BlueNord ASA

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our results presentation for the second quarter of 2025. Before we dive into the details and take you through the key highlights of what's been another busy quarter for the company, I'd like to briefly take a step back and reflect on how far we've come. Firstly, I think it's worth noting that everyone you'll hear from today has been with the company since the start of this journey in 2019. We've all been a part of shaping the business and importantly, driving it forward. And if I look back now to when we adopted the simple, clear theme of focused on delivery in 2021, I'm pleased to be able to say that is exactly what I think we've done. We've kept our base business robust with production declines averaging less than 4% per year. We've started up Tyra, witnessing production steadily increase as the ramp-up progresses. We've been consistently profitable, underpinned by a disciplined hedging programme. We've transformed our capital structure, raising over $1.7 billion of debt in the process. And perhaps most importantly for our equity investors, we've made tangible the theme of maximising shareholder returns. Firstly, just by adopting our inaugural distribution policy. and then by starting down the path of delivering back to shareholders exactly what we said we would. We've navigated some extraordinary times, from record high gas prices to becoming experts in transformers for gas compressors. And while things haven't always progressed as quickly or as smoothly as we'd hoped, through it all, we've protected the balance sheet and focused on executing what has been within our control. And in that vein, the second quarter of 2025 is a period where much of what we've spent the last six years working towards came together. We successfully met the Tyra completion test, confirming the RBL Technical Bank's assessment that Tyra is no longer a project, but a fully operational production hub. We declared our first dividend and announced an upcoming share buyback, marking the beginning of our capital returns programme. And finally, we refinanced the BNR15 convertible bond, removing a significant source of potential equity dilution. So while we're proud of the progress we made, we know the job isn't done. There's still plenty left to unlock across our asset base that holds significant remaining potential. And with that theme in mind, let's turn to the first slide and take a closer look at what we've achieved this quarter and where we're heading next. So starting with our base production, DAN, Halfdan and Gorm delivered 21,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day during the quarter, which is in line with our guidance and continues to demonstrate the predictable low decline performance that we've seen from these assets since 2021. During Q2, we had planned shutdowns to allow for activities and we expect higher production to come in the second half of the year as a result of this. As we highlighted last quarter, the above expectation performance of the Harold East Middle Jurassic Well has reduced the immediate need for further infill drilling. Combined with our continued focus on capital discipline and the flexibility that we have around capex, we continue to expect 2025 expenditure to come in around $50 million below our forecast from the start of the year. And together with operating cost reductions that we're already seeing from higher tire volumes, we're well positioned to navigate any commodity price volatility. If we turn now to Tyra, production averaged 16,800 barrels of oil equivalent per day in Q2, up more than 90% compared to the first quarter. We reached peak production of around 28,000 barrels per day net to Blue Nord in June, which is right in line with our guidance for steady state operations. The reservoir continues to perform well, and the operator's focus is now, rightly, on increasing uptime and delivering more stable operations. Looking ahead, we expect Tyra to be able to maintain plateau levels through the rest of 2025 and well into 2026. And this is underpinned by the continued strong performance from HemJ, which extends the period during which our production is constrained only by processing capacity by at least another 10 months. And when the existing Tyra well stock eventually does come off plateau, that's when we'll bring on additional volumes, whether through near-term infill drilling or for more material projects like Tyra North and Valdemar Bow South. Financially, this was a strong quarter. Revenue rose by 52% compared to Q1, and EBITDA was up 66% over the same period. Operating cash flow came in at $70 million, and based on this, we're proposing a distribution of $49 million for Q2. That represents 70% of operating cash flow during the period and sits right at the top end of our stated policy range. With Tyra now driving meaningful increases in profitability, and as production continues to grow, we fully expect cash flow to follow the same upward trajectory. We ended the quarter with $718 million of total liquidity, adjusting for the dividend paid in early July and the $50 million share buyback we plan to launch next week, both of which are distributions related to prior periods, we have pro forma liquidity of $465 million. And if we also reflect for our proposed Q2 2025 distribution, our adjusted liquidity position stands at $416 million. On the capital structure side, this quarter we successfully refinanced BNR15, our longstanding convertible bond, which we'll talk about more shortly. But in summary, we eliminated a significant source of potential equity dilution by refinancing this instrument with a new hybrid bond. So all in all, we're in a strong position to continue to deliver for all our stakeholders. Let's now turn to distributions, an area where our strategy is clear with execution now underway. So backed by the strong and stable capital structure that we've built, one that provides resilience and flexibility, our near-term priority is clear, to return meaningful capital to shareholders. As tire production ramps up, our cash flow will increase in step and our focus is on firmly ensuring that this value is passed through to our investors. The start of our distribution programme has always been tied to one key milestone, meeting the Tyra completion test under our RBL facility. We achieved that in Q2 and with it unlocked the ability to begin significant capital returns. Up until the end of Q1, we had proposed in total $253 million of shareholder distributions covering cash flows generated through 2024 and the first quarter of 2025. During the second quarter, we formally declared a $203 million cash dividend and announced plans to initiate a share buyback of up to $50 million. That buyback is expected to launch early next week. And today, we're pleased to be proposing a further cash dividend of $49 million for the second quarter. That again represents 70% of our operating cash flow for the period and is at the top end of our stated distribution policy. And as with the prior cash dividend, this payment will be treated as a return of paid-in capital for Norwegian tax purposes, and we intend to declare it formally once the buyback is completed. What all this means is that we're delivering clearly and consistently on our strategy of material returns to shareholders. Every proposed distribution to date, covering 2024 and the first half of 2025, has been at the top end of our 50% to 70% policy range. That's not just a reflection of past performance, it's also a strong signal of intent as we look ahead. Now, if we turn to the next slide, I'd like to talk a little bit about what we did during the quarter to eliminate a key risk of equity dilution. So if we walk through the refinancing of BNR15, this was an important transaction that we announced during the second quarter. To start with the basics, we agreed on a price to repurchase the outstanding BNR15 convertible bond. And to finance that buyback, we issued a new hybrid instrument. This was a transaction that achieved multiple objectives at once, cleaning up our capital structure, eliminating potential equity dilution, and maximizing our near-term ability to return capital to shareholders. For background, BNOR15 was originally issued in 2019 to help finance the acquisition of our assets from Shell. It was intentionally structured to have both debt and equity-like features. That design was necessary to meet two conditions at the same time, One, it had to be treated as equity by our RBL banks for financing purposes. And two, it needed to offer fixed income-like characteristics to meet the investment mandate of the institutions funding the acquisition. In short, it was a bespoke solution for a specific transaction. And while it served its purpose at the time, it's not necessarily the kind of instrument you'd choose if you were designing your capital structure from scratch. We took the decision to refinance now because BNR15 has features that would become significantly less attractive if we allowed the instrument to run to maturity. Chief among them, the risk of mandatory conversion into equity at the end of the year and significant dilution for our existing shareholders. Given that the bond was significantly in the money relative to its conversion price, the risk of dilution was very real. We chose to issue a new hybrid instrument to finance the repurchase of BNR15 because it's as close as we could find to a like-for-like replacement, but importantly without equity dilution. It's an instrument with both equity and debt-like characteristics, and it doesn't increase our senior secured leverage levels. The hybrid also supports our long-term capital return strategy, where we have a business with a long runway ahead of it. We expect to still be producing more than 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by the end of this decade. So we're confident in our ability to deliver our business over a long time horizon. We chose a hybrid compared to alternatives for several reasons. A senior unsecured bond would have increased our senior leverage levels, which we did not want to do. We want to keep this part of the capital structure in line with the approach that we've taken so far, thereby avoiding any negative impact on distribution capacity. And while we could also have considered a subordinated bond, that may have come with features like amortizations that would have made it less attractive from a liquidity perspective. Ultimately, the hybrid was the best fit. It allowed us to remove the dilution risk from BNR15, maintain our financial flexibility, and preserve our distribution potential. From our perspective, we achieved the outcome that we were aiming for. Now, if we move on to my final slide, I'd like to finish with an overview of the factors that we believe position Blue Nord so well in today's environment. So at the heart of our strategy is a very clear focus. We aim to maximise the cash flow from our producing asset base and then return a significant portion of that cash to our shareholders through our capital returns programme. We deliver this by working with the operator to deliver the best operational outcomes possible, maintaining an optimising conservative capital structure and actively managing risk in a volatile commodity environment. And while the first half of 2025 has seen its fair share of volatility, this hasn't dented our ability to deliver value for all our stakeholders. First, we benefit from a stable base of low decline production from DAN, Halfdan and Gorm. now complemented by strong growth from Tyra. Importantly, both elements of our portfolio are now generating material cash flow and require no additional growth investment to sustain current levels. Second, with Tyra approaching steady-state operations, we're becoming a low-cost producer. We expect lifting costs to fall below $13 per barrel of oil equivalent, and we've already taken steps earlier this year to scale back discretionary capex. That gives us flexibility to adapt to the market while continuing to generate strong returns. And third, we take a proactive approach to risk management. We hedge selectively, locking in attractive prices when the market gives us the opportunity to do so, so that we can continue to protect and enhance our cash flow outlook. Looking further ahead, the long term remains robust. We're building from a strong base, but there's still plenty of value to unlock. We see a clear path to sustaining production levels above 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2030, supported by a stable regulatory environment and a portfolio of high quality, accretive investment opportunities. Finally, on our capital structure, while this has certainly evolved over time, we have, prior to Q2 at least, always been subject to certain constraints, particularly those linked to the Tyra completion test under our RBL facility. And with this milestone now behind us, we've taken what we see as the final step to reshape our capital structure with the convertible bond refinancing and hybrid issue. The result is simpler. and provides us with a platform that fully supports our strategy of maximising shareholder value. All of this gives us the stability and the visibility to maintain a consistent equity story, one that is grounded in returning 50% to 70% of net operating cash flow to shareholders through the end of 2026. And with that, I'll now hand over to Miriam, who will take you through a more detailed update on operations. Thank you.

Thank you, Johan. So today, I will take you through how we have achieved the strong production for the base assets for the second quarter of 2025 and share the outlook for the remainder of the year. We have completed a high level of planned maintenance to ensure the facilities maintain high operational efficiency. This quarter, work has been carried out on DAN. The ACI gas lift project is nearly complete and we are progressing on the DAN workovers. Today, I will also update you on the status for Tyra performance and the ongoing work to improve operational efficiency and ensure stable production for Tyra. Let us first look at the production performance for the base assets for Q2 and the completed and planned activities for 2025 supporting the production. I'm pleased to share that the Q2 production from the base assets of 21 MBOE per day net is meeting our guidance range of 20 to 22 MBOE per day net. The quarterly production was achieved despite the completion of a high level of maintenance work. I want to highlight the fact that we have now consistently met or exceeded our guidance for the last 18 quarters. Following stable production in April with operational efficiency exceeding 90%, Planned maintenance on the HP compressor of the Danfield was successfully carried out in May and June. On the Gorm hub, production has been lower than expected due to slow ramp up after maintenance work in Q1 and issues with the lift gas compressor in the second half of June, but these have now been resolved. Production from the Haftan hub has been stable throughout second quarter with an average operation efficiency exceeding 90%. The ACA gas lift model was lifted onto the ACA platform in May by use of the noble rhetoric. As per plan, installation of the gas lift module caused the production from the ACA wells to be closed in for approximately three weeks in May. Production from ACA was successfully restarted end of May and the ACA gas lift module is expected to be operational from early July. In this quarter, three reactive and one proactive well workover were completed on the DAN field from the Shelf Drilling Winner WIC. The last planned workover on DAN is still in progress. After completion of the workover campaign, the Shelf Drilling Winner WIC will be released. The workovers will be adding volumes to 2025 production and beyond. Well integrity work is planned on GORB in Q3 and Q4 from the platform, adding barrels to the 2025 production. So in summary, production from Q2 was strong despite the high level of maintenance, and we will maintain focus on keeping operational efficiency high. Now let us look at the performance for Tyra in Q2. Tyre continues to ramp up. In Q2, we delivered tyre production of 16.8 mbu per day net, which is an increase in production of close to 90% compared to the first quarter. However, this is still below our guidance of 26 to 30 mbu per day net for the second quarter. The peak production to date was realized on 13th of June with gross production of 204 million scuffs of gas per day and 36 mbu of oil. This equates to approximately 28 MbE per day net, and currently we are producing around 26 MbE per day net. I want to highlight that in this quarter we have proven that we can deliver production rates only slightly below the expected plateau of 30 mbu per day net, and this has been done with only up to 70% of the tire wells online. Process reliability and operation efficiency are key focus areas to maintain stable production at plateau production level. TIRA has consistently demonstrated meaningful production, confirming facility functionality, despite a slower than expected ramp up of the facilities. However, this lower than expected operational efficiency and process reliability in the first two quarters of 2025 have had a significant impact on the production. And as a result of that, we have updated the TIRA guidance for Q3 to reflect the ongoing work on the process facilities and execution of improvement plans. I want to highlight that early performance from the different tyre fields supports that reserves are available. The slower ramp-up means that we delay production of the reserves and extend the period with higher production. Tyre has delivered meaningful volumes daily for the last two months. There have been several remits published during the past months. It is, however, important to be aware that remits generally have been of a shorter duration than previous, and in addition, these remit notifications only address gas volumes exported to Denmark. The gas volumes exported to the Netherlands through the Nogat pipeline are not addressed in the remits. In many cases, exports to the Netherlands can continue during remits as gas specifications are less strict for this export route. Now, let us look at the status for the tyre wells and the work being undertaken to ensure stable production. In June, the tyre completion test was met... Oh, sorry, again. I have to start again. Okay. In June, the tyre completion test under the RBL Bank's requirements was successfully met, as stated in the press release on 10 June. After seven months of actual production, the assessment focused on both oil and gas production, evaluating performance during a ramp-up phase that was influenced by operational efficiency, while also confirming the functionality of process facilities. The peak production in June was achieved with 98% of the wells commissioned and up to 70% of the wells on production. As mentioned earlier, this means that the reservoirs are delivering above expectation, and we have already reached our estimated oil plateau rate. To reach the production plateau, we need to increase the production potential of Tyre by getting more wells online, and we need to achieve stable operations and high operational efficiency. The remaining wells to be put on production have minor issues, which is to be expected after more than five years of being shut in. Plans are in place to fix these issues, including gas-lift valves, chokes and hydraulic issues. This will be done over the summer. It's also important to mention here that not all wells are needed for plateau level production. And regarding achieving stable operations, the operator Total Energies have completed the first phase of a reliability study to identify key factors impacting the process reliability and operational facility. These points are being worked by the operator with support from specialists. Second phase of the study is ongoing and the execution plan from the study will further improve the operations. I want to highlight that no underlying issues has been identified. The findings are part of normal issues observed during startup of this major scale project. To conclude the operations piece today, I can confirm that the continued focus on tire progress and ramp up and process reliability and our strong base as production are all key components of our strategy for 2025. Together with the operator, we are committed to achieving these operational objectives. I will now hand over to Catherine, our Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, who will present the long-term outlook for BlueNord. Thank you.

Thank you, Miriam, and good morning to everyone watching today. With Tyra on stream, Blue Nord is today one of the largest oil and gas producers in the EU. And Denmark is now a net exporter of natural gas, having been an importer since 2019. From an emissions intensity perspective, piped gas is undefeatable, considering the alternative source, which is imported LNG. As you can see here on the chart, the imported volumes carries a significantly higher emissions intensity versus the gas from Tyra. And with pipelines going directly to both Denmark and to the Netherlands, our gas production is a preferred option from an environmental perspective, both domestically and also to the broader EU. With the geopolitical backdrop these past three years, our future production is not only important from an energy security perspective, it's also very important to the Danish economy. The oil and gas industry, of which the DUC represents more than 90%, is one of the largest contributors to Danish welfare through tax revenues and especially through the state-owned partner, the North Sea Fund. who has a 20% working interest in the DUC. The oil and gas industry in Denmark is estimated to deliver state revenues of 55 billion Danish kroner during the next 15 years, with an upside of an additional 11 billion if further potential is utilized. And this brings me to how we intend to contribute medium and longer term with the resources we have today in our portfolio. Together with the partners in the DUC, we have agreed a tangible plan with activities over the next few years, which will bring an additional 65 million barrels on production. This plan will support the production we're seeing this year, such that we can keep the production more or less flat to the end of this decade and also beyond. This is done through a combination of smaller projects and also through the drilling of infill wells. We can start with the projects Taira North, Halfdan North and Valdemarbo South, which you can see on the left-hand side. These projects require simple infrastructure with unmanned platforms and all three can be tied back to existing infrastructure. Two of them will be tied back to the Tyra Hub and the idea is really that these will help backfill the brand new and efficient processing capacity we already have on Tyra. The fact that these projects are tiebacks also helps to make them very competitive from a price point, with unit technical costs sub $20 per barrel. Tyron North and Halftown North have already been progressed sufficiently to be included in the 2P reserves, and all the three projects add significantly to future production, with a total of 45 million barrels. In addition, we have several infill drilling opportunities. Infill drilling is a cost efficient and relatively quick way of adding additional production. And the main cost element is really related to the rig that you're using. The infill wells in the portfolio also come with very strong economics, with unit development costs of less than $13 per barrel. And we have more than 21 million barrels in both 2P reserves and 2P resources from the infill opportunities. These wells typically reach their peak production fast and decline quite quickly, but they have long production tails. So we try to pace them one after the other, like a string of pearls. And that leads me on to the production profile. Everything you see on this chart in blue, both light and dark, is production from the assets which are producing today. Tyra in dark blue was limited last year, and this year will be the first meaningful year of production, followed by an even more impactful contribution next year. As you see in 2027, output from Tyra continues to be high. And one of the key drivers for this is the success of the HemJ well, which we brought on production end of last year. This well is processed through the Tyra Hub and has alone extended the plateau from Tyra by almost one year. And it's also one of the reasons why we don't need to bring all the Tyra wells back on stream right now, but we can save them until later. Pink on the chart represent optimization work we do to fight the natural decline. And in green, and especially from 27 and onwards, we see the projects and wells from the previous page that are categorized as 2p reserves. These will be significant contributors, keeping that output high from 2027. And during the same time period, the projects that currently sit as 2C resources in dark grey help support an above 50,000 barrels per day production. And it's expected that these 2C resources will be converted into 2P reserves as they progress. And then finally, in light gray, we have the longer term 2C projects, which have the potential to lift production closer to even 60,000 barrels in 29 and 30. So what we're really trying to illustrate on this page is how we face the different activities out in time such that we maintain and keep a stable and reliable production profile for the company. I think the key takeaway from these two slides is that after six very capex heavy years, the company has finally entered into its harvesting mode. And with a very limited capex, we're able to stay in this mode well beyond 2030. And in contrast to many pairs, we are able to keep this production where it is today without having to seek inorganic growth. This is going to further support cash flow generation and at the same time deliver into the energy needs of Denmark and Europe. And I'm now going to leave the word to our CFO, Jacqueline, who will take you through the Q2 financials. Thank you.