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Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q1

[Riulf Rustad, executive]

Welcome to the Noreco first quarter presentation of the 2020 results.

We've had the quarter, which are basically according to our own expectations. We highlight some of the figures that we sent out early this day. It's the average production of 31,900 barrels per day, which is within the range that we previously guided on. We had an adjusted EBITDA of $105 million for the quarter. Our operating cash flow was $62 million. And as you have seen previously, our 2P reserves increased to 209 million barrels, giving us a replacement ratio of more than 200%.

There's a fifth figure that I, as a sort of [ all screw guy ], would like to just focus on, and that is the cash earnings post tax. And I'm talking about payable tax. That figure for the quarter is $55 million, equaling $2.2 per share for the quarter.

I think we go out of this quarter, as I said, as expected from our side, but our relative position has been strengthened significantly. And hopefully, that increases the opportunities that we can have a look at and might be able to do.

On this presentation, I give the word to Atle Sonesen, the COO, who will run you through the operational presentation.

[Atle Sonesen, executive]

Thank you, Riulf, and thank you for joining in. I think what Riulf just mentioned is underpinning that -- the Noreco value proposition is strong and also remains stronger as we are going through challenging times. And I would like to run you through the operational report and give some -- run you through the headlights and also some of the -- and additional words behind these headlines.

So I think starting with the statement of predictability and stability in terms of the operations and production performance is key for Noreco to be able to deliver in accordance with expectations. As was mentioned, the production is in line with what we've guided on. We also do see a step-up when it comes to the operational performance, which was 89% for this quarter. Previous quarter, it was like 82%, 83%. And assets like Halfdan, which are -- are really demonstrating stellar performance in the current environment at 97%.

As usual, with the DUC assets, there is a high level of maintenance, both when it comes to facilities and wells, workovers, coiled tubing, wireline, so on and so forth, in order to maintain the production level, optimize, maintain the water injection capacity, arrest declines and so on and so forth. And that is in line with the plan. And that is what is -- enables us to be predictive and also meet the expectations as we promise.

Now in the current setup and the current situation, which I'll talk a little bit more on the next slide, Noreco adapted quickly. And sort of the day after closing of the offices, we were operational and fully efficient and have been working at remote locations and having the right level of and the right, I would say, number of interactions with the operator and our business partners. So in that sense, Noreco is pretty much unaffected by the special circumstances. And we have now also tuned in, in such a way that we're getting back into the office locations.

Now looking forward into Q4 -- Q2, we will offer guidance of 27,000 to 29,000 barrels a day. And that is based on the plans and scheduled maintenance and repair campaigns. Some of them have been adjusted and moving from Q1 to Q2, and also the fact that there's a period of shutdown of almost 1 week for the Gorm export system. That is to take place in June this year.

So with that setup on the operational performance, I would like to take a little bit closer look on what has happened and what's happening on the different assets, and I think I want to start with the COVID-19 situation. And we acknowledge the way that the operator has handled the situation with early March mobilizing their business continuity team and taking the necessary and appropriate actions as the situation were progressing and pretty much on a day-by-day basis and also keeping the interaction information high with the joint venture partners. So we do appreciate -- and now we see the results of the actions and the measures taken, both when it comes to relocations when it comes to offshore manning, down-manning, putting people's health and safety first and then also securing the necessary production and then postponing or demobilizing noncritical activities. Now that will continue for some time also in the future. And gradually, it will be stepped up in terms of maintenance and planned repair activities.

However, the discipline at the heliport for crude changes and the logistics remain high into the future. And that being said, there has been no COVID cases offshore. And that is, of course, something that we also did expect for the future. So all in all, that has been handled, and we are in a pretty good position there.

Looking at the different assets. Halfdan, I mentioned, Halfdan extraordinary performance, fairly low level on -- of maintenance and repair activity for this quarter. On Dan on the other side, much higher activity and, therefore, also resulting in a somewhat lower operating efficiency. But that's always a judgment that needs to be done in order to maintain the production also for the long and the medium term.

On Gorm, 1 month being exceptionally well. The next month, there was quite a bit of plant maintenance, and that you can see in the numbers. There are also some compression issues that led to some waiting time. And part of that waiting time was linked to the COVID-19 situation, whereby, we had to wait for qualified personnel to finish their quarantine period in order to move them safely offshore. But all in all, the situation was handled well and is handed well.

Now there is, of course, an ongoing discussion on how to prioritize the activities going forward, what is deemed as critical, what is relevant to have a discussion on when it comes to cost efficiency measures and also adapting to the low commodity pricing environment. And that is something that we will come back to at a later stage.

Now projects or project, the Tyra Redevelopment project, as we have talked about before, remains important for Noreco for the DUC joint venture partners and also for Denmark in order to restate the gas export processing capacity for pretty much for the entire Danish Continental shelf from '22 and onwards.

And let me start with the conclusion. And conclusion is that the overall schedule with the most important milestone to start gas production in the mid-2022 remains. Now there has been an increased pressure, of course, on the project with a magnitude of this and also with a sort of a global project organization and delivery. But it's really good to see that the -- with the actions taken, one has been able to absorb the challenges and the fact that the yards, for instance, in Spain and Italy and Singapore, has been fully or partially closed. And that is expected now to be -- or all of them are in the process or have been starting up again. And from 1st of June, they are all expected to be sort of fully operational again.

Now the yard at Batam, where the processing module is being fabricated, has not been closed, and it has not been impacted by the COVID situation, even though the operator had to repatriate their personnel and make special arrangements for both supervising the work but first of all, maintaining a safe working environment for their employees. So things are moving forward. And it's really now good to see that the offshore campaign, which starts pretty much the end of this week, whereby, the world's largest crane vessel is currently in Stavanger. I saw it myself the other day, and it's soon to set sail towards Danish waters and expected to arrive at the end of this week and starting the lifting campaign with -- in the order of 20 lifts, taking place for the spring.

Now the jackets are soon ready to be shipped. And also later this year, the Pioneering Spirit, the world's largest construction vessel, is due to arrive and starting to remove the big processing modules on Tyra East and West.

So the summary is that there has been, of course, challenges, but the good thing to see is that it has been absorbed by the integrated schedule. And we remain constant in the operators plan to deliver gas on -- into mid- of 2022.

From projects over to reserves and reserve replacements and the ability to mature reserves remains at the heart of Noreco's value proposition. We announced this in the annual reports a few weeks back, but I think it's worthwhile repeating it also here. We have a portfolio of projects: some of them very mature; some of them are a little bit less mature. But in the 2C domain, we do have value-additive projects that we, together with the operator, choose to mature and bring forward to investment decision. And of course, at the time of the investment decision, we have the option to choose to invest or not to invest. But with the current reserve audit and the current reserve review, we are able to present a new 2P number at 209 million barrels, which is not just replacing what we produced last year, but it's also considerably increasing the 2P reserve number.

And if you look at the bar graph, it's an interesting observation that we are really in the top tier when it comes to replacing our reserves, which is a challenge for an E&P company. And it's typically the larger integrated E&P companies that are able to replace the produced serves on an annual basis. And that is really at the core of Noreco to continue to replace the reserve on not just the short but also in the medium term.

And if you look at the 2P and 2C reserves, i.e. the continued reserves, adds up to more than 400 million barrels, and that is just to state that the upside that we expected and anticipated was there. It is there. And that is something that we're going to work on every quarter and every year moving forward also in this space. So I think the sum of the production performance, the operational efficiency, the reserve picture is really adding more strength to the equity story of Noreco.

So with that, I would like to hand over to London and to my colleague Euan, who's going to talk about the finances and the numbers.

[Euan Shirlaw, executive]

Thank you, Atle. So just to focus on the financial performance of the company during the quarter. From the financial side, it's very fair to say that our business model has demonstrated significant resilience in what has frankly been a changing and challenging market environment for oil and gas companies more broadly. We've had no material impact from the commodity price volatility during the period, and our financial performance has not been affected by the COVID-19 situation.

On price and volume hedging, this provided significant risk mitigation during the period, and we will continue to benefit from these structures, which were put in place at the timing of the acquisition and also subsequent to close as we move forward. Our liquids production in 2020 is, as I think everybody knows, fully hedged through a combination of contracts with Shell and those that we entered into in the market. And as a result of this, our realized price during the first quarter was $72 per barrel.

Our forward hedging program also has prices that are significantly above current spot levels. And in addition, the liquids protection agreement that we have with Shell provides a fixed production level for which we are commercially compensated until the end of 2020. And that's relevant because for the first quarter of 2020, we received a contribution of roughly $21 million. We expect to continue to benefit based on our internal forecast from this arrangement throughout the remainder of 2020. And it provides -- given the current market environment and situation that Atle has alluded to, it provides some guard against any risk of potential COVID-19 issues on to our financial performance from a production perspective.

During the first quarter, our OpEx was $22.7 per produced barrel of oil equivalent, and that was down from $24.7 per barrel at the end of the fourth quarter of 2019. And I think as Atle also mentioned, it's important to take into light the current market environment and also note that the DUC is clearly seeking to adapt. The operator has identified material cost reductions, and we expect these to come through during the remainder of 2020.

As a result of what I've just gone through, our reported EBITDA from an accounting perspective was $82 million in the first quarter. And when we include the contribution of our volume guarantee, our adjusted EBITDA generation was $105 million during the same period.

As we look forward and taking account of recent market developments, the long-term value proposition of our interest in DUC is still strong. Having conducted the required impairment testing in light of the changes in the market environment, we can note that we're not required to recognize any asset value impairments at the current time.

Further, our liquidity position remains robust. We have cash on the balance sheet at the end of Q1 of $272 million and no short-term maturities or capital repayments of debt instruments until Tyra is on stream.

Moving on to Slide 12. Atle's run through the operational performance. And then from an oil and gas production and sales perspective, our working interest share of production from the DUC in the first quarter was 31,900 barrels of oil equivalent today. That's in line with our previous market guidance. Also based on the lifting schedule during the first quarter, we recognized an underlift of 3,100 barrels a day, and that's driven total sales in the period to be 28,800 barrels a day.

The impact of the price hedging agreements that we've spoken about has resulted in a realized price of $72 a barrel, which is significantly above the average spot price during the period of $50. And then bringing these elements together, sales volumes and pricing, our recognized revenue during the quarter was $148 million.

Then if we move on to Slide 13. As we exit the first quarter of 2020 and look forward, we have price and volume hedging arrangements in place that we will continue to benefit from throughout the rest of the year and then specifically from a price perspective during 2021 and 2022. Pricing-wise, we have 2 quarters of remaining hedges from the time of the acquisition that were put in place with Shell. And as has been noted at the closing of the acquisition, we also hedged out the remaining liquids production volumes during 2020 with contracts in the market. So from a volume perspective in 2020, our production is fully hedged.

Our average prices on the basis of both of these Shell and market contracts is $71 a barrel in Q2 2020, $69 in Q3 2020 and $59 in Q4 2020. Then from 2021 and 2022 onwards, we have a hedging policy with our RBL banks that requires us to have in place hedging for 50% of 1-year forward production, 40% of 2-year forward and 30% of 3-year forward bank production. We're fully in compliance with this policy, and our current hedge portfolio for 2021 and 2022 is above these minimum levels of volumes with prices locked in at $56 a barrel.

With regards to our volume hedging, the liquids protection agreement with Shell that was put in place as part of the acquisition sets a minimum production level for which we will be commercially compensated during each month. We received a benefit in January, February and March from this agreement of $21 million. And based on our current internal production forecast, we continue to expect to be paid under this agreement until its expiry at the end of 2020.

Moving on to Slide 14. I'm going to just highlight some key figures on this -- key figures and concepts on this slide. During the period, our revenue generation was $148 million. Of this amount, $137 million was associated with the lifting and sale of oil. As our hedges with Shell, however, are settled through physical delivery, there may be certain timing differences between when the hedge benefit is recognized and when it is received. And that's particularly true in periods of significant oil price volatility as we experienced during the first quarter. So it's on that basis that our revenue includes an accrued hedge benefit related to barrels that we lifted during the period, and that benefit is recognized as a receivable on our balance sheet and will be paid in the second quarter.

From an operating cost perspective, the cost directly linked with barrels produced during the first quarter decreased, as I noted previously, from $24.7 to $22.7 per barrel of equivalent in the first quarter of 2020. And this leads to a reported EBITDA on an accounting basis of $82 million. And then when including the volume guarantee, our adjusted EBITDA, which is the metric that we look at, is $105 million per barrel.

As Riulf highlighted at the outset of this presentation, it's important to just spend a moment thinking about the tax impact on our net result. So our net results in the period, excluding the impact of noncash taxes, was $20 million. And the accounting tax charge in this period that we show on our profit and loss account reflects rather a movement in the value of our deferred tax asset based on the generation of profits during the period. The key point here is that we have no cash taxes either payable or attributable to profit generated during the first quarter, and this is the result of our tax loss balances.

Finally, these numbers aren't on the slide, but I think it's also worthwhile noting that during the first quarter of 2020, our equity increased by $108 million from $575 million to $683 million, and that change is largely the result of our change in fair value of our remaining hedging arrangements. And given we have adopted hedge accounting, that doesn't flow through the profit and loss. But nonetheless, it gives you an indication of the extent to which we are continuing to benefit from the hedge arrangements that we have in place.

And then moving on finally to Slide 15, which gives an overview of our capital structure. Our capital structure remains robust. We have significant liquidity and no short-term debt maturities. Our RBL remains $746 million drawn at the end of the quarter. And on the RBL specifically, our next redetermination process will be concluded by the end of June 2020. That's obviously an ongoing engagement, but I think it is important to note that based on the discussions we've had and the interaction that we've had with our lending banks, we continue to firmly expect that we will have the support of our bank group as we go through this process and also going forward. And that's very much a testament to both the long-term value proposition of the DUC but also the near-term benefits over the next 3 years that we have from the significant hedging arrangements that we already have in place.

We have no capital repayments related to debt instruments other -- until after the conclusion of the Tyra Redevelopment project. And our net interest-bearing debt from an accounting perspective at the end of the period was $837 million. When adjusting for the convertible bond, which is what is required under the covenant calculations for our financial instruments, our net interest-bearing debt comes down to $679 million.

So in conclusion, when looking at the financial position of our business, with cash of $273 million and no near-term debt maturities, combined with the benefit we continue to expect to receive from the material hedging that we have in place, Noreco remains well positioned to both navigate the current market environment and also generate value going forward.

And that concludes the financial presentation.

[Riulf Rustad, executive]

So then we go over to Q&A.

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. So the first question, regarding share buybacks. Will this be executed in the near future? And do you have sufficient free cash to execute?

[Riulf Rustad, executive]

Yes and yes.

[Unknown Executive]

Next question, how much of the Danish tax credit remains? And how much is used each quarter?

[Riulf Rustad, executive]

A very small portion has been used, but we have not specified it. And we will just do that quarter-by-quarter going forward. So most of it is still in our balances, unused.

[Unknown Executive]

And then we have a new question. Going back to your previous presentations, you have included an overview of not-yet-classified resources. Could you please comment the latest updates? And potentially, when we should expect updates on resources being matured to reserves?

[Riulf Rustad, executive]

Yes. I think in this quarter, we have chosen to focus on figures, earnings, cash flows, et cetera. So you can get a better understanding of the underlying operations and how we are positioned in this rather special world. We will come back to 2C or 3P reserves in the near future. Maybe already in the second quarter presentations, we will have some more comments on that. But no one has really been focusing on that in the last couple of months. Hence, the situation is basically the same.

[Unknown Executive]

And then we have a new question. What can you say about the timing of the projects that were related to the 2P increase?

[Riulf Rustad, executive]

To my last answer, there is no change in the timing as of today.

[Unknown Executive]

And that concludes the questions.

[Riulf Rustad, executive]

Okay. Thank you very much for listening.