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Aker Asa A Shs
7/17/2024
Good morning and welcome to Akers Solutions presentation of our second quarter and half year results. My name is Preben Ørbæk and I am the head of investor relations. With me here today is our CEO, Kjetil Digre, and our CFO, Idar Eikrem. They will take you through the main developments of the quarter. After the presentation, we have time for questions. Those of you who are following the audio cast can submit your questions via the online platform. And with that, I leave the floor to Kjetil Digre.
Thank you, Preben, and welcome to everyone listening in. I'm happy to report another quarter with impressive financial results. I want to thank everyone in Aker Solutions for making this happen. Our second quarter revenue was 12.8 billion kroner with an EBITDA margin of 9.5%, including the net income from one subsea. We delivered a solid 15.5 billion in order intake in the quarter, or 1.2 times book-to-bill. And our backlog ended at 71.4 billion. Our financial position remains robust, with a net cash position of about 11 billion, including investments in liquid funds. During the first half of 2024, we have distributed about 1.4 billion to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks in line with our dividend policy. These financial results are the outcome of strong operational performance on our project portfolio. In these times of geopolitical tension impacting our markets and supply chain, I am very proud to see that we continue to meet our execution milestones. For instance, with the start of sea trials for the Kasper FPSO and the delivery and subsequent offshore installation of the Fenris PDM module and jacket for Acre BP. In May, we launched a new brand for our energy consultancy called Enter. The new brand reflects Aker Solutions' evolution and ongoing commitment to support customers in an increasingly complex and fast-moving energy landscape, building on the company's long and successful history of engineering, innovation, project development and delivery, to provide a broader set of advisory services. As stated several times over the past quarters, the outlook for ARCA Solutions remains positive. Our large secured order backlog gives us a clear view on future activity levels. Our services are in high demand, enabling us to be very selective in which projects we take on. Next, let me briefly take you through some of our operational highlights this quarter. For the Aker BP portfolio, the large greenfield projects are progressing as planned with high activity across locations. I will return with more detail on the specific projects shortly. After about two years at dock at Stord, Equinor's Johan Kasper FBSO left the Stordjard in late May to begin sea trials in Klosterfjorden before heading towards the Baren Sea. With recoverable resource of more than 450 million barrels of oil equivalents, the project will be a key contributor to energy security and value creation for the next 30 years. In our international lifecycle portfolio, we are currently engaged in a very interesting project at the Adriatic LNG facility in Italy. Delivering more than 14% of the country's natural gas consumption, the facility is a critical part of Italy's energy infrastructure. Arca Solutions has been involved in the project since 2004, providing engineering and construction support services for the gravity-based structure. Our current scope includes engineering, procurement, and management services for their de-bottlenecking project, focused on ensuring optimized production at the lowest cost for end users. Moving over to our electrification portfolio, where Equinor's two platforms, Troll B and Troll C, have been connected to Power From Shore and are in the final stages of commissioning for part electrification. Since the mid-1990s, Aker Solutions has taken a leading role in the electrification of offshore oil and gas platforms. Once fully operational, the Troll West project will reduce carbon emissions by about 500,000 tonnes annually. The Draugen Power From Shore and the connected Njord Electrification Project further add to our experience with major electrification projects. We are also engaged in several early phase studies, which we believe will develop into a significant portfolio of electrification projects going forward. In our hydropower business, we are experiencing high market activity and strong demand for our electromechanical systems and services. During the quarter, we successfully completed the Løkjellsvatten hydropower project. And for this project, Aker Solutions has delivered both the turbine, intake valve, cooling and drainage system, and the full turbine generator. The project started back in 2018 and will once fully operational add 20 gigawatt hours of green energy annually to the Norwegian grid. Lastly, I wanted to touch upon our CCS project portfolio. During the period, Aker Solutions has completed its delivery for the Northern Lights CO2 receiving facility on the west coast of Norway. Northern Lights is part of the Norwegian government's longship project for establishing a full-scale carbon capture, transport and storage value chain in Norway. Aker Solutions is also engaged in Heidelberg's Cements Carbon Capture project at Brevik, and is responsible for the Feed for Celsius Waste to Energy Carbon Capture and Storage project in Oslo. Projects under the well-proven alliance model with Aker BP represents more than half of our current backlog. The portfolio consists of four new platforms with a combined weight of more than 90,000 tons, as well as more than 50 projects in our lifecycle segment. During the second quarter, we have seen high activity and strong progress across all the platform projects. At the Hugeney, the first steel sections for the topside have been completed at Storvd, and are now undergoing surface treatment. In addition, the first sections of the living quarter has been safely moved out from the fabrication hall at our partner yard in Leirevik. At Fenris, the smallest platform in the portfolio, both the jacket and pre-drilling module were successfully delivered from our yard at Vardal and later installed at the field. For the two other projects, Hugen B and Valhall PWT, topside and jacket fabrication are progressing according to plan. To ensure efficient and safe execution, Aker Solutions is investing in new technologies and digital solutions. One example is the fully automated production line at Verdal, that you see in the picture to the bottom left. We are also seeing the real impact of our digital solutions as the projects progress in the construction phase, ensuring better collaboration, precision and productivity. I also wanted to highlight the important deliveries from One Subsea to Aker BP through the Subsea Alliance. With more than 50 Subsea wells to be completed between 2024 and 2027, One Subsea plays an important role in the development of these projects. Aker Solutions is both a proud co-owner and an execution partner for One Subsea, delivering a range of fabrication, machining and engineering services. All in all, I'm very happy to see that Aker Solutions and our partners are making solid progress on the Aker BP portfolio. The achievements in the alliance is a clear testament to the value of working closely together with aligned incentives, delivering quality projects with faster time to first oil. Moving over to our order intake in the period. In the renewables and field development segment, we booked an order intake of 8.8 billion in the second quarter. This mainly came from growth in existing projects, but also continued high activity in our energy consultancy business. In the lifecycle segment, we recorded about 6.6 billion in order intake. During the quarter, we announced three awards in this segment. The first was the Bestla tieback project for Okea, where Aker Solutions will provide modification services on the Brage platform in the North Sea. The second contract was for the upgrade of the wastewater treatment plant at the Mongstad refinery for Eknor in Western Norway. And the third award was a continuation of the frame agreement with Azul Energy, a joint venture between BP and ENI for brownfield and modification services in Angola. Aker Solutions has worked with Azul in Angola since 2018, and we are very pleased that the customer has placed its trust in us again. Our lifecycle segment currently has a record high secured order backlog of about 24 billion, representing almost two times annual revenues in the segment. The segment has a broad set of offerings covering the operational phase of energy assets. More than half of the volume relates to long-term frame agreements with key clients such as Equinor, Aker BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, Shell, Okea and BP. Aker Solutions' frame agreements currently covers the majority of offshore oil and gas facilities in Norway, Canada and Brunei, and some selected assets in UK and Angola. Optimizing production from existing assets requires larger modifications like upgrades of process systems to enable production from new substations, changes of operational requirements, as well as lifetime extensions. Our deep knowledge of the assets makes AKE Solutions the preferred partner for executing these modifications in our current core markets. Akersolutions also provides hookup and commissioning services. These services are critical to ensure timely, cost-efficient and safe startup for new facilities coming on stream. Lastly, the lifecycle segment has taken a leading role in the decarbonization of oil and gas platforms, replacing today's gas turbines with clean power. To date, Arca Solutions has supported the electrification of more than 10 offshore assets. We also support customers in reducing emissions through studies enabling them to select cost-efficient solutions with lower environmental impact. With its record high backlog of low risk projects with long term customers across the energy space, our lifecycle segment is uniquely positioned to support customers through the energy trilemma of delivering affordable, reliable and sustainable energy to the world. Then moving over to our tender pipeline, which at the end of the second quarter had increased to about 70 billion. We continue to see a good mix of traditional oil and gas developments, decarbonisation projects and renewables opportunities in the pipeline. We remain highly selective on which projects to target. We only focus on projects with the right risk-reward balance. Therefore, we target customers and strategic partners who see the value of working closely together over time with aligned incentives. We work in geographical regions we know well and where we have established relationships with local stakeholders. Lastly, we are focused on identifying scopes of work where we can contribute with the full breadth of our capabilities. Before I go into the general outlook for Akka Solutions, I wanted to say a few words about the energy consultancy. In late May, we announced ENTER, our new brand for energy consultancy. Today this is an organization of about 300 dedicated employees drawing on the combined capacity and competencies of more than 4,000 engineers across the company. By expanding our service offering, we aim to help our customers to make robust investment decisions in an increasingly complex energy landscape. We continue to experience strong demand for our services. During the first half of 2024, we have worked on more than 200 projects for a wide variety of customers with a good balance between renewables, transitional energy and more traditional oil and gas studies. We have also secured long-term frame agreements for engineering services from several international clients. One of these clients is Petronas, for which we recently delivered a pre-feed study for a potential CCS project in Malaysia, marking our first CCS engagement in the region. We also continue to work on major industrial decarbonisation projects, like Mongstad Industrial Transformation, as well as a number of offshore hub strategy studies with decarbonisation through electrification at their core. This takes me to the general outlook for Aker Solutions. First of all, I'm very proud to see that we continue to deliver on our financial targets, driven by solid operational performance. Our key focus is to deliver safe and predictable project execution on the large project portfolio. Secondly, we are progressing well on our transition journey, positioning the company for future profitable growth. We are currently engaged in some of the most important energy projects, focused on delivering secure and affordable energy to end users. We are also supporting the energy transition through a variety of projects across market verticals and geographical regions. Together with our partners, we are at the forefront of developing innovative technology and digital solutions to solve energy challenges for future generations. Lastly, our financial position remains robust. This gives us a strong foundation to grow the company and generate stable and solid returns for our shareholders over time. And now I will pass the word to Ida, who will go over the numbers in more detail. Thank you.
Thank you, Jetel. I will now take you through the key financial highlights of the second quarter, the half-year results, our segment performance, and run through our financial guidance. As always, all numbers mentioned are in Norwegian kronor. So let me start with the income statement. The second quarter revenue was 12.8 billion, up from 8.8 billion a year ago. This represents about 45% growth year on year. For the first half of the year, revenue reached about 24 billion, which is more than 50% higher than the same period last year. The underlying EBITDA in the quarter was 1.2 billion, up from 218 million a year ago, with a margin of 9.5%. For the first half of 2024, EBITDA was 2.2 billion, up from 466 million in the same period last year. The results were positively impacted by an oil and gas project reaching profit recognition milestones. but negatively affected by the legacy renewable projects. In addition, our share of the one subsea contributed with 185 million in the quarter, while other equity-accounted investees had a negative contribution in the period. Details on one subsea financial performance will be provided after SLB reports their second quarter results. The underlying EBIT for the quarter was 959 million, up from 60 million a year ago. The EBIT for the first half of 2024 was 1.7 billion, a more than tenfold increase from last year. Net financial items was negatively affected by the development in SLB share price and associated exchange rate in the period. The net income, excluding special items in the quarter, increased to 862 million, up from 571 million a year ago. Net income for the first half of 2024 was almost 1.6 billion, a 52% increase from last year. Lastly, earnings per share in the quarter was 1.78 kroner, up from 1.14 kroner a year ago. Earnings per share for the first half of 2024 was 3.19 kroner, up 55% from the same period last year. Let us now look at the financial position. We start with our working capital, which at the end of the quarter stood at minus 8.9 billion. We continue to expect working capital to normalize as we execute on the large order backlog, but now forecast that this will represent the cash outflow of around 3 billion in the second half of 2024. CapEx in the second quarter was around 400 million. This mainly relates to the planned investment to safeguard execution of the large oil and gas projects. We maintain our guidance on capex to be between 2.5% and 3% of revenues for the full year. We continue to have a solid net cash position of about 11 billion. This includes about 6 billion kroner of financial investments in liquid funds, which is not treated as cash under IFRS. Let us now look deeper at our cash flow development for the quarter. Operational cash flow in the period was 1.4 billion, mainly driven by EBITDA in the quarter. CapEx was, as mentioned, 413 million in line with our guidance. During the quarter, we received the remaining cash proceeds from subsea 7 of about 1.6 billion. We also received a closing account settlement from one subsea of about 300 million. The remaining proceeds from the subsidy transaction, namely the vendor note and the working capital loans, are expected to come over the next 6 to 12 months. As per our dividend policy, we distributed about 1.3 billion through cash dividends and share buybacks in the quarter. of the announced 500 million buyback program, ARCA Solutions has, per end of the second quarter, acquired treasury shares for about 454 million. Now over to our segments. For renewables and field development, the second quarter revenues increased to $9.4 billion, up from $5.4 billion last year, representing a year-on-year growth of about 75%. The underlying EBITDA in the quarter was $887 million, up from $208 million a year ago, with a margin of 9.4%. This was mainly positively impacted by one large project reaching the profit recognition milestones in the quarter. However, underlying margins are still negatively affected by the legacy renewable projects, which are to be delivered in 2025. The order intake in the quarter was 8.8 billion or 0.9 times book to bill. This was mainly driven by growth in scope on the existing project and the quarterly figure for order intake was positively impacted by a significant currency effect. The secured backlog remains high at 46.8 billion. Based on the secured backlog and market activity, we now expect the revenue in this segment to increase by about 65% in 2024 from 2023 levels. For the lifecycle segment, the second quarter revenue was 3 billion, which is slightly below the same period last year, mainly driven by lower third-party costs such as procurement. The underlying EBITDA in the quarter was 205 million up from 164 million last year and with a margin of 6.8%. This is driven by strong operational performance across the portfolio of frame agreements, modifications and other services. Order intake in the period was 6.6 billion, or 2.2 times book-to-bill, driven by the mentioned awards on Mongsta, Bestla and Azul. The backlog is all-time high at 23.8 billion, dominated by long-term frame agreements and mainly reimbursable modification projects with long-term customers. We expect the lifecycle segment to continue at close to 2023 levels also in 2024. Now over to order intake and backlog. Our backlog remains high at more than 71 billion, providing a good visibility on future activity levels. One thing is the size of the backlog, but much more importantly is the quality. More than half relates to the project to be executed in the well-proven alliance model with ARCA BP. Less than 7% relates to LAMPSEM project, mainly the legacy renewable project set to be delivered in 2025. This is a very good position to be in, and as Kjetil mentioned, our focus is to continue delivering predictable and solid execution to harvest upside potential and incentives. Now to sum up. In the second quarter, we continue to deliver strong financial and operational performance. Based on a secured backlog and market activity, 2024 revenue is expected to grow by around 40% compared to 2023. The EBITDA margin is now expected to be around 7.5% for the full year of 2024. In addition, one subsea will contribute to our financial performance through our 20% ownership. Working capital is expected to normalize in the second half of 2024 with a forecasted negative cash impact of around 3 billion. The CAPEX in 2024 is estimated to be between 2.5 and 3% of revenues, as we finalize our ongoing investment program to safeguard the large oil and gas projects in Norway, enabling us to utilize new technologies and digital solutions to enhance productivity, quality and safety. Over time, CAPEX is expected to be around 1.5% of revenues. The outlook for the company and for our industry is very positive, and Arke Solutions is in an excellent position to take advantage of opportunities ahead. Thank you for listening. That was the end of our presentation. We will now open up for questions.
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