Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Gaeli, your conference call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Tüpraş conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the third quarter 2025 financial results. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Doğan Korkmaz, CFO, and Mr. Levent Bayar, Investor Relations Executive Director. Mr. Bayar, you may now proceed.
Hi everyone. Good evening to all from Tüpraş headquarters in Istanbul, and welcome to our teleconference. I'm Levent Bayar, Enterprise Risk and Investor Relations Executive Director of Tüpraş. I am here with Doğan Korkmaz, our CFO, and team members from Tüpraş Investor Relations and Reporting Departments. Over the next hour, we will first go over our operational and financial results for the third quarter of 2025. Then, we will continue with the Q&A session. I would like to draw your attention to our cautionary statement here. During today's presentation, we will make forward-looking statements that refer to our estimates, plans, and expectations. Actual results and outcomes could differ materially. Please refer to our financial reports and material disclosures for more details. These documents are available on our website as well.
In the next three slides, we will provide you with a brief summary of the key highlights regarding the third quarter of 2025. Then, we will go into detail for each subject on the following slides. Let's start moving on to the Tüpraş highlights in detail for the third quarter of 2025. Starting from the top chart, capacity utilization remained above 100% during this quarter, reflecting our strong operational performance during the high season. As the third quarter was marked by a highly favorable margin environment and there were no major maintenances, we maximized profitability by fully capitalizing these margins. The middle chart demonstrates the resilience of our strong financial management capabilities. We ended the quarter with a $1.8 billion USD net cash position, despite ongoing market volatility and scheduled cash outflows.
We maintained our net cash position over the past three years as of now, confirming that our balance sheet remains solid and showing stability through the business cycles. Finally, at the bottom, you can see the latest developments in sustainable aviation fuel. In June of 2025, the Turkish government announced its SAF regulatory framework, aligned with the global core CA target of achieving 5% blending by 2030. This milestone complements our earlier agreements, the FITSUG supply deal that we did with Tiryaki and the SAF off-take agreements with Turkish Airlines. Looking ahead, we aim to commence SAF production via co-processing in 2026. Following the completion of our SAF unit in 2028, our production will be materially increased, and we will be fully compliant with the regulations in force.
As you know, we covered this section in two main components: the developments in the global oil markets, as well as the developments in the Turkish market. Let's start with the global oil markets. In the third quarter, global demand continued to rise above last year's and past five-year average, in which we experienced historic highs and lows. This reflects resilient industrial and transportation activity alongside a steady rise in aviation demand. Global capacity utilization lagged, limited by the refinery shutdowns, higher-than-anticipated maintenance activities, and geopolitical tensions. These factors, coupled with low inventory levels in the high season, drove mid-distilled cracks to average around $23 per barrel, exceeding the five-year average by around $5. Now, taking a look at the bottom row, the Turkish market.
The Turkish Central Bank policy rate remained elevated during the quarter at around 40.5%, while inflation continues to show signs of moderation compared to earlier in the year. The Central Bank maintained a tight stance with its latest decision of decreasing policy rate by 100 basis points in October, pulling down the rate at 39.5%. On the demand side, Turkish oil product demand remained robust. Notably, the appetite for gasoline continued, showing a significant rise of 16.9% year-over-year. Furthermore, both gasoline and jet fuel consumption reached their record highs in the Turkish market during July. Now, let's take a look at the cracks for the third quarter of 2025 in comparison to last year's, as well as the past five years' average on this page. During the third quarter, diesel crack margins averaged at $25 per barrel and demonstrated growth year-over-year.
This increase was primarily attributed to geopolitical disruptions and strong demand, while inventory levels were low. Jet fuel cracks averaged at $20.1 per barrel in the third quarter, reaching all-time high levels. Cracks started to increase from the end of the second quarter onwards and reached $24 per barrel in June due to all-time high demand in aviation activity. Gasoline cracks averaged at $18.8 per barrel in the third quarter, higher year-on-year due to the refinery outages and low inventory levels. High sulfur fuel oil cracks averaged around -$7.7 per barrel in the third quarter of 2025, up by $4.8 per barrel year-over-year. High sulfur fuel oil cracks were mainly supported by the increased demand of complex refineries and tighter supply.
Moving over to the crude price differentials, the OPEC+ decision to increase production, which began in April 2025 and continued throughout September, totaling 2.2 million barrels, has limited effect on the differentials. Much of the incremental supply comes from the light-sweet crude, whereas complex refineries are currently seeking heavier grades. Therefore, the differentials continue to narrow in the third quarter of 2025. Additionally, an important development this quarter was the reopening of the Kirkuk pipeline, which resumed operations toward the end of the third quarter. Depending on the production and trade amounts, we may see widening differentials in the coming quarters, supported by this. Now, starting with the production volume, let's take a look at Tüpraş's operations. Our production in the third quarter of 2025 was 7.2 million tons.
With no material maintenances going on and with strong demand, we operated at a capacity utilization rate around 100% in the third quarter of 2025 and captured the stock margin environment that we discussed earlier . In terms of breakdown for the crude distillation, we managed to achieve a capacity utilization rate of 92%, and the utilization rate for processing the other feedstock with stood at 9%, reaching a system-wide rate at around 100.3% in the third quarter of 2025. Now, let's move to the sales. Start with the total product sales. In the third quarter of 2025, our domestic and international sales were respectively 7 million tons and 1 million tons, summing up to 8 million tons in total. Our domestic sales were slightly higher than previous year's third quarter. Our gasoline sales were up by 15% year-on-year, while domestic diesel sales were down by 3% year-over-year.
Now, let's move to the electricity operations. This slide summarizes electricity production and sales activities of ENTEC and Tüpraş in the third quarter of 2025 in a consolidated manner. In the third quarter of 2025, 54% of the electricity generated was from hydropower due to weaker hydrology. 32% was from wind power, and the rest was from CCGT and solar. The EBITDA contribution of the sales from production of electricity decreased by 40% in the third quarter year-over-year due to poor hydrology during the summer of 2025, which was the driest season in the past 65 years. Out of 344 GWh of zero-carbon electricity produced, around 34% was sold to feed-in tariff, which is $73 per MWh, and the rest was sold to spot market. Now, let's move to the financials.
Now, taking a look at the P&L items in terms of consolidated financials of the third quarter of 2025, within the IS29 standards, all financials that are provided in this presentation and in our quarterly financials report are calculated with inflationary adjustments. Additionally, the financial figures of 2024's third quarter have been scaled up by a factor of 1.33 in accordance with the September 2025 CPI in order to reflect the purchasing power of the current quarter. Revenues came in at TRY 220 billion, equivalent of almost $5.3 billion in the third quarter of 2025. The cost of goods sold stood at TRY 197 billion, mainly affected by narrowed differentials . As a result, our gross profit stood at TRY 24 billion. Operational expenses were down by 8%, as our operational expenses rose less than inflation.
Loss from other operations is affected by the affected by losses from trade payables , as Turkish lira depreciated by at around 4% in the third quarter of 2025. Income and loss from equity pickup was recorded at TRY 463 million, coming dominantly from OPET, our fuel retail subsidiary. In the third quarter of 2025, we recorded lower financial income of almost TRY 1.4 billion, mainly due to decreased net interest income with lower interest rates. There is a TRY 0.5 billion negative impact coming from monetary loss because of the reduced cash amount in this quarter after strong dividend payout. As a conclusion of these, we have recorded TRY 16.5 billion of profit before tax in the third quarter of 2025. The third tax item continues to normalize with the mitigation of the adverse effect of the inflation accounting standards.
Below the profit before tax item, we have recorded TRY 4.4 billion of tax expense, and as a result, we have recorded TRY 12.2 billion of net income in the third quarter of 2025. Now, for the EBITDA, our reported EBITDA materialized at TRY 20.5 billion. We have recorded TRY 0.7 billion of inventory loss. Our EBITDA CCS materialized at TRY 20.3 billion. The TRY 0.6 billion of this EBITDA was recorded from our electricity production company, ENTEC. Now, let's take a look at the profit before tax bridge . As you can see from the waterfall chart, improved crack margins and our ability to benefit from the stock margin environment have led to a TRY 11.6 billion positive impact. TRY 5.1 billion negative impact comes from narrowed differentials compared to last year's third quarter.
There is a TRY 3.5 billion negative impact coming from the inventory impact, which is addressing the loss. Due to higher energy costs , we recorded a negative impact of TRY 2.0 billion in this quarter. Decreased net interest income due to cash outflows and effect of losses caused by TRY depreciation has a cumulative negative impact at around TRY 2.5 billion. There is a TRY 3.6 billion positive impact coming from much lower monetary losses based on the decreased gap between the inflation and interest rate, as well as the lower cash position of our company. All in all, 2025's third quarter profit before tax was materialized at TRY 16.5 billion. Let's take a look at the financial highlights of the company in the third quarter. Our net debt to EBITDA materialized at negative 1.3 times as of the end of the third quarter.
Cash and cash equivalents and financial liabilities at the end of the third quarter stood at TRY 117.1 billion and TRY 42.7 billion, respectively. We ended the quarter with TRY 74.4 billion of net cash, preserving our strong net cash position. Our working capital requirement came down to negative TRY 7.9 billion as a result of our ongoing effective cash cycle management and easing of the tensions in the Red Sea region. As of the third quarter of 2025, we maintained a balanced FX exposure, ending the period with a positive FX net position of around $26 million . This reflects our effective foreign currency risk management and natural cash from FX pricing mechanisms . Now, as an interim disclosure on our strategic transition plan, as shown on this map, we present our zero-carbon electricity portfolio spread across Turkey and neighboring regions.
The portfolio includes solar power plants and wind power plants at various stages of development. Currently, we have at around 415 megawatts of operational and at around 400 megawatts under development. There is a notable international presence in Romania with around 214 megawatts of renewable capacity, showing our group's regional expansion. Of the targeted 1 gigawatt capacity for 2027, approximately 22% comes from wind power . Solar projects represent roughly 31%, and the rest is hydro, which is 17%. Overall, the map illustrates a balanced and growing zero-carbon electricity portfolio of the company and highlights our strong commitment to our strategic transition plan , which was announced in 2021 and updated in May 2025 . Now, let's take a look at the maintenance calendar for 2025. Looking at the maintenance plan for this year, we are on track with the initial plan, as disclosed earlier.
The FSC revamp in our Izmir refinery is still ongoing. Due to the additional work that we have initiated related to the earthquake strengthening, the duration of the revamp has been extended. Overall, there are no major maintenance operations this year that will significantly impact our production capacity. Now, for the guidance, let's take a look at the 2025 that we are going to be seeing. Due to the solid third quarter performance and the current strong margin environment, we are updating our net refining margin guidance from $5-$6 to $6.5 per barrel. Regarding production and sales figures, there are no changes in our expectations, and we expect approximately 26 million tons of production and approximately 30 million tons of sales. We expect capacity utilization to be within the range of 90-95%.
Our consolidated CAPEX target for 2025 revised at $480 million, as some investments have been postponed to the next year. Now, on this slide, we would like to sum up some of the key figures for the third quarter of 2025 and compare them with our guidance. The net refining margin has been achieved at $9.7 per barrel in the third quarter, and the nine-month figure surged at $6.5 per barrel. Our capacity utilization rate was at 93.6%, which is within our guidance range of 90-95%. Our production and sales reached at approximately 20.1 million tons and 21.9 million tons in the first nine months of 2025. We have spent $316 million in the first nine months in terms of CAPEX. This slide concludes our presentation, and we can now proceed with the Q&A session.
The first question is from the line of Resende Ricardo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hello. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. First question, if I may, to get to those 400,000 tons of SAF capacity by 2028, what's the expected CAPEX that you see? Second question, on your CAPEX guidance for 2025, we've seen this reduction of $120 million versus the previous guidance. Would you be able to provide us some color on this decline? If I may, sorry, a third question as well on the pipeline reopening. You mentioned about the widening differentials as volumes started to flow. How would you expect Tüpraş volumes to benefit from that? How do you see the ramp-up throughout 2026? Thank you. Thank you for your questions. Let's start with the first one regarding the CAPEX for SAF. Obviously, we're still working on the engineering part of the investment.
The final decision is not given by the board. It's within our strategic plan, but the total amount of investment is not finalized yet. We're waiting for the detailed engineering phase to be finalized. I would expect it to be close to $1 billion when we get to the conclusion, but it was within the total investment amount, the CAPEX amounts that we have disclosed during the strategic plan. The decrease of the CAPEX for this year, half of it comes from one of our subsidiaries' postponement of acquiring an asset, which is mainly a tanker. The other part is another postponement in one of our units in the refinery. As to the pipeline, yeah, pipeline opening is very, very important because it helps with the total supply of heavy grades in this region.
It is even more important for Tüpraş because Tüpraş refineries are pretty much primed for this spec of crude oil. Although the total capacity of the pipeline is not fully utilized at this point in time because of the, obviously, production limitations after this much time has passed, we are pretty much expecting higher production as time goes by, and we would like to have a fair share of that production as we get along. At the moment, we're getting a share of that production from the pipeline as per our agreement with the National Oil Company of Iraq. Okay. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Plester Tomas with Erste Bank. Please go ahead. Yes. Thank you very much. Good evening. I would have some questions regarding the usage of Russian crude oil.
I mean, can you tell us what was the proportion of Russian crude in this quarter? Also, what will be your policy regarding using and importing Russian crude in the future? Finally, also around this topic, what is your policy regarding the EU ban on importing refined products made from Russian crude oil? Do you have exports to the European Union, which was made from Russian crude, and how do you plan in the future to change this policy, or how do you expect to shape this policy? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to remind the fact that we're not providing the crude diet of our refineries by country, but at the same time, I would like to also mention that our priority, as always, is to ensure full compliance with all applicable regulations while, obviously, maintaining the stability and the efficiency of our operation.
When it comes to Russia, we have all the flexibility as we do not have any term contract for Russian-sourced crude or semi-products. Therefore, we are very flexible in our purchases. Thanks to our two coastal refineries and the ability to source crude oil from various global regions, we can sustain our operations even if there is any requirement to shift the current suppliers. We do that by evaluating around 100 different types of crude on a monthly basis. As Tüpraş, we do not engage with companies listed on the SDN lists. We structure our operations in compliance with the applicable sanctions and, obviously, with our internal compliance policies. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Demirtaş Kemal with ATA Invest. Please go ahead. Thank you for the presentation and congratulations for very good results.
My question is about the trends so far in fourth quarter. Do you see any upside risk to your net refining margin considering the round rates or the balances in October so far? Thank you. Thank you for your question. Obviously, there are a couple of different moving parts when it comes to the last quarter of this year. Obviously, this is quite normal for refining. Global developments currently might have their toll on different parts of refining value chain. Although crack margins seem to be on the high side in the last couple of months due to the factors that we have listed during the call, there are very—I mean, there are the same or different factors having effect on the supply side of things. It seems like, I mean, it's going to be the case until the end of the year.
I can easily say part of the inflated cracks is currently coming from the past events of the last couple of months, i.e., the maintenances, the demand factors globally, even the upcoming winter. At the same time, some part of it really comes from the near-term expectations, including the effect of probably sanctions on suppliers. Therefore, the pickup in the differentials, i.e., more expensive crude oil from the heavy suppliers, is probably partly reflected to the current cracks that we experience. There will probably be a residual bottom line benefit, which we have already reflected to our revised expectation at this point in time. Every additional week, every additional month really matters. We will need to see the rest of the year before we conclude to make another revision. At the moment, we feel quite comfortable with what we have disclosed as of today. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today for the third quarter call of 2025. Before we conclude, I'd like to share a few closing remarks. This quarter, we achieved strong operational and financial outcomes thanks to solid product profitability and optimal capacity utilization. Our capacity utilization was valuable of regional and global averages and enabled us to capture robust crack margins across our operations. High margins this quarter were largely the result of unplanned refinery maintenance activities globally, leading to decreased utilization and lower inventory. On the supply side, the effect of sanctions was felt, and supply constraints drove the relative crude prices up, tightening the differentials.
Our ability to leverage a diverse sourcing network and maintain optimal refinery efficiency enables us to successfully navigate through changing market conditions and preserve strong margins. Our net cash position remained for more than three years by now, underscoring the strength of our financial discipline and working capital management. While we have experienced the historic lows and highs in the industry over the last five years, we successfully preserved our financial resilience, ensuring flexibility for future investments and sustained value creation. On the topic of sustainability, the announcement of Turkey's SAF regulation marks another important milestone for the sector. Within SAF, co-processing production set to begin in 2026, the beginning of 2026, actually, we continue to advance steadily along with our strategic transition plan. Our zero-carbon electricity footprint now extends across Türkiye and neighboring regions with our developing projects.
We are well aligned with our target of 1 gigawatt by the year 2027. Looking ahead, we remain confident that our operational excellence, financial discipline, and strong balance sheet will allow us to navigate changing market dynamics and capture future opportunities. Thank you for your time and continued trust. We wish you a great day ahead.