Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. Petrobras ADS

Good morning and welcome to Petrobras' earnings call for analysts and investors. We're going to discuss our results for the second quarter of 2024. It's a pleasure to have you here. This event will be held in Portuguese, but it is being simultaneously translated into English. You may access the links to both languages on our investor relations website. All participants will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. And after that, we will have a question and answer session. You may send your questions via email, petroinvestatpetrobrass.com.br. We have with us Claude Ricicopetti, Executive Director of Corporate Affairs. Claudio Schlosser, Executive Director for Logistics, Trade, and Markets. Fernando Melgarejo, Executive Director of Finance and Investor Relations. Mario Spinelli, Executive Director for Governance and Compliance. Mauricio Thomas-King, Executive Director for Energy Transition and Sustainability. Renata Barozzi, Executive Director for Engineering, Technology, and Innovation. Wagner Victor, Executive Director for Production and Processes. And William Francis, Executive Director for Industrial Processes and Products. We also have other executives from the company with us. We will begin with a video bearing a message of our CEO, Magda Shibria. Good morning, everyone. I want to thank investors, analysts, and the entire audience that joined us today. Concerning the results of the second quarter of 2024, I can say that they were very solid and occurred as expected. A non-recurring event, such as the tax agreement with the Ministry of Finance, brought significant advantages to the company and to the federal union that were recognized by the market. Moreover, the strong exchange rate volatility in the period with no impact on the company's cash flow or equity affected our internal accounting, impacting the quarterly results. Since our CFO, Fernando, will present our results in more detail, highlighting our free cash flow, net income, and the recurring and non-recurring event that influenced our results, I will take this opportunity to talk about the future we envision for our company. Ladies and gentlemen, our top priority is to pave the way for Petrobras to be enduring and as relevant or even more so to Brazil than it is today. This will only be possible if we continue to grow efficiently and with profitability. This means that we must be agile with full adherence to operational safety, people, and established governance rules. We need to be agile in maintaining our track record of replenishing reserves while on the path to net zero, we seek more sources of clean energy. It's important to note that without the replacement of oil and gas reserves, Petrobras would be doomed to failure. All our achievements have been conquered through technological capabilities and our employees' firm willingness to overcome challenges and surpass the countless difficulties inherent to offshore exploration and production with safety and respect for the environment. These efforts culminated in the transformation of the pre-salt operation into an undeniable wealth for Brazil. Ladies and gentlemen, although there are still exploration opportunities in the pre-salt and southeast basins, we cannot forego the responsible exploration of the Brazilian equatorial margin basins. It is essential for both Petrobras and Brazil that we obtain the license to drill exploratory wells. This is because if the potential of the area is confirmed, our society will see undeniable results in employment and income. In addition to the equatorial margin, we need to continue exploring the Pelotas Basin, another promising area in the south of Brazil. We're also on the lookout for opportunities in foreign territories, especially in South America and the Atlantic Basins of Africa. We recall that last weekend we discovered natural gas off the coast of Columbia in a block with high potential for new discoveries. Ladies and gentlemen, it is our agility and skills that will allow us to initiate production this year ahead of schedule at the FPSO Maria Kateria in the Jubarte field. We have excellent, highly profitable assets and we will apply all of our expertise to generate more value for our governmental and private shareholders. Later this year, we will also initiate operations for the Rota 3 gas pipeline, increasing the supply of pre-salt gas to the Brazilian market. Within this context, we are attentive to opportunities for expanding the gas market. which include its use both as fuel and as raw material. We will seek to resume fertilizer and petrochemical operations, which add value to our natural gas production. Our long-term vision focuses on investments in E&P and the pursuit of diverse renewable energy sources. These two elements are essential to ensure the company's growth and profitability in the coming months. To our investors, we guarantee respect for business logic, transparency, and our governance, which is recognized as above average for companies in Brazil, including oil companies operating in our country. We guarantee capital discipline and controlled leverage. We ensure that we will do this by considering the investments necessary for the company's growth and development. the demand from state and private shareholders for dividends. We understand that in this way, we will be contributing to stimulating the country's economy and meeting the expectations of our shareholders. Lastly, I thank you for your attention and trust and emphasize that we are firmly committed to maintaining an open dialogue with transparency to demonstrate the relevance of the choices we will make to build an even more solid and profitable company. Thank you very much. Thank you to Magda, our CEO. We will now begin our presentation on the results for the second quarter of 2024. Our second slide presents our usual disclaimer about forward-looking statements. We'll now hand it over to our financial and investor relations officer, Fernando, who will continue. Go ahead, Fernando. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to have you here. with a discussion on our results for the second quarter of 2024. As we just heard, we are in a growth journey. This is our vision. And that's why all of our team here, our top brass and our employees have been stuck to this journey to become more relevant for our society and provide the right dividends and returns to all stake and shareholders. Here we have our operational highlights. I would like to underscore a few of them. We delivered in the first quarter of 2024 the planned production for the first two quarters of the year. In the last 12 months, our oil and gas production went up by about 2.4%. The contribution of the pre-salt in the second quarter of 2024 reached 81% of the company's total oil and gas volume. So new production systems will be important for our growth. Marshal Duque de Caxias has the capacity of producing 180,000 barrels of oil and compressing 12 million cubic meters of gas per day. FPSO Maria Kateria arrived last Monday and will be redirected to the Jubarte field. It can produce 100,000 barrels of oil and 5 million cubic meters of gas per day. Almirante Tamandaré in Búzios has left the shipyard in July and is expected to arrive in Brazil later this year. It will be the first high-capacity unit for Petrobras, and its potential is 225,000 barrels of oil per day and 12 million cubic cubic meters of gas. It's expected to start operations next year. All of these units are part of a new generation of more efficient platforms with a nominal capacity of about 400,000 barrels a day, which is 15% of our current production. As you can see, we have good future perspectives so we can start a new growth cycle. On refining, we have maintained a high level of processing with a utilization factor above 90%, about 91% to be exact, in the second quarter, and with the highest sale of byproducts than the previous quarter. We had a better performance with diesel, gasoline, QAV, reaching about 70% of the total volume produced. This demonstrates our continuous efforts, efficiency, and versatility in the processing plants. Another piece of good news is that processing plants are in the final stage. In August, we will have a milestone for this work, which is starting reverse pressurizing of the pipeline equalizing the pressure from the deep and shallow layers. They are already in operation. we expect to see the first commercial gas in the third quarter. The Rota 3 pipeline, which includes OPGN, is strategic for Petrobras and for the entire country because it will allow 21 million cubic meters of natural gas to be processed, which will increase the offer of natural gas to the Brazilian market, reducing imports of GNS. This was essential for the results we will see on the next slide. We sustained consistent results with robust cash generation, reaching the lowest financial debt level since the third quarter of 2008, 16 years ago, and our CapEx increased by 12.5% this quarter in comparison to last year. Later on, we will discuss some events that were excluded from the first half of 2024, which are essentially in accounting and that have only a residual impact to the company's cash. Excluding these events, our net income was $5.4 billion. Our EBITDA was $12 billion, and operating cash flow was around $10 billion, in line with the previous quarter. We would also like to highlight that this quarter, the ANSA operation resumed, allowing the reversal of an impairment loss. Finally, concerning our contribution to society, we had a 24% increase in tax payments in comparison to the second quarter of 2023. It's always important to highlight that over half of the company's cash generation is being paid back to society. In the second quarter of 24 alone, we had 70 billion Brazilian reals in taxes paid to the federal, state, and city governments. It's a significant and expressive contribution from the company to all of society. The next slide shows one-off events that impacted this quarter, especially our accounting results. with only a residual cash effect, as we mentioned before. In the second quarter of 2024, we saw a significant exchange rate variation, as you were able to see. A depreciation of 11% of the Brazilian real versus the U.S. dollar, which led to a negative impact of 2.3 billion U.S. dollars. It's important to note that this impact took place due to a dollar obligation between Petrobras companies, which does not generate a true effect to our company. This is accounting only. We also complied to a tax transaction, and this was widely communicated. which resulted in an expensive 2.1 billion U.S. dollars, and that settled major legal disputes totaling 45 billion Brazilian reals. From an economic perspective, this was a very advantageous negotiation for the company, and other companies in our industry are also entering this program. We also had other one-off events of about 1.3 billion U.S. dollars. And this led to an accounting loss of $300 million. Writing off these events, our net income was $5.4 billion, which is the same that we had in the first quarter of 2024. The next slide shows that we have reached an expressive result in EBITDA and operating cash flow. Excluding these one-off offense affecting our quarter, our EBITDA reached $12 billion in line with what was reported last quarter. Operating cash flow was around $10 billion, also in line with the previous quarter. We had a significant change in the foreign scenario, a reduction of 34% in diesel crack spread from $30 in the first quarter to $20 in the second quarter of 2024, and this is per barrel. Slide 8 shows our cash flow generation. It remained consistent. We had a positive free cash flow of $1. excuse me, a positive cash flow generation of $9.1 billion and a positive free cash flow of $6.1 billion. This was enough to sustain our investments and financial investments. We also were able to pay out dividends throughout the quarter. As you can see on the right-hand side of the graph, We used our cash to pay dividends, as approved in the previous quarter, of around $7.3 billion, including share buybacks. We also made $2.9 billion in investments and made payments of leasings and liabilities of $2 billion. Net financial debt amortizations were $700 million, and financial expenses accounted for to $400 million. Also, our CapEx totaled $6.4 billion in the first half of 2024, 12% higher than in the first half of 2023. We project to end 2024 with investments ranging from $13.5 to $14.5 billion, which is an increase of 7% to 15% compared to 2023. It's important to note that this rate Revision has no impact in the company's production curve. Slide 9 discusses our financial debt. It has reached its lowest level since the third quarter of 2008. We are now at $26 billion, a reduction of $2.5 billion versus the previous quarter. Gross debt went down to $59.6 billion. Our cash position is robust and we have reached over $13 billion at the end of the quarter. We concluded the quarter with a spread to the U.S. Treasury rate of 2.2, the lowest in the last years, and an average debt maturity of nearly 12 years. The next slide shows our commitment to shareholder remuneration and financial sustainability. Our board recently approved dividends and interest on owned capital for the second quarter of 2024 of 1.05 Brazilian real per share, which will be paid in two equal installments in November and December of 2024. Shareholder remuneration for the second quarter is 14.3 billion, and this includes share buybacks amounting to 700 million and dividends plus interest on capital of 13.6 billion Brazilian reals. Our strong cash generation has allowed us to pay these dividends according to our current policy. The next slide shows an accrued vision for this half. in which dividends exceed our results due to these one-off events that had a residual impact on cash. This has allowed us to comply with our shareholder remuneration as we have paid investments, taxes, salaries, and so on. So we are using our capital reserve created in 2023 to insure resources for dividend payments, among other things, helping to balance eventual gaps between cash and earnings. In 2023, our results were above our cash, which was enough to pay dividends and constitute a remuneration reserve. This half of the year, we had the opposite situation. So now we are using the reserve for what it was created. to speak in numbers. In the April General Assembly, we approved 21.9 billion to this reserve. And considering we had 27 billion and the available cash of 20 billion, we are using 6.4 billion from our remuneration reserve to pay dividends and interest on our own capital. The balance remains relevant, 15.5 billion Brazilian reals. We continue with the next and final slide. Here we can see how we were able to have a total shareholder return above the majors. Despite these advances, we still have a gap on enterprise value to EBITDA. This is an opportunity for the company. So we have to continue working to deliver value through growth and profitability with discipline, especially in capital and governance. We see many opportunities for Petrobras. We have profitable projects. We can expand our production, decarbonize it, and also provide more value to our shareholders and to Brazil. This concludes my presentation, and I will now pass it over to Eduardo, who will begin our questions and answers session. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Fernando. And we'll start the Q&A session. I kindly ask each participant to ask at most two questions. so that we can have as many participants asking their questions in the session as possible. The first question comes from Bruno Montanari from Morgan Stanley. Over to you, Bruno. Good morning, and thanks for accepting my questions. My first question is about the compensation to shareholders and thinking about a decision where we're potentially going to be paying more extraordinary dividends, what's the company's perspective for the best moment to make this decision? Would you wait until the end of the fiscal year or could we think about payments after the closing of the third quarter of 2024, where the cash flow must be very high. And concerning compensation to shareholders, the company concluded very successfully the pilot purchasing program. So how successful was the compensation strategy? Should we expect maybe a bigger buyback program? And my second question is about international exploration. Could you talk about the strategic fit of potentially diversifying the exploration portfolio, such as, for instance, in Namibia's basins and potential disbursements with these acquisitions, Are they considered in the investment plan? My question is because expenses with exploration add up to approximately $1.3 billion. This could be small vis-a-vis some opportunities that we can see, such as the case of Namibia, for instance. Thank you. Thank you, Bruno. And I'll ask Fernando to answer these questions. Over to you, Fernando. Thanks, Bruno. I think you mentioned an important aspect that we have to clarify. A lot's been discussed about that. So I'll take the opportunity to clarify about how the reserve works. Having a reserve does not mean that we have cash flow. It's an accounting reserve. It's different concepts in that regard. The reserve is an accounting provision that's associated to the allocation of profit and in the fiscal years. And we know that there is no perfect correlation between the generation of profit and cash generation. These are different concepts and they can happen differently. Last quarter, we had a low profit, but we maintained the cash flow generation stable. So I'd like you to understand that when you decide to pay dividends, whatever they are, we consider the company's cash flow and the capacity to generate the flows in the future and not In 2023, Petrobras had more profit than what it paid in dividends, as I showed in the presentation, and that's why it created a $21.9 billion reserve. And the opposite happened in the second quarter due to losses of the quarter, due to exclusive items associated to a strong cash flow generation. We used the reserve to subsidize payments. By the way, I wish to remind you that this possible mismatch between the profit and cash flow served as a motivation for the creation of the reserve in 2023. If we didn't have a reserve today, it would be difficult to pay the quarterly dividends for us since then. Our dividends amounted to 27, and the profit was 20 billion. It's a difference of approximately 6 billion reais, and that's why we resorted to the reserve. About the decision, to us, it's just natural to assess it when we approve the strategic planning once the extraordinary payments depend on future flows and not the capital compensation reserve. And to highlight, the decision to use the reserve yesterday will not affect our capacity to pay the extraordinary dividends about the buyback program. We have had no formal discussion about that. We completed the program in August at almost $1 billion. And what we're doing now, I asked my team to assess the real effectiveness and efficiency of the capital for that operation. To your second question about Namibia, our intention is to diversify the portfolio, and that's key for the growth of the company. And as a reminder, according to the current strategic planning, we have an expectation to reduce production as of 2030. I consider that that's far from ideal. And therefore, we need to make efforts in Brazil or in the equatorial margin and Palotas Basin or abroad to have an adequate profile for long-term production. And I want to emphasize that we'll only enter into agreements at adequate prices. We want to generate value with our experience in deep waters. About the CapEx, as you mentioned, we... have not published how much we have allocated for bids and et cetera because that's a business secret. But from a practical perspective, the lack of allocation will not prevent us from leveraging opportunities. Of course, we'll assess every opportunity we have as long as they adequately reflect the allocation of capital. We just need to – keep the yearly budget stable thanks fernando now vicente from bradesco you have the floor thanks to do and fernando and everybody for your attendance i have two questions we're now entering a period of higher demand for diesel And apparently Russia is prioritizing the supply of other markets. I think the shipments to Brazil are decreasing. What's Petrobras' strategy to supply diesel to Brazil in the third quarter? Are you going to work along with other importers or not? The second question I'd like to understand from a technical standpoint, what based the decisions made? to change the NP agency. Can we expect anything different for the development programs, especially if we think about costs? Thank you. Well, I'll ask Director Schlosser to answer your first question. Schlosser, please. Good morning, Vicente. You did a perfect analysis. We have a seasonality in the second half of the year, which is related to an additional consumption of diesel, whether it is to the crops in Brazil or due to stock formation in the north. So there's a bigger pressure on diesel, definitely. And about the supply, Petrobras is not the only company that supplies to Brazil. We have private refineries, petrochemical companies. We have importers that also operate in this market so let's talk about planning what we do is a multi-annual planning knowing that there is a certain seasonality and it is recurrent every year our plan already provides for a series of measures the most important one is about the downtimes the maintenance downtimes. We try to allocate them to periods where the demand is a little lower, like January, for instance. We also do active management of our inventories. So knowing about this demand fluctuation, we try to take advantage from our exports of byproducts to Asia, and we also Using the backward shipping, we also sent back diesel to replenish the inventories. And he also talked about the Russian diesel and its prioritization by the domestic market. We do not import diesel from Russia, so it will not affect our plans. We're fully prepared to cater to the demands of our customers. Thanks, Schlosser. Good morning. Vicente, it's a pleasure to speak to you and everybody that's watching this conversation. Well, from the perspective of forming new teams in the exploration and production department. We have decided to replace some executive managers. But Petrobras has a very solid process whereby it educates and trains its workforce. So historically speaking, it has always trained excellent workers. The new director, And she's the one that makes the decisions about the new management positions, especially the executive managers and general managers. She is a geologist with NASA. 40-year experience, and she participated in many discoveries of the company. And the fact that the company selected her for this position in itself indicates that the company wishes to expand its portfolio of reserves. And when she sets up a team, she chooses experienced professionals and that basically come from the technical staff of the company. If we take, for instance, the two new representatives of deep and ultra-deepwaters, one of them will remain in its position, Paula Mourinho, that's been with the company for 20 years, and Cesar He's been with the company for 22 years. If you talk about E&P, there is John Yolton, geologist, extremely renowned with a 37-year experience with the company. Ginaldo, that's replacing Bruno. He's also an acknowledged professional in several areas. He's a professor in several departments, and he has 21 years of experience. I've I have a 37-year experience, and Bruno, he has a 20-year experience. Professor Eduardo, he'd been working as a consultant to the presidency, has a fantastic experience with a Ph.D., and he's a reference not only for the internal market but also for the foreign market. So it's an extremely robust team and a very solid one. And we basically have professionals with long-term experience. And if we draw a parallel with the law of essays in Article 17, they can certainly occupy positions as directors or hire in any state-owned company of Brazil. So it's a very robust team that's been widely discussed by Director Silva and President Magda about Buzio's To your point, I spent this morning at our operations center already, and right now we have a platform with programs of downtime, and we're producing – thousands of barrels of oil and will reach record-breaking productions. That's in excess of 800,000 barrels, and we expect to ramp up. From Admiral Barroso, we received authorization for additional production vis-à-vis the original project, and so with the arrival of Admiral Tamandere that's underway, it left China A week ago, we are going to incorporate a big platform to the Buzio system with a processing plant of 225 barrels. So what we have ahead of us is extremely promising, especially for Buzio. As soon as the platform arrives, we're thinking about initiating an internal motivational process to move towards 1 million barrels of oil in Buzio's within a timeframe that's to be defined. So it's quite promising with robust teams, with extremely acknowledged professionals, especially with deep knowledge about the market, trained by Petrobras, and that's acknowledged by the internal body of the company. Thanks, Victor. On to the next questions from Pedro Suarez, BTG Pactual. Pedro, over to you. Good morning, everyone. I have two questions. The first question goes to Fernando. I think you were very clear when you explained that extraordinary dividends are not attached. Your decision about them is not attached to the reserve itself, but rather the cash flow of the company in the context of what you forecast for investment. So maybe you could explain to us what you imagine for an ideal cash flow for the company. Do the $13 billion seem to be above or below so that we can try to have a better understanding about the expectations for the extraordinary moving forwards, given that your investments are apparently very well funded by the quarterly cash flow generation? And about production, I'd like to hear from you about the July production levels. We're a bit in the dark, as it were, with the daily information from A&P and also how long will it take us to normalize and to go back to normal in the exit rate for 2024. That's it. Thank you. Thanks, Pedro. First, I'll give the floor to Victor will talk about production, and then Fernando will talk about the cash flow. About production, we're working within the projected levels, and this is our perspective up until the end of the year, to work within the limits of our business plan at $3.8 billion oil equivalent. We're within average. And we'll certainly attempt to remain as such up until the end of the year. We really had a few hindrances to the production curve forecast for July. A few downtimes that are being postponed. Like I said, the P74. and some occurrences, some incidents that we had that we are correcting. We had a downtime at P38 due to an unforeseen problem. The measures are being taken, and we're in a process of recovery, and I believe that in 30 or 45 days, that will go back to normal. P53 also... was faced a problem and it's being solved. And B223 A&P is being solved already. And we also had from with the Whaler at Broncador. So these issues will be compensated They've already been considered according to our expectations. And of course, we always work within the margins of our business plan. As I said, we also have positive perspectives for production, not only July, but also next year. Also, based on our risk department, especially this growth that we're having at Almirante Bajoso. With Almirante Bajoso, there's also the arrival of Maria Kateria to the Jabarchi field. We'll probably anticipate that vis-a-vis the previously existing business plan. Maria Kateria is already moving to its location in Espirito Santo, and there's Admiral Tsimandere that's And we'll make every effort with the team to anticipate that vis-a-vis the business plan. So we did have some incidents that were, of course, unforeseen. And that's just part of our activity, our relationship with the control agencies and to maintain the safety levels. That's fundamental. But we also had positive incidents that will put us back on track. Thanks, Wagner. Well, about the optimal or optimized cash flow, thanks for the question. I think this is a discussion that at finance, in the finance department of any institution, we're constantly discussing. It's a living organism that depends on the current scenario and the investment scenario. If you're divesting or investing or investing If you're going through a flat period inside the company, all of that interferes with the ideal cash flow size that we will try to achieve for the company that we call an optimized cash flow. Of course, this is not an accurate number. We always work with range, and we use every piece of information we have in terms of flows, inflows, outflows. Strategic planning is an important input that we need to have access to because this is what generates the biggest outflow. There's also the operational resources. So we feed all of that into a modeling and we add stress situation data And its size is a size that's able to support or to withstand high impacts in unexpected events with low probability. So a high impact, low probability event needs to be – you have to be able – They have a plan that will allow you to have enough cash flow to withstand that situation. You're talking about the tail of a curve, statistically speaking, and these tests have been modeled very robustly at Petrobras. When I came to Petrobras, I was dedicated to understanding that. I was truly happy about the modeling that we have, and it's in this sense that we're trying to achieve that. Curve has reached 13.5 now. And there were some points in the past where we reached 8 billion. And we have a metric, which is a number that we don't publish. But we understand that optimization is not working 100% yet. But by 2025, we're going to get there. Thanks, Fernando. Gabrielle Baja from Citi. Gabrielle. Thanks, Najee and Fernando. So I'm going to focus on my two questions. Picking up on the conversation about internationalization, lots been said about licensing and Magda, she mentioned that the territorial margin and Pilates are very important for the company, but we've been seeing some delays in obtaining the licenses and my question is um would internationalization be a b plan to mitigate these impacts or delays uh regarding pilates or is it a structural plan of the company and if so um How should we think about it moving forward? And about CapEx, maybe that's the question that I received the most this morning. There's a lot of questions about the shape of the curve of investments, if there was a decrease in the guidance for this year, and if without a decrease in production. Or did it have a little bit more of fats than it should? Or did a company gain efficiency over time and it's now adjusting for it? So it's two questions, actually. One, if we look at the lower CapEx, would that be postponed to next year? Or is it really an efficiency gain? And the shape of the curve of investments moving forward, should that be modified? giving that we're being more conservative in terms of the investment plans of the company, especially about the upstream? And how would that communicate with a slightly tighter industry in terms of contracting FPSOs and vessels? And how can we expedite that in the next few years? Those are my questions. Thank you. So I'll give the floor to Fernando about CapEx. And maybe Victor. Thank you, Gabrielle. Our plan last year was really 18.5 billion. And now it's between 3.5 and 14.5 billion. But it's still too early. We're still in the middle of the strategic plan. It's still early to accurately say what the final amount is going to be. What I can tell you is that we're going to try to deliver a CapEx that's realistic and that provides growth for the company. Our capex for this year is higher than the capex for last year, and certainly the one for next year is going to be higher than this year's capex. I can guarantee that to you. And we need our plan, and that's what we are trying to do. We need to have an efficient and effective capex that brings about an increase to our production curve. And now talking about the latest news and licensing, it's just obvious that our strategy is to focus on the replacement of reserves. We've been declaring that. President Magda, since she arrived, she's been talking about the replacement of reserves. We're not comfortable with that. with the previous strategic planning that shows a reduction as of 2030. So we're trying to revert that. So each drop of oil matters to us and that's why we're going to analyze any opportunity that is economically feasible. It needs to bring about a generation of value to the shareholders. About the equatorial margin, of course, the fewer opportunities we have in Brazil, the greater the need to go international. Of course, if you want to supply the energy needs of the country, you need to go beyond our borders, and we will do that if necessary. With the purpose of catering to the domestic demands for electricity, at least. And I'd like to reinforce the importance of the equatorial margin. We'll move forward with the licensing process. It's a moment for exploration, not production, but our expectation is pretty high. We're pretty optimistic about the exploration and that we will have a positive production and about the licenses We are also quite positive in that we are very close to being granted the licenses and we feel pretty optimistic. That's as it should be, right? And Victor, you wanna add anything? Yes, certainly. What I would like to add is that last week we had a meeting And when we start talking about the behavior of CapEx, the planned CapEx, we had this meeting and we opened the curves. So when you analyze the CapEx, you can analyze it as a whole or for specific periods. And we started opening up the curves platform by platform, including Buzio's. And we saw that sometimes the physical progress is much higher than the current progress, as Gabrielle said. it could be seen as a gain of efficiency. So oftentimes, the fact that the capex is a bit lower, this does not always represent a delay related to the process. There is also a way to recompose the acceleration of the capex, but what we can see platform by platform is that We have the physical behavior of the platform. And of course, the deadlines are readjusted for each review of the business plan. But the behavior of the physical curve is above that of the financial curve. Of course, this learning will be used to. in the future for new bidding routes because we effectively always attempt to have a physical behavior very close to that of the financial behavior, which influences the future prices and all that. And Director Renata can also maybe add something about the meeting. Good morning. And I want to thank everybody that's attending. Like Victor said, The most important factor preventing us from realizing the capex was this mismatch between the financial payment with the physical milestones. We're adjusting that, and that will not get in the way of the first period. Another thing that happened was that we postponed signing. The contracts of the new projects, they're outside of the horizon of the plan. They're only for 2029 and 2030, and they will not impact the oil curve now. Another aspect that had an impact on the CAPEX was that we have a pool of rigs. And this pool of rigs caters to the needs of the CAPEX and OPEX. And the allocation of these rigs occurs by analyzing the best results for the company. And we had planned much more specifically for the CAPEX, but there was an opportunity around well maintenance, and we could get more oil now. So we reallocated that from CAPEX to OPEX. Another thing that had an impact on the CAPEX was the postponement of downtimes in refineries. We're having construction works at Renest, and we're going to have to have some downtimes for Renest. And the In order for us not to have two downtimes at the refinery, we postponed the first downtime to coincide it with the beginning of the construction works for next year. So those were the reasons. There is no impact on the oil curve for this year. Quite the opposite, we're being able to anticipate Maria Cataria, as you all saw, and it's already in Brazil. It has already gone through customs, and it will probably go to the location in the next few days, and then it will be ready for anchoring and line connection so that we extract the first oil. And as Victor had said, Admiralty Mandara is already on its way to Brazil, and we will make every effort to be able to anticipate or to move its production forward. Basically, that's what I had. I don't know if you have any more comments.

Thank you, Victor, and thank you, Fernando. Let's continue with the next question from Luis Carvalho. Go ahead. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on your results. I have a couple of questions. The first is for Fernando. So let's go back to the capital allocation point. I'd just like to talk about rebalancing M&As, your minimal cash position that you mentioned before, and your gross debt vis-a-vis dividends. As Director Victor mentioned, the company has four units affected that will be brought into the line in the next months. for them would need to go into the balance. So if the company temporarily goes beyond its gross debt limit set by the plan, the $65 billion, would it still be possible to pay dividends according to your 45% policy in the cash flow? And how would that impact the possibility of paying out the extraordinary dividends from 2023. My second question is about M&As. You've discussed this, but I'd like to ask about Relum. So how are the discussions going on a transaction there? Would you intend to have controls? Would you... see a possibility of having a minority stake? Would you wait for the CED for approval? And how do you deal with these M&A disbursements and the potential for dividend payouts? Thank you, Luis. Fernando will answer your first question. Go ahead, Fernando. Thank you, Luis. Well, it's important to clarify that Ordinary dividends are mandatory. We have a policy that given the three conditions we set, which are having a positive accumulated result, debt under $65 billion, and sustainability in the company, then dividends can be paid out. but the policy is set by CA. So if we had an excess debt, then we could look into it and see what is the company's cash conditions. If this is a temporary situation or if it's structural, and then we can propose payments. But Luis, I want to assure you that we don't expect our model, which is quite robust, even with random simulations, none of it says that we would go over $65 billion in debt. So we feel very confident in saying that there's really no risk of not having ordinary dividend payouts. For the remainder, the extraordinary payouts, we will need to study this during our strategic plan. That's when we'll have a better view of how much financing our investments require, what will be our availability for cash, how robust our risk models will be, and that will ensure that the company is sustainable. Hi, everyone. This is William. Thank you for being here. Regarding our refinery in Bahia, I'm happy that you mentioned its name because it's one of the most significant refineries in the country's history. So, yes, we are speaking to the Badal Group. About two things. First, a possible partnership. We don't know what percentage we would have with RELUN. And there's also a biorefinery plant that can be built next to the refinery. That's a possible partnership. About the refinery itself, we're concluding our due diligence process. evaluation of course looking at economic viability integration and the synergy with our refineries so that in the right moment we can make a proposal for the badala group so we are concluding with our due diligence so that at the right time we can make a proposal and things are going well if i can add to that answer The importance of always, it's important to always refer back to something. It was the company that initiated the process. They came to Petrobras with a possible joint business. But what does that mean? That means that any societal possibility can happen. nothing is set in stone. What is important here is what will give us the best return for our shareholders, the best capital allocation. That is what matters. Thank you, Fernando. Thank you, William. The next question will be asked by Regis Cardozo from XP. Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. So, I'll start with a question on Relum. And I'd also like to ask, what is the rationale for Petrobras to buy it back? And would you need an approval from the CAD? Considering that this refinery was listed as a divestment, I know that the refinery changed significantly. It was upgraded. So if you could tell us a little bit more about what changed. And there's also a green refinement process, refining process there that I think you can mention. Basically, I would like to ask about relam. And a different question would be about the integrity of the pre-salt. There are some platforms in the Tupi and Sapinoa fields that have been producing for more than 10 years. So if you could tell us a little bit about maintenance, system integrity. Do you have a measurement? Have you assessed how much the utilization rate has changed? And what about maintenance or life extension? If you could tell us a little bit more about that. Thank you. Thank you, Hedges. I'm going to pass this question to Dr. William, and the rest of the team will answer your second question. Okay, let me begin before I pass it over to Fernando. There was no material change. RELAM is working with the same hardware. There were some investments, but this was just regular downtimes. With the catalyst unit, that's the conversion unit, that reduces residue and increases high-octane gasoline production. and also dredging, early dredging in the channel that would allow bigger vessels to come in and makes the refinery more flexible. But there was no significant change. We continued with the same hardware. Concerning the rationale, I'll pass it over to Fernando, but I can say that we are working – With some synergy, not only integrating refineries, but you know that there's a lot of synergy between petrochemicals and refining. Over to Fernando. Yes, this synergy is very important to consider in our rationale. If these synergies are captured... And if we understand that this is a good deal, we're talking about a profitable business that will generate results and value for our shareholder. And this is the goal since I was invited by Magda to start it. We've always been business-minded and we're obviously looking at the social, environmental, and governance aspects. But if it makes sense, if synergies are captured, and if the right price is set, then why shouldn't we do it? Any deal, if it has the right ESG aspects, the right price, and if it generates value for our shareholders and for Brazilian society, We will analyze it. Thank you for your question. I think that's a great question that allows us to explain a couple of things. Most of our production is in the pre-salt layer. So this concern about the future of pre-salt is very important for the company, for our shareholders, and the entire market. Pre-salt does not only contribute to the company's results, but also to society and to our shareholders with special participations and royalties. We have a very robust system to manage our reserves, the flexibility between the injection of air, excuse me, water or gas, We're very close to the wells, but there are a few conditions that ensure that this will continue in the future. First, you mentioned 2P, so we have very experienced partners. This discussion is not only happening within the company. We're discussing it with partners in this process. So this contribution is very important. We're reinforcing our teams with engineers. We have about 140 reserve engineers. We've contracted 30 more engineers. They are usually the people who analyze this entire process and the entire lifespan. And it takes about 10 years to train one. So we're investing to... assess 4D seismic, and that's the traditional 3D seismic analysis with a fourth dimension, which is time. So this allows you to have the best management of your reserves. But above all, we have something that is unique to the company's history. We have two executive managers, which are very experienced, who are reserve engineers. One of them is Jamal, which is our executive manager. But we have something that is different. We have a CEO who is a reserve engineer, and that's very interesting. I'll tell you something. This week, before we had a meeting And I brought in engineers from basically all of our areas with the CEO. It was a three-hour meeting. And the level of details, our CEO is not simply a reserve engineer, but she actually worked in regulations. And it really demonstrated how much our teams are aligned in managing our reserves. and how we will have more requirements there. Because in this meeting, we were very firm. It was long. We had teams from Shimal and everyone else. And the entire team went in deep into the topic. I don't think that in our history have ever been as aligned as we are right now. So that makes us very confident with the teams we have, especially due to how skillful our leaders are at that. So I'm very happy and proud to tell you that we have a very close technical alignment, especially in this area, which is essential for the company's future. This is William. I just want to add and say that she's also a she has a master's in chemical engineering. So in different areas of the process, we have a lot of requirements. Yes. And she is also very detail oriented in her requirements. It's not just an engineer who looks at a spreadsheet. She is an engineer that really understands things and is demanding, and that's important because it drives teams and it shows them that they are being supervised from the top. Recently, she visited our COE, our Integrated Operations Center, and she spoke to our representatives. who are there 24-7. So each of our fields, each of our operations centers has an engineer 24-7 to manage that field and to extract as much as we can. And that, of course, will be the company's future.