Petro Rio SA

BOVESPA:PRIO3

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Jose Costa, executive]

Good day, everyone. Welcome to PRIO's last quarter conference call. I'm Jose Gustavo, IR and Treasury Manager, and I'll be the host in this event.

The presentation is available on the PRIO IR website. We also have an interpreter for simultaneous translation, please choose a sound channel icon on the bottom of your Zoom screen.

Presentation and comments on the results will be presented by the CEO of PRIO, Roberto Monteiro; our CFO, Milton Rangel, and our COO, Francisco Francilmar. They will present the company's results and will then be available during the Q&A. [Operator Instructions] This event is being recorded and will be available on PRIO's Investor Relations website.

Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements that might be made during this conference call relative to the company's business outlook, projections and operating and financial goals are based on the beliefs and assumptions of PRIO's management and on information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of success. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they relate to future events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.

Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of PRIO and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements.

Now I will turn the floor to Roberto Monteiro, our CEO. Please Roberto, you may proceed.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our earnings conference call to discuss Q1 '23 results. Well, I think this was a very interesting quarter with many accomplishments. I will go through them one by one. But before I start, I would like to thank our staff that, once again, worked very hard and with a lot of enthusiasm to be able to deliver the results that I will show you today.

Well, I think the main point about the first quarter relates to production. And actually, I think it is the most important point. And everything funnels down to this -- or almost everything funnels down to this production. At the end of the quarter, we reached 90,000 barrels produced daily, so with very significant mark. And it happened because of many factors. It happened because of the acquisition of Albacora, it happened because of the successful Frade campaign.

We are now -- we have already finished the second phase, and we have already entered the third phase of the Frade revitalization campaign. And also because of high operating efficiency and a lot of stability at Frade -- actually in the Polvo/Tubarão Martelo field. So all of that led to this production. That's why I think it is emblematic from a quarter point of view.

Other important points which are more operational, I would mention the lifting cost, which we reached the mark of $9.50. It went up a bit compared to the last quarter of the previous year, but still, we stayed within the single-digit range. We went from $8.60 to $9.50. A small increase was already expected. We have been talking about something in the range of $10 per barrel, and we finally got to $9.50 per barrel.

It shows that the operation is under control with an adequate lifting cost. We still have room to reduce this lifting cost linked to production increase and cost optimization. But anyway, it seems to me that it was a good start, right?

Another point that I think is important to highlight in this first quarter in which we started the Albacora operation, is that this was a quarter of a lot of volatility in the operation. We are learning, working very hard on upgrades, on improvements, both on the operating safety side and on the integrity side. So Albacora may have fallen a little short of our expectations in terms of production, but Frade, Polvo and TBMT, exceeded our expectations by far. With all that, we reached a very expressive mark at the end of the quarter.

Moving on to the more financial indicators, I think it is worth highlighting our EBITDA of almost $380 million and our net income of approximately $230 million, both record marks since the beginning of PetroRio's history. The last point I would like to emphasize is that we are also releasing our sustainability report, which will also show what we have been doing from the standpoint of carbon footprint, respect for the environment and society.

Well, moving on to the next slide, Slide #4. We have already talked about production, talked about lifting cost. But I would like to call your attention to the other 2 indicators that Milton will certainly be detailing more. One of them is our cash position, and the other our net debt over EBITDA ratio.

Regarding the cash position, we ended the quarter with a little over $100 million. That mark would be a minimum amount, so to speak, for our current operations. But in the quarter, we have a different item from the previous quarters. Let's remember that we, by our own decision, withheld a little our sales during the quarter and decided to make more sales in the month of March.

And this created a very high accounts receivable, accounts receivable of more than $400 million. So when we had our cash position to what we had in accounts receivable at the end of March, we would exceed $500 million. So of course, accounts receivable is not cash, but it's almost cash. Most of it has already been converted into cash and is being converted into cash. So I think it is still a very comfortable cash position even after the closing of Albacora, even after the closing of Dommo.

In terms of net debt over EBITDA ratio, of course, those $400 million for suppliers is not included, but we have come to 1.1x net debt over EBITDA ratio, which is still very comfortable. Our previous guidance was to get to something close to 0.8. But because of working capital, specifically, we got to 1.1. If we were to adjust for working capital, you could see that we would have reached a number very close to this 0.8 that I have mentioned before.

So I would say that the company, from the production point of view, is doing very well. The company from an operational point of view is also doing very well, although it has been a very difficult first quarter, if we look at production month by month, but I think we have come through and we have started to deliver a lot.

From the financial health point of view, the company is also very healthy, both in terms of cash position, cash generation and net debt over EBITDA ratio.

I will now turn the floor to Francilmar, who will talk a little about our operations, then Milton will speak about our numbers, and I will come back to talk a little bit about the sustainability report in our next steps. Francilmar?

[Francilmar Fernandes, executive]

Hi, guys. Well, thank you, Roberto. I'll take over and start on Slide 5, talking about asset performance. Well, speaking here on the first quarter of 2023, it was a very intense period of activities at the company. We worked this whole period with 2 rigs working offshore, one drilling at Frade Field and the other operating at Tubarão Martelo Field to reestablish the wells that were offline. We had a lot of subsea construction operations. So we had a construction vessel at Frade and another vessel operating also at Tubarão Martelo. So besides that, we also had major maintenance work done in FPSO Bravo.

So to sum up, it was a very intense period of hard work that ended up negatively impacting the operation. The production of some fields as we see here, still impacting the cluster of Polvo and TBMT. Frade showed some improvement in production, but still below what we wanted and what we are seeing today. And the start of the Albacora last year operation, we managed to have a lifting cost which we've seen this lower line of the slide, still below the double-digit range that we pursue.

It went up a bit, and we would have liked to be a little better. I will explain this in a minute. So the company reached an average production this quarter of 61,000 barrels, which was the best so far. Today, we are already doing much better than this given what we achieved in April, and we will continue at this pace to keep improving.

I'm going to move on to Slide 6 and talk a bit about the lifting cost in more detail. We follow the same usual strategy. Our main focus is to be as resilient as possible in production costs so that we have muscle to withstand all the volatility, all the market impact. The lifting cost was very affected in Q1 by 2 major items.

First, the operation of Albacora Leste with a higher cost. And second, the negative impact of reduced production ore, lower production in the cluster of Polvo and Tubarão Martelo due to the scheduled maintenance downtime of the FPSO Bravo. So obviously, this is a onetime event. We continue making all efforts to resume the cost downward trend that we've had.

So moving on to the next, Slide #7. Let's talk specifically about Frade. Frade has been growing. We continue with the revitalization campaign. Phase 3 -- or Phase 2 actually is coming to an end. I will go into a little more details. In terms of pure vessel operation, the FPSO performed well. We had very little interruption or practically nothing. This 90% operating efficiency was mainly due to the production stoppage of this well, MUP3A, which is the second producing well of 2022.

We are still adjusting the best way we tried to get into it, but then we ended up prioritizing the new wells. We have a schedule for the rig to come back. At the end of this revitalization phase, we will return with more appropriate equipment to resume production from this well. This should happen in the next 2 to 3 months. So production increased this quarter due to this first 2023 producing well. And in April, the second well came on stream. We will see on the next slide, which is all about revitalization. In short, the field has been performing very well, both in terms of efficiency and increase in production.

Now to detail the Frade revitalization plan. On Slide 8, we basically concluded phases 1 and 2. We have separated them into 2 phases initially and joined them as progress went well. We have 7 wells and only the last well is an injector in this new region that we call ODP4.

This figure in the center -- the last one, this last body on the bottom, where there's production in ODP4, there is an injector well in which we have yet to install the Christmas tree and its connection. This should happen in the next 2 months, but this will conclude the second phase.

During the drilling of these 7 wells, we gathered a lot of information. And with this time, having wells in production, we generated a lot of information that is being worked on by our geology team, reservoir engineering team and also the wells crews to start a plan for the third phase. We have already learned a lot and so we can anticipate some things. We are focusing on anticipating some actions to this third quarter practically.

So both this well here that we call ODP5, which is the second producing well in the region of its brother well, ODP4, should be happening now in the next few days. And then we will try to bring some things forward. There are still a lot of things that will come out of this, both in the analysis of the reservoir already in production. This should lead to new wells, producers and injectors as well as in the exploration part.

In this graph on the left, we see these colored polygons, which are areas that need to be investigated. We are focusing now with a priority on this green region called Maracanã. It is a prospect that we believe has a relevant potential, and we are going to drill an investigation well here. I hope that in the next week or very soon, we will have more tangible information about this. It is a purely investigation well, and it can lead to something more, we'll see. We will see the economic and production potential of this. If it is possible to bring it forward, how are you going to develop and produce in this reservoir in case of a positive result.

Well, with this, we concluded this first and second phases. It was very relevant because besides giving us a lot of information, it gave us a very robust actual result. You see a year ago, we were producing 15,000 barrels at the same field. Now we are producing around 50,000 barrels. It really makes us proud to be able to change the story of a field in this way. So this is what I had about the revitalization phase.

Moving on to Polvo/Tubarão Martelo, TBMT, on Slide 9. The overall efficiency of the field was very impacted because we had a major shutdown in the cluster. We stopped everything for 8 days to do some major maintenance, preventive stuff. This stoppage had been scheduled for a long time, and we came back into operation, concluded the workovers of Tubarão Martelo wells 4 and 8, that have been pending since the end of the year.

Finally, we delivered the producing wells. Today, the field is producing 100%. There are no problems in Tubarão wells. We even had a quick stoppage in one well at Polvo, but it is already being restarted. So the field started operating in excellent condition in April, but March was really impacted. Other than that, it is operating in great condition.

Moving on to slide to deal with Wahoo. In Wahoo, we are in a full development phase, so to speak. We are moving full speed ahead to do the manufacturing process of all the equipment, lines, manifolds, all the equipment, both for the seabed and also a lot of equipment that is being manufactured to be installed on the FPSO. Some works that already need to be adapted on the FPSO are already being started. This will happen throughout 2023 until the beginning of 2024.

The next and most critical steps are we are still waiting and negotiating with IBAMA, the approval of the drilling license and installation permits for the production pipeline, production line and umbilicals. The training campaign is now scheduled for the second half of the year. We are waiting in the final stages for this license.

It is possible that, yes, there will be some impact. We have scope to work in the other fields to deal with this. The line launching phase should happen towards the last quarter of 2023. And finally, at the beginning of next year, perhaps in the first or second quarter, we expect to start production at Wahoo field.

On Slide 11, we are going to talk about Albacora Leste. Well, we took over the field at the end of January. Finally, after a long transition, our guys got their hands dirty. We faced many obstacles in our operation. We had mechanical problems in several systems like compression system, injection system, energy, generation treatment. In short, there were many obstacles and many challenges that we've been working hard on, and the company has endeavored many efforts to fix and repair them.

A lot has been done, and a lot is being done. We still have a lot of material that is yet to arrive. There are equipment that are lost [ there in sea ]. We are waiting for large and medium-sized equipment to arrive. Therefore, we believe that over the next few months, we will gradually move forward one step at a time.

There is no magic trick here. It is really about recovering the equipment's reliability, improving integrity. And as a result, we will achieve better operating efficiency approaching the level we like to work with here at PetroRio. We believe that in the second half of the year, we should already surpass 80%, and we are committing all of our efforts and our know-how to reach these results. So we're moving full force and total focus here on improving the efficiency of Albacora Leste.

On Slide #12, I'll talk about the reserve certification report that we prepare once a year. And going through a quick translation of the major items of this report, this certificate shows that the first major impact of is Frade. We previously had a conservative plan for this reservoir which was not all connected. We had an issue mainly in the DP4 reservoir.

So we added a substantial volume already posting very robust numbers with the production curve from the well. It's soon to be 1 year into production, which we call MUP5 at a time. And we also had another impact on this production well, which we revealed a new production zone.

In addition, obviously, that we came back with a water injection system, which had been down for almost 10 years. Therefore, this brought about a very positive impact to Frade, and Albacora Leste was very impacted by a new region that went into applications. And this region also unlocked a large volume of oil that was there to be drilled in a future well.

This also had a very major influence on CapEx. Today, we already have great experience in drilling shallow water wells and now in deep waters. We are being operating for a year. We started at the end of April last year, and now we have concluded a year of operations. And we have drilled many wells. And by the same token, we acquired a lot of good experience and way of doing things, which allowed us to review our CapEx costs, the investment costs, both for the construction of wells as well as for the subsea construction.

And it was observed here even in a line that is still very conservative, but this has already been considered in this year's certification. And we reported these impressive robust numbers, which help provide more confidence for the company to pursue its growth plan over the next few years.

And with that, I conclude my presentation and turn the floor over to Milton.

[Milton Rangel, executive]

Thank you, Francilmar, and good afternoon to all of you who are with us today. Now we will talk about PRIO's financial reports in the first quarter of 2023. We reported sales of $564 million. And just opening a small parenthesis here in the financial statements, we reported revenue of $553 million, which is nothing more than that $564 million, net of taxes on domestic and export sales. But for regulatory reasons, we need to disclose this amount already net. But in this presentation, we make a point of giving all the details of the breakdown of this amount.

So $564 million versus $310 million in the first quarter of '22, and this very relevant 82% increase is basically explained by the increase in barrels sold. We had almost 7.3 million barrels in Q1 of '23 versus just -- and the 3 million barrels in Q1 '22. Other than that, there was the Brent effect, which is an adverse effect because Brent in Q1 '23, averaged $85 versus $110 a year ago. But still the effect of the sale of barrels was much bigger.

And this occurred because we sold all the stock that was in the Caribbean, which we had previously announced, therefore, we zeroed out that inventory and that caused sales to be much higher than sales of a typical quarter.

In addition, there are taxes on domestic sales exports. There was a sale from Albacora Leste to Petrobras, which is subject to PIS and COFINS in the local market. And in addition to the export tax, as it is well known and it has been widely reported, oil exporters have to pay taxes. So part of our barrels sold in the quarter was already impacted by this tax. Besides this, we had trading expenses, and this relates to storage costs, freight, shuttle tankers and other trading-related activities linked to the commercialization of our oil.

And with this, we arrive at a total FOB revenue -- equivalent to FOB, free on board, of $525 million. In addition, I think it is also worth noting that we had other operating expenses of about $27 million. And this also includes a little bit of Hunter Queen costs, the tropicalization of the Hunter Queen, which was also included in this quarter. This is our recently acquired rig, which is about to become operational, to continue supporting us in the campaigns we had ahead of us.

Also, we had some adjustments for contingencies, adjustments for abandonment liabilities. But in short, several minor items that added up to $27 million. Many of these items are noncash, just accounting adjustments. And with this, we arrive at an EBITDA of $352 million with a margin of 67%. If we exclude this line of other operating expenses, excluding these noncash or nonrecurring results, we get to $379 million in the quarter. This is the highest adjusted EBITDA mark in our history for a quarter; and a margin of 72%, which is still a very relevant margin.

As for the financial results, we had an increase in financial expenses because of the new funding. Since the beginning of the year, we have raised approximately $280 million to strengthen our cash position to give more comfort for the closing of Albacora Leste and also for the acquisition of Dommo. And the net income for the period amounted to $231 million, a net margin around 44%, which is still a very significant margin.

Now continuing the presentation, now on Slide 14. I want to talk a little bit about funding. Well, it's important to show that the company's amortization schedule is very long. We have some debt maturing in August 2023 of $70 million of principal amount. Besides this, we have some other working capital debt of $386 million, maturing in '24 and $250 million in '25. We have a bond maturing in 2026 of $600 million and other debts that basically refer to our debenture in local currency that we swapped into dollars starting in 2027.

But I think the important point here is that we are very comfortable with this amortization schedule. We could end up amortizing these loans because, today, there is no need for the company to raise new debt. We are fully funded and also very comfortable with the schedule in view of the company's strong cash generation, considering the actual size of the company.

In relation to the average cost of debt, it increased from 5.8% to 6%, and this is basically due to the new funding this quarter, which became a little more expensive due to the international monetary tightening and interest rate increase, but nothing that could significantly change our lives. And the duration decreased because these new debts are shorter, and so it pulls the duration of our weighted debt portfolio down a little bit.

So continuing here on Slide #15, we talk about changing the company's net cash in the quarter. It is interesting to note that we went from a company that was net cash at the end of last year to be in a company with net debt. This basically occurred because we used a lot of our cash to complete the Albacora Leste and Dommo acquisitions.

We saw an outflow of $1.8 billion. And on top of that, EBITDA was $380 million, as we saw. A negative working capital of $405 million, very much impacted by the increase in receivables, because the sales that we realized this quarter, a large portion of them, occurred in March. As our average receivable term is around 30 days, this cash was actually received in April and part of it will still be collected in May. Therefore, for quarter purposes, there is this working capital penalty.

Apart from that, we had CapEx of around $100 million, which is very justified by the Frade drilling campaign, work over in Polvo and preparations for the Wahoo development. We had a financial result, interest payment, impact -- I mean cash impact and taxes. And with that, we arrived at this net debt of $1, 643 million.

Well, now moving to Slide 16, we talk about leverage. We follow the net debt over EBITDA indicator very closely. What is worth mentioning here is that as we have become a net debt company, this indicator turns positive, 1.1x. We believe that we have reached the top. And now the trend is really downwards in the coming quarters due to the company's cash generation that has been very strong. From the leverage point of view, we remain very comfortable well below 2.5x, which is the limit imposed by the covenant of our financing and with a leverage trajectory over the next few months.

It is also important to mention that from a liquidity point of view, we are very comfortable. However, at the end of the quarter, we reported cash of $100 million. Today, this cash is already around $300 million because we have already started collecting the receivables, the cash from the offtakes we recently made. Therefore, we are in a very comfortable position with regards to the liquidity and solvency of the company.

And with that, I turn the floor over to Roberto, who will talk about ESG and our next steps. Thank you very much.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Thank you very much, Milton. I'm going to move to Slide #17, and I will talk a little bit about ESG and also a little bit about our sustainability report. I think that the most important point of the sustainability report -- of course, this is a very long report, there are several things being addressed in the report and so on. But perhaps the most relevant point is our carbon footprint.

We have always said that our strategy of cost reduction, cost optimization, production increase was totally aligned to our strategy of carbon reduction or carbon footprint reduction. So here, we start to show the story, which is another angle of looking at the same story, and that is through our responsibility to society and the environment.

We are showing in this report, more specifically, a reduction from 31 kilograms per barrel of oil produced in 2021 to something close to 27 kilograms of CO2 produced per barrel in 2022. This places PetroRio as the second cleanest operation in the Campos Basin, as we can see here, and all of that is certified. We use BEON and KPMG to guide us through the certification and these comparisons, et cetera.

But it also starts to show a picture -- and we think that these 27 kilos of CO2 can still be significantly reduced in the next 12 to 18 months, with increased production coming from Albacora and Wahoo and so on. In parallel to this, we also made an investment last year in 2022 of BRL 28 million, mainly allocated to social inclusion activities through sports and culture and also the preservation of the environment. Finally, we also celebrated 4,300 days without accidents or with no lost time accidents in our assets.

All of that is in our sustainability report, and I would like to invite you all to take a look at the sustainability report. It is interesting. It begins to show a new phase of our history, which is the one I talk a lot about, the responsibility towards the environment and society.

Now I'll move on to the last slide, which is a slide showing our next steps. And here, this is very similar to what we've been talking about quarter after quarter about the continuous focus on safety, on the environment, on the health of our employees and third parties.

Here, we will have the conclusion of the third phase of the Frade revitalization, which is, in my opinion, the big operational point of the second quarter. We are drilling a prospect that is close to the field. It is more of the same, but it is still a prospect. We are now delivering another producing well in the Frade field. We will deliver another injection well in the same field, and then we will go to Wahoo.

This will already be in the third quarter. So the second quarter will be very much focused on Frade and then the third quarter will focus on the beginning of Wahoo. And Albacora will involve efforts much more related to improving operating efficiency and what we call low-hanging fruits, that is wells that are shut down because of hydrate or water injectors that cannot perform very well because they need to be acidified and things like that. So this will be the name of the game throughout the second quarter of the year.

And as always, continued focus on new M&A opportunities. Of course, organic growth is becoming more and more relevant to the company. But these M&A opportunities and inorganic growth are still part of our DNA.

Well, I will finish here. I would like to thank our investors, all of you who joined us in the call today. I would like to thank our employees. Many of them are also following our call today. And the society in general, which allows PetroRio to exist and be so well received always.

Thank you very much. And now I'll open the floor for questions.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session [Operator Instructions]. We'll start with Bruno Montanari with Morgan Stanley.

[Bruno Montanari, analyst]

I have 3 questions. First, about sales in the domestic market. We saw details in the release. Was this more opportunistic because of the export tax? Or is it something the company intends to maintain? What about the logistics of this domestic sale? Was it done directly to refineries, another intermediary of some kind? Some more color on that.

Second question about Wahoo. For the next steps, you didn't talk about arbitration as one of the steps. Does this mean that you will move forward even without the result of the arbitration? And perhaps you could give us a progress check regarding how the arbitration is unfolding. And my third question, I think, Roberto talked a little about this, but other than the initial surprise with failures in Albacora, what is the company's impression regarding Albacora as the operator? Will the gross ramp-up curve be the same or difficult, or easier than you expected?

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Thank you, Bruno. I will answer the first 2, speak a little about the third, and then I'll turn the floor to Francilmar. Regarding sales to the domestic market, they were indeed more opportunistic sales. It doesn't really show a change in the strategy of the company and nothing of that sort.

We strengthened our trading department in the end of last year. We brought in somebody who's very experienced with many years in the market. And with that, we started having access to more buyers, including from direct sales to refineries, abroad and also Petrobras. And we were able to have these sales for Petrobras at the moment of the transition of the asset. We were even discussing the sale of oil from Albacora ended up selling some oil from Frade. So it's not really a change in the strategy.

And regarding selling to the domestic market or for exports, we end up having a reduced price anyway. If you sell in the domestic market, you don't pay the export tax. But oils from Petrobras that is exported, Petrobras pays the tax for that. So one offsets the other. So it's not like a strategy, a new strategy to improve profitability. Nothing of that sort. It was opportunistic sale to Petrobras. They came to get the oil in our FPSO and FOB model of sale. Nothing more to add regarding that.

And yes, we have a good contact with Petrobras. We might sell more to them in the future, but there is no change in the strategy. But rather, we want to be able to offer our oil to a greater number of buyers because we are producing 3 million barrels from, as you know, 3 big vessels. So we start having a lot of volume, and we need to be out there in the market. And this is what's driving this business.

As regards Wahoo, your second question, it is not in the next steps, you're right, because arbitration is not something that is under our control. We did the work for the arbitration. We are developing the asset, regardless of that. Today, we are in a development modality called exclusive operations. This modality of development gives the operator, PetroRio, the right to develop the field, considering that the partner did not want to participate or did not vote or wanted to be silent regarding development, which is what happened in December of 2021.

Now, yes, we are participating in a purchase process. It's not really an auction, but it is a formal process that entails bidding and Videocon, which is one of the partners of IBV, selling their stake, which is 40% of the stake that they have, so 40% of 36%. And this is for sale in the market. It is being negotiated. It's -- but for sale in of the market. And yes, we are participating because it's our duty.

I mean we like the field. We were always very vocal about the will to increase our working interest. But this is something that is happening in the court reorganization in India. It's very bureaucratic and so on and so forth. So we don't have a lot to say about this. We have to wait and see how the process will unfold.

Today, we have absolutely no blocks in developing the field, producing oil, nothing of that sort related to the arbitration. We're developing the field as if it were 100% operated by PetroRio. In the future, if [ Petrobras ] returns to the field, they will have to reimburse us. We'll have to do the math for that. But that's not the case on the table right now.

As regards Albacora. From a macro point of view, I would say that the FPSO cut is a little bit of a surprise during the transition with some elements that we found in terms of power generation, particularly. But I think that from the macro standpoint, from the standpoint of reservoirs and capacity of the field, Albacora surprised us positively. So I'd say, we were slightly disappointed in the beginning, these months of February and March. But overall, I think it was a good surprise. The field is even better than expected. I think Francilmar can give more color on this.

[Francilmar Fernandes, executive]

Hello. Just to add, we -- by reviewing the field after these news we had, we expect somewhat a lower efficiency now. But there will be a base of improvement that is a little below our expectation. But we see a lot of positives about the reservoir, the water injection system is giving us good results. So there will be a slight decline, perhaps a slower pace of improvement, but then we envision a much better future.

We are accelerating the process of interpreting the new seismic, and we expect to create value, so that very soon, we expect to have a better ramp-up of production. And we were subject to a very long inspection at the field. The so-called Oro Negro operation. So we have the navy going to the FPSO, lots of people on board, and we went through that kind of inspection and we did quite well.

But of course, you can imagine that February and part of March -- I think the inspection happened at the end of February. So February, we respectively all devoted to this inspection. And part of March was dedicated to solve items found during the inspection. And now we'll start taking off. You'll see our numbers with a lot more stability.

[Bruno Montanari, analyst]

And one quick follow-up regarding Wahoo. Two points. In the sale by Videocon, is there any compulsory item that if a third party buys it, they will have to reimburse what's being done at the asset? And do you have any visibility if this is a competitive process, a lot of interested parties, are you the underdog?

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Yes, it is a competitive process. There are no interested parties. I believe that we are the only interested party here. Because if you look what is being sold, they have 36% stake of the field, and this 36% is under the regime of exclusive operations by PRIO. So this 36% will only have value depending on the results of the arbitration.

So you can imagine that this is kind of hard for players to start thinking about this. PetroRio. PRIO ends up being the most or, perhaps, the only player. This is a pretty formal process to see. It's very, very slow. And perhaps PetroRio is one of the only interested companies. One of the only, if not the only one.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Next question comes from Vicente Falanga with BBI.

[Vicente Falanga Neto, analyst]

I had 2 questions. One, regarding ODP5, perhaps you could give us an idea of the timing and schedule for us to have results and the timing of the 2 investigation wells or Frade phase 3. And the second question, if you could remind us of the maximum capacity of the FPSO at Frade. And if the company is currently having results that are again very relevant in Phase 3 of the revitalization of Frade, would this bring PRIO a good problem to have of perhaps leaving a Wahoo well aside for a moment, and how would you deal with that?

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

I will let Francilmar answer 100% of those questions.

[Francilmar Fernandes, executive]

Well, Vicente, regarding ODP5, we started drilling the well. And we expect that in June or July, well, the subsea part that entails connection, but we believe that we'll start seeing a start-up of production. So that's one thing. Now talking about production capacity of the vessel, we are now in an investigation phase. And the third phase involves reservoirs that are already in production, that are online. So we'll wait to drill more wells to explore that region.

Now there is indeed a risk. It is a small risk, but it is in our radar and we doing our homework to find alternatives. There is an alternative of having an upgrade of the vessel in one system or another to improve it. So there's the oil part, there's the gas part. But in a nutshell, we're working on this. This is a good problem to have. There is a small likelihood of risk, and we'll work to solve everything. I think I answered everything, right?

Oh, regarding the investigation wells in that prospect. One of them has started. We actually stopped the -- or paused the producing well so that we could work on the investigation well. And we should have news from this first well, I believe, very soon in the next 2 weeks, next week. We are in the investigation process phase by phase. After that, you go back to the producing well, finish the injector and then we'll drill the last investigation well in the end of the Frade campaign, and some repair for MUP3.

So there's a lot happening and to happen at Frade, depending on the results, depending on what we can bring forward in terms of the connection system, the subsea line. What we called Phase 3 should actually happen early in 2024 after we structure everything. Everything we're doing now is things that we are bringing forward, to bring forward oil production.

[Vicente Falanga Neto, analyst]

And if I may ask a follow-up question, what should we expect in terms of results coming from this investigation well? Do you have any idea of the full rate oil column? Perhaps not, because you said it's infill.

[Francilmar Fernandes, executive]

Well, oil column, yes. The investigation well, the exploratory well as we call it, too, means we are going to drill as much as possible in the oil column, what we call net pay. It will give us a preliminary idea of volume and the volume in place, VIP. We have oil in place -- volume in place, but we don't know exactly how much we'll be able to get out. It really depends on studies regarding the quality of the reservoir.

In other words, we need a little more work, a little more investigation, but flow rate and such things will come. At the second phase, we have to advance the reservoir. We have to be sure it is what we expect. And depending on the result, we might need an extension well and an appraisal well. You might think, okay, this is successful, but there's another area that could be part of that or not. So we could need an appraisal well for that other area. So this kind of thing.

You see this kind of work needs to be very thorough and careful. We are going to be very conservative about this because it is the first time that we're investigating this. It will be the first time that we will be showing this to investors and the market. So we are going to be very conservative about this. I just want to stress that this is an investigation well. There's no production there. The reservoir was never investigated before, not fully. So if we discover something, we'll know, okay, there's oil or there's no oil, and the oil was good or not good.

And then we'll see if that is commercial and to what extent, how much well we can get out of this. And then we'll say the flow rate will be XYZ. So it's not short-term work. It's not like we're going to start producing tomorrow. We need a little more time to mature things in this front. The prospect that was found now most likely will start production. If everything is positive, if we pass in all stages, it will probably go into production after Wahoo, if everything goes well in the PetroRio style.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Our next question is from Leonardo Marcondes with Bank of America.

[Leonardo Marcondes, analyst]

I have 2 questions. The first is in view of the uncertain landscape for the oil and gas industry in Brazil. I would just like to understand how do you see the appetite of companies that operate in Brazil? I mean I just want to get a better understanding about other future M&A opportunities after the most recent events that brought more stability to the market.

And my second question is about buyback. We see the company has a very comfortable leverage position. The share price is very discounted at least when we look at an average of the targets on the sell side here. Therefore, I just want to see how do you see the buyback program right now? I know that you announced a buyback program last year, but correct me if I'm wrong here, I think that you haven't done much in this regard.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Well, first of all, let me refer to the other peers, to other peers, other companies. The majors are here. So it's difficult to speak on their behalf. Nobody is leaving the country -- leaving Brazil, nothing like that. So of course, we cannot elaborate on that on their behalf. We don't even know what happens to them, whether they will stay or not. Because there are things here for everybody. We can't say that the investment is easy and returns are the same, but we haven't seen any major move in the horizon.

The fact is that some companies that came -- and I'm not just referring to the majors, but the smaller companies that came into Brazil. That started up here in the last few years, mostly motivated by the Petrobras asset purchases. It seems to me that they do not have as many business opportunities in Brazil. So maybe there might be some noise among these companies when compared to a major that has been here for a much longer period. So I think we should look into that a bit more. But I don't have anything else to say in this regard. I'm just telling you bear in mind something more structure.

Now in terms of our buyback, we just approved a buyback program last December. If I'm not mistaken, I think it was at the end of last year. That buyback plan authorized to buy, I think, about 46 million shares. And yes, we've been executing on that. I mean gradually, but we've been executing whenever we see good opportunities or discounted shares, and this is our plan. We generated a lot of cash. We generated a lot of cash throughout the year. And 2 things will be our focus.

I mean net debt over EBITDA, we would like to stay at an indicator close to 0.8. The buyback removes cash from the company, so it tempers a little bit with that ratio. We will just look at it and try to be close to 0.8, at the most 1x, in terms of net debt over EBITDA. And the other element that we will look at are M&A opportunities. Of course, that we will become more and more selective and very diligent in terms of expected returns. So these are the factors that would merit our attention.

[Leonardo Marcondes, analyst]

What about that Form 358?

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

I think if you look at the Form 358, you will have a better idea of what has been acquired.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Our next question is from André Vidal from XP.

[Andre Vidal, analyst]

My first question is that I want to get a better understanding about the discount levels in this second quarter. What could we expect in terms of realized prices, already discounted logistics -- logistic expenses?

[Jose Costa, executive]

Andre, your connection is down.

[Andre Vidal, analyst]

The second question is how do you see the impact of something -- oh, the impact of the oil export tax in the second quarter? Do you have a certain number of barrels that should be impacted by the export tax and whether you have any update of the site Itaipu? Or how is the status of that?

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Arapuca, we are working there. Bruno, who is the person in charge of that in the company, he is working with Equinox and Petrobras. They are the concessionaries of Roncador. But I would say that this is an onboarding work. Itaipu, as I often said, let's put it on the side. Let's not talk about Itaipu right now. We can leave that for later. That was an option for the company, so let's let it be for now.

Now in terms of discounts, we see an improvement in discounts. I think this has to do with the quality of oil. I mean even the crude oil itself and logistics of that. So the physical market seems to be tighter when we look at Brent prices. And that could be even a macro indicator. And you might say, okay, I think there will be recession, so rent comes down 5%. But the physical market, it's even tighter than that. We see China coming back. We made some sales. We also look at the cost of VLCC or freight of the VLCC and -- coming down as well.

So in terms of the discounts, they are not where they should be, which was Frade at $2 of a discount. It's not there yet, but it's better when compared to the first quarter. I think we are going in the right direction. We are talking about prime discounts pretty much in the middle of that journey, but clearly moving in the right direction. And then you have freight and quality, both are moving. Maybe freight is moving a bit faster.

But in terms of export, what we -- whatever we export in the second quarter will be subject to import taxes. There is nothing new about that. And what we export, we produce and we sell. There is a sale process. And within that sale process, whatever falls into that quarter, will be impacted by the export tax. We produced almost 3 million barrels, that was the number for the last quarter. This month, May, there will be a 3-day stoppage in Frade. It's a scheduled maintenance shutdown for just some upgrades in our safety security system. But we also can move inventory here and there, depending on how much sales you can do, but whatever is being sold will be subject to the taxes.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Our next question from Gabriel Barra with Citi.

[Gabriel Coelho Barra, analyst]

Three quick points. I think the main point, and we have discussed this a couple of times, is to increase production, and there was an impact on -- of Russian oil changing global trade. And regarding commercialization of oil, perhaps you could speak a little more about your strategy. There was an impact of accounts receivable, as you mentioned. This monetization will come in the second quarter.

So I'd like to understand to what extent this will become a recurring working capital of the company? To what extent you have to use this cash buffer to negotiate this oil? Or if it's a [ transient ] process? Is a capital you'll need to use structurally to run the business? The second point is, what about the selling process, structuring of teams, how you're thinking your strategy, if it's well oiled, if there is a lot still to do? Because we can expect a relevant production increase in the coming years, and this is key for us to try understand all of this better.

Second point about Wahoo, Francilmar spoke in detail about the contracting process. But I'd like to hear more regarding difficulties in the process. We have heard from some players of the market is tight, not only in platforms but rigs. It didn't end up impacting a lot of your company, but perhaps the subsea equipment, it seems that the market is quite tight. I would like to understand how the process is unfolding, how difficult it is to negotiate. And cost inflation, can we expect -- and it seems as part of your budget, but can we expect any upcoming negative surprise looking forward? So these are the main points that I would like to raise, and I'd like to get some more color for.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Gabriel, regarding working capital and so on. Well, first, the team -- the trading team is structured. Of course, there's always one person more here and there, but the person handling trade is working at the company, he is Gustavo, and he is doing well. He can execute the plan and meet our expectations. So I am happy with this. I'm happy with this move. I thought it was the right move to make.

Regarding working capital. Working capital of Q1 was too much. We sold 7.3 million for production. I can't really remember the number of 5.5 million, I think in Q1. I can't really remember production of Q1, but we sold more, and sales were concentrated in March. So clearly, there is something that is totally an outlier, outstanding. I don't expect to have $400 million of receivables every quarter, so I think that this is something that tends to normalize. At least it's not going to consume working capital amounting to $400 million every quarter.

But the company is growing, just like production is growing. The normal levels of inventory increased. I have FPSOs. Each FPSO can store 1 million barrels. That's nowhere to think that we're not going to have all 3 FPSOs full every end of the quarter. But we will have -- oh, no, we're going to have a fraction of that, and this is normal. I'm going to consider half a full FPSO in each one of the vessels at the end of the quarter. We used to have 1, it was 500,000. Now I have 3, so 1.5 million barrels to be stored.

That is just an example. This is normal to increase. If production increases, everything grows. But what happened in Q1 was outstanding, it was extraordinary. It was a onetime event because we wanted to bring 2 million barrels from December to March. This is what happened. It had an impact. And I think that the net effect was positive, but there was some impact.

Regarding Wahoo, I will take the liberty to answer that. We contracted the main items. If you look, we have rigs, we have NORBE, we bought Hunter Queen. We have long-term contracts with a line launching the line [indiscernible] vessel. We also contracted the implementation of the rigid pipeline. So I think that all of the main items have been negotiated. They're done. Now in the Frade campaign, we can see that the market is a little tight. If we need equipment or spot vessel, we know, we see that the market is tight. I won't say that were totally out of that, out of the weather. But a good part of Wahoo is out of the woods.

So regarding our CapEx. If you look at the certification, we even increased the CapEx to $830 million, global CapEx. And we affirm, but for the effect of certification, we increased it to $830 million. This fiscal year is when we did the budget, and the best we had contingency. That contingency is done. So today, we are closer to $830 million. But again, we are trying to get it down to $800 million. But this is going to happen at the very last moment in the -- if we are more efficient than planned during the installation, perhaps, and perhaps we can reduce this CapEx. But today, we can already feel this effect. At least it's not so dramatic, because we have been quite cautious and we were able to close many deals before the market became more difficult. Do you want to add anything?

[Gabriel Coelho Barra, analyst]

No.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Our next question is from Pedro Soares with BTG.

[Pedro Soares, analyst]

I have 2 questions. One is just to check a number, a number that you mentioned earlier on. Albacora Leste, I mean, it's very clear when I heard Francilmar said that you want to capture the low-hanging fruits, et cetera. But could you please elaborate on how this could be reflected in terms of your cost? And I think Francilmar also mentioned that, but I missed his comments, he said that he wants to reach efficiency over 70%. Was that the number? Was that for the second quarter or the second half?

And my second question, I think Milton talked about the fact that the company always try to work with $100 million in cash. And the company is now at a different level. So this optimum cash level, do you think it will be maintained? Or do you think that we should consider this number going up because of all of the obligations, et cetera? That's it.

[Francilmar Fernandes, executive]

80% in the second half? In the second half? Well, the sooner the better. I think what we want is to get to the end of the second quarter already approaching that 80%, so that in the second half we will keep an average of 80%. I think this is it. I think the second quarter will be a transition, will be at actual transition.

In regards to that cash number, I mean, I know that he wants to get the maximum cash possible. I think $100 million remains a good amount for the company. For the reason -- for a central reason that, in the past, we had $100 million, but we would have a sale every 3 months. So we had a lot of use of working capital. But today, we do that every month. So on the other hand, okay, the company grew. Okay, yes, but there are a lot of more things going on, a lot of more sales coming in. So your inventory cycle or your cycle gets better somehow because our production is up.

Therefore your FPSO runs a lot more. I mean sometimes it would take a long time for you to have a sale. Today, you produce Polvo with 18, Albacora, 24, [indiscernible] and Frade, 50. So you sell a lot more. I believe this level remains very satisfactory. I don't know whether you want to disagree. And our cash balance today is around $300 million. We already received a great part of it, as Roberto mentioned. So we are collecting more frequently now, and that leads us in a much more comfortable position.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Our next question is by Tasso Vasconcellos with UBS.

[Tasso Vasconcellos, analyst]

I believe I have another 2 questions. Number one, trying to join cash position with low leverage opportunities of M&A, buyback, perhaps even dividend payments. Roberto, what would you say is the scenario that you would consider to increase buyback in the short term or announce dividend payout, would it be the lack of opportunities for M&A or a cash position that is slightly higher than historically? So in terms of the company's strategy, what would make the company, in terms of capital allocation, chose to perhaps increase the level of buyback or dividend payout? That's the first question.

Second question. Perhaps the company has been very successful in recent years in your hedge strategy. And we've seen some volatility in recent months regarding price of oil. So what are you thinking? Are you thinking about increasing the number of barrels that are hedged? What would be the scenario for the company that will make you choose to increase or reduce the volume of head contracted for the coming months? These are my questions.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Tasso, let me start with the hedge strategy because it's the easiest. I mean our hedge policy was always buy but with low volatility. There was a moment when volatility was lowered, and we also had a lot of sales concentrated in March. So we hedged particularly the whole volumes sold in March and delivered in April. That was added to the OPAC announcement that increased the price to $85, but we were hedged at $82 net of premium hedge prices, et cetera. So that's what we did.

Now the volatility is higher again, so we're not thinking of doing anything. Unfortunately, there is no scenario when the price of oil is dropping. And this is what it is, and this is what we're thinking. We will hedge opportunistically depending on volatility, if it drops. And of course, today, the need to hedge to a lot of cash flow is a little lower considering that we have some more cash generation. But our strategy remains unchanged in terms of opportunistically by hedge or just low volatility, we'll maintain that.

As regards buyback and so on and so forth, I mean we can accelerate it. Today, we have approved more than 40 million shares to be repurchased, and we repurchased them. What can change in terms of speed of the business is M&A opportunities. I'm not saying there are no M&A opportunities, I think there are always M&A opportunities. We can think, okay, this is for later, but this is more art than technique. So we think that we can push this a little forward.

And if in the future we have a big M&A deal, something exceptional, and if we need to do something, we'll go. We'll resort to the equity market, debt market or whatever. And we'll say, look, we have this deal, it will give us a return on investment greater than 20%. And if everybody agree, everybody will participate. Everybody will have an opportunity to participate. But this is if we have a transformational dynamic M&A deal, but it's not what we're seeing now.

So what can change is somewhat to the speed in which this business can happen. But we will always use the surplus cash. And we'll respect the M&A possibilities, we'll respect the net debt of EBITDA ratio and we will distribute that surplus cash. Most likely through share buyback. Particularly when we look at all the levels, I think that there's a big likelihood that it would be a buyback. But it's hard for me to say there's one thing that will happen that will change everything, it's not one any -- it's not any one single thing, it's a convergence of thing, surplus cash, net debt over EBITDA and net debt.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Our next question is from Bruno Amorim from Goldman Sachs.

[Bruno Amorim, analyst]

I have 2 questions. The first is just a follow-up on the Wahoo schedule, Slide 10. You mentioned the main milestones, and I think that the bulk of it does not depend on your execution, but there is also an issue about the environmental license. What is the status of that license and how comfortable you are with this part of the process?

And the second question is whether you can elaborate on the expected trajectory for that. You talked about ODP5 for June, July, or whether we could expect something else in Frade or Tubarão Martelo, Albacora Leste. I think you were talking more about efficiency gains rather than the opening of new wells. Could you give me an idea of the level of production by year-end? And what would be the trajectory from now to December in terms of production?

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Okay. I'll talk about the license and Francilmar will elaborate on the rest. In terms of the license, we are never comfortable with that process. It's impossible for you to be comfortable. The license is sometimes issued just a few days before you initiate the work. For a simple reason, IBAMA has a lot on its hands. There are many things in the agenda. They are trying to accommodate everything.

We know that there is a drilling by Petrobras in the Amazon Basin, but we try to just fit in, in the midst of the agenda. We already had some meetings with IBAMA officers. Well, we have a good relationship with them. We have a very good professional, pragmatic relationship. There is no such a thing as saying, well, nothing has ever been done in this location. Now it has been drilled. It is a well-known location.

Also, okay, we have to put together 30 kilometers of line, but there are other locations, like all the gas pipelines of Petrobras that have to be dug in, we're not doing anything that is totally new. But we know that there are limitations. There are challenges. So what we have to do is be very insistent and insist that they put our project in the top of the agenda. I mean they are willing to do the work, but there is a lot of work.

If you ask me, am I comfortable? No, of course, I'm not comfortable. Nobody is comfortable, because we know that the license comes at a very last moment. I mean we have a lot of things to do with Frade. So we start doing everything else that we have to do. Our license expectation today is for the second half of the year, maybe third quarter in terms of the environmental license. So there is nothing that tells us otherwise, but we will only know that a little bit ahead.

Now Francilmar can talk about production.

[Francilmar Fernandes, executive]

I would just like to add another point that would probably be easier for you. You may think about environmental license differently. The license for new wells at the Campos Basin -- it's a very well-known region. It's been producing for over 40 years. So that's a totally different license. So the risk of getting the license, it's almost 0. There is no risk in terms of not having the license. The only thing that concerns us is the delay. It's a process within IBAMA.

We've been operating in the region. Everything is already in place and functional. The region has been drilled in the past. I mean everything is under control when it comes to getting the license. I mean I just wish I had the license in hand, but we are working closely with IBAMA. It's just a matter of getting our place in line. Our concern is just with the schedule.

In terms of production, as we always did and we will continue doing is that we always try to put more wells or anticipate things here or there. I mean ODP5 in Frade came in later. And in addition to that, the Campos well is about to getting production. It's a smaller well when compared to Frade. It will start production soon. But so I believe -- and if you asked us for a bird's-eye view from now to the end of the year, assuming that we are producing around 90, 90-some, and there is a decline rate, I believe that this will be around 90 or something. So the risk about ODP5 and how this will perform, well, it's something that maybe we can have an idea.

[Bruno Amorim, analyst]

I just want a very quick follow-up on Roberto's comment. Did you see any change with IBAMA's position in terms of this new administration? Or it's business as usual.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Well, we saw a change in terms of the people. There are changes in positions, in people taking some positions. But everybody is professional, sometimes it takes some time until the new people, the newcomers understand how things work. If you replace a key individual, it takes some time until that individual is more knowledgeable about all of the topics, all the issues that are going on.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Our next question is from Rodrigo Almeida with Santander.

[Rodrigo Reis de Almeida, analyst]

Well, it is great to see this great trajectory you're having and to see how successful you are, so congrats. Satisfactory results, so congratulations on building such a good portfolio. I would like to share some follow-up questions, starting with a follow-up for Frade. You used to talk about a possible accumulation. I would like to know if the prospects and the test you're going to run at Frade, this investigation has anything to do with that.

Do you have mapped -- have you mapped any different complexities? Are we talking about an accumulation of result? I know that you have very little information to start with, but I think it would be interesting to understand this potential difference. And so in Frade, I'm trying to understand how the whole region is behaving with these additional drilling, perhaps more pressure in the reservoir. I'd like to understand procedures, if you had any changes and what do you have to do in terms of monitoring.

Second point is regarding Albacora Leste. I know you are focused on the low-hanging fruits on the top side. Would you have any way to explain to us if you have mapped any potential to reactivation or workovers? Perhaps it's a low hanging fruit, too, perhaps not for now, but perhaps you have mapped everything for future work.

And thirdly, regarding the lifting cost, I'd like to understand the lifting cost now. Production today is different than the average for the first quarter, perhaps you could help us understand the lifting cost now more recently. The most current lifting costs, and on Page 3 of the release, you mentioned inventories and costs, perhaps we could reconcile the lifting cost with those costs because it's kind of hard to understand. It would be useful to have more color on this.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Regarding the lifting cost, it's at $9.50. And our expectation looking forward is to -- is net of Wahoo to get it down to close to $8. And then with Wahoo, it will drop perhaps to $7 or even a little under that, but around $7. This is our expectation regarding the lifting cost. Milton has this reconciliation. Could you explain that very quickly or perhaps we can give this to you later. Is the reconciliation of CPV, right, or COGS?

[Milton Rangel, executive]

Well, we had an impact that worsened the lifting cost because of Albacora Leste, because we acquired and we sold oil to Petrobras and the margin of that sale was specifically much lower than a typical margin of ours. Net of this effect, for instance, we would get to a lifting cost of $10.1 for the other sales of PRIO, and that talks very closely with $9.5. And then you see, we reported reduced lifting cost, this one is still sold. It carries an inventory effect with small nuances.

But the beginning of the year came from Albacora Leste. If you want, we can give you the details of that later on. But overall, that's the impact. And there was some oil from Dommo, the same effect. We would buy oil from Dommo and we would resell it. So we have to exclude these effects. So it dropped from $12 to $10. So it gets very close to what we reported of $9.50.

And the question about Frade. Let me give you the scenario, Rodrigo. You see these prospects that we are going to investigate, this one, Maracanã [ sandstone ], very are similar to what we are producing today. So these are similar characteristics, kind of the same region. The second prospect is in the pre-salt area. We don't expect a gigantic volume, it's much less volume. But yes, we do plan to investigate that region to be sure whether there is oil or not. But this is just investigative work, zero expectations at the company.

As regards management of Frade field, absolutely, we did. Everything we did at that field was good for the general condition of the field. We follow everything, monitoring, inspection, verification. Everything is running since planned from the very beginning, and the results are exceptional. Everything is very much under control. What we did, of course, to have a water injection to improve power after reservoir or energy at the reservoir because the pressure was too low. It was bad for geological reasons. Just like the new wells that were drilled, it's all very favorable for the whole system. So it's all going really well, 100% under control from all sides.

You asked about Albacora Leste low-hanging fruits and workovers. In the second half, we plan to workovers in offline wells to try to bring them back online. One has an umbilical line that is dripping, that is leaking. There is one well that has a production pipeline that has a hole, and we are trying to fix that in the second half of the year. So there's really no effort to bring these 3 wells back into production still this year. I think we answered everything.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Our next question is from Regis Cardoso from Credit Suisse.

[Regis Cardoso, analyst]

I just have some quick follow-ups to conclude this conversation. One has do with the economic difference between exporting and selling in the domestic market. I saw that in that reconciliation between FOB and gross revenue, these 2 lines were together, export tariff and sales to the domestic market. How do you compare these economics?

And another follow-up is about the Wahoo schedule, whether you already know that you intend to connect all of the projects with the manifold and then to do the tieback, or whether you're going to do that gradually. And also, if you could give us a step-by-step progress. And maybe also about Frade, that you talked about the third campaign. I thought you said that it was difficult for you to get all of the equipment. I want to know whether that has been sold. So Frade, Wahoo, that say a difference. And you will see a lower income tax, tax rate. I want to know whether for Dommo, this is a recurring thing or not.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Regis, Milton will talk about income tax. But in terms of pricing and sale, whatever we sell to Petrobras, the price we receive is net from PIS and COFINS. So this is easily comparable to the FOB export price because it's net from PIS and COFINS. And whenever we do that sale, we just do the gross up of PIS/COFINS. So this is easily comparable to other sales.

On our income tax, Dommo had no impact in this quarter. We concluded the acquisition, but we haven't yet recognized any kind of loss. The tax rate is merely the effect of deferred taxes and current taxes. Current tax, I mean, it's nothing out of the ordinary. We have our tax planning, all of the tax losses from all of the different entities, but there was no impact on this quarter yet.

You asked about Wahoo, the initial schedule -- I mean, we are drilling in phases. We will start drilling in the second quarter and each well is drilling for about 90 days. We believe that by the end of March, we will have 2 wells. We started with the ramp-up of these 2 wells and then the third and fourth one until we get to the midst of 2024.

This may change with the installation schedule. There are 2 environmental licenses. One of the installation of the manifold and the other one is the environmental license. This may change a little bit. If we mismatch them, there may be a situation when you would advance more in one area and then you have to match it again. If you do the mismatching the other way around, you may have everything ready and drilled. And the last thing to do is the line. So you may move quicker or slower, depending on how things evolve.

It's hard to say now. It would be like you would have 2 large fronts working in parallel. You have the rigs working with the wells in phases, and then you have the installation of the line, and that's a huge equipment. There are very few of those in the world. So we have to wait for the vessel to arrive. That it may be working in the Gulf of Mexico. The vessel arrives and then we have to make the connection with the flexible line.

[Regis Cardoso, analyst]

My last question is about Frade. I remember that one of the impediments in terms of anticipating it would be related to availability of part of the equipment. Line will be -- the lines will be one of them. I just want to understand whether you solved all the bottlenecks.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

So far, we did that for one well, one well that was not in the map, but we managed to fit it in and it ramped up at the end. For the others, the market is over demanded. So we are just trying to fit more things in it, but it's complicated. For ODP5, we have equipment. The injector was already in that reservoir. And now I think that we did what we needed. Now we will drill some wells. We will drill some prospects. And then we will decide the MUP5 that doesn't need a lot of equipment, but that has nothing to do with the bottlenecks, and we are drilling the prospects.

But even drilling the prospects and even if these prospects are successful, it will be responsible to start production in the following months because it takes some time until that matures in case that prospect is positive. So I think we solved the problem, but things are still a bit tight.

[Jose Costa, executive]

Well, we've had a little over 1 hour of Q&A. So I think that we are now going to end the Q&A session. I'd like to turn the floor back to Roberto for his final statements.

[Roberto Monteiro, executive]

Well, thank you very much for all of those who participated, investors, society in general. In particular, our employees who allowed us and enabled us to achieve excellent results this quarter. We remain very excited about the future for the next quarter. There is always a lot of work ahead of us. I believe that never did we have such an agitated operation with so much going on, which is great, that we were able to build an organic growth portfolio that is very robust. Thank you very much, and I'll see you next time.

[Jose Costa, executive]

We are ending the conference call for the discussion.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]