highlights of the year so far. We've had a strong start of the year. We saw a healthy demand for our services, which is reflected by our continuously high occupancy rate of 91%. Our financial performance remains strong. Proportional EBITDA grew by 4.1% compared to Q1 2025, and that is the result adjusted for negative currency translation and divestment impact. Importantly, we were able to convert 76% of this EBITDA into operating free cash flow, resulting in an operating cash return of 16.6%. We also made good progress on executing our growth strategy. In West Canada, the construction of our Reeve LPG project export terminal is progressing well.
In the Netherlands, approximately 90% of the fourth tank construction at Gate Terminal has been completed. The project is on track to be commissioned within budget and on time at the end of Q3 2026. In addition, we took an investment decision in the Netherlands to repurpose capacity at our Europoort terminal for the storage of pyrolysis oil and another FID in Spain to extend the capacity in Tarragona. Finally, despite the increased volatility in the market related to the Middle East conflict, we are confirming our full year 2026 outlook, subject to ongoing market uncertainties and currency exchange movements. As for our current assessment, we anticipate the financial impact of the ongoing conflict will be absorbed by our strong underlying business performance and is within the range of our full year 2026 outlook.
However, we do see that the uncertainty has increased, which is what I will talk about in more detail in the following slides. First, look at the market dynamics. Before diving into the results, I'd like to provide some context on the conflict in the Middle East. It has caused a historic supply-side shock across global energy and manufacturing markets. This presents a major challenge for some of our customers. Broadly speaking, supply-side substitution has not been sufficient to offset the loss of physical products normally sourced from the Gulf countries. This has triggered significant commodity price volatility and forced a redirection of energy flows towards domestic and transportation sectors, further impacting industrial demand. As a result, we see cautious customer sentiment and increased uncertainty. Now let's take a closer look at how this impacts our business, starting off with our exposure to the region.
We own and operate four storage terminals across the Middle East, with strategic locations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In terms of financial exposure, around 5% of the proportional EBITDA is generated by these terminals, and they represent around 4% of our capital employed. Our terminals in Saudi Arabia are linked to industrial clusters, while our Fujairah terminal in the Emirates, located outside the Strait of Hormuz, functions as an oil hub. The conflict has had severe impact on the industrial activity in the Gulf countries because of physical damage to the production facility and production halts. As a result of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Fujairah, despite its strategic location, faces reduced product flows. In terms of indirect exposure, to substitute for the loss of product volume from the Middle East, we see a rebalancing of trade routes emerging.
While our infrastructure facilitates the rebalancing of global trade flows, throughput levels are impacted by reduced products in the markets. We do see that this presents a major challenge for some of our customers, impacting their business continuity. With our well-diversified portfolio of terminals, we've proven to be resilient against geopolitical tensions as well as energy market volatility and disruptions in the past. Our diversification is a structural strength, allowing our network to serve the evolving supply chain and energy security needs of our customers and partners. In addition, with the shift of our portfolio towards gas and industrial terminals, the duration of our contracts has increased significantly, reducing our exposure to short-term volatility. However, we are resilient, but we're not immune. The conflict in the Middle East introduces variables from shifts in global trade routes to heightened security risks and regional price shocks that we are not insulated from.
We continue to monitor these developments to protect our operations and our customers' interests. Now let's take a closer look at our results for the different terminal types we operate. We see overall strong performance with higher results compared to Q1 of last year, when adjusting for the impact of currency translation and divestments. It's important to highlight that Q1 results had limited impact from the Middle East conflict. We saw a strong performance of our chemicals and oil terminals, which was primarily driven by increased throughput, combined with strong contribution from growth projects. Our industrial terminals performed broadly stable year-over-year. However, due to the contribution of growth projects, we saw a slight increase compared to Q1 2025. For our gas terminals, we saw a slight decline year-over-year, which is primarily related to disrupted gas supply from the Middle East conflict.
All in all, this has led to an underlying EBITDA of EUR 295 million and a strong operating cash return of 16.6%. Notwithstanding the volatility and uncertainty on the market during Q1, we continued to execute on our growth strategy. In the United States at our Deer Park terminal, we commissioned repurposed capacity for biofuels. In Spain, our teams at joint venture took an FID to expand its capacity to address market needs, as well as further solidify its leadership position. Last but not least, we've taken a final investment decision to repurpose capacity at our Europoort terminal in the Netherlands for the storage of pyrolysis oil. This is an important step in our continued commitment to the energy transition and is strengthening and further integrating our industrial partnership at the Europoort.
Since 2022, we've committed around EUR 1.9 billion to grow our base in gas and industrial terminals, and to accelerate the energy transition. Around EUR 650 million of this is already commissioned and is contributing to the financial results. Around EUR 1.3 billion is still under construction. We expect to commission around EUR 775 million near year-end, related to mainly Gate, the fourth tank, and the LPG export terminal in Canada. In the period 2027-2028, we expect to commission around EUR 325 million and around EUR 175 million in 2029 and beyond. This is based on the FIDs that we've taken so far. The already commissioned growth projects, as well as the growth CapEx under construction, will further reinforce our long-term stable return profile and diversify our revenues. Looking ahead, we remain well-positioned to achieve our long-term ambitions.
We've shown strong business performance in recent years, and the market indicators for storage demand remain firm, supporting the delivery of growth projects and the resilient performance of our existing business. This is reflected in our long-term ambition. We have an operating cash return ambition for an annual range of between 13%-17% and are well on track to invest EUR 4 billion growth CapEx through 2030. Also, as announced during our full year 2025 results, we are distributing around EUR 1.7 billion to our shareholders through year-end 2030 via a progressive dividend and a multi-year share buyback program. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Michiel to give more details on the Q1 2026 results.
Thank you, Dick. Also from my side, good morning to all of you. As Dick mentioned already, we have had a very strong start of the year. We reported a healthy occupancy rate, increased our EBITDA, and further improved our free cash flow generation. These results highlight the strength of our well-diversified portfolio, particularly in times of increased uncertainty and volatility. Simultaneously, we continue to invest in attractive and accretive growth projects while returning value to our shareholders. Let's take a closer look at the performance of the portfolio. Our operating cash return was broadly stable at 16.6% compared to the 16.8% in Q1 2025, driven primarily by the negative effect of currency translation in our free cash flow. On an autonomous basis, excluding currency and divestments, our proportional operating free cash flow per share increased 7.1% versus Q1 2025.
Demand for our services remained healthy, reflected in a proportional occupancy rate of 91%. Adjusted for currency movements and divestments, proportional EBITDA increased by 4.2%, which we will detail further in the next slide. Moving on to our business unit performance overview. Excluding negative currency exchange effects of EUR 15 million and EUR 2 million divestment impact, our proportional EBITDA increased by 4.2% compared to Q1 2025. A large part of this growth can be explained by the strong EBITDA contribution of EUR 9 million from our growth projects, particularly in the U.S. and India. The performance across the network was relatively stable, as regional headwinds are balanced by robust activities at our major oil hubs in the Netherlands and Singapore. We are continuously focused on generating predictable growing cash flows to create value for our shareholders.
Compared to Q1 2025, we have seen our proportional operating free cash flow grow by 7.1%, adjusted for currency translation and divestment impact. This is primarily driven by the autonomous improvement of our proportional EBITDA and the reduced share count following our share buyback programs. Moving from the cash flows to our financial position. Our proportional leverage, which reflects the economic share of our joint venture debt, remains stable at 2.6 x. If we exclude the impact of assets under construction, which do not contribute yet to the EBITDA, the proportional leverage is at 1.99 x, which is the lowest level in over five years. Our ambition for the proportional leverage range is between 2.5x and 3 x.
To facilitate the development of growth opportunities that enhance our operating cash return, Vopak's proportional leverage may temporarily fluctuate between 3-3.5 during the construction period, which can last 2 years-3 years. This is all in line with our disciplined capital allocation framework. Our capital allocation framework consists of four distinct pillars aiming to maintain a robust balance sheet, distribute value to shareholders, invest in attractive growth projects, and yearly evaluate the share buyback program. As announced during our full-year results, we are distributing around EUR 1.7 billion to our shareholders through year-end 2030 via a progressive dividend and a multi-year share buyback program. In addition, we have the ambition to invest EUR 4 billion on a proportional basis by 2030 to grow our base in gas terminals and industrial terminals and to accelerate towards energy transition infrastructure.
That brings me to the outlook for full year 2026. As mentioned by Dick, the market indicators for storage demand remain firm, supporting the delivery of growth projects and the resilient performance of our existing business. However, we do acknowledge that the market has become significantly more volatile following the conflict in the Middle East. For now, we expect that the financial impact of the ongoing situation is absorbed by our strong underlying business performance and growth project contribution. This gives us the confidence to reaffirm our full year 2026 outlook, with a proportional operating free cash flow projected at around EUR 800 million and a proportional EBITDA expected to range between EUR 1.15 billion-EUR 1.2 billion.
Bringing it all together in this slide. We are off to a strong start of the year with solid cash generation. Our portfolio remains well-positioned to cater for increased volatility in the market. Last but not least, we continue investing in attractive growth opportunities while returning value to our shareholders. With that, I hand over back to you, Dick.
Thank you, Michiel. With that, I'd like to ask the operator to please open the line for question and answers.
Thank you so much. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to slowly press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw a question, please press star one and one again. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now we're going to take our first question. The question comes from the line of Kristof Samoy from KBC Securities. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. First of all, congratulations with the results. I have two questions to start with. If we look at the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, there are, let's say, two factors at play there which impact your business. First of all, positively, you have the rush for energy molecules, so energy security. On the other hand, you have uncertainty, which impacts the FID process that you are undergoing for certain projects. My first sub-question would be, how's the process looking for Australia right now? Has FID become less likely or all the more likely, given the fact that Australia can simply import oil from another region in their country? And secondly, if you could comment on EemsEnergyTerminal and the potential extension there, because we have seen the news that EXMAR is progressing with the vessel conversion.
The second question. We know that throughput rather than guaranteed offtake is more of a key driver for revenues in India. If we look at the drop in proportional occupancy rates in the Middle East and India, could we say that this drop is still mainly linked to the Middle East and that the drop linked to throughput in India has yet to be reflected in the numbers? Thank you.
Hello, Kristof. Good morning. Thanks for the questions. Maybe on your first question related to Australia and EET, and then specifically on the timing of them. I think for Australia LNG project, the way we would look at it, and what we can see at this point in time, the need for that project is set up by the local Victoria state for gas, and that's just for electricity generation. That is a need that is almost independent of what happens in the rest of the world. They have a very strong need to find substitution for current gas supply offshore that is depleting. There's no indication at this point in time that there is a fundamental change in the timeline of that project. We still expect to get back with more information towards the end of this year.
I think that's around VVET, so that's the Australia energy project and maybe to EET, so Eems Energy, the extension over there. Process is still ongoing. Yes, we've seen EXMAR making the announcement. We are not there yet to make any announcement. As you know, we've ran a open season on the recontracting of the capacity post the end of the current contract by Q4 next year. That is a moment that we are still working through or a process that we are still working through, and once we have news to share, we will come back to the market and share that. I think then maybe to the lower occupancy rate.
It has more to do with the fact that the Fujairah capacity in the Q1 was lower, in terms of also out of service capacity, than it had a direct impact of what's happening in India. I think still, if you look at Q1, it's a bit early to see the effect of any of the disruptions from the Middle East directly in our business in India. Indeed, the flows of LPG that flow to India have a lot to do with the source of origin, and that's the Middle East.
Okay. Thank you. For EemsEnergyTerminal, you do not experience a change of attitude with your partners in terms of the run-up to the FID being taken, given everything that's going on in the Middle East?
No, I think many parties take, for processes like these, a long-term approach. They know that the capacity is available in 2028. As you know, a lot of the flow that was coming from Qatar is taken out. That has a massive impact, but it is also expected to have a massive impact for, as they call it, a bit of extra supply that was expected to come in towards the end of this decade. You could almost argue that with all the repair and restoration that is going on, it pushes out that extra supply a little bit further out in time.
It doesn't necessarily have an immediate impact on, for instance, product that needs to leave the U.S. and needs to find a home in Europe. I think it's a bit of a long answer to say, for now, we do not see a materially different approach of potential customers towards EemsEnergy.
Okay. Thank you. That's all for me for now.
You're welcome. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Thijs Berkelder from ODDO. Your line is open, please ask your question.
Yeah. Morning, gentlemen. Congrats with the strong Q1 performance, especially in chemicals. Can you maybe further explain why chemicals was so strong? Related to that, can you explain what you now see happening in your Deer Park and European chemical operations, given recent Middle East events? Second question relates to the strong performance in rest of world. Can you explain where that is coming from?
Hi, Thijs. Good morning. Thanks for that. I think on the chemical side, I would say overall, Deer Park has done quite well in the Q1 , and the same goes for Vlaardingen specifically. That actually participated, contributed quite strongly to the results in the Q1. When it gets to the conflict and the impact of chemicals as such for our network, I think Deer Park, although we do not see it yet fundamentally, but Deer Park or the U.S. in general, you would expect that they would benefit a bit from the fact that the U.S. as a chemical producer has quite a strong competitive position in the current global landscape. So we expect that will result in at least continued healthy demand for our services, especially Deer Park. I think that's one. So I would say strong performance there.
I would say if you change that to Europe, and particularly I would say Belgium, it's still hard to see, but quite a lot of the flows that are moving into Belgium are flows that come from the Middle East. It's a very strong market for Middle Eastern producers to sell product in Europe. That is subject to the disruptions as a result of the conflict. What you see over there is obviously there's a lot of people that are trying to take positions, traders that try to take positions in that market to try to supply the demand for the end product that continues to be there. It remains to be seen how that effect is going to balance out, too early to tell in that sense for Belgium.
If you look at it overall for the rest of the portfolio, I think what we said, it's still healthy demand on the main oil hubs. In the Q1 , Singapore Strait strong, Rotterdam, high occupancy, high activity, so pretty strong over there and fuel distribution quite healthy across the board in the Q1 . I think we are pleased if we look back at the Q1 , and I think as we said, the outlook for the rest of the year, given everything that's going on, is within the range of what we said already in February, when we announced the 2025 results.
Maybe to add, Thijs, we also had a few growth project contributions in the U.S. and India, which also helped on the chemical side. That has led to an increase versus Q4 2025 as well.
Yeah. Rest of the world, primarily driven by Belgium then?
Not necessarily. No Belgium, I would say. I think if any, Belgium is a bit under pressure Q1 . I think rest of world just healthy across the board, not a particular region. I would say that jumps out. As I said, oil, stable and relatively strong and just a positive good start of the year. China, quite well. Nothing particular that jumps out, Thijs, in an extreme way.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Philip Ngotho from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good morning. I have three questions, if I may. The first question is on China and North Asia. If I look at the consolidated numbers, I see the occupancy rates, it was already low last year, but it actually dropped further to 55%. I assume it has to do with the Chinese terminals that are just generating or have low occupancy rate. I was wondering if you could share any, because in the past, I think you also mentioned that the chemical market in China has been weak, and it seems that occupancy rate continues to drop further there. What are the projections for those assets there? And could we be thinking of anything if it remains structurally weak, that you might take some portfolio actions there?
The other thing that I'm wondering about is, what portions of earnings is really dependent on throughput levels rather than really take or pay contracts? The last question I have is, if a client would declare force majeure, and you have a take or pay contract with that client, or client is impacted by force majeure and with a take or pay contract, what happens to the take or pay contract? Can you still incur revenues on that? Those are my three questions.
Good morning, Philip. Maybe start on the China side. Yeah. If you look at the consolidated occupancy, effectively, that's only one terminal. We have a portfolio of eight terminals in China. That doesn't give you a very representative picture of China. Dick already mentioned the China results were actually quite good and slightly above our own expectations. Indeed, that terminal is the Zhangjiagang terminal, which then has a relatively low occupancy because it's in a very competitive market, and it's one of the distribution terminals. Most of the terminals we have in China are industrial terminals. Basically, backed by long-term take or pay type of contracts. You see that the overall portfolio is quite healthy. We don't have any immediate portfolio actions we're gonna take in China. To the contrary, we commissioned last year a new industrial terminal in China.
That is an add-on to our portfolio. We still see quite a few growth opportunities in industrial terminal locations. Overall, the returns in China, if you compare it to the rest of the portfolio, is quite healthy, and we're quite capable of distributing our dividends from China back to the Netherlands. That's maybe on the China side. On the earnings side, yeah, there is always a component of throughput income. Even in contracts where people buy, let's say, effectively the capacity, we still have an opportunity that if throughputs are at a higher level than expected, that we will charge additionally for excess throughputs.
Approximately 10% of the earnings are throughput-related. In some locations, more throughput-related than in others. For example, a location like Belgium is much more activity-related than in another location. Some of the locations, like I just mentioned, some of the industrial or some of the gas contracts are very low in terms of throughput dynamics. That's maybe on the portion of the earnings, which is throughput related, and Dick, on the force majeure.
Yeah. Force majeure, Philip, what we see happening is that some of our customers are declaring force majeure, but they are declaring it in all those cases towards their customers, an inability sometimes to get product out of a region in order to deliver it to a customer that is further away, that is not necessarily related to the type of services or obligations that they have towards us in the storage contract and arrangements that we have. We obviously have to follow this case by case, and understand very clearly what some of the situations of our customers are in this respect. As was indicated, I think in the presentation already before, we need to be prepared for those discussions, because if the customers are under serious stress and under duress, we have to sit down and understand what we can do to support them.
Legally speaking, the force majeure, there's very clear guidelines of what and how that applies in the contract obligations and responsibilities between the storage provider, and our customers.
Okay. Very clear. Just one follow-up. So far, have you had any clients where you already had to sit down and renegotiate terms or, given that they were just faced with difficulties or challenges?
No comment on that. The reason for saying it, I don't want to go into individual discussions and official. I think it's a bit of a gray area where obviously there are customers that say, "We're under a lot of stress. Can we talk?" Versus how official that is and how official those negotiations are. I think this is part and parcel of what we've seen in previous crises. We are confident that we can manage through that. We're close to our customers and see where and when we can support them, while at the same time, respecting and safeguarding the interest of Vopak, which is we made investment in certain infrastructure to support our customers in good times and in bad times.
Yeah. Okay.
No details.
Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yep.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Now we'll go and take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Quirijn Mulder from ING. Your line is open, please ask your question.
Yeah, good morning, guys. On the whole situation in the Middle East, can you give me an idea about, let me say, the first panic in the first week of March, compared to what the situation is now? Are the customers still scrambling for products and has it had an impact on your throughput, let me say, mainly in the Far East? Can you give me a view on what is really happening? You will take a cautious stance on the Q2 , and it looks like that. Okay, March was not the issue, but maybe April is more of an issue than March. Can you give me any feeling on what's the current situation for many customers and also the impact on your business?
Yeah. Hi, Quirijn, good morning. Thank you for that question. I think first and foremost, as we already said, key priority for us is to make sure that our people are safe, and have been safe throughout the course of the conflict. The non-critical staff, we keep away from the facility. We take non-critical staff who are not permanent residents in that region, take them out and move them back to their countries of origin. That has all been done. We monitor, obviously, the situation very closely, purely from a safety and security point of view, and do whatever we can to support our partners and our people over there. I think that's the first instance and first priority. If you look at it, what's happening at the moment, I think a few things to mention here, the amount of information that comes out of the region is limited.
What the exact damage is outside and far outside of the perimeter of the facilities that we operate is not publicly known, and it's also not always known to us. I think the second element is if you look at it physically, what's going on, people would like to remove product in a safe manner, if that's possible, as soon as possible in some instances. That's what we particularly have seen in Fujairah. While at the same time making sure that now that the ceasefire is in place, increased activities are happening to make sure that, as much as possible, business continues as possible, as usual, with demand for fuel oil, demand for some of the products that need to be moved in and out.
That is, I wouldn't say all back to normal how it was before, because that would be too strong a statement, simply because the product is not always available. The product that comes out of the region is hampered and is limited and restricted. Slowly but surely, as we speak now, people are trying to get back to normal and resume as much as possible normal operations, with a cautious view and a clear view on the uncertainty that's happening, in the region, as you can imagine.
Yeah, that's in the region, but there's a ripple effect, let me say, elsewhere in the Far East. Let me say the situation in Australia and Sydney, et cetera, and let me say, for example, in South Africa, as you mentioned, and Pakistan. If anything, you can update us on the developments there.
Yeah. We continue. What you see, Quirijn, is that things literally move quite volatile and hectically, almost from week to week. Let's take South Africa, maybe as an example, dependent very much on imports from the Middle East. In the first weeks of the conflict, you see product on the water still finding a home in South Africa. In the first two weeks it was almost business as usual. You have a period where there's no new supply coming, simply because the supply was choked coming out of the Middle East. There's actually a bit of panic in the local market, what's happening and how can we supply new product? After a week, two weeks, you see that there's alternative supply coming into the market from different parts of the world.
For instance, West Africa is then becoming one of the suppliers of South Africa, which is then supporting. Over time, it obviously needs to work out what it does to total volumes once things start to settle down. The challenge is, it's never clear of when things really start to settle down. I think that's what we are working through. I think that's the best way to characterize it. I realize you maybe want to have maybe sustainable longer term view of where this is trending to. That's simply too hard to say at this point in time. We continue to support where possible.
I think if I can take it one notch up, the general confidence that we have in the fact that we operate these critical assets at strategic locations that support the primary needs in local economies, continues to give us a lot of confidence on the medium to longer term outlook for our network. We have to navigate through the current circumstances.
I understand. If I look at the Q2 and especially the month of April, then thus far, okay, there's a lot of uncertainty, but it's not very concrete impact there, if I understand. There's not a really impactful impact on your business, in fact. Is that correct?
No, I think what we are saying is that with a lot of uncertainty and volatility in the market, we are certainly not immune from the supply shocks that are currently happening, Quirijn. This is not a relatively easy exercise of rebalancing the remainder of the flows through the world. There's simply also a shortage of product in some regions, and that will have effect on the flows that are coming through some of our terminals, while at the same time, there's, in some instances, a rush for a particular storage position for a particular product because product is trapped, and you need to find an intermediate source of storage. I think it's too early still to tell. We haven't closed April yet. It's way too early to tell what the impact then will be.
The assessment that we made is the assessment for the full year 2026, which is reflected in our outlook. There we think that we are capable of absorbing the negative impact of the conflict in the outlook that we've already presented.
Yeah, because on the outlook, you may assume on the outlook that obviously, well, the Q1 was relatively strong. If you compare it to the outlook we have given, it's at the higher end of the outlook if you would have four of these quarters, but then we still have some growth coming on stream and some positive currency exchange compared to Q1. That will compensate for the potential impact of the conflict, what we feel could be the potential impact of the conflict today, because it's very hard to make an assessment. We don't know, let's say, how long this is going to last, how severe this is going to be. We feel that where we are today and what we know today, that those compensating factors are sufficient to absorb, let's say, the impact of the Middle East.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of David Kerstens from Jefferies. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. Two questions also about the conflict in the Middle East and maybe specifically on Fujairah. Can you give an indication how occupancy trended in the month of March? Given that this is a hub location, do you see any impact from reduced product flows in Fujairah elsewhere, for example, going to Asia into Singapore? Will there be a knock-on effect on occupancy levels there as well? Dick, I heard you say we see global trade flows rebalancing. I think in response to the former question, you talked about new supply coming out of West Africa. Also you have a very well-balanced portfolio. Does that mean that you also see terminals that are seeing positive effects from the current conflict in the Middle East? Thank you very much.
Yeah. Hi, David. Good morning. I think individual occupancy level for a particular month, let's refrain a little bit from that, or we want to refrain from that. I think VHFL, as we said, total occupancy has gone down quite a bit towards the end of the Q1 . We see that around 8%. All that capacity in Fujairah is out of service simply as a result of some of the damage that we've seen in Fujairah. That is something that we have to repair and get back into service. The impact that that has for the rest of the network, it's not necessarily that the immediate flows from Fujairah are moving to all other terminals throughout the network.
I think Singapore has its own dynamic, and it is impacted by the fact that there's products not flowing from the Middle East to Singapore, but that has different sources than to potentially repair that with, and we haven't seen up until now a big impact in, for instance, Singapore for the demand for oil storage. If there are positive elements in the outlook for some of our terminals, I think we mentioned already, the effect in Deer Park.
We see quite some increased activity in the Europoort as well. I think, we have to also understand that this particular case, it's very relatively straightforward sometimes to assess what is not going well and what the direct impact is. It will take time for us to assess where we see some of the upsides coming from. I think it's simply also harder to predict that at this point in time.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now we'll go and take our next question. The question comes from Jeremy Kincaid of Van Lanschot Kempen. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Good morning, gentlemen. I just have one question on your guidance. You obviously reconfirmed it today, but within that, it seems like there's some positives and negatives. On the negative side, clearly there's the disruption from Strait of Hormuz. On the positive side, you talk to FX, and I think the other key thing was some growth projects coming in. I assume this doesn't refer to the Europoort terminal or the Spanish development that you're working on, because those will be operational in 2027. Can you just talk to what those growth projects are and what's changed from when you last gave the guidance? Thank you.
Well, definitely, the growth projects are not these projects you mentioned, indeed. The growth project, the major one which will come on stream this year is tank number four here of the LNG import facility, the Gate terminal here in Rotterdam. That is still within budget, but also within its original schedule, so we would be able to commission it on time. That is the latest outlook we can give. That's gonna be the major positive contribution. There's a few other projects, but these are relatively smaller compared to the tank number four. Indeed, foreign exchange is a positive element. Then, yeah, effectively what happened is the underlying business performed a bit better in Q1 than we expected. As a result, if we wouldn't have had the Middle East impact, then obviously there could have been a likelihood to basically adjust the outlook upwards.
Yeah, the Middle East conflict basically brings the outlook to the level we have given to the market for both free cash flow as well as the EBITDA. Free cash flow is still healthy. If you look at where we were last year and where we anticipate to be this year, we should still be able to report a strong cash flow, and that's obviously the main driver for value creation. Yeah, basically, I hope that answers the question, Jeremy.
Yep. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Dear speakers, there are no further questions for today. Dear analysts, thank you very much for all your questions, and that does conclude our conference for today, and have a nice day.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Have a good day. Bye-bye.