Bw Offshore Adr

Good morning and welcome everyone to this fourth quarter 2024 presentation of BW Offshore. My name is Marco Benes, CEO, and I will present today together with our CFO, Stole Andreasen. We can start with the disclaimer. Please take notes and then I move on to the highlights. 2024 was a year with high uptime, good financial results and continued strong balance sheets. Our full year EBITDA of 380 million US dollar is in line with the latest guidance and above the initial expectations set at the start of 2024. Our full year net profit came in at 120 million US dollar. And this is the basis for increased shareholder return with the Q4 dividend of 25 million US dollar, and that results in a total of 59 million US dollar cash dividend for the full year. and that is 22% higher than last year. It also equals to 50% of our net income, and that's in line with our maximum allowed dividend level under our debt covenants for the second consecutive year. And furthermore, BWO-PAL, our FPSO for the Barossa project, is on track for sale away by end April. Then the BWO-PAL progress, first of all, on 15th of February, We have celebrated the naming ceremony of BWPAL in presence of our client Santos and its field partners, and also our asset partners, Itochu, Meiji Shipping and Macquarie, and more than 400 invited guests. It was an important day for everyone to look back and celebrate our journey, which started four years ago in the middle of COVID, followed by global inflation thereafter, as well as global supply chain disruptions due to geopolitical challenges. conflicts. These were unprecedented difficult years, but we stuck to our commitments and we safeguarded the interest of all stakeholders. And we have demonstrated that we can deliver one of the largest gas FPSOs in the world in full compliance with stringent Australian regulations. Something we are rightfully proud of, and it lays the foundation for future projects with top tier clients. Overall progress now is 92% with construction and integration at 99% and commissioning at 85%. The next milestone is sail away and the plan is to leave the yard close to 100% complete as we can finish the commissioning scope at the CTM yard and nearby deeper waters. So there will be only limited work remaining offshore. And with that, we will be on track to be ready for first gas by mid 2025. Based on the previous guidance on cost to complete the project, I'm also pleased to confirm that we are well within that updated budget. After SailAway, it will take two to three weeks towards from Singapore to the Barossa field, offshore Australia, At arrival on the field, we will immediately progress with the hookup scope. The mooring and riser system is already connected to a submerged buoy, which will be pulled in and then locked to the upper part of the turret mooring system, which is integrated in the hull. Remaining scope to get ready to receive first gas is some reinstatement scope and then followed by final leak testing. After the startup phase with First Gas, final testing of all FPSO systems and the other Barossa installations will follow. And this will take place during the third quarter of this year. And then full ramp-up of production and project completion with the formal contract startup is expected in the fourth quarter. And slowly we'll come back to how the phasing and the associated day rate payments will drive the 2025 P&L. For HSE and fleet performance, I'm happy to report a very good uptime of more than 99% in the fourth quarter, and this is delivered by our three operating units. We focus on maintaining a strong safety record, and that's covered by our operational integrity management system. The light green line is the most important metric, and that's the high potential incident frequency. And this is a leading indicator. In the quarter, we had one LTI in the yard without a serious injury, but with potential for severe impact. And so this was also counted as a HPI. In general, the statistics are good and benchmarked with UK oil and gas statistics. Our backlog stands at $6.2 billion, of which $5.3 billion is firm. The stable and high uptime of the three core units and operations deliver strong cash flow. And zooming in on these two units, on NADOLO, we delivered a record production in Q4, and we exceed the original nameplate capacity since November. And this is because the electrical submersible pumps have been replaced and new wells have been added. We're also preparing to hand over operations to BW Energy later this year. And that's because they have built a bigger presence in Gabon and that would allow to attain scale effects. BW sure maintains the ownership of the FPSO. And that means the bare board charter and the production tariff continues. And as such, the impact on the cash flow is limited. Also, Ketcher delivers stable operations with 100% commercial uptime, and we expect her to remain on contract through 2028. And then Pioneer, also stable operations with high uptime. The current contract expires 18th of March, and negotiations are progressing well. Further announcements on this will be made between now and 18th of March. And in the meantime, Murphy has announced a plan for further drilling in 2026. And with that, I hand over to Stole for the financial update.

Thank you, Marco, and good morning, everyone. The fleet continues to deliver steady financial performance with Q4 EBITDA at $72 million. Quarter on quarter, this is lower than Q3, which was positively impacted by a $10 million contribution from the Zachariah project. 2024, ABTA reached $318 million, aligning with the latest guidance, as Marco mentioned, and exceeding the initial forecast, which we had at $290 to $310 million. The fleet has delivered consistent and predictable results for 2024, And the results have been further improved by the $30 million contribution from the Sakuraya project. For 2025, we anticipate a temporary EBITDA dip to $220 to $250 million. This is down from 2024, although cash flow from operations are less impacted. For Adolo, we expect increased contribution in 2025 as the unit is expected to operate at or near full capacity, where the tariff under the lease will be improving EBTA year on year. For BW Catcher, we expect stable operation. However, as the prepayment on the lease has been fully amortized, the EBTA reduces by $60 million annually without cash flow being impacted. The current contract for Pioneer expires 18th of March, as Marco updated you on. Negotiations are progressing well, but due to the commercial sensitivity, we have chosen not to include any guidance beyond the current contract term or now. BW Opal is expected to start our production mid-this year. It will start with a reduced rate until we reach a practical completion expected Q4 this year and a formal contract period start. Although we will receive charter rate, we are under IFRS only allowed to start recognizing revenues upon practical completion, and all cash received before this date will then be amortized over the 15-year firm contract period. As a result, EBITDA from this unit in 2025 will be lower than the actual cash flow generated. SG&A is expected to be similar to 2024 and estimated at around $45 million, driven by an expectation of high tender activity also in 2025, and including SG&A for BW Ideal. This information can be really combined with our analyst slide further back in the presentation. Now, let's review the income statement. Depreciation is slightly reduced to just over 41 million due to reduced depreciation towards end of Q4 for catch-up. And note that depreciation into 2025 will drop compared to 2024 with reduced depreciation on catcher for the year. Again, we refer to our analyst slide for more information. Moving to other financial items, we see that this has given a strong positive impact in the quarter. This came from revaluation of our bond law in Norwegian kroner due to strengthening of US dollar. as well as a remeshment of the finance liability we have on our balance sheet related to the Brossa product. And this is a non-cash accounting technical remeshment we do. This positive impact was somewhat offset by a 9.5 million negative impact from equity accounted investments due to the remeshment of the counterbalance sheet asset in the Brossa joint venture, also a non-cash technical adjustment. And with that, we're overall pleased to be able to deliver a net profit of 40.8 million for Q4. Cashflow from operations came in at 79 million. When excluding prepayments from Santos, the underlying operational cashflow was good at $54 million. Investment cashflow remained focused on BWPAL with 84 out of 97 million allocated to the project. The remaining is largely capitalized tender cost for the block 29 tender we are pursuing for Repsol. We called 69 million net from the Brussels joint venture to fund ongoing activity for BWPAL in the quarter. And we reduced net debt by 171 million, of which 157 million is related to repayment of the convertible bond, which is now fully repaid, and the rest is for risk. for scheduled repayment of the catcher loan facility. So after paying 11 million in dividends in the quarter, we maintain a strong cash position at above $300 million. We continue to utilize the funding resources for BWPAL in line with progress on the project. In Q4, we drew down another 52 million on the project debt facility, leaving 88 million available. We required only $4 million in new equity, while Santos paid $25 million under the contract. This resulted in total received funding of $2,265,000,000, and the capex increased to just under $2.3 billion. Our net consolidated cash position continued to improve quarter on quarter as the fleet continued to deliver steady cash flow and stood at $74 million by end of the year. And as you can see on the right hand slide, our equity ratio increased to 30.8%. By year end, we do maintain a very strong liquidity position with 540 million in available liquidity. We do remain well positioned financially. We have a strong cash flow. We have ample liquidity that allows us to comfortably meet liabilities combined with financial flexibility that enables us to pursue growth opportunities as well as paying dividends. Our capital allocation framework is built upon a disciplined operating model where we build on the cash flow generated by our FBSOs. With the way we're operating, we have and we will have good visibility on cash flow going forward. We target to grow our FBSO business through new projects, which will increase free cash flow from the business over the next few years And we pursue projects where we can offer a competitive solution and where we can create strong value for our clients. Longer term, we aim to expand into low carbon energy production solutions by leveraging our FBSO expertise. And to do so, we need to invest, although we want to emphasize our very measured approach to this until commercial readiness can be demonstrated. We prioritize maintaining a strong balance sheet with modest gearing, while expanding on our liquidity sources, which again allows us to capitalize on targeted growth opportunities in the FBSO space and also target an overtime growing dividends to our shareholders. On the right hand side, you can see that we have consistently increased our dividend distribution since 2021, including a dividend for 2024, which is 33 cents per share or 59 million, which is a 22% increase year on year. If you look at that in context of the dividends we paid based on 2021 results, that is an increase of 135%. It also means that we have distributed 177 million since 2021 when you include the dividends we announced today. For 2025, our target is to continue to distribute a quarterly dividend based on a base of 25 cents per share annually, with the potential to upsize this if our net profit for the year would allow so. With that, I'll hand it back to Marco.

Yes, then a further update on our strategic priorities. First of all, the market, the FPSO market remains strong with a high number of projects on the map, while at the same time, awards have been lagging the last three years. And this puts more pressure on the timelines for new projects in the years ahead of us. Furthermore, the demand for new FPSO projects continues to be supported by the current energy prices. So this results in an active market, which is reflected in ongoing high tendering pre-feed and feed activities. For us with the Barossa project nearing completion, we have stepped up our level of engagement. However, we remain selective about which prospects to pursue. From what is shown on the map, my view is there are about 30 credible FPSO projects which could be awarded in the next three years. Of those, we have targeted about six where we have an edge. And of those six targets, we aim to land two in the next three years. We are well positioned in this market with a strong balance sheet, available capacity and a competitive offering, which leverages our large gas FPSO experience with a reference to the Barossa project, our proven Haas environmental capabilities supported by our own whole design and mooring solutions and relevant operational experience, our redeployment experience and also our long experience in flexible project financing solutions. Taking a closer look at two of those active prospects. First of all, block 29 for Repsol in Mexico. This is progressing well based on the OS X one redeployment. And that's a unit we're very familiar with. We're still at the feedstays with potential FID and contact award late 2025. The project is backed by strong counterparties and it meets our investment criteria. Then we are also one of the two FPSO providers chosen for the pre-feed for Equinor's Bay-D-North project, Offshore Canada. Here we leverage our proven harsh environment hull design, disconnectable mooring solutions, and our operational experience in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Again, investment grade clients and a project that meets our criteria. Moving on to Floating Wind. Our subsidiary BWDOL continues to make progress as an early mover within the emerging floating wind market. The picture on the right shows the fabrication for the EOMAT project in south of France. The floaters and turbines are on track for installation by year end, and this will bring the total number of BWDOL floaters in the water to five, which reinforces the leading position among technology deployed globally. In Scotland, the one gigawatt Buchan offshore wind is moving ahead as planned with consent application mid this year. And in France, partners EDF and Maple Power recently were awarded the 250 megawatt AO6 license based on BWDOL technology and local fabrication solutions. These two projects alone represent a tangible EPCI pipeline of some 70 floating foundations based on BWDL's patented and proven floater design. These floaters will be produced at the industrial concrete fabrication lines that are currently being developed in the UK and France. Longer term, BWDL in collaboration with BW Assure will focus on technology and EPCI offering supported by co-developments supported by co-development activities as a strategic enabler that brings me towards the end of the presentation summing up the 2024 highlights first of all bw paul is on track for sail away and first gas we positioned ourselves to deliver growth supported by a strong 2024 financial results a solid balance sheet, and our progress on early phase projects like Block29 for Repsol and BaiduNor for Equinor. And that with increased shareholder returns at 59 million US dollar cash dividend, which is above 11% annual yield at the current trading. Then the last slide, Outlook, our focus is on completing the Barossa project and start production from BWO Pal. Progressing multiple new FPSO projects and targets signing one new FPSO project during this year. Further develop our offering of energy transition solutions, including realizing BWEDO's potential as a leading floating wind technology and EPCI provider. And continue to share value creation directly with our shareholders. And that brings us to the Q&A part of this presentation.

Okay, then we'll move to the Q&A and I can remind everyone who wants to send in the Q&A on the chat, and then we'll pick them up. I'll start with the first one that is coming in from Jørgenstrand Soma from Eventi. And the question is, what are the company's projections for revenue growth in the next few years? and what factors are expected to drive this growth. You want to take this, Markus? I think this is related to the market opportunities we are pursuing and how they will contribute to potential growth for revenues in the years to come.

Yeah, I can say a few words. I did mention in this update of our look in the market, a strong market with many projects. that have been going through recycling process with our clients. So I think there's quite a big pressure in the market to sanction the next developments and address energy security challenges. And that also applies to FPSOs. So for us, as I said, on that market, we have identified six targets where we have an edge. and these targets could all result in an FID in the next 12 months to 36 months. We target then to land two of those in the next three years. That will drive the revenue growth. The size of these projects differ from, let's say, a billion to two billion plus, but then the larger projects we will probably do in partnerships. So, I mean, that's the kind of volume we're looking at that we're targeting for growth in the coming years.

Maybe just to add also in terms of the contract models, in terms of how the revenue will be growing for the company, also depends a bit on the contract model that is laid out. whether it's a lease, whether we build an asset for a future lease, or whether it's more related to EPC, where we build and deliver an asset, which will accelerate revenue generation from the projects. So that will also depend on this. But I think overall, as you say, we see a good market with lots of prospects, which also brings balance in terms of enough prospects for for us to be able to achieve a reasonable returns on the products we're pursuing. We are very positive to revenue growth within the next five years. One thing I just want to mention specifically is although we don't guide beyond 2025, it goes without saying that we expect a significant contribution from Opal in 2026. On a full year basis, this unit will generate about $260 million in EBTA on an annual basis. So overall, we expect significant revenue growth as you move from 2025 into 2026 for BW Offshore.

Yeah, and maybe a few more words on the contract models, as you mentioned, Stole. I think the contract models we see vary from still a lease and operate, for instance, the target in Gulf of Mexico with Repsol, that would be a 15-year lease and operate. But it can also be BOT, so where we build, operate, and then transfer. after initial operation period, and it could be EPCI plus O&M. Obviously, depending on the contract model, the distribution of the revenues of such project undertaking will be quite different. But in either case, we're a bit agnostic to what contract model it will be, as long as the risk profile suits the size of the company. And, uh, we're very focused on, um, on, on this growing, growing the company in this, in this strong market.

Yeah. Thank you. Uh, next question is from, uh, Martin Carlson from my DMV. And the question is, could you provide some update to the reduced rate, the percentage of the original rate for, for Opal until final completion? So I can, I can take that and that is correct. So, uh, as we. We said earlier in the presentation, the formal contract period only starts upon practical completion expected in Q4. That's the start of the formal 15-year firm period. Anything before that is a period which is set up under the contract to tune the facility to operate per specifications. So how it would work and try to be specific is that we expect to have ready for ready for startup to achieve ready for startup mid 2025. And as you achieve that you are on 60% of the full rate. And I think those who want can look at the annual EBTA contribution and do some approximation of this. So then you're on 60%. That period will take around three months, if everything goes as per plan, then you need to achieve what's called an interim performance test. And that's a period of one month in our schedule where we would be on 85% rate before you reach practical completion and the contract starts and you should be able to achieve 100% of the day rate. So that's what we mean by the reduced rate throughout the period, that there will be some months on reduced rate before we achieve a practical completion. And as I said again earlier, Under IFRS, we're not allowed to recognize any of this income in 2025. We need to put it on the balance sheet and we need to amortize that over the firm 15-year period, although we will be receiving cash from summer 2025. The next question is from Jørgen Soma again in Eventi. What are BW Offshore's plans for expanding their fleet or acquiring new assets in the future? Marco, you want to have a go at this one? Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, a bit going back to that. what we have talked about already on the prospects, but okay, go ahead.

Yeah, exactly. It's linked to the previous questions. And depending on the contract model, we will always look at an operating component as well. So these new projects should also result in kind of a larger operating fleet. And of course, it's also interesting to look at if you can actually acquire assets as well, and sometimes there are such opportunities as well, but it needs to fit, obviously.

Yeah, I just think it needs to be, the risk reward needs to be adequate when it comes to acquiring assets. Our balance sheet is such in a way that we have the flexibility to look at opportunities if they're there. But as you said, they need to give the right return and they need to be a strategic fit for us. The next question is from one, this auto from Cobas. What sort of contract model are you seeing in your prospects? With BOT becoming the reference contract model, it still implies chat it still implies a challenge on financing from banks, as BW Offshore has a higher financial cost than your clients.

I could comment slowly, but you fill in. I'm not sure BOT is the reference contract model. I still think, as I said, that we have the spectrum from lease and operate till EPCI plus O&M. Out of the six... targets that we have, I could see that maybe three of them could actually be EPCI plus O&M. One or two could be BOT, one or two could be lease and operate. So it's really distributed. But we recognize the comment on higher financial cost, and that's exactly what shifts, I think, the contract model away from us financing and shifting to the client financing.

Yeah. I would have As you say, we see a mix in the market, both lease and operate, and BOT, EPC-style type of contracts being launched. Maybe you can say there's a tendency that the larger projects move towards BOT slash EPC, and they're more mid-size, because nothing's really small in this market. Those are leaning towards BOT. O&M or lease type of products where we can finance. But again, with the market model developing, we also see the hybrid solutions with lease and operate with significant prepayments from the client. So it's very difficult to say that there is a one type of contract model that's overarching. And very much something also we see developing in the dialogue with the client when we are pursuing a prospect. So it's I think, and again, a bit like you were saying on other things, we're a bit agnostic to this. We're quite flexible on the contract model. It just needs to work with the right risk-reward balance. And of course, what's within our remits of financing that we can do, which very much depends on the contract length, the size of the project, where the project is, the financial strengths of the clients, et cetera. That was the last question I have on the web. So unless anyone has any burning questions, I'll give it a couple of seconds if someone wants to send something in. We've had a tendency in the past that we have questions coming in just as we're running off and then we don't get the chance to answer those. It seems quiet today. Yeah. No, nothing. So I guess, Marco, then you can wrap it up.

I don't see anything coming in anymore. So, yeah, with that, I want to thank everyone for your interest in BW for sure and participating in this call and wishing everyone a very good day for the rest of the day. Thank you very much.