Anders Opedal: And just to add, two years ago, I presented the worst result from Equinor, and two years later, the best result ever. This shows the volatility in this market, and that’s why we’re focusing on the robustness, and Irene you’re eager to answer.
Irene Rummelhoff: No, no, I just wanted to draw your attention to the M&A we have done within MMP, because we acquired Scatec ASA, then we acquired Triton and both of them have been tremendously good investments in the Danske Commodities, the results since the acquisition have paid back the acquisition the multiple times and Triton was actually paid back twice in the course of four months. So yes.
BÃ¥rd Glad Pedersen: Let’s take the one on the phone. And can I ask you to limit it to one question so that we can cover as many as possible.
Operator: Michele Della Vigna from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Michele Della Vigna: Perfect. Thank you very much. And again, congratulations on the record — on the record cash return to shareholders for 2023. I had one question. When I look at the delivery of mega projects in oil and gas, the industry from 2014 until COVID hit, was in a consistent trend of improvement, a quicker time to market, shorter delivery and everything was coming on stream more or less on time and on budget. Then through COVID the main problem were with the yards in Asia. How do you see the outlook for delivery? Where do you see the tightness in the coming years? And looking specifically at two of your most complex megaprojects, Castberg and Bacalhau, do you still feel confident those can come on stream on time? Thank you.
Anders Opedal: Thank you very much. That was actually a very good summary of what happened in the project markets from 2014 and onwards. Yes, I think all projects were hampered by the COVID and not only the yachts in Asia, but also I think the yachts worldwide and also in Norway. We are recovering from that now. And Geir and his team are making really good progress. We are on plan with the Castberg project, but the Bacalhau project in Brazil will be delivered during 2025.
BÃ¥rd Glad Pedersen: Yoann Charenton from Societe Generale.
Yoann Charenton: Thank you again for the presentation. If you don’t mind, I would like to go back on CapEx. And if you could provide some color on the breakdown, it’s true that you are being consistent. We have not seen massive change in terms of guidance for organic CapEx. But at the same time, in the past year, we have seen Equinor exiting Russia. You referred to the Inflation Reduction Act as an impulse basically for investments. So can you explain — and of course, I should add to that Wisting as well has been delayed for a few years. So can you explain basically what replaced the exit from Russia in terms of contribution to CapEx and the removal of Wisting to basically lead us to this level, which is sort of consistent with what you guided for before?
Anders Opedal: Okay. Thank you very much. So yes, the guiding this year is actually, I would say, consistent and quite consistent with what we have said earlier. For ’22 and ’23, if you summarize those two years, it’s actually slightly below what we said last year. Then sort of in the — going forward, we are actually extending the period with one year, and we say that CapEx is back-end loaded. So in reality, it is sort of the same CapEx level that we know are putting forward despite that we have seen sort of inflation over the years. We have built in future inflation assumptions. So we are quite comfortable that these are sort of numbers that are strong. Again, I mean, the CapEx program is driven by oil and gas, which is flat over years.
So we continue to invest on the same rate. We are growing our investments within renewables and low carbon solutions. And then we aim to use our balance sheet more in financing our renewables business due to that increasing interest rate makes that more sensible. So that will be to PÃ¥l’s portfolio, and that will be reported as CapEx on equity terms, so that will actually change the reporting on the investments. So those are the key elements. So it is actually fairly consistent with what we have said earlier.
Alastair Syme: Thanks. Alastair Syme at Citi. Can I ask about the long-term oil and gas production profile? The one you show to 2030 is sort of flat to down 15%. So what defines that range? And just to link it back to value, what’s the $20 billion cash flow linked from a volume standpoint?
Anders Opedal: The $20 billion cash flow from operation after tax is really based on both the production profile. We’ve shown on the oil and gas. And also with the contribution from Irene and her team as we have increased the guiding there. And gradually, also towards 2030, we will also see more and more coming in from renewables. So that is the basis for those $20 billion there. And then your first question was?
Alastair Syme: What defines the range?
Irene Rummelhoff: Where do you have that range of production off-right?
Anders Opedal: Yes. In terms of — of course, this is we are now constantly developing new resources on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, for instance, and sanctioning new projects. We have an exploration program, and we are using quite a lot of sanctioning smaller project would tie into existing facilities. So there are always a little bit some uncertainty, but Kjetil, heading of the Norwegian Continental Shelf. He can explain a little bit how he is working now to ensure that he keep the production on Norwegian Continental Shelf at a high level to 2030 and beyond.
Kjetil Hove: Yes, that I could do for hour specifically.
Anders Opedal: Please go.
Kjetil Hove: But very quickly, the variation between the upper and lower bound is basically the project that we need to sanction on the next three, four years, so that is the difference in the production. So it’s a project that we’re sitting on. It’s not a lot of exploration. I don’t think there is any in that time frame. So it’s basically the project that we need to sanction the next three, four years, which is the difference.
BÃ¥rd Glad Pedersen: Good. We have Paul there on the middle. Yes.
Paul Redman: Yes, thank you very much guys. It’s Paul Redman from BNP Paribas. I just had a quick question on gas prices. So normally, we think about cash prices on maybe an annual basis. But if Europe comes out this winter with significantly higher storage volumes, do you have a view kind of on a quarterly basis how that gas price could pay out? Could we go significantly lower than where we are today? And then secondly, how would that impact your extraordinary distributions if gas prices do go significantly lower through the middle of the year?
Anders Opedal: I will start and then Irene can talk more about. But as Torgrim said very, very clearly earlier, the extraordinary distribution for 2023 is based on past earnings and it’s the Board’s clear intention to have the same level of dividend, ordinary and extraordinary for the next three quarters.
