Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Vasilios, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the HELLENiQ ENERGY Holdings conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the second quarter and first half, two thousand and twenty-four financial results. All participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Andreas Shiamishis, CEO, Mr. Georgios Alexopoulos, Deputy CEO, General Manager, Group Strategic Planning and New Activities, Mr. Vasilis Tsaitas, Group CFO, Mr. Dinos Panas, General Manager, Oil Supply and Sales, and Mr. Nikos Katsanos, Investor Relations Manager. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.
Thank you very much. Welcome to our second quarter results, which basically summarizes a good set of numbers. If you go to page four, where we have a high-level summary, effectively what we have is a market which is stabilizing in terms of crude prices and I would say in terms of reasonably healthy refining margins for the quarter. We have a strong demand increase, which is a big part of our business, and that is effectively a demand driven by auto fuels backed by high tourism, and it's still the beginning of the season, if I may add, as well as improved economic activity in the country.
So we have a reasonably positive environment, and as a company, we have strong operations across all of our business, with high utilization and high production in terms of refining. A number of initiatives have led, over the last few years, the company to be mainly international markets based, and within international markets, we have exports, plus bunkering and aviation, which is effectively non-ground fuel sales in Greece. It accounts for about 74% of our total refining sales. But at the same time, we also have good performance from our marketing businesses in Greece and outside of Greece.
Lastly, we have a good operation from the increasing portfolio of renewables, which is adding to the EBITDA numbers at a slow pace, but at a steady and increasing pace. So all of these lead to an EBITDA, a clean EBITDA for the quarter of EUR 230 million, and a half year performance of EUR 560 million. Numbers which are quite positive and are effectively a continuation of a series of strong quarters. We have not included the solidarity Contribution in the reported numbers.
We're highlighting it, highlighting the, in terms of disclosure, given that the relevant legislation was enacted in July, so that's gonna be a Q3 item, but the numbers are there, and you can actually see them in the disclosure. In terms of outlook and our strategic performance, we have effectively an outlook for the environment which is weaker than what we had in the second quarter. As you will see in the refining margins, we have what we expect and hope to be a temporary slowdown of refining margins compared to last year's third quarter. At the same time, we have an acceleration of the renewables projects. Unfortunately, these type of projects are the on and off type of development of capital expenditure.
i.e., you get nothing until the day they get electrified and they start discharging power into energy into the system. So we have a lot of such projects which are either under development, under construction or mature development, which add nothing, and that is something which effectively proliferates itself with a step change as we move into the next quarters. On E&P, we have completed the seismic acquisition. We are in the final stages of the interpretation, and if all goes well, we should be able to make a decision on drilling in the next six months. In terms of our power and gas portfolio, I will effectively confirm that we are exploring our options in terms of the way forward and how we achieve synergies within the portfolio.
Both of them are items which have been heavily covered in the press, so there is no need to spend more time on our strategy. It's been well explained in the past, and we are in the process of actually implementing the strategy. Finally, business strategy is always supported by a good organization and the proper governance. Within June, we had a change in our board, which led to an increase in the independent members by one. We had a significant, I would say, reorganization in terms of HR through a voluntary early retirement scheme, which helps us to renew employees and our staff, and also makes room to add skills which are expected to be needed more going forward.
So without much ado, I will pass you on to Dinos Panas, who will cover the industry environment and the key points for the fuels market. Dinos?
Thank you, Andrea. Good afternoon, everybody. On page six, you can see the key data on the industry environment with crude remaining above $80 a barrel throughout the quarter. Euro at around 1.9-1.8 for the last two years, let's say. Natural gas, electricity price is lower than the previous same period of the second quarter, 2023. We had a drop in the first quarter of the US price at $60. It went, it averaged $68 in second quarter, now it's around $70-$71.
Now, on page seven, you can see that the gasoline and the ULSD cracks were around $80 both of them, and that Naphtha and HFO O remained at the same levels that we had in the first quarter. The overall benchmark margin was quite weaker than the first quarter, at $5.5 per barrel, and we have a running benchmark margin for the first quarter at $3.9 per barrel. Finally, on page eight, you can see the domestic consumption. Domestic market sales, which are the ground fuels, were up 1%, mostly driven by the increase in diesel 5% in gasoline.
The preliminary data we have for car sales in the first quarter, the first half of the year is 878 thousand new cars, up 5.7% versus the same period of 2023, and out of which only 9.5% were electric. We had an increase in the aviation consumption in the quarter of 17%, while the bunker sales were 3% lower than the previous quarter. With this, I will pass you to Vasilis Tsaitas for the performance presentation.
Thank you. Thank you, Dinos. Good afternoon, and many thanks for attending our conference call. Moving on to page 10, to have a look on our financial performance. So, volumes were high on refining, their strongest sales for the last four years. Similarly, in marketing and generated power from renewables with a total turnover of EUR 3.3 billion for the quarter and EUR 6.5 billion for the first half. In terms of adjusted EBITDA, all business have increased their contribution, mainly driven by refining, given the very strong realized margin, but also petrochemicals, marketing, and renewables improved their performance. Associates' contribution, both gas and power were flat year on year.
Certainly, the market conditions have not been supportive for both Elpedison and DEPA Commercial. And that gets us to an adjusted net income of EUR 73 million, twice more than twice as much as last year. Let me note here that the impact of the EU Solidarity Contribution that was rolled over and will affect 2024 based on 2023 profitability. The law was voted and enacted in July 2024, and will affect our financial statements in the third quarter by a net effect of EUR 173 million. There is a relevant disclosure on our financial statements.
In terms of our balance sheet, our net debt is largely flat versus the end of the year, a little bit lower versus the first quarter. We have guided for some volatility on our working capital, mainly because the disruptions in Red Sea that are affecting the shipping routes from Middle East are still affecting us. So that will be also the trend for the coming quarters. And in terms of CapEx, this is slightly higher than last year, reflecting mainly renewables investments outside of Greece. On page 11, the usual cracks track versus last year, effectively, the refining environment has been somewhat more favorable versus the second quarter of 2023.
And our operations with a high utilization, strong sales and a very strong export reading, especially taking advantage of opportunities in the Black Sea, has led us to a higher adjusted EBITDA profitability. Moving on. On page twelve. Effectively, in July, we returned to the markets a few months ahead of the maturity of our existing bonds. So we, while we have significant headroom, we wanted to retain our presence in the markets. We wanted to facilitate the rollover of existing bondholders to a new issue. That explains the structure of a new combined with a tender offer on the existing bonds.
The final result proved our expectation in the sense that two-thirds of the book came from existing bondholders. Given the very strong demand and the ability to reduce our yield versus the initial pricing guidance, we also had to upsize the transaction to EUR 450 million versus the original EUR 400 million, a very successful transaction. The existing bonds that is maturing in October has another EUR 300 million outstanding that will be repaid out of cash and other bank facilities. So the Eurobond issue effectively completes the refinancing cycle of the first half.
But, you know, including the EUR 1.4 billion of bank facilities that were financed earlier in the year, improves our maturity profile significantly with an average maturity of close to five years. This is, you know, the best that we've had for more than a decade. Very good terms, taking advantage of the upgrade of Greece to investment grade and capturing very low spreads. We also took the chance to rebalance a little bit our exposure to floating rates, so a more, like, balanced picture and ample headroom to be able to fund our plans and for risk management purposes.
Moving on now to the performance of the business segment, starting with refining, supply, and trading on page 16. So as we mentioned before, a very good performance, close to 6% increase in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, and more or less flat for the semester. CapEx is flat year-on-year if you look at the first six months, mainly channeled to long-term maintenance in tank farms, ports, safety, these kind of projects. There's no much maintenance activity this year, as we're planning the turnarounds for as per usual, let's say, nine in 2025.
In terms of realized margin for the second quarter, just over $13 per barrel, driven by both a high benchmark refining margin, as well as a very strong overperformance driven by export sales. On page 17, we discussed about the higher production across our refining system. Exports represent 55% of the total, close to 2.2 million tons, while non-ground sales outside the ground fuels domestic markets are three-quarters of the total. In terms of the crude feedstock, effectively, that is driven by the availability and relative pricing of the various crude trades, and our S&T team is looking to pick and choose the best available opportunities to optimize our production and financials. Moving on, on page 18.
Effectively, you see a depiction and a time series of our realized margin, split between benchmark and overperformance. So, we're able to, even after the energy crash for the last few quarters, we're able to maintain very strong overperformance and sustainable performance of anywhere between $7.5-$9 per barrel. Moving on to petrochemicals on page 20. Effectively, in the second quarter, we saw a continuation of the trend of recovery in polypropylene margins. So profitability is getting closer to what we got used to seeing at mid-cycle. So EUR 40 million for the first half and EUR 16 million for the second quarter, a third better, more than a third better than last year.
In fuels marketing, we saw another quarter of very good operational improvement in terms of high penetration of differentiated premium fuels in retail, stronger aviation sales, higher NFR contribution. However, the cap on margins, the regulatory cap on margins continues, and, you know, inflation on OpEx over the last couple of years has affected profitability. As a result, profitability has not moved in line with the improvement, the operational improvements in the domestic market.
In our international business, similarly, we had equally very good performance with, you know, increased market shares, higher NFR contribution, but we were able to realize this positive environment and, you know, the operational improvements with an adjusted EBITDA for the quarter at EUR 21 million, 40% higher, year-on-year. At this point, I'll pass you on to George to discuss our renewables and power business. George?
Thank you, Vasilis. Good afternoon, everybody. A positive quarter for renewables, reflecting the continuation of our growth plan with the capacity addition in Cyprus. The increase in profitability would have been higher were it not for the high curtailments we observed versus last year in both of our markets. This situation has improved in the third quarter. For the whole year, we expect production of approximately 700 gigawatt hours, which corresponds to 80%-85% of our group's power purchases. Turning the page, looking at our portfolio and our growth plans, we remain confident on reaching our 1 gigawatt target by the end of next year.
We currently have six hundred and twenty megawatts under construction or ready to build, which, if added to our current operating portfolio, they take us to one gigawatt, plus. We have also increased and matured our pipeline, which currently stands at five gigawatts, reflecting a number of technologies, including pumped storage. On Elpedison, it was a challenging quarter. The second quarter, as you know, is historically a difficult one because of low demand and, at the same time, ever-increasing production of renewables, so performance deteriorated versus the same quarter of last year. We continue to see no opportunities in gas trading.
And we are observing an improvement in the market in the third quarters, which is traditionally the strongest quarter for the power business. This concludes our presentation, and I believe we will open the floor for questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Those participating via the webcast, you may submit your written questions using the Ask a Question window. To our audio participants, please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Ricardo Rezende with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. If I may, a couple of questions. The first one, if you could comment a little bit on how you're seeing your refining margin outlook for the rest of the year. I know that you provided an indication on the quarter to date performance on the benchmark margin, but how do you see that for the rest of the year, including the outperformance? And then the second question, we continue to see a decline in the number of stations on the network in Greece. How should we think about the network size in the coming quarters? What's the scope for the network to be cut even further? Thank you.
Thank you very much. I'll ask Dinos to cover the refining margins question as best as we can, and I'll cover the station question. Okay, on the refining margin outlook, it seems that we currently have a market that is well supplied.
...And the positive things to expect as a refinery is that we have a high maintenance period coming, starting up in September, with some of something like close to a million barrels per day capacity going offline. And we also have going into the winter and expecting an increase, let's say, demand in diesel. Now, I have seen different market analysis and consensus more or less currently is that the second half of the year is gonna be close to the second quarter of this year.
But I will need to remind you that, last year we had zero refinery margins in the first of May, $5 margins in the first of June, $10 per margin in the first of July. So, we hope that we see this type of volatility again.
Yes. I think we will second that hope, but as we've mentioned, the last month and a half have been quite challenging in terms of refinery margins. Now, the petrol stations, one should expect to see further decline of the stations. The number of petrol stations is defined by the size of the market and by the geography of the market. As you know, Greece has roughly about 11 million population, and during the tourist season, we go up to 40 million, which means that there are petrol stations which are in islands or remote areas which for eight months in the year do not work. They work for four months in the year. You cannot shut them down.
I would expect to see a further decline by a small number, maybe anything between 10 and 50 petrol stations a year on our network. And I believe that we should be expecting to see a similar trend on other companies as well, given the starting position that is on a percentage basis.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Nikos Athanasiou with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead.
Hello from my side. Regarding the maintenance that you mentioned before, you mentioned something about 10, 25 for Aspropyrgos and Elefsina. Can you show us just the timeline for this? These are going to be in the beginning of the year, following the 1 million barrels that you mentioned for September? That's my first question. The second one is regarding the environment on petrochemicals. Do you see an improvement of the environment to continue in the second half of the year? And last question is regarding renewables. Given that you faced some curtailments in Q2, are you considering maybe changing the mix and further reducing merchant from 30% to 10% or 5%? Thank you.
On short-term refinery margins, I will ask Dinos again to-
Yes, okay. We have plans are down for the Elefsina Refinery.
In the first half.
In the first half of the year, Aspropyrgos is planned to be at the end of next year. Maybe depending on how the pressure will be, maybe it will be some months later than that. Now, on the business environment, I think we discussed this as best as possible.
So, George, you want to cover the renewables?
Yeah. On renewables, look, there's no easy answer to curtailment, but curtailment is here to stay. The way we're handling curtailment is by increasing our position in storage. And we are one of the leaders in this market in Greece. And in fact, we are starting the construction of our first standalone storage asset in Thessaloniki. Longer term, we are looking at renewables projects as potential hybrid projects, which are much better placed to deal with curtailment. Having said that, I think all market participants need to prepare to deal with this issue, because as the penetration of renewables increases, even with increased storage, there will be periods of curtailments which will vary based on a number of things.
Mr. Athanasiou, have you-
Yes. Okay, great. Thank you very much. That's very clear.
The next question comes from the line of Nestoras Katsios with Optima Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello from my side. Can you please give us the latest developments regarding the DEPA and the Elpedison Associates? Thank you.
... Yes, I think I mentioned that at the opening statement, that this is something which is in focus. I don't have anything which is announceable at this point in time. So, we'll wait and see. There is a lot of cover in the press, most of it are guesses, and sort of a combination of news that have been distributed. But our position has been made very clear. We need to streamline our portfolio and make the portfolio work in a synergistic way. I can assure you that as soon as we have something which is announceable, we will do so.
Okay, thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. There are no further audio questions. I will now pass the floor to Mr. Katsanos to accommodate any written questions from the webcast participants. Mr. Katsanos, please proceed.
Thank you, operator. We have a question through the webcast from Nicholas Paton with Edison. How significant is the impact from the Red Sea issues, and whether it would be possible to quantify? And a question regarding renewables. Could you confirm which quarter you will hit the one gigawatt capacity in 2025 or two quarters earlier? And, given curtailments, he mentions that curtailments have surprised negatively two quarters in a row. Are you confident that the third quarter will be better?
On Red Sea, do you want to comment on-
Yes, on Red Sea, on Red Sea, what we have is we usually take a cargo of Basra, and now it's going around the Cape. So we have some more working capital into this, but one million barrels per cargo. And we have an increase in freight. So recently, and for the first time, we made a deal with the Iraqis, and we'll take a VLCC, because we usually use at least two cargoes, two Basra cargoes in the system. That's a cost, an additional cost, let's say, from going through the straits of something like $1.5 million for the two VLCCs, plus the additional cost that we have for the working capital. Now, on renewables, George, I think we-
Yeah, I think, on curtailment, I believe I mentioned that the situation is much better. I mean, Q3, we have already seen two of the three months, and these are the most difficult months. September is usually better, and the situation is much better because, demand is much higher. But as I said, it's an issue that we and other market players need to manage going forward.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing statements. Thank you.
Thank you very much for attending our call. As I mentioned at the beginning, it's been a strong quarter. It's a continuation of a series of strong quarters. Clearly, we're coming off the peaks of the previous eighteen months, and we see that there is a normalization in the industry. July and August have surprised us with lower than expected refining margins, but we expect and hope that this will not last for much longer, and we'll see some recovery in the next few weeks.
Going forward, the company is focused on improving its existing businesses and performance, which is either through investment strategies in the refineries and in our retail operations, or increasing our exports and direct access to international markets. At the same time, we are making an effort in on improving the setup and the operation of the company with initiatives on procurement, on reorganization, on streamlining our processes, which will allow us to deliver more volume at any given environment case. Now, that's the, you know, the nuts and bolts of the business that we do. At the same time, we are investing to develop the second pillar, which we've said a number of times, is mainly around renewables and green energy.
It is not an easy process. We've done a good job over the last three years, but things are getting more difficult in terms of the permitting delays, in terms of the curtailment. So there is some slowdown overall in the market. However, it is an area which we believe that will continue to be relevant, and with the appropriate and careful investment strategies, we should be able to increase our capacity and hit our targets towards the end of 2025. Now, which quarter exactly, it's very difficult to know, but clearly, the one gigawatt is something which is within reach, given the products that we have in the pipeline as under construction or under mature development.
Now, as far as the rest of the year is concerned, without being able to project how things will go, I would expect that we will have probably a slightly softer landing on the third quarter, but a recovery during the fourth quarter, either because of shutdown period in other refineries or because of a recovery or a normalization, I would say, of the refining margins. Once again, thank you very much for taking the time to listen in to the call, and I hope we see you on the third quarter results. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling and have a pleasant evening.