BW Energy Ltd

OSE:BWE

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q1

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to the BW Energy Q1 presentation. [Operator Instructions] Today, I am pleased to present Carl Arnet, CEO; Knut Sæthre, CFO. Please begin your meeting.

[Carl Krogh Arnet, Chief Executive Officer]

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this conference call for BW Energy, our first conference call and our first quarterly presentation. This presentation will be hosted by myself, Carl Arnet; our CFO, Knut Sæthre; and our Chief Operating Officer, Lin Espey. Knut and myself will take you through this presentation. I move on to the second slide. This is our disclaimer. Please note the content of our disclaimer. Third slide is our highlights for the quarter. Our chief concern in this COVID-19 situation has been to protect our employees, our partners and ensuring our assets. We have done one lifting in the first quarter, and we have raised the -- of course, the IPO proceeds of $121 million. We got listed and started trading on the Oslo Stock Exchange on the 19th of February. Our EBITDA was $14.8 million related then to the lifting. We have, in the quarter, done a noncash impairment of the Kudu asset, and Knut will cover that in more detail. We did achieve a production increase in the first quarter, and that was by the 2 first well of the Tortue Phase 2 projects that we managed to hook up before our operations was interrupted by the COVID-19 restrictions. And that will also be covered in more detail. We curtailed and deferred operations on our projects and reduced our capital spending from $250 million to $115 million, of which $49 million is expensed in the first quarter. I will then move on to Slide 4. Business continuity during COVID-19 has been extremely tricky. We were very quickly hit by restrictions in travel, making it very difficult for us to conduct normal project operations. We did, however, manage to deal with the situation on the FPSO BW Adolo. With the help of our sister company, BW Offshore, we were able to move a second crew into country before the travel restrictions made it impossible to move people. So we have 2 full sets of crew and is cycling this crew -- these 2 crews to and from the unit and have been able to continue operation. For all onshore locations, we have been able to use work from home and use home offices. Then on to Slide 5, safety. We had extremely good performance in 2019, where we had 0 LTIs on 1.1 million worked hours. We didn't have a similar good start to 2020. We have had one LTI reported from BW Adolo by BW Offshore. And we had 3 LTIs reported by SBM related to the hookup activity of the 2 Tortue -- the first 2 Tortue Phase 2 wells. With respect to the environment, we have had 0 incidents, and we have produced 1.6 million barrels with no environmental incidents. Moving on then to Slide 6. We will cover then Dussafu in a bit more detail. And then on to Slide 7, we have had continued strong operational performance on Dussafu. Production has been as expected. The first quarter gave about 11,485 barrels per day gross production. We did achieve first oil from DTM-4H and DTM-5H, the 2 first wells of the Tortue Phase 2 in early March, and we did achieve significant savings from lower drilling and completion costs. Our OpEx for the first quarter was in line with our expectations and came out at $21.8 per barrel. We expect the full year to achieve about -- for the full year, we expect to achieve about $16 to $18 per barrel. We are preparing to resume -- moving on to Slide 8. We are preparing to resume Tortue Phase 2 developments as soon as we can work efficiently and move people and have normal operations. This will entail that we tie-in DTM-6H that we managed to complete but not tie in. And of course, then drill, complete and tie in DTM-7H. We are, today, expecting first oil from DTM-6H and 7H in the second quarter of 2021, i.e., approximately 1 year later than initially envisaged. But we are, of course, working to see if we can improve on that if conditions should -- the overall conditions related to COVID should improve sufficiently. We have repatriated all personnel and contractors to their home countries that was working on the Tortue Phase 2. And Borr Norve has been discontinued and is today in Port Gentil, and we have agreed on the deferred operations with Borr Norve. Our gross investment forecast for the Tortue Phase 2 due to these improvements is today $238 million versus an original budget of $275 million from the final investment decision. Moving on to Slide 9. The production forecast has been revised due to the 2 wells that we have not been able to complete and tie in. That's -- the estimate today is 5.8 million barrels gross for the year versus the previous forecast of 7.1 million barrels. This should then be about 15,000 to 16,500 barrels per day for the full year. We also have given an indication of our lifting schedule at the bottom right-hand corner of the page, where you see we plan to do a further lifting in the second quarter, a lifting in the third quarter and then 2 liftings in the fourth quarter. Moving on to Slide 10. Dussafu is profitable at low oil price, and the Hibiscus-Ruche investment is profitable at current oil prices. It is very important for the long-term viability of the Dussafu license. And we will, of course, restart the Hibiscus-Ruche project that has been FID-ed as soon as the challenges created by COVID-19 are resolved and we can resume normal operations. Moving on to Slide 11. Dussafu is, of course, still a very, very interesting area with lots of prospects. And we are, of course, going to continue to unlock the significant reserves that we expect not only from the Hibiscus-Ruche area, but from all the other prospects that we have given you an oversight over in this slide. Moving on then to Maromba, Slide 12, and then to Slide 13. With the hiatus created by the COVID restrictions, we have stopped the ramp-up of the Maromba project that we had envisaged in our plans. We have our core team, and the core team is progressing towards regulatory approvals for the project. So we are engaging with IBAMA and ANP, and we are derisking the project by going after the approvals ahead of any execution activities. We are -- in addition to that, we're reworking the project and field economics, optimizing CapEx, OpEx and reducing time from our final investment decision to first oil. We are also evaluating more FPSO candidates as we now have more time, and there will be hopefully also more FPSOs candidates available. And we are also requesting the Finance Ministry in Brazil for marginal field royalty reductions. So we are working on improving the overall field economics. I will then hand over to Knut, who will take you through the financials. Knut?

[Knut Ruhaven Sæthre, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Carl. And then we move over to the first quarter financials of BW Energy, and that is on Slide 15. So you can see here that operating revenues decreased to $22 million in the quarter. Production was, however, up to 1,045,000 barrels of oil versus 987,000 in the fourth quarter. We hooked on the -- hooked up to the 2 new wells in February and March, and we had some scheduled downtime related to that. And then we had the lifting in -- the only lifting in the quarter happened in March. So the -- let's say, the sold volumes were considerably down to 0.4 million barrels versus 1.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Also, the oil price was down -- or the achieved realized oil price was down to $23 per barrel in the first quarter versus $65 in the fourth quarter. So we used the average oil price of March. That's the realized oil price. So EBITDA was also then down to $14.8 million in the first quarter. Depreciation is also down, also following production and sold volumes. Then we have recognized $10.7 million of noncash impairment on Kudu, reflecting lower pricing and also the fact that we are revisiting the development of Kudu and it has been pushed out in time. And hence, we have written down the value of the Kudu asset to 0 in the first quarter. So operating loss came in at $11.5 million. On the financial items, we had some noncash mark-to-market effects over interest rate swap and also some currency losses due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollars in March, which resulted in $5.9 million in other financial items, bringing the profit -- or sorry, the loss for the quarter to $17 million. And then we had some taxes related to sold volumes and production of $6.6 million. And in total then, a net loss of $23.6 million in the quarter. Then we move on to the balance sheet, next slide, just to highlight some of the main changes from the fourth quarter to the first quarter. The right-of-use assets, that's related to the lease of BW Adolo, has increased in the quarter. That is due to the modifications for Tortue Phase 2 has been carried out by BW Offshore, and there has been an increase in the day rate due to those upgrades and hence, also an increase in the right-of-use assets up to $262.6 million. And again also the increase to tangible assets, it's also mainly attributed to the Tortue Phase 2 development. On the other side of the balance sheet, the equity increased in the quarter due to the IPO and capital raise that we did in February. So the shareholders' equity is now standing at $460.9 million, giving us a robust balance sheet. Moving on to cash flows. We started off with $81 million and had a very good operating cash flow. That was mainly due to the -- let's say, the payment of the lifting we did in December came in, in January. So we had $50 million of operating cash flow. Net investments of $49 million is mainly related to the Tortue Phase 2 development, also some CapEx there related to Ruche Phase 1 before that was suspended in March. So we managed to suspend the Ruche development prior to entering into main contracts. And we're able to suspend other contracts for long-lead items, where we can restart when the circumstances allows us to restart that project. We had debt repayments of $28 million. So now we're totally debt-free, external debt-free. And then we had the net proceeds from the capital raise of $121 million coming in, in February. We also had a gain on the greenshoe option that was then also offset by other costs related to the IPO. So the net proceeds were $121 million. And then finally, lease liability payments. That is the interest rate element of lease of $7 million, and that gave us a solid cash position at the end of the quarter of $168 million. Then we are moving on to the investments, my final slide. This slide shows you our CapEx since we kind of started up with BW Energy back in 2017. In Q2 '17, you can see here the acquisition price. And then we started off with the Tortue Phase 1 development that went on in the start of '18 and now to first oil in September '18. And then we -- the increase again started in -- towards the end of '19 with the Tortue Phase 2 development. In Q3 '19, you can also see the start-up of spending money for Maromba. That was $30 million that we paid as the first installment to Petrobras and Chevron for the Maromba asset. So the next milestone for Maromba is start of drilling, which has also been pushed out in time somewhat compared to what we communicated in the IPO material. So that concludes my comments to the financial section. And then it's back to you, Carl, for the summary.

[Carl Krogh Arnet, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Knut. So I'll then take you straight to Slide 20. BW Energy is an E&P company with a diversified asset portfolio, West Africa and Brazil. Our strategy, to convert discovered resources to commercial reserves, I think it's very -- still very solid and applicable to the market. Full year production from Dussafu this year will be a bit reduced due to the impact of COVID-19 and will be 15,000 to 16,500 barrels per day gross, but our reserve base is solid. We have 2P reserves of 83 million barrels and 2C resources of 164 million barrels, and it's all oil. Through the lifting, we got 4,000 new -- 4,200 new shareholders. Our main shareholders, BW Group and BW Offshore, of course, remain large shareholders. A lot of the shares was also picked up by institutional shareholders. And moving on to 21. The business model that we have built the company around is very -- we think very adaptable to the current environment. We have proven capability to grow and pick up opportunities that are available in the market. Our philosophy of staged development or phased development allows us great flexibility. And the discretion we had over CapEx, we have just proven how we can take our foot off the pedal and of course, be ready to put it back on the pedal and go again as soon as the markets and the conditions allow. This is safeguarding our operational and financial robustness. And then we can move when the time is right and stop when we definitely should stop due to outside events. So that takes us through the presentation. We are then ready to start the Q&A. Operator, please.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And there seem to be no audio questions at this time so I will hand it back to the speakers.

[Knut Ruhaven Sæthre, Chief Financial Officer]

This is Knut. I see that we have a couple of questions from the web. And the first question there is on Maromba. And the question is, if the Polvo FPSO that currently is working for PetroRio in Brazil becomes available, would -- if that would reduce our cost to develop Maromba materially? Maybe, Carl, you could take that question.

[Carl Krogh Arnet, Chief Executive Officer]

Happy to. Well, we are looking at several FPSO opportunities, and Polvo is definitely one of them as it is operating on a nearby field. It's a unit that is in operation and is complying with Brazilian regulations so it is an obvious candidate to look at. We do know that there's a 1 year remaining option for the current client so we are going to await how that pans out.

[Knut Ruhaven Sæthre, Chief Financial Officer]

Okay. And then there is a second question on -- from the web. And that may be for you, Lin, if you're on. And the question is, what kind of decline rate we see in Gabon for the next 2 -- next 1 to 2 years if we assume that we are not tying in additional wells?

[Lin Garner Espey, Chief Operation Officer]

Knut, thank you. Yes, no, good question. The decline rate in Gabon, we've been very fortunate, a very good reservoir performance in that field. And I guess with the assumption that we do not tie back the DTM-6H or the 7H, we would expect to carry on plateau at our current potential and then perhaps see a decline rate of maybe 10%, 15% after a couple of years.

[Knut Ruhaven Sæthre, Chief Financial Officer]

Okay. And then we don't have any further questions from the web. So then I go back to you, operator, if you have anyone from the call.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And we have no further audio questions. I will hand back for any final comments.

[Carl Krogh Arnet, Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. I thank you all for listening in to this -- our first quarterly presentation by BW Energy. We are -- well, we are pleased that you have been with us and hope to -- that you will join us again for further presentations. Let's see how the world works in a few months' time. So we will see if it will be a repeat or if there will be some other venue where we can meet again. Thank you so much.