Good day, everyone. Welcome to Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call of Prio. I am José Gustavo, your Treasury Manager of Prio, and I'll be the host of this event.
We also have an interpreter for simultaneous translation. Please use the sound channel icon on the bottom of your Zoom screen.
Presentation and comments on the results will be presented by the CEO of Prio, Roberto Monteiro. Our CFO, Milton Rangel, and our COO, Francisco Francilmar. They will present the company's results and will then be available during the Q&A. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. To ask questions live, you can use the Zoom raise hand feature, and for written questions, you can use the Q&A button. Both icons are found on the bottom bar of your Zoom screen. This event is being recorded and will be available on Prio's Investor Relations website. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements that might be made during this conference call relative to the company's business perspectives, projections, and operating and financial goals are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Prio's management and on information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of success.
They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they relate to future events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Prio and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. I will give the floor to Roberto Monteiro, our CEO. Roberto, go ahead. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our earnings conference call to discuss Q3 2022 results. I would like to start once again, as in all previous calls, by thanking our employees, Prio's employees, because they are the main engine responsible for these results that we will be showing. This was yet again a strong quarter, a quarter with many achievements. Let's start with the highlights.
The first one, as could be expected, has to do with our production volume, revenue, EBITDA, and net income. As regards revenue, volume, and EBITDA, we posted once again record marks for Prio. Of course, a lot of that is related with the first phase of the Frade campaign, which we will detail momentarily, and also the price of the commodity that remains high. Another very relevant point for us, for Prio, is the lifting cost. We posted $9.5 per barrel, the lowest lifting cost ever. For the first time, what we call here a single-digit number. I believe that this is great news, excellent news, considering that part of our strategy is always to have the highest efficiency possible projects with a low lifting cost, one which is very controlled.
Now moving to the operational side, we completed the first phase of the revitalization of Frade field. It was very successful. We strongly increased production. We decided to bring forward the second phase of the campaign. This is being done as we speak. Francilmar will be giving us more in-depth details regarding this second phase. We also took advantage in the quarter to have another issuance of $370 million in the local market. This was an issuance in BRLs, and it was swapped, as we call it, swapped from BRL to dollar. We acquired the Itaipu field, and we also completed the integration protocol and merger of Dommo. Two small M&A operations. Actions related to ESG.
Actually, the next two bullet points that are more related to ESG, and that makes us very proud, were Reação Offshore, which together with Instituto Reação and Instituto Todos na Luta, we trained 240 people from the labor market, technical and non-technical people. We sponsored this training, and we hired 80 people, 80 new employees out of this total of 240, who will be working at PetroRio after the integration of Albacora Leste field. Many of them will go to our existing FPSOs, FPSO Bravo and Valente, so we can release staff to go to Albacora Leste field. To us, this was a very interesting project, a social project that made us very proud.
Something else we are doing regarding ESG is starting the certification of our carbon footprint, as we call it, so that this will be the base in the future to produce our sustainability report. These were the main highlights of the third quarter. I will now move to slide four. In here, actually, the top part of the slide is something we've talked about. It's about our lifting cost and production. I would like to draw your attention to the bottom part of the slide. Currently, we have a cash position of $1.719 billion. Actually, today, our cash position is a little stronger than $1.719 billion.
This was at the closing of the quarter, but we still had some offloads that were sold and were in accounts payable then and have now been converted into cash. On the bottom right, we have our net debt over adjusted EBITDA ratio, which remains net cash. This is because of this high cash balance that we have. This is just to show that we are 100% prepared for the closing of Albacora Leste. We will be speaking a little more about this in the next steps. As you see, the company remains very solid, the business is moving forward really well, and we recorded another very strong quarter. I will now give the floor to Francilmar Fernandes, and he will speak a little more about our operations. Then Milton and I will be back to speak about ESG and the next steps. Thank you.
Hello, everyone. Thank you, Roberto. I will start on slide 5 with the performance of the assets. Well, this quarter was indeed a very important quarter for the company, the best quarter ever in our history, resulting from the excellent work performed by the whole company and our partners. We highlight, of course, the relevance of all the work that is being done at Frade field. Quarter after quarter, we post significant numbers. We increased production more than 70% year-over-year. In the quarterly comparison this year, we practically doubled our production. Polvo and TBMT, we'll be giving more detail later on, but we had a very stable production, which resulted in a much higher volume of production for the company this quarter.
As a result, also working on costs, we finally managed to reduce the lifting cost to a single digit level, as we have always worked for and dreamed about. I will give you a little more information now. Let's move on to slide 6, where we detail the lifting cost a little further. The top chart is a traditional one that we always present. We finally crossed the 2-digit barrier and ended the quarter at $9.5. This stems from the start of production at Frade field. There is an interesting part related to cost reduction, accommodation of some items that were hurting us a little. This is an ongoing endeavor, and we will continue our pace to lower the lifting cost. This is a big commitment we have to our shareholders.
There's nothing more important from the operating standpoint of the company than to continue to lower the lifting cost, to continue to be resilient, to lower the lifting cost to the lowest levels possible with integrity, safety, and so on. Now moving to slide 7. I'm going to give you a little more information about the main focus of the company this year, i.e., the operation of Frade field and mainly its revitalization. Overall, Frade in this quarter posted a great leap. You can see we had a big increase in production, but we had a reduction in the general efficiency of the asset. We can see 84% general operating efficiency, and this is due to the following reasons. One, the start of the new well. We started the revitalization campaign in April.
In the beginning of July, we had the first production well starting to produce, contributing with more than 15,000 barrels, doubling production at the field. It was a great result, joy all around. In August, we had an operating problem at the field. There was damage. We had equipment that damaged some lines in the operating system of the vessel. We had to stop and repair everything and had almost 10 days of downtime and then resumed production. That had a heavy impact on the operating efficiency in August, crashing efficiency to around 64%. In the full quarter, 84% operating efficiency, but August had an impact. We had some lessons learned and have to work to prevent that from happening again and to recover the operating efficiency in the coming months and quarters. The results of the field was very good overall despite this hiccup.
Now, to give you more detail on the revitalization campaign on slide 8, please. Here we can see that we had two different phases to revitalize. The first phase is complete. It is all marked in this schematic drawing of the Frade reservoir. We can see what was done in phase one. Production wells are the green circles, and injection wells are these light blue triangles. We had two production wells and two injectors. The injectors are not yet online because we are in a commissioning phase of the vessel's injection system that was stopped for practically 10 years. We carried out a big retrofit, and we are now in the final adjustment phase to have the injectors online. Most likely by the end of this month, we'll start injecting this reservoir, which will give us good energy support and improve the performance of this reservoir over time.
The second phase of the field consists of another two production wells. These are marked in red. Two infill wells in reservoirs that are already in production. We don't expect any fantastic production, but these are good reservoirs with a lot of oil available to be produced. There will be one injector that will be drilled to provide support to this reservoir, where we have the ODP-4 well, this first production well in a virgin reservoir. With that, we improve the performance of the reservoir of the asset, and this will maintain pressure and thus reduce the decline rate. Well, all of this will take the field to a whole new level of production.
We'll have a lot of information that is being captured in this revitalization phase, which will definitely provide input to our subsurface team and most likely will result in a revised plan for the future. This is what we'll have in the coming months and in the quarters of next year. I guess I should emphasize a little more our ability to execute on the first phase before schedule. We had very little time lost. We were able to be more efficient in drilling the wells, reducing time and cost. Around 30%-40% overall in this ended up allowing this second phase, which was originally planned for the beginning of 2024, a little after the closing of Wahoo, but we were able to bring it forward and to include this both in the budget and in schedule. We are beginning now.
Actually, we have already started drilling these wells. The two producing wells have been drilled kind of in parallel. The injector will be drilled sequentially. The production wells should be online along the first quarter of 2024, and then the injection well to support production of the reservoir of ODP-4. Well, a lot of what we gained here was in terms of time, savings, efficiency, and also a very high efficiency in reusing wells and subsea structures, which enabled us to save a good amount of money of the project. Well, with that, we highlight here the great action of the company along 2023, and we continue on this path. Frade shows that it still has a great potential to be unlocked, especially after we have the effects of water injection plus the study of the next steps for the field.
I will now move to Polvo and TBMT on slide 9. Here, I give you a little more color on Polvo and TBMT. Q3 was, I should say, a quarter of stability. We focused a lot on operating efficiency. We were able to achieve a record mark at this cluster. Never had we had a 99% efficiency. Today, we can see that with the unified platform and FPSO Bravo that happened. We didn't have any operation to increase production, so we see a natural production decline at the field. It's a natural decline. The focus is cost reduction, and stability of production until we can start a campaign that should happen in the future. Moving on to slide 10, we can see the status of the Wahoo field development.
Well, overall, the progress we made while the company is very much focused on the part of acquisition of equipment and services. We signed all purchases. Now we're starting to detail the engineering work, follow-up of manufacturing and delivery of equipment. Along 2023, by mid-year, we'll start the execution process itself. Allocation of rigs on site, drilling of wells. More towards the end of the year, we'll start installing subsea equipment. With that, I'll move to slide 11 to talk about Albacora Leste. Albacora Leste is at an advanced transition phase. We already have a big crew, more than 40 people on board the vessel in what we call a shadowing operation, following the operation up close, learning the details, planning the actions for when we start our operation.
All is progressing well, and we believe that in the next two months or so, we'll be taking over the operation of the field. We already have a plan for the short term. In 2023, we'll invest a lot in improving operating efficiency, in other words, investing a lot in maintenance, recovering integrity, improving the performance of the large machinery. With that, we'll improve efficiency in the average production of the field.
This is the main initial objective. There's some work focused on integrity and in putting some wells that are stopped, that are already producing, but are kind of closed there throughout 2023. After that, we enter a phase of bigger interventions. We will move to well drilling, well connections, and all that, as we said before. Now the focus really is the beginning of transition. We're very close to that. After that, full focus on improving the integrity, maintenance, operational efficiency of the asset. With this, I close my part of the presentation and turn over to Milton.
Thank you, Francilmar. Good afternoon to everyone following our earnings conference call. Going on to financial performance, starting on slide 12, we will look at the company's financial statement. We see the numbers in a group, net of the impact of IFRS 16 that we prefer to look at, and then we see the year-to-date figures and the information, including IFRS 16. Remind you again that this report is in thousands of U.S. dollars. We changed the company's functional currency in the beginning of the year and started to report our numbers directly in U.S. dollars that make more sense for the nature of our business. Well, the total revenue of the third quarter of 2022, $378 million, an increase of 110% compared to the same quarter of 2021.
This is the result of much more expressive sales, 3.8 million barrels, increase in productivity, performance at ODP4, and so on, with a net selling price of around $94-$95. This pulled our revenue to this level. The highlight here also goes to the cost of goods sold with an increase of only 2% for a much higher sales base or production. This is reflected by the reduction of the lifting cost, as we saw. We are at a level already mentioned by Roberto and Francimar of $9.5 per barrel.
Which we like to call single digit, a very expressive positive mark for the company. This makes that we naturally have the results of our operations that is higher and EBITDA and operating margins and EBITDA margin also much higher when compared to previous results due to a reduction of lifting costs and the increase of the Brent price, essentially. For example, our adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, which is that EBITDA, which is net of non-cash or non-recurring events, amounts to $286 million in the quarter, up 174% when compared to the third quarter of 2021 at a margin of 76%. Year to date, $783 million.
This is a company that generates a lot of operational results, that generates a lot of cash, and with that, our quarter was very strong and very positive for the company. Net income, $153 million, and year to date, more than $520 million in the nine months of 2022. Moving on to slide 13, we'll talk about the funding activities for the quarter at Prio. This was a very active quarter in terms of funding. We continued incurring on some bilateral debts with banks with a close relationship. What's interesting to highlight here is that most of these bilateral debts were acquired at a moment before the war in Ukraine.
That means we took debts of approximately 2-year duration at an average cost of 4.5-4.6% per year in dollars, which is an extremely good rate compared to our current perspectives. We also made a very important operation in the local market for the first time with the issue of local debentures. There were two tranches, one of 5 years institutional in the amount of 500 million BRL, and a larger one in infrastructure of 1.5 billion BRL with a duration of 10 years. In total, we raised 2 billion BRL. What's important to highlight here is that there was a swap operation carried out to convert this liability from BRL to dollars. At the end of the day, all of this liability, that's approximately $400 million U.S.
Dollars, will have a cost in dollars plus 6.80% per year. With that, the market provided such an operation due to interest rates aspects in Brazil and the United States and the foreign exchange rate, and we were able to do a very attractive swap despite the local interest rates being high. We moved on with this operation. It made a lot of sense. At the end of the day, we have a consolidated debt of these debentures of more than five years of duration at a cost of 6.80% per year, which is great cost. That is a very competitive issue with no real guarantees, and that make Prio more comfortable to continue to invest and to grow at a very competitive cost. With that, we see those two charts on the left side of the slide.
Average duration of the debt of 3.37 consolidated. Average cost of debt, 5.80% per year. Remembering that the US Treasury today of three years, for example, is being traded at 4.4-4.5% per year. We have a debt portfolio that today costs us US Treasury plus 130 to 140 basis points. As for the liquidity on the right side of the slide, we have a cash position that is very robust. Of course, that a good portion of this cash will be used in the short term for the acquisition of Albacora Leste, but we still remain at a very comfortable position for the coming quarters. As we can see, the amortization of the company's debt position are very spaced out over the next coming years.
Our perspective is of the strong cash generation for the coming years and to be able to honor these commitments quite comfortably. Moving on to slide 14, we see the evolution of net cash between the second quarter and the third quarter of 2022. We came from a position of $190 million with a very expressive generation of EBITDA at around $280 million, $286 million. There was some working capital consumption, which is nothing more than an increase in receivables of $30 million, most of it already received in the month of October. Advances made relating to the Wahoo development campaign. We already started to pay a series of suppliers that are there in the timeline to carry out this project well in the amount of $42 million and reduce the suppliers.
In addition, we had the acquisition of the West Capricorn rig in the amount of $35 million. We also had CapEx. Another payment related to the relinquishment of the Ceará block. This Frade field CapEx and the drilling campaign that we're carrying out right now in the amount of $52 million. Some smaller work over for TBMT and Polvo at $6 million and $10 million related to this relinquishment of Ceará. In addition, we had $13 million of financial results and taxes in the amount of $32 million, reaching net cash in the third quarter, $255 million. Finally, from my side, we come to slide 15 to talk about leverage. There were no major changes here. We remain at a net cash position, a very high cash position, a debt position in the amount of $1.4 billion.
With that, we come to net cash of $255 million. A negative leverage, and that's why the indicator is negative. I think the major point here is to show that the company is very well-positioned to honor its commitments in the short term, especially the payment now of Albacora Leste and all of the CapEx that we've been doing in Frade field, Wahoo, and so on. Our balance is quite light, even with the acquisition of Albacora Leste. Our expectation is to have the net debt over EBITDA indicator at a very low level, below 1x, for example. Very comfortable and with a lot of liquidity for us to continue on our path of growth and investment. With that, I turn the floor over to Roberto, who will talk a little bit about ESG and the next steps for the company.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you, Milton. On the environmental aspect of ESG, I think an important progress that the company made was the beginning of certification of our carbon emissions. These certifications were mostly already done for the year 2021 and the year 2022 to date. They were certified by KPMG, and today we are in the stage of developing a sustainability report that will be produced and published by the beginning of 2023. The idea here is to show our responsibility with the environment, and especially within this responsibility with the environment to show our carbon footprint, which I think is one of the most important aspects in our segment. In the social aspect, we had two interesting projects. The first one is Reação Offshore, as I said in the beginning.
We trained 240 people, hired 80 people, and this balance of people who are trained will be available to the market. We believe that the offshore market is a market that is in broad extension. Other Brazilian companies, especially Petrobras, placing more and more FPSOs in the market. It's another contribution to the lives of these people, another contribution for them to be able to position themselves in this industry. In addition to this, Reação Offshore projects that we carried out with Instituto Reação and Instituto Todos na Luta, we continue providing social support to many other projects, including Reação and Todos na Luta. Beyond them, Casa Irmã Dulce, the Orquestra NEOJIBA, Projeto Favela 3D, Hospital Umberto Primo, and so on. Social support and social inclusion are part of our DNA. It's in our blood.
Finally, we have our health and well-being program inside PetroRio, which is much more focused on our internal people, our employees. We continue to offer different activities such as running, trekking, shiatsu, yoga, meditation. This goes both for our offices here and for our offshore facilities. We also have our nutrition program, psychology, and so on. This is a summary of our ESG work in the quarter, and we're very proud of what's been done. Moving on to next steps, slide number 17. These are the main points that we're going to address somehow throughout the fourth quarter and in the beginning of next year. The first one, as always, is the continued focus on safety and health. The company, Prio, is made of people, and without safety and health, there's no Prio. We start with this first point, always extremely important.
Moving on to the side of operations, we will now focus in the fourth quarter on the second phase of the revitalization plan of the Frade field that Francilmar already talked about. The entire fourth quarter at the Frade field will be much focused on that and the beginning of next year as well. Wahoo, as Francilmar said, we're at a very advanced stage of contracting equipment and services. Now, our next step is to get the approval of our development plan that was filed almost one year ago, so that we can move forward with the environmental licensing and everything to be able to do this installation in the beginning or starting by mid-2023. In addition, the Albacora Leste operation. Today, we're in the transition process, quite advanced.
I would say that we're ready to take over operation of the field, waiting obviously for the approval of ANP and IBAMA. Today, from the technical viewpoint, from the operational viewpoint, I would say that we are 100% prepared and ready to initiate operations at Albacora Leste, and we expect that this can start already now in the fourth quarter. We will also work on the integration of Tamoio. As you know, there was an extraordinary general meeting, and this meeting already authorized the transaction. We are fulfilling some more legal points, and we estimate that the integration may take place by the end of the year. If not by the end of the year, I would say that very early in 2023. Finally, and also as we always include, we will continue with a very strong focus on inorganic growth through M&As.
As I say, this is also something that is in our DNA. We continue looking at opportunities. We will continue to look at opportunities in the market, and so on. With that, I would like to thank you all once again and thank all of our employees and everyone who somehow contributed to Prio's results, and I would like to open for questions. Thank you.
All right. We will now begin the question and answer session for analysts and investors. If you wish to ask a question, you can use the feature Raise Hand on the bottom part of your screen so that your microphone will be enabled. If you prefer to ask in writing, you can also use the Q&A button on the bottom of your screen. We'll start with a question by Christian Audi with Santander. Christian, go ahead.
Hello, guys. Can you hear me? Hi, Roberto, Francilmar, Milton, José. I would like to start by congratulating all of you because it's really incredible the results that you have been recording both financially and operationally. Congratulations to the whole management, the whole team. Roberto, I would like to start with three questions. The first one is looking forward, operationally speaking, either in Frade field, Wahoo, what excites you the most with regards to the projects unfolding better than expected? Have you seen any initial results that were better than expected? Looking forward, what makes you more enthusiastic, operationally speaking? Then regarding the lifting cost at Frade, in Frade, I'd like to understand, should we expect that the lifting costs will remain as a single digit? This reduction in operating efficiency at Frade that Francilmar mentioned, it dropped to 84%.
Do you think it can quickly return to the higher level as before? My third and last question, Roberto, in terms of capital allocation and M&A deals, do you think that the M&A scenario, now that the elections are over, do you think that this will improve or this will not impact the conversations when perhaps the elections did not impact the market because the companies might have a long-term view?
Well, Christian, I will try to answer all of the questions. If I leave anything behind, please let me know. The first question has to do with what makes us more excited and enthusiastic. I think one interesting thing that happened this year was exactly Frade field with ODP-4.
Of course, that was the main point that left everyone joyful, not only because of the initial production volume with more than double what we had estimated at ODP4. What makes me really encouraged is the level of understanding of the field that our operating team seems to have, particularly the geology, the reservoir team, the physical team, and the engineering team that ended up deploying the project with savings of money and time. These two things, it's, you see, it's not just about the result, but the way we got to the result made me very pleased.
The reason I say this is that it gave us some encouragement to bring forward the second phase of Frade, and we should have the first oil of these two additional producing wells that are being drilled between end of December and beginning of January at very competitive costs. It gives us. Well, it gives us joy regarding Albacora, because Albacora is a field that is similar to Frade. It's a neighbor of Frade. The reservoirs are kind of the same. The plays are kind of the same. I tend to extrapolate the level of knowledge that our people have at Albacora, so that we can confirm what we thought and designed for Albacora. This is what really encouraged us. What gives us a lot of encouragement is indeed the technical assertiveness of our technical team, Francilmar Fernandes team.
Regarding the lifting cost, $9.5 per barrel had an impact of low efficiency, low operating efficiency in August. That's when we had a downtime of nine days at Frade. Our operating efficiency, which had an annual average close to 97%, dropped to close to 90. It was basically due to that nine-day downtime that negatively impacted the lifting cost. The fourth quarter, we'll look at it with the usual efficiencies. To answer your last question, we are already back to our usual efficiency, that Frade was a one-time issue. We started producing again. At Frade, operating efficiency should be at 97%-98% as it normally does. It's returned to normal. If we get the whole quarter, the lifting cost would be even better than $9.5.
I don't wanna risk saying a number, but I believe that our lifting cost would be the same, if not a little better than $9.5. With one important thing to be highlighted. I'm giving you this number for the current operations. Albacora Leste does not have a lifting cost of $9. If we include Albacora Leste before end of year, most likely the lifting cost will increase a little because Albacora Leste will be integrated with a slightly higher cost. Albacora Leste is estimated to have a lifting cost close to $12 or a little bit higher than $12. There will be a blend in the business, and then the lifting cost will start dropping along the next year with Albacora campaign, Wahoo, and we'll get to the single digit again. This is the initial step of Albacora.
If we consolidate Albacora Leste by year-end, the lifting cost will increase a little bit. We'll try to break down the effects of the field there. Was there anything else? Perfect. It's super clear. The last question was about M&As, and if you see the market different. I know that everything happened just now, it's kind of hard to say. Now that the elections are over, any changes in the market. Our strategy was always one of not counting on a selling market as a source. Since 2015, this has been our strategy. The only big deal with Petrobras was Albacora. I believe that Petrobras will go through a moment of redefinition of strategies for the long term. It doesn't have anything to do with us, though.
We are prepared to continue on our M&A journey, thinking about our assets, about the other major players. I believe that as the other major players, just like us, well, they have a long-term view. They'll all work for their own company, for their own divestment program, regardless of one administration or another. Companies are government-agnostic. I don't think that we'll have any problem, any impact. Like I said, I believe that Petrobras will find its way. It has its own strategy that we have to respect. It's over. I mean, there's nothing we can do and think about. The other major players will continue with their divestment programs. Perfect. Just to end, Milton, you said that after the payment of Albacora Leste, the leverage of the company should under one times net debt over EBITDA.
It is what we expect. After we pay for Albacora Leste and Dommo, we expect to get close to 0.6, 0.7, under 1. Excellent. Congratulations again, Roberto and the whole team. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Gabriel Barra with Citi. Gabriel, go ahead.
Hello, José. Can you guys hear me?
Yes. How are you doing?
Oh, good here. Congratulations on the results. Very strong numbers. The first point that I would like to address, perhaps building on the point on leverage, as Milton mentioned, it seems that the financial situation of the company is very comfortable considering payments of Albacora Leste and such. Thinking about a 1-2 year window when considering M&A scenarios, what should we think about buyback and dividends? Because we see a cash generation and with Albacora Leste production being included next year. If there is no acquisition process for next year, could we think about a stronger buyback or perhaps dividend payment? That's my first question, thinking about capital allocation. My second point regarding Albacora Leste, we saw a very strong production now in September, perhaps a little above what we were expecting.
We had the start of one well that took the production of Albacora Leste to greater than 45,000 barrels a day. Was this expected by you, or was this just one more good piece of news? How should we think about next year? Should we maintain this expectation of around 40,000 barrels for 2023? If I may, one last question about Albacora Leste and the development plan. In the region of Arapuça, there's a unitization process. Could you tell us how we should think about the timeline regarding the unitization, and how is this going to be done? That could be very helpful for us to think about average production in the region of Arapuça. Gabriel Barra will answer the first and the last, and Francilmar Fernandes will speak a little about Albacora's production.
Your first question regarding capital allocation. Of course, the company is in a very comfortable position in terms of capital structure with a strong cash generation. Our play has always been allocating the company and deleveraging the company. This is what we think, and it's what we're going to continue to do. M&A deals are more opportunistic. If we run into M&A opportunities in the coming months or years, we will probably prioritize mergers and acquisitions. It's not all the time that we find large opportunities with adequate returns.
We'll continue to prioritize M&As. Now, if we don't have any M&A possibilities or opportunities, then yes, we'll either move to perhaps a more aggressive buyback to reduce our indebtedness or perhaps dividend payment. Anything we can do in terms of capital return. By capital return, I mean not necessarily capital being returned to shareholders. Could be capital return to creditors as well.
It really depends on where we find a 20% return. This is what we will continue to pursue. It's a lot more conceptual today than a firm answer. Like I told you before, for this to happen, we have to be sure that we don't have any M&A opportunities ahead of us, considering the landscape of opportunities and conditions. Your last question was regarding Arapuça. We've had some meetings with the consortium. Arapuça unitizes with the Roncador consortium, and as part of the Roncador consortium, the partners are Petrobras and Equinor. This unitization process is already happening. We've had some technical discussions, and I believe that this is something to be consolidated, completed by the first half of next year, if not first quarter of next year.
This is what we're thinking also because we would like to have Arapuça producing as quickly as possible, if possible, next year, sometime next year. That's regarding Arapuça. I'll turn the floor to Francilmar to speak about Albacora, the 40,000 barrels, and how we see this production looking forward. I should say that Albacora also had some days of downtime. I know you will follow that, but we had a scheduled downtime at Albacora, a few days.
Well, Gabriel Barra, to give you a little more color on this. Indeed, we had the new wells starting production at the field, and they were in our plan. Petrobras had committed to drill them. It was a matter of connecting them. They were stopped, were connected, started producing, and we had a pleasant surprise. This is a reservoir in a further away area.
The reservoir is producing a lot more than expected, a little over 40,000. Since this is a reservoir that is producing with a slightly low pressure, production should decline a little. Looking at the future, we see this business, this production at around 30,000 barrels. Along 2023, we'll work to have other offline wells into production. What we're expecting is that along 2023 we can improve production.
Who knows, maybe we'll have some more pleasant surprises. Gabriel, in our plan, when we evaluated Albacora, we were expecting average production of 30,000 barrels in 2023, of which 90%, 27,000 would be net for Prio. Now we're thinking at least about 35,000 barrels. That would be the basic production. We'll have added wells. I think the production today is a little higher. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Gabriel. Our next question is from Gustavo Sadka from Bradesco. Gustavo, go ahead.
Hello, can you hear me? Good afternoon. My first question is for Francilmar and Roberto. On the reserve certificates in Albacora Leste, the distance on the curve, on 1P, 2P, 3P is the depletion, not the projects that will be developed in Albacora Leste, right? When we do the math of the current production and these increases that may come from the drilling, it seems more feasible that the company will get to a production of 90 million barrels. That's in line with 2P. The base scenario that you released is closer to 1P, a maximum production of 60 million barrels or slightly over that. It seems to be very conservative with the depletion there and the plans. Why are you being conservative like that?
When do you think you will be able to be more confident, believing you can deliver more closer to 2P? My second question to Roberto and Milton, the payment for Petrobras at the closing of Albacora Leste will be that value $1.15 billion, or will there be cash adjustments that may bring this value down? Thank you.
Gustavo, thank you. I'll start answering the first about the production at Albacora, and that has always been our methodology. We always look and evaluate. We don't evaluate on probabilities, the reserve. That's not how we assess it. It's a deterministic approach. There, there's some subtleties that makes it a little different. But I believe that our base assessment's always very close to what is 1P in the reserve certification.
The reason behind it is that when we do the evaluation, we only consider what we believe has a high probability, a very high probability of occurring. That's what we really include in this calculation. Normally, when you look at 2P, 3P, you have probabilities of occurrence, but it's not near certainty. That's why we leave these probabilities out of our calculations. We tend to use what you called more conservative assumptions, and what's going to make it change is precisely what happened in Frade. We had ODP4. Frade field is an example, but this is the concept. We drilled ODP4, and when we had initial ODP4, every time you drill a well, there are some things you consider.
For example, viscosity of the oil, size of the reservoir, if they're sealing the cracks or not, porosity, permeability. For each one of them, there's a probability of that being what you think it is. It can be better or worse. ODP-4, everything was better. We had that probability event, and when you combine all of these things, this was better, and this was better, and this was better, the result is much better. When we're doing the evaluation, we don't put all that into the calculation. We include all the more conservative assumptions, and as they materialize, we make adjustments. It's what's happening in our reserve report for Frade field. There may be a small favorable update.
Precisely, it's not going to be that small, but we're going to have a favorable update, especially precisely because of ODP-4 that was surprising, and we will be able to integrate those assumptions because we know they are a certainty. As for Albacora, the payment of Albacora, there will be some adjustment. Conceptually, we would have $1.65 billion or something close to that, the remaining payment that we would have for Albacora, and this will be adjusted by the cash generated by the asset as of October first. Now, finalizing the month of October, Bruno, the head of our M&A department, will work with Petrobras to identify what the field's result was in the month of October. This already comes in. Of course, if the field gets positive results, of course, it seems to have been the case.
This already goes into the calculation, reducing that total amount. That $1,650 is the high point, and from there, we will pay less depending on how long it takes for this closing. Thank you.
Thank you, Gustavo. Our next question, Bruno Montanari, Morgan Stanley. Bruno, you may go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. A few questions. We talked a lot about lifting cost already, but thinking more about the preparation for Albacora. The G&A that would be required to operate the field is already in place, or should we expect a G&A increase in the fourth quarter and starting 2023? Moving to Frade field, in addition to the reduction of lifting cost, with you operating at 98%-99% efficiency, may there be surprises in the level of production as well? Or do you think it's reached the peak with the result of the new well? The third and final question, as you integrate Dommo now at the end of the year, beginning of next year, how fast after that is the process to start using the tax credits that are there? Thank you. The first question was about the G&A for Albacora, right?
There will be some increase. I'd say it's not going to be anything out of this world within our results. They start having some costs that we call transition costs. We're allocating there in that line in the results. This will continue to happen, but it's not going to be anything extraordinary. The cost of this field is in the OPEX. The crew, the 80 people on board that we're going to work, the 80-90 that we're going to work with, plus the backing people, all of that will be in OPEX. A lot of the operational on the field will also enter OPEX. The operations people who are here but are located to the field will enter the OPEX as well. It will be on those $90 million.
There will be adjustments, but we won't see anything out of this world, to be honest. The second point was about the production in Frade field, right? Correct. The Frade field production, of course, there will be operating efficiency that will be better. We expect to have slightly better operating efficiency in the fourth quarter. There's that decline that starts to occur in the field of Frade, TBMT, and Polvo fields. I don't know, maybe we will have a slightly stronger number due to that 9 days downtime, but it's not gonna be any big surprise. Our production level is there. Today, we have one well at downtime. In the last production release, we mentioned that the MUP3A was on downtime because of a failure in an equipment for completion that we used, and we're only going to solve that during the month of November.
This well produced 3,000 some barrels per day. We're slightly below our maximum. Our maximum was 52,000 barrels. Today, we're just under 50. I think more or less, maybe we'll be slightly better, but it's not going to be anything out of this world, being quite honest. There was another last question that you asked. The tax credits of Dommo. Well, Dommo has a life of its own. When it's approved here, when it's integrated, the credits already used at Dommo's day-to-day. Today, you have the 5% they get from Polvo and TBMT in the contract with the companies. That already is written off the credit. All the results that will happen inside Dommo already joins this regime. That's a feature that is part of Dommo, the company, and we are integrating the shares.
There's no timeline or anything specific. It's simply the moment the company comes in. This is already the company's normal usual operation. Very clear. Thank you. Just to add about Frade, we're talking in the very short term, this month before the end of the year. The beginning of next year, we're saying new wells will join production, they went to production, so we will then see an increase in the first quarter.
Our next question is by Pedro Soares with BTG. Pedro, go ahead.
I don't think Pedro is with us. Oh, Pedro, you're there. Go ahead.
Hi. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
All good. Good day, everyone. I believe that most of my questions have been addressed. I just wanna get a little more detail on the lifting cost. I think it became very clear why. In unit terms, the operational leverage has been dropping over the quarters. What drew my attention is that in nominal terms, even looking at the absolute value versus second quarter, the number continues to drop despite the production increase. I believe that there is an exchange effect given the depreciation that happened compared with the second quarter.
Looking line by line and looking at the cash cost excluding depreciation, we know that in the line of other costs, the amount decreased a lot. Perhaps you could explain this, or Francilmar can tell us what this represents so that we can understand. We can understand and we can explain these improvements that are happening. I think that this is important for us to understand the level of recurrence.
Thank you for the question. This is an excellent observation, actually. In practice, what happens is when we are going to start a drilling campaign, in this case, we're talking about Frade. In the second quarter, it's almost like we overstaffed the company. We rent some more boats, some other things. More helicopters, more helicopter hours. These things, we normally wouldn't do them if we weren't going to start a drilling campaign. In the second quarter, that was a little bit exaggerated. Now with the start of the drilling campaign, we don't have to have that anymore. That explains the cost of well drilling. Normally, when we have a drilling campaign, there are two moments. A pre-campaign moment when the operation is a little bit more swollen. Then. I'm talking, it goes beyond the exchange. The company becomes a little swollen.
When we start production, we start allocating the vessel, the boat and et cetera, to your campaign. I think this is the reason. What we had against us this quarter was that we had a little bit more chemicals because of ODP-4 that started producing. It's normally that we spend a little more on chemicals. There was also the 9-day downtime when we had to do some work at the FPSO. All that was considered expenses. Very clear now. You see, net of a drilling campaign, we can adapt the operation. There will be boats that are no longer needed, helicopters that are no longer needed. We have to look at the number that remains consistent. I don't think that there is any problem there.
Thank you, Roberto.
Our next question comes from Tasso Vasconcelos with UBS.
Tasso, go ahead. Hello, everyone. Good afternoon, Roberto, Francilmar, Milton, José. My first question, perhaps related to this whole discussion we've seen regarding possible tax increases for the industry. Will there be the creation of an export rate for oil? What is your view regarding that possibility? Have you been having any discussions with the government? Any chance that this will go forward? Have you done any studies regarding possible impacts on the company? Anything you can share with us? Are there any alternatives to minimize possible impacts that would it make sense to consider sales to the domestic market, for example? A second question, thinking about the company's M&A inclination. Given the idle part of the P-50 at Albacora Leste, the company is still below 180,000 barrels a day of production of nominal capacity.
Is there any asset that would make sense to evaluate or optimize? Would it make sense to optimize operations with neighboring assets to better use the capacity of the unit, perhaps in line with what you did with Frade and Polvo?
Tasso, thank you for the questions. Regarding export duties, this has been on the table for a while now. This has been analyzed by the Senate House. This process lost momentum, it didn't go forward. Since then, we haven't heard them talk about it. Of course, whenever there's a possibility of taxes, the company participates in the discussions. We talk with IBP, ANP, and some other entities that we are members of. Today, there's nothing on the table. It seems that they chose a different path. As regards the ANP reference price, I've heard that there are some studies being performed.
Although we know about these studies, so far we haven't had any precise information in one direction or another. We always try to contribute. You know, to have a contribution and to think what is right. It's not about being right for my own benefit. What's right because it's right. As regards importing to Brazil or bringing oil to Brazil, there's a big difficulty, which is the kind of oil that we produce, it's heavy oil, and it's not the oil that Brazilian refineries are prepared to refine and need. It's not that we don't want to import oil. Of course, there is that possibility. The question is what the experts call the refinery diet. In other words, the kind of oil that refineries here need. That is the main reason why we export our oil.
Our oil is heavy sour, as most of the oil from the Campos Basin. This is the main reason why we export instead of refining it here. It's not about the price that would make us sell oil for domestic consumption. You know, depending on the developments ahead of us, Prio will always be pragmatic in our decisions. There was one last question. What was it? It was about the capacity of Albacora Leste, if it would make sense considering another asset in line with the strategy of the company. Well, there is an idle capacity indeed, but we have a lot of plans for that region. In addition to 180,000, there's also the water part of the equation, which is very important, and it's close to the limit.
In the coming years, we don't think we have a lot of capacity for relocation outside Albacora Leste field. There's a lot to do there. 180. Well, when the field matures, the 180 as nominal capacity starts losing relevance. We start looking at something else with the ability of total fluid, oil plus water. When the field matures, becomes too mature, it produces a lot of water. That's the limiting factor. There are no projects related to Albacora Leste other than the redevelopment of the field. Thank you very much. Super clear.
Thank you, Tasso. Our next question, Leonardo Marcondes, Bank of America. Go ahead, Leo.
Can you hear me well? How are you?
Very well.
Well, thank you for taking my questions. My first question, I'd like to understand a little bit more about the potential inorganic growth of the company, because I get the impression that whenever we discuss that, the market always talks a lot about the possibility of the Peregrino, Parque das Conchas. I'd like to know from you, what do you see as an addressable market for M&As if you see a large market for that in Brazil still, if you also see opportunities inside Petrobras, considering it still has some fields for sale in the Campos Basin, and how much of your time is focused on M&A? That would be my first question. My second question is about the development plan for Albacora Leste. More to understand the timeline of events here.
For the development plan to be submitted to ANP, the unitization process must be concluded, right? Just to understand the timeline. You would be able to start a drilling program only after ANP approves the development plan, correct? Thank you.
Okay. Leonardo, we've always been vocal about fields that make sense. Of course, Parque das Conchas is interesting. We like it. Peregrino, we like it too. Any other opportunity that comes up, especially in the area of the Campos Basin, we like to operate in that area because we have a lot of knowledge about it. We have operational synergies that are also great. I think that anything available in the Campos Basin that comes to the market at some point, the companies that are interested, of course, the company will analyze. The addressable market is large. I think that in coming years, Petrobras, maybe it's a large holder of fields in the Campos Basin. I don't know if they'll be interested in continuing the divestment plan or not, but this doesn't concern us as much.
I think if they are interested in resuming at some point of its life their divestment, we will look at it. We'll participate in. Honestly, I think there's a lot of work for us to do in the coming years. We have Albacora, we have Frade field, we have Wahoo, we have some of these potential M&As. I would not be too worried about the size of the addressable market or this type of issue. There's no agenda.
Our schedule of operations is fully booked, basically pretty much till the end of 2025. I think today we're more focused on production itself, development, and so on. With that said, I've spent one-third of my time thinking about M&A, and I'll continue doing that. I've always done that. One-third of my time thinking about M&A, thinking about strategies, fields, holding meetings to develop relationships and so on. That's our life. I've always spent about one-third of my time with that, and I continue to do so because it's part of our business. M&A is not only opportunistic, it's part of our business. We don't participate in explorations. We don't buy block for exploration. The company's entryway is through M&As. I continue to spend a lot of time with that. There was another question about Albacora Leste, there's two things.
One thing is Albacora Leste, the development plan will be approved in the session. It's not a development plan that we would want. With all the wells we would like to put there, it would be what we have is a slimmer development plan, so to speak, but it's a development plan that Petrobras filed with ANP in the beginning of the year, and we decided to maintain that development plan because it already gives us the necessary subsidies for us to begin the revitalization process. Moving forward, I believe at some point of next year or later, we will adjust the development plan. Our knowledge of the field will increase, and we'll have more wells for Albacora.
Arapuça, when we have the session, the development plan will already be approved together with the session, and this development plan will be the base of our revitalization plan. We won't have to develop a new plan. We will only need IBAMA's license, basically. One of the things IBAMA looks at is whether or not ANP approved the development plan, and it's already approved. Arapuça is a different thing. It's another development plan, separate, and this development plan needs to be submitted to ANP, and that's what I said, that we'll probably submit this in the first half of next year. If all goes well, in the first quarter of 2023. This development plan for Arapuça, specifically, the previous step before it is unitization. So there's a discussion about it. It's going to converge. After that, we'll submit the development plan.
It's a relatively simple development plan because it's not a whole oil field. It's a specific reservoir, the Arapuça reservoir, so it's simpler, but it does depend on unitization. The rest of Albacora has nothing to do with that. The development plan that we will have is the development plan that we need to work. Excellent. Very clear answers. Thank you. Thank you, Leo. Our next question, Regis Cardoso, Credit Suisse. Regis, go ahead. Hello, José, Roberto, everyone. Thank you for my questions. We talked a lot about different things here. I have little follow-ups, if you allow me. One of them is about the realization price for the quarter. It surprised our expectations. I don't know if it's the reference Brent price or if you have been noticing these smaller points.
Another question about the unitization of Arapuça, if there's a short-term upside in terms of production due to this unitization, if it makes with any existing production. Itaipu as well, I'd like to understand the upside of transaction if there's unitization with the Parque das Baleias, and in this case, if or not there's an upside of short-term production with unitization. I'll stop now, and then I have two other follow-ups to add. Okay, let's start, Regis. The first about the realization price. In the third quarter, we still had the price with the discounts that was lower than the discounts we were seeing in the past. I would say it was a stronger quarter because of that. The fourth quarter, we're already seeing a slightly worse market. I think we're already going back to those original prices.
We are already feeling what the Americans call tightness of the market. We do see a slight difference or some difference in terms of the actual prices. The main difference that happened in the third quarter was still this tight market with the prices with lower discounts than the average. I would say the fourth quarter, this trend is changing. We're getting discounts closer to our historical average. In some cases, slightly worse than our historical average. The fourth quarter so far has been slightly harder, specifically in this regard. The other question that you asked, Regis, was about unitization and upsides, yes. Arapuca is not in production anywhere, so unitization there only allows us to start with the rules of engagement determined. There will be no adjustment in any way coming from the unitization of Arapuca.
Now Itaipu, our idea there is to do some degree of analysis and studies because we believe. I don't want to call it an expectation at this point, but we have an idea that maybe this business can be close to Parque das Baleias and so on, but there's still a lot of road to cover. We have to run some level of deeper study. It's too soon to talk about any of it. But Itaipu, one of the possibilities is to really be connected with Parque das Baleias at some level, and maybe we need to have this conversation going forward. But it's still nothing. This is very early to say. Great. Understood. If I may, two other follow-up points. One about the tax credits at Dommo.
Discussion that I imagined here, we understood that maybe you could accelerate the realization of this credit with the taxable results of Prio today. I'd like to understand whether this is a possibility or if you don't know yet or if we know it is not a possibility. I'm sorry. Go ahead. If I can just add, if there's any updates about IBV and the issues with Wahoo. Okay. Let's talk about the credits. The credits have a life of their own inside Dommo. The concessions that are inside Dommo will be submitted to the tax rules that Dommo follows. Today, the concession who's there, it's 5% Polvo and 5% to TBMT. Nothing stops us to maybe doing some M&A operations in the future and so on through Dommo. Then, of course, it will follow the tax rules that Dommo follows.
As for IBV, we don't have anything new. No news. The arbitration process continues. We believe that there's a high probability of a decision in the second half of next year. Our arguments are the same. The development of the field is continuing. We already anticipated more than $40 million for purchases on the field, lines, equipment, and so on. We're closing service contracts. The development is happening normally with no issues, but IBV remains exactly as it was. I would imagine that you'd have a solution before you have a more material disbursement with the implications. Is there any update in the timeline for Wahoo? When do these bigger disbursements begin? And are you feeling the inflation compared to the original CapEx plan? Well, the taxes already started. We, in the third quarter, had $40 million in taxes. The fourth quarter, we have another sum.
It started. Of course, there's no major lump sum disbursement. What we have is a payment timeline until delivery. Since the delivery of all of it starts to happen in the second half of next year, we will have a disbursement timeline for the end of next year until the second half of next year. Because it's material and because it's services and vessels and helicopters, there will be a timeline of payments that will occur as it's consumed, but it's going to be in the second half of next year, the half of the second half, the end of the second quarter to first oil at Wahoo. We do notice the inflation. Our initial plan was to spend $800 million to put the four wells in operation with the two injectors.
Within this $800 million, Francilmar and I had placed 130 as contingency. Our cost was $670 million, and we added 130 for contingency, and the cost today is $800 million. Considering that until first oil, we're talking about close to $600 million, and then there's the water injection phase that will cost about $200 million after the second oil. Today, the contingency has been entirely consumed. Of course, we had nothing to talk about in terms of cost increase because we had the contingency in place. It was consumed. There wasn't a difference that we made. When we presented the project in the past, we were thinking about one production line and one water injection line, two lines in total.
We'll be able to make what they used $800 million and maybe $820 million, something very close to $800 million, to do a second production line as a backup. I think this is a huge lesson learned that we had in recent years. We decided to start with the original project, the initial project, considering a second line as a backup for any eventuality. That was the only thing that we added. We remained strong in the $800 million, even if the inflation that we're seeing. Excellent. Thank you. Congratulations.
Well, given that we've been in the Q&A for a while, we are going to end the question and answer session. We'll be available to answer any further questions you may have through our investor relations team. Roberto, your closing remarks.
Again, thank you very much for joining us. This was a very good quarter for the company, and it is a huge pleasure to be able to share these results with you. Thank you very much.
This conference call is ended. Thank you very much.