Hello all. Hope you can hear me. My name is Anssi Tammilehto. I'm the head of IR at Neste. Welcome to our pre-silent call regarding our Q1 performance and current topics. The silent period starts on March 29th, and the Q1 financial results will be published on April 28th of 2023. There are still participants joining, but I think for the benefit of time, we need to kick this call off and give the word to our CFO, Martti Ala-Härkönen, who will now walk you through some of the topical items this quarter and some practical matters with regards to our pre-silent calls going forward. Thank you, and Martti, floor is yours.
Yes, this is Martti Ala-Härkönen here. Thank you, Anssi, and good afternoon also on my behalf, and welcome everybody to this pre-silent call for Neste. We will first go shortly through the topical items, including our outlook, as stated in our financial statement release from February this year. My review will be this time, and also going forward, somewhat shorter than before. And before we open for questions, we will also have a look at some of the current topics announced during the first quarter. We have compiled together what we call the IR newsletter, and I will take a few highlights from there before we close up for questions. Naturally, we will finally have time for questions as well.
Starting with outlook, with only a couple of days of the quarter still to go, our view of the first quarter performance is again starting to shape up. Generally speaking, the outlook provided for the quarter in the beginning of February remains valid. All forward-looking statements relating to the second quarter and the full year of this year remain to be published in the interim report published on April 28th. As we stated in our outlook for the first quarter, visibility in the global economy continues to be low due to high inflation, reduced economic growth expectations, and continued geopolitical uncertainty. Let's now go through the businesses one by one and start with the Renewable Products. In the Renewable Products side, our first quarter sales volumes, they were expected to be somewhat lower than in the previous quarter.
Like we told at our fourth quarter reporting, the volumes are affected negatively by a one-month shutdown at the Rotterdam refinery due to an occurrence of a fire in a process unit in late December. One can estimate the effect to our sales volume from the fact that our nameplate capacity at Rotterdam is currently roughly 1.4 million tons a year, and now there was a one-month unplanned shutdown, hence an impact of roughly one-twelfth of a year. Additionally, as always, the final figure will also depend on the completion of the last deliveries of the month. As to our utilization, otherwise, except for the Rotterdam shutdown, our Renewable Products facilities have been running at high utilization rates. What comes to feedstocks, the waste and residue markets were anticipated to remain tight, generally as there is growing demand expected.
However, as we said in the earnings call in February, in early February, the waste and residue markets have been attractive in the beginning of the year, and this has also continued so far during the quarter. The vegetable oils complex has, generally speaking, been trending downwards due to the weaker economic activity and the uncertainties in the macroeconomic environment. However, of note that palm oil prices have to some extent resisted this trend due to, for example, heavy rainfalls, Indonesian export curtailment, and Indonesian domestic mandate. Animal fat has been traded at the lower levels than the previous quarter in all our markets, it's of note. Also, used cooking oil has been trending lower, especially in the U.S., but overall for UCO less than the animal fat prices.
Our first quarter comparable sales margin is currently expected to be within the range of $825-$925 per ton, supported by the attractive waste and residue prices in the beginning of the year. Feedstock market development continues to be a key driver, as mentioned. Energy prices were expected to decrease even further from their fourth quarter levels, and this has actually also been the case during the quarter. With our new hedging policy, we are approximately at 50% POGO hedging ratio in the first quarter of this year, slightly below the fourth quarter level, which was 56%. At present, our full year hedging ratio stands at 30%. In line with the hedging policy, we look forward to increase in each quarter also going forward the overall hedging ratios.
As to our fixed costs, we expect it to be approximately about EUR 10 million higher than in the previous quarter for Renewable Products, driven by the buildup of our capabilities related to the upcoming start of our growth projects. The current estimate is slightly lower than the previous estimate. As to our capacity expansion projects in renewables, we are happy to report that production of our phase one commence at our joint operation Martinez Renewables facility in early to mid-February as planned. The share of production from first quarter from Martinez will, however, still be only quite minor, only a couple of tens of kilotons. As to the opening of our Singapore expansion, on the other hand, we have previously said that we target opening by the end of the first quarter of this year.
There's still only one week to go in March for the end of the quarter. Let's see if we manage the opening in the original schedule or somewhat later in the next couple of weeks. No larger delay if that would be the case, however, expected at Singapore. Let's move to the Oil Products. When thinking about the Oil Products first quarter, our first quarter total refining margin was expected to remain solid but somewhat lower compared to the fourth quarter of last year. The first quarter sales volumes were forecasted to be at approximately the same levels as in the previous quarter. As to the market, in this segment, the crude oil prices has been falling, especially during the end of the quarter amid the nervousness in the financial sector.
Refining margins have been at roughly expected levels, rising again towards the end of the quarter, supported by the spring refinery maintenance, the French labor union strike, and Russian oil product supply risks. In February, actually, the cracks went lower, when the sanctions for the Russian diesel came into force, however, they have started to recover again in March. Finally, briefly about Marketing and Services. In Marketing and Services, the sales volumes and unit margins were expected to follow the previous year's seasonality pattern in the first quarter. Also, the slowing economy was expected to have some negative impact on the overall demand. From demand point of view, the road traffic is recovering, but heavy traffic is still decreasing. Recovery in the aviation sectors continues. Warm weather has impacted light fuel oil demand.
To conclude, to have a sort of a group view and as a summary for the group overall, we expect to have another strong quarter in the first quarter. Overall speaking, like I started with, the outlook provided for the quarter in the beginning of February remains valid. Before closing up, I want to highlight another important event. In the quarter on March 9, we informed that we are issuing a EUR 500 million green bond with a six-year maturity and another EUR 500 million green bond with a 10-year maturity under our EMTN or Euro Medium Term Note program that was established on the 6th of March. The proceeds from these issues will be applied for eligible growth projects and assets related to Renewable Products as set out in our Green Finance Framework.
To close up, the major uncertainties regarding market developments and declining economic growth outlook continue. We are confident that we will be able to navigate through them. Our growth strategy is intact. We continue to execute it decisively. This concludes my introduction regarding the first quarter outlook. I would now like to summarize some of the key activities, announcements that we have made during the first quarter. They can also be found in our new quarterly IR newsletter, like I mentioned in the beginning, which you can find after this call at our website. Susanna here is now opening the pre-silent call newsletter, you scrolling it a little bit through. The idea with this is that with our newsletter and our new structure is to further develop transparency to investors.
The invitation to this call is now also open both the sell side and buy side investors as well as anyone else interested. Let us briefly look at a few topics from our IR newsletter. Firstly, we are mentioning here our reporting dates. Anssi already mentioned that the silent period will start now on Wednesday, and it's also stated there that we will publish our first quarter results on Friday, 28th of April at around 9:00 A.M. Eastern Time. Important notice is to the Capital Markets Day. It is now scheduled on the 20th of June in London. The invitation with program details will be published closer to the event, and you are all very warmly invited. We have there some of the most important announcements during the first quarter, taking there maybe some highlights, the AGM invitation.
We will have our AGM actually tomorrow. The financial statements as well as the annual report have been published. I mentioned we have established a Euro Medium Term Note program. There is a further announcement on that. We also announced simultaneously a tender offer of our outstanding notes maturing in June 2024, which actually already result in the purchase of almost EUR 200 million in aggregate nominal amount of the, of the older notes. We can say we are satisfied with the outcome through that for Neste. We are now mature proactively managing our debt maturities. If you go further, there is a high number of different press releases. As an example, we have made, I think, a total of 8 new announcements on SAF deals and other aviation milestones.
As an example, Finnair is buying 750 tons, and Emirates is operating a 100% SAF demo flight, just to name a few examples. Other announcements from the past quarter include, for example, the inauguration of our innovation center in Singapore and many interesting developments during the quarter indeed. Thereafter, you can find that regarding IR activities during the quarter, we have met investors in London, Frankfurt, Paris, and Singapore, as well as here in Finland. The upcoming activities can be also found in the newsletter. They include events in London, Boston, and New York, to name a few. Going forward, we are very happy to collect feedback concerning the IR newsletter from every one of you. Also, you can find there the latest consensus estimates.
With this, I would like to thank you for your attention, and now we would be very happy to answer your questions.
Hey, Martti. thanks for that. It's Josh Stone at Barclays. maybe I'll kick off.
Hello.
Just a couple of questions, please. You mentioned the hedging results. In last quarter, you said it was a clear material negative. On an absolute basis, is it neutral? Is it positive? Is it still negative? Could you maybe just talk more about that? Also just linked to that, how much data do you actually have? Are you still missing data when you're making these comments? Then the second question on inventory. You talk about the size of the inventory build ahead of these project startups in the first quarter and the impact that might have on working capital as well. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Josh. excellent question. First, the first question was on. Sorry, just missed it.
Oh, on hedging. Yeah.
Hedging. Yeah, sorry, I didn't. I was just writing things down. I do expect a neutral impact from hedging for the first quarter. At this point, I don't expect any sort of negative handovers from last year's at this point of time, if I look further to this year. Of course, everything will depend in the end than also the movements, but it's better to state for one quarter at a time, so neutral for first quarter. The inventory buildup, it is true. There will be some buildup in the inventories because of the ramp-ups now already and also in the first quarter. We have to typically pile up also for raw material inventories a bit when we are preparing for the ramp-ups.
And a little bit effect from this, from the Rotterdam fire as well. Mainly also for the aviation SAF ramp-up, which is an important ramp-up. It binds to a certain extent, net working capital in the first half of the year.
Hi. It's Shaheed Pasha from Morgan Stanley. I had a couple of questions. First on sales volumes. I suppose if you were to exclude the effect of the Rotterdam outage, you've highlighted the one month out of 1.4 million tons, how would sales volumes compare versus last quarter, excluding this effect? If there was any guidance on that. Regarding the sales margin, it seems like the delivery or what you have seen in the first quarter is pretty much in terms in line with your expectations. Would that mean in your, in your margins itself, there's a certain de-risking of the margins towards your upper end of the range?
Just wondered, some clarity on that as well.
Thank you very much. Excellent questions again. On the sales volume, I mentioned that from a production point of view, if you lose sort of 1/12, roughly, of 1.4 million, you are roughly somewhere plus minus of 120 kilotons. Is that the same impact then in sales? It's some kind of a benchmark estimate anyway. I do foresee a lower sales volume in the first quarter, compared to both fourth quarter and last year's. Otherwise, excluding that, I think it has been pretty much normal. That was also your question. It comes really from the Rotterdam impact. You mentioned also the sales margin. I would say delivery sort of as expected.
I think the main thing is the feedstock prices, which have actually continued to be lower also during the quarter, you could say. What we said in early to mid-February when we reported the full year results. That has, of course, a sort of a favorably impact. I would say that as expected regarding the outlook.
Hello.
Thank you.
It's Raphaël Dubois from Société Générale. I have two questions, please. First one is on what you said about the hedging. I'm a bit lost here because in 4Q last year, on average, the POGO spread was highly negative, around $100 per ton and even beyond that. So far, this quarter is on average above $50 per ton. Unless you took all your positions toward the end of the year, I can't quite understand how it can be only neutral. It should be positive as far as I understand. Maybe you can shed a bit more light on that. The second question is on the feedstock. Could you please remind us how long does it take for the falling animal fat and used cooking oil prices feed through your margins positively?
Thank you very much.
Okay, the first question. Well, our sales margin, comparable sales margin for Renewable Products was anyway $783 per ton in the fourth quarter. Now we had a quite a higher range, $825-$925. I think, at least I'm sticking to what I was saying, so, neutral impact as I look today. Then on the feedstocks, it comes quite with an immediate impact to our margin. The impact from the different feedstock markets to our result.
Thank you very much for that. Just maybe on the hedging. When you say it's neutral, it doesn't mean that you have not made money with your hedging. In fact, it can well be positive bringing to a sales margin per ton, which is in line with what you expected. That's how to understand it?
Well, I was thinking actually what is the impact to our margin or EBITDA or sales margin as an overall impact from what we make the margin hedges. One has to take into account that there, of course, as we do now on a quarterly basis, the hedges, there are a lot of hedges that come to realize at a particular quarter. It has a, you cannot just look at fourth quarter and first quarter as impacts.
Thank you.
It's Henri Patricot from UBS here. Couple questions. The first one, just on the sales volumes this quarter, if you can make any comment around the mix between the U.S. and in Europe, whether you're seeing some changes there. Then secondly, just on the Singapore expansion, just any particular comment you can bring us to why it may be taking just a little bit longer, and whether there's any indication in terms of how quickly you ramp up overall capacity and SAF capabilities over the rest of the year.
Thanks. Just answering first on the Singapore. We said at the end of last year or, actually in mid-February that the mechanical completion of the Singapore was kind of ready by the end of last year. Then we said that during the first quarter we have the usual commissioning phase where we have to run through all kinds of tests and get certain permits and regulatory approvals, safety issues, et cetera, to be able to start up. What I was only alluding to that if there would be any sort of delay, we are not expecting anything material there. I don't have even I don't have an exact new date. It's still, I think, a little bit pending.
Pending at this stage where we will end up eventually. You had a second question, sorry, on sales volumes.
Sales split between the U.S. and Europe this quarter.
Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, no specific large scale change there, what we've seen. Probably say 32%-35%, maybe U.S. and the rest to rest in Europe. Pretty much in those lines as what we've seen in the last few quarters currently.
Okay.
We will also have couple of kilotons production from for our share from the Martinez joint operation that has started, but it's still quite minor and of course, whether we sell it, I mean it will be very marginal if anything from there in our sales. Typically, you little bit pile up to the inventory first and then you sell it to the customers. It won't even the same impact as from the production to the sale of that. Only a few kilotons perhaps sold from that during the quarter, if any.
Hi there. It's Pablo Cordero from KSB Chile . Two quick questions on my side. Yes, on this Martinez, can you remind us what's either be the deadline or the timing that you have in place for the pretreatment capacity, in order you start to build on that, just to see when potentially that's going to become on a stream to have an idea? The second one is, I'm sorry, because I don't know if I missed that. If you can remind us which is the position on fixed costs on the Oil Products side? We have seen quite a tremendous decline year to date on European gas prices.
I know that you shift with a lot to propane, but just to have a little bit of a view on, on that.
Okay. Yeah, on the Martinez, like you said, the phase I, which is without the pretreatment, the nameplate capacity at 750 kilotons, our share half of that, so 375. To your question, when the pretreatment capacity would be ready, there has been a little bit of, I think, two-sided communication there. We have said the main target is by the end of the year. We haven't set any more precise month when we will be up and running. At times it has been said at that autumn, late autumn. We're gonna come back later on the more exact dating, but anyway, before the end of the year, that's the target.
On the fixed cost for Oil Products, just one notion that we have ongoing, what we had a important release in September that we are undergoing a strategic study looking at that as an option, whether we could also go into strategically converting Porvoo into a, into a renewable and circular hub. Related to that, we have some, you could say, extra costs. Otherwise, I don't foresee much of extra other fixed cost much rising. If we go on those routes, whatever will be the outcome, there may be some further costs. Otherwise, I think, our cost base have been quite stable on the Oil Products side.
Always, of course, if we have any sort of unplanned shutdowns or would have that then shows also in the cost base, there is more repair costs. Nothing sort of specific to report really on the fixed costs of Oil Products.
All right. Thank you.
Yes. Hi, this is Artem Beletski from SEB. One question relating to pacing of Singapore startup. Could you maybe just comment on as a time when you expect basically also SAF capabilities to be ready there, maybe there is some timing also relating to pretreatment-related investments when those are accomplished or basically up and running at Singapore?
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Artem. We have set up the commission, and it takes about three to six months, if we are really well, three or a couple of months more to be in nameplate capacity. Currently, our target is still that by the very end of the second quarter, we could already have a clearly higher output for SAF. Then more, I think during the third quarter, we could then stabilize the sort of nameplate to have this three to six months applied also to SAF. That's our current plan. In the first few months of April, it won't yet be that high production. It takes time to ramp up.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
Martti, it's Erwan, Erwan from RBC. I've got a clarification question on the Singapore expansion project. Can you just re-repeat what's driving a potential slight delay? You mentioned earlier on the call that the expansion might not take place in the last week of the first quarter. This is my first question. Then I guess, second question, just on the feedstock. Are we on the same, broadly same level of palm oil in the feedstock mix? I know obviously 2023 is the year that you're supposed to phase out, to phase it out from your feedstock. Then, last question, slightly longer term.
2023 is obviously a big year for Neste, but not only for Neste, so with the Singapore expansion and then sub volumes finally taking off. Do you still view the global like supply and demand landscape the same you would have seen a year ago with a number of peers launching capacity in renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel space? These are my three questions. Thank you.
Yeah. Excellent questions. First on the Singapore startup. As soon as we have something more concrete to report, we will of course do that. Like I said, let's see what happens. I said that either this week or quite soon thereafter, there can always be these last few week delays. We'll still have nothing specific, such as. It's more sort of normal commissioning type of what I'm hearing at the moment. Would this not have happened, for instance, when we have in a month's time our reporting date, then, Must have been something more, but that's not what I have information at this stage for myself. You mentioned the palm oil.
I'm not sure if I quote you fully, but we are very committed to come out of palm oil using that by the end of this year for ourselves, like we have said before. I think earlier just mentioned that just the other feeds of prices, they have moved sort of trended downwards in the early part of the years, but crude palm oil has actually trended or been stable or even slightly upward. What I mentioned earlier, heavy rainfalls, you know, Indonesia again, curtailing exports and so forth. The probably the most important question you had, I mean, this is really, of course, key, the supply-demand balance and the outlook, what we see.
That's something we definitely try to touch upon in more detail at our Capital Markets Day on the 20th of June. So far we have been still coming back to mainly to what we reported 1.5 years at our CMD, and those you can find in the old CMD materials. That's what we'll be out there. Just as one further comment there that at least on the SAF, I think we see quite positive momentum. Everything we will update on the demand side then our views in the CMD more detail.
Hey, this is Jason Gabelman from TD Cowen. I wanted to ask two questions. First, to clarify the renewable products volume guidance. You mentioned outside of the Rotterdam fire, volumes weren't that impacted, but I believe there was in 4Q a cargo delivery that got shifted from 3Q to 4Q. Is that going away in 1Q, and what's the impact to volumes there, or is that being offset by something else? Then secondly, just going back to SAF, I was wondering if you could comment on pricing. Are you getting a premium for SAF relative to the renewable diesel you sell? And if so, can you quantify that? Thanks.
Thanks, Jason. Just on the RP volume, we said in the third quarter, that's correct. We had at the terminals, a congestion, particularly in Holland and a little bit also in U.S., some batches we couldn't recognize in that quarter. I think all that is offset. That's not something we are seeing at this point. Having said that, always there are, at the end of the quarter, certain sort of batches and shipments that can fall to one quarter or the other, but nothing of that sort.
On the SAF premium, the company has been little bit conservative, perhaps we have so far only said and continued to say that the price that we expect from SAF, that it shouldn't be margin dilutive. We're talking about the comparable sales margin for the company. Because we have this optionality to produce either renewable diesel or renewable aviation fuel. Of course, from our standpoint, we should be gaining a better price to more on the SAF, which is an important facet there. That's what we've been saying there. I want to continue by saying that this is an important year for us in ramping up the SAF volumes as such and our capabilities in that side.
We will be also driving the market. It's a pretty immature market, a lot of demand there. How the pricing picture will form out as well. Probably there will be also, hopefully even a situation with more demand and supply, but we have to be careful also how we drive the market. We have also a few different business models we are a bit testing on that side, depending whether we are supplying to an airline or the airport, et cetera. Also for ourselves, there are a number of issues that we wanna come up with. We are quite confident and happy to report that we've been able to conclude a number of important deals, and you can find many, many examples also from our web pages, some of which I already mentioned.
It's now try and come up with a ramping up and meeting the targets, but... Finally, if something more at the CMD on the twentieth of June.
Thanks.
This is Pasi from Nordea.
Yeah.
I would like to ask about your margin guidance. What is the main reason for a $100 spread on your guidance? I mean, the quarter is almost over, and usually Neste has been able to kind of offer somewhat more narrow range for comparable margin guidance. What's the main reason behind this $100 spread you are keeping it?
Yeah, that's of course a great question here. We've seen in the past few quarters that somehow our overall share price has been very sensitive to this one single metric, which is comparable sales margin on a very short-term basis as well. So this is also a very delicate issue for the company. Of course, when we overall evaluate the quarter, we are looking at different metrics and parameters overall. There are many aspects to your question, but I just wanna reiterate the outlook that we have provided that the comments made earlier.
Yeah, I hear you. Regarding your guidance and the market expectations, I mean, when looking at the previous quarters, you usually end up reporting $30-$40 spent on higher margin than you guide as midpoint. Is there something wrong with that history you have been posting at? Do you want to make a kind of change, this kind of logic you have been posting a couple of years?
I don't wanna comment anything on the history, just today's situation. We should try to guide the market correctly and at the same time, sensing we've said that there are a lot of volatilities in the market. We have seen it in previous quarters, how it may affect the end result. What I commented earlier was that from the parameters, particularly the feedstock price movement has been favorable. That I think I just wanna highlight again.
Yeah, that's understood.
Good.
Thanks. That was all from my side.
Hello.
Martti, a follow-up question from me, Erwan from RBC. Just on the fixed cost for renewable products. You confirmed the guidance of additional EUR 10 million. First, can you confirm that? You also mentioned that your new estimate was lower than the one you had upon initially putting out that guidance. Did I hear correctly? Could you correct me if I did not? Thank you.
Yeah, that's what I said. I think the guidance was EUR 10 million, and I said it may end up a little bit lower. It's good to. Of course, I understand this is again, only one parameter. Basically meaning that the growth has been a bit lower than anticipated in the very beginning of the year. We don't have yet, of course, March figures.
Thank you.
Hello. Yes, it's Raphaël Dubois again from Société Générale. Just would like to ask you another question about the hedging. If memory is right, you said at the last conf call that legacy contracts were over, and those legacy positions is what brought the material hedging losses in Q3 and especially in Q4. Can you just tell us a bit more about when, where the hedges that close in Q1 2023 taken? My understanding was that it will be pretty much all taken in 4Q 2022, but maybe there were still a bit of positioning taken beforehand. That would be great if you could tell us a bit more about that.
Yes. Early on, the company did its hedging mainly at the end of the year, at the time when it was concluding its term contracts. That was still the fact actually in the end of 2021, so the full year of 2022. The majority of that was done at the end of the year. Then during past year, we, as the hedges started to, the realized hedges are then again always in the result, they started to close up. We moved in sequence steps to mainly to a quarterly policy following a ladder method, which we are now fully applying, of course, from the beginning of this year.
When I said that, no legacy hedge impact, I was probably meaning that sort of, such hedging, hedges done based on the older oil when we went into the new policy that have provided sort of more negative impacts. Certainly there are hedgings that are also realizing at the end of the first quarter, that were made before the fourth quarter, sometime earlier last year. It comes through this ladder mechanism. I think the most important that the negative impact is at least what we saw and huge moves last year, unprecedented moves. It's been at least the start of this year, it's been different.
Great. Thank you for that.
Hi, this is Shaheed from Morgan Stanley again. Just a quick clarification on the comments you provided with the full year results. At that time, you had highlighted the Rotterdam downtime, sorry.
Yeah.
Could have a negative impact of around EUR 85 million. This was attributed to production losses and repair costs. I was just wondering if that number is still valid.
Yes, that valid. Yes, that figure is still valid. We said, I think that the majority of the impact coming into the, with the impact into the first quarter. With that we mainly meant that the volume, it comes mainly from the lesser volumes as well as some repair costs as well. Yes, we have had a little bit of repair cost also from the getting it back to up and running mainly in January, but that's how you can read it. We haven't precisely told any sales volume figure, but as it's so evident, we said that it's about a 1 month. It took about a 1 month before commencing production. That's why I wanted to give some flesh on the bone. How you take one-twelfth of that you can have some estimate.
There is not a full 100% correlation, of course, not with production and sales, but still it's a good sort of benchmark evaluating also the sales volume impacts. The EUR 85 million was done at always we utilize certain sales margin to that. That, I don't wanna comment any further. That's, yeah.
Thank you.
Hello. Yes, please. Maybe one more question from my side. As far as I can see, feedstock costs should have dropped in the quarter more than your selling price, which should lead to an expansion of margin, that's pretty much what is backed by your margin guidance, putting aside the aging effects. Are there any sales where the selling price automatically adjust for the drop in the feed costs or not?
If I correct you are trying to answer that, do we get the impact from the lower feedstock costs to our margin quite instantaneously? Is that what you are?
Yes. Whether some of your clients will ask for an adjustments immediately post the feed cost.
Okay. I haven't heard that they would have been... Like earlier, we have said that in the renewable diesel side, we concluded roughly 75% of our estimated next year sales, these term deal contracts and those go forward as planned. There is still always. I'm talking now about the renewable diesel side. There's roughly 25% that we sell on the spot market, sorry. Yeah, that's been the typical. I haven't heard any adjustments from our customers to this factor of note.
Maybe one more comment is that the spot market typically, because you also utilize more of the diesel when it's the major driving season, for instance, in the road transportation, the spot market typically is a bit more active during the summer months than during the winter months. That's just a general comment.
Thank you.
Are there any more questions from the audience?
Hi there. I hope you can hear me. It's Chris Kuplent from Bank of America. Your comment about the share price sensitivity is intriguing. Would you argue that come the Investor Day, we should expect a conversation that goes beyond quarterly guidance?
I'm not sure if I understood you correctly. Sorry for that. Could you repeat that? Share price sensitivity. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm not sure I understood your comment regarding the share price volatility around your quarterly guidance, which I think we understand what you mean.
Yeah.
I wonder whether you're thinking about framing your outlook, differently, particularly when you have the opportunity to, update us at the Capital Markets Day in June around something that goes well beyond the quarter, but that also goes well beyond volumes.
Correct.
I'm not sure that has to be dollars per ton margins, right? I'm basically asking how you are, what your view is regarding longer term earnings guidance.
Yeah. Thank you for that question. Overall, at some point of time, Neste was giving a little bit more full year guidance and outlook and at some point adopted this quarterly and our target is of course to supply the most transparent information and the right level of information to investors. We are certainly thinking what would be the best option also going forward or if anything that we should thinking of possibly adjusting. Last week I was together with Anssi in Paris on a roadshow, at least there was one large investor, just not related to discussing it in any more detail, suggesting that should we just stop giving any sort of sales margin guidance at all. That's also one possibility.
Let us bear in mind and you are welcome to give your feedback, probably particularly sell side analysts on, to Anssi and Susanna, if any thoughts from your side. Currently our thinking would be to continue as is, but we are certainly thinking what would be the right method going forward. Of course, at the CMDs, I think what is much more important is of course to look at the longer term trends and supply demand pictures and so on. Those we of course hopefully update fully on the, at the CMD.
Thank you. Yeah, we'll certainly be in touch.
Thank you.
Okay, Anssi, I think we are ready to wrap up. Yeah. I think so. I think so. Very, very good questions and very good comments.
Excellent questions. Thank you very much. Yes, exactly. There is about a one month to go before we report. We of course again have our quarterly call then. I think that's on Friday, 28th of April, I think at 3:00 P.M. Eastern time. Until then, thank you very much and tomorrow is not yet a silent call day. We have our AGM on that day, that will take place here physically in Helsinki. Thank you very much for attendance and talk to you later.
Thank you for the participation. Have a very great week. Thank you.
Good point. Great. Thanks.
Thank you.
Bye-bye. Thank you.