Everyone, welcome to this third quarter video conference call. I am José Gustavo, your manager, and I'll be hosting this event. For those who want to follow us in English, we have simultaneous interpreting through the globe icon on the bottom of your Zoom screen. The translated presentation is available on our IR website. The comments on the results will be presented by our CEO, Roberto Monteiro, our CFO, Milton Rangel, and our COO, Francisco Francilmar. After the presentation, they will be available for the Q&A session. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. To ask questions, you can use the Q&A button, or you can use the Zoom raise-hand feature to ask live questions. This event is being recorded and will be available on our IR website.
This presentation contains information based on future estimates and forecasts based on assumptions adopted by the company, which can change, should not be considered fact, or be used as the basis for financial projections beyond the plans expressed by the company. Now I'll give the floor to Roberto Monteiro, our CEO.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to PRIO's third quarter 2025 earnings call. I wanted to give you an overview, a summary of our third quarter results. I believe we had some good things and some bad things. I'll start with the most difficult, the most challenging point, which was the Peregrino shutdown. That would be the bad thing. We had two Peregrino shutdowns during the quarter. One of them was a scheduled shutdown in July, so that was okay. That was normal operation for the field. Then, still in this quarter, we had a second shutdown at Peregrino, lasting 63 days. This was due to a regulatory issue and so on. That was a major negative point for us during the quarter. On the other hand, we had a lot of very, very positive points in Q3.
This quarter, I think this was the company's best quarter in the other assets, so considering Frade, Albacora , and TBMT fields. Trading also did very well from a funding perspective. The company also did very well. So we had all of these very positive aspects with one negative point, which was the Peregrino shutdown. I'll go into that later. But oh, and obviously, among these positives, we also had Wahoo, which also made great strides. I will address these points one by one, and then I'll pass it on to Francilmar and Milton to go into more detail in their specific areas. So speaking briefly, Peregrino, we already talked about it. We had a 63-day shutdown. We recovered, and we recently resumed production. The field is producing well. It is producing more than 100,000 bbl per day. It is producing around 108,000 bbl, 106,000 bbl daily. So it came back well.
It continues to do well. We had already reached that number before the shutdown. So it came back well in line with what we had projected. And then we'll talk a little about the next steps for Peregrino field. Moving on to our operations, the first one I would like to draw your attention to was Wahoo field. We finally obtained an installation license at Wahoo field. We have already contracted and called in a McDermott vessel called Amazon for pipeline. Everything is going according to plan. Two wells have already been drilled. The results are in keeping with what we expected, so everything is going well on the Wahoo work front. Another front that I thought was positive this quarter was Albacora 's operating efficiency. We had a record of 91% for the quarter.
We had a month with 97%, if I'm not mistaken, and another month of 94% within the quarter. So it's very positive. However, in the last month of the quarter, in September, we had one compressor failing, which we already knew was our Achilles heel at Albacora . Compression is the only system for which we still do not have adequate redundancy. So we had some downtime, and we'll recover soon. Unfortunately, these are items that we call long lead time items, items with long delivery times, which we buy abroad. But anyway, it's addressed. We are going to solve it. We've already bought it. It's going to arrive. We're going to solve it. What I thought was positive is that we had one problem that was totally focused on one point. So all the work we've done at Albacora over the last 12 months is starting to bear fruit.
So that's why I thought it was worth bringing this up as a major positive highlight. We performed a workover in TBMT 6, another well that had had problems with a pump. So the Polvo TBMT cluster returned to producing 14,000 bbl-14,500 bbl daily. And as it had been producing last year before all the problems we had there with workovers, IBAMA, and so on. Moving a little more to the corporate side, we issued, well, actually, there were two issuances. We issued a local debenture, but closed this quarter. We issued it in the second quarter. It closed in the third quarter. And we issued $700 million in bonds, which we issued in the third quarter, and the money will come in during the fourth quarter, along with the repurchase of a large portion of the bonds that would mature in 2026.
With that, the company improved, became even stronger from the point of view of cash position, long-term capital structure, and so on and so forth. As for the company's results, when we look at them, our EBITDA totaled $320 million in the third quarter, which was more or less in line with what we generated in the previous quarter. But what happened here is that Peregrino, the shutdown at Peregrino, of course, that obviously hurt us. But as we reduced inventory and sold the oil that was in stock, we managed to maintain in Q3 a figure that was more or less similar to the previous quarter at $320 million. And we had a net income of $92 million. What did worsen significantly from one quarter to the next, obviously, and moving on to the next slide, was the lifting cost.
The lifting cost for this quarter was 17%, actually. Not 17%, $17.4 per barrel. It did get worse because we decided to include all costs related to Peregrino as an expense in this quarter. We are not going to carry anything forward. The impact of the Peregrino shutdown is here in the third quarter. Actually, not all of it, because Peregrino came back on. It was more or less in mid-October. There will be those 15 days in October that will go into the next quarter, but then it is done. We could have accounted for it differently, but we didn't. We didn't do any of that. Our approach was to record everything as an expense, and then our lifting cost in the third quarter rose to $17 per barrel.
The fourth quarter will be impacted by those 15 days of October, but after that, we will be 100% cleared. Another interesting graph to look at on this slide, slide number four, is the one on the right, which is production. We see that total production for the quarter was 88. However, the company's production, which would be those bars excluding the gray part of the bar, which would be the assets operated by PRIO, we see that production posted higher numbers than in the last three, four, five quarters. So I think that here we can see our work, the fruit of our labor in terms of our operations. As I said, our cash position is very strong. We closed the quarter with $1.7 billion, and today our cash position is even higher than that. We have a little over $2 billion in cash.
We are fully prepared now for the closing of Peregrino and for the whole of next year. Milton will talk about this, but we will have almost no maturities next year. Another index that also worsened slightly was our debt, largely due to the Peregrino problem. We managed to sell 8 MMb or so, 8 million or so, to stay in line with last quarter. We could have done better if Peregrino had maintained production. This is a summary of the quarter. I think we had some very positive developments, especially with regard to our operations. We had this Peregrino issue that ended up tarnishing the quarter. Peregrino has already been resolved. We will talk about it later, and we will address the next steps for Peregrino.
The company as a whole, I think, is well prepared for the coming quarters, for the coming years, and beyond. I'll stop here and hand over to Francisco Francilmar, who will go through the assets one by one. Milton will talk about the financials, and I'll come back to wrap things up. Thank you very much, Francisco Francilmar.
Hello, everyone. Thank you, Roberto. I will start on slide five with the overall performance of our assets. It was a pretty busy quarter we had here. We had some positives and some negatives. Overall, we ended up producing less. We had a major impact with the shutdown at Peregrino Field, and Peregrino is currently the company's largest producer. We have significant developments at Albacora and TBMT, and a really relatively stable quarter in terms of efficiency at Frade. But overall, we ended up having a strong negative impact on the lifting cost.
It was $17. I can even remember when we last had a number like that. But it was really impacted by the shutdown at Peregrino, where we had a slight increase in costs to solve the problems and with no production. So that really had an impact, but it was a one-off. We hope that in the next quarter, we will be able to capture the improvements. We will work hard so that in the coming quarters, we can return to the number that we think is minimally comfortable for us to be at. Moving on to slide number six, we will go over a few more details about Frade field. This quarter, we had good field efficiency exceeding 97%, which we consider a good number for Frade. But production was impacted by the natural decline of the field.
We suffered a little bit coming out of that compression problem we had, but it has been fully resolved. We have no problems at the field today. We're operating at 100%. We're working very hard to adapt the unit there, making the final adjustments so that we can receive the oil from Wahoo. So a few adjustments, commissioning of some materials that were already installed in the past. So nothing too out of the ordinary. Moving on to slide seven, updating you on Polvo and TBMT. It was a quarter of deliveries of evolution at the field. We completed the workover of those two wells that had been idle since last year when we received the approvals. After that, we had the failure of a third well, TBMT 6, and as we had obtained approval for a good number of workovers for many wells, we quickly mobilized the rig.
Within the same quarter, we solved it and repaired this well. It is producing normally, and as a result, we already have operating efficiency over 90%, in fact, much better than that today, and with full production. We're producing a little over 14,000 bbl, and we should still have relatively stable production, but a natural decline of this field, which is much more controlled for the coming quarters. On slide eight, at Albacora Leste field, it was a quarter of relatively good performance. In fact, the best performance we have ever had at the field, and this is thanks to the repairs we made, all the effort that was made to repair or improve the power generation system and the water injection system. Our weakness remains the compression system. We have already repaired some things, but there were setbacks in others.
We're still waiting for the compressor we purchased, a brand new one. These are products and equipment with very long lead times. We are also facing a problem with the power system, the transformer, which is connected to the compressor, but we are working hard to resolve this in the next quarter. So with that, we're able to deliver this level of efficiency, but still with some fragility in terms of redundancy. By delivering this in the coming quarters, we will be in a more stable state of production and operating efficiency for the field. Moving on to slide nine, let's talk a little bit about Peregrino in general. Peregrino had a quarter marked by downtime, by the field that was closed. So we stopped production for 63 days this quarter, which had a profound impact on production.
We made a huge effort to repair, to try to have it back on as soon as possible. There was a lot of physical work there, repairing lines, replacing sections, repairing various systems that we had to handle to meet the requirements of the law. That was overcome. We joined forces with the operator, both people who were working on the transition and people who were at some of our units that we redirected there, and the suppliers as well. All the focus was on that. That's water under the bridge, and we overcame this challenge. Now we are working to finalize the transition. We hope to have news very soon. We have a team on board and a team at the office.
All the final details are being finalized so that we can move forward and start operating the asset, maintaining efficiency, safety, and smooth operations. Moving on to slide number 10, updates on Wahoo field. This period also saw significant progress. We received a license to install the subsea system, the connection, or as we call it, the subsea tieback. We mobilized the vessels, both the ship for laying the rigid pipeline and the ship for laying the flexible pipelines, as well as installation of the subsea equipment that was ready here. We have already begun installing some equipment, and both the rigid and flexible pipeline vessels have been released for operation and undergoing loading preparation and the entire mobilization phase that is part of the schedule.
The next phase now for the subsea part is to do the installation at the field itself, laying the rigid and flexible pipelines, all the various equipment that we install on the seabed, making connections to the wells, and then schedule commissioning further down the line. So everything is going according to schedule. We have already advised the market, and we will keep you updated on the next developments. The next step, in fact, is the first oil. In addition to that, there is something I haven't mentioned in detail, which was the rig. We finished drilling the second well. We are completing the second well. And later on, we will drill the third and fourth wells, trying to apply the lessons we have already learned from these two wells. Overall, in terms of the reservoir between pros and cons, the result is in line with what we were expecting.
We need more data, so we will still continue to study and cover the area to check for additional opportunities and have a better understanding of the reservoir. This happens in every well. These are ongoing issues that will be present as we continue to develop the field. With that, I turn the floor over to Milton.
Thank you. Now, on slide number 11, we talk about PRIO's financial performance in the quarter. Our total revenue is $607 million. Brent's reference in the quarter was $68.3, with the equivalent FOB Brent for sale at $64.15. The quantity sold in the quarter was 8.8 MMb . This helps us understand the total revenue of $607 million with FOB revenue of $566 million. What is important to highlight here for this quarter? As we have already explained, Peregrino suffered a significant impact this quarter.
We had nine days of scheduled downtime in July. Since August 15th until mid-October, we had the intervention or the inspection in Peregrino, and the field's production was interrupted. We had a shutdown. Therefore, the 15 days in August, plus the entire month of September, in addition to the nine days in July, brought an important impact to our financial statements. For the purposes of COGS, we recognize the cost of the Peregrino, or COGS for Peregrino for July and August, and the cost for September, which would be the OpEx for September of around $20 million, is included in the line of other operating expenses. This is purely accounting since we did not have associated production and revenue. Therefore, we do not recognize COGS. This is recorded as a loss in these other operating expenses.
When we show the lifting cost of $17.4, this already includes both, which is the COGS of the field reflecting this loss, just to give a complete view of the company's lifting cost performance, which, driven by these losses or this lack of production coming from Peregrino, pulled the consolidated numbers to $17.4. With that, our EBITDA was around $309 million, with a margin of 55% adjusted EBITDA, excluding these non-recurring items of 320, with a margin of 57%. We also recorded an increase in financial results, which I think is worth going over quickly. We recognize $14.5 million in the quarter related to hedge transactions that were carried out, mostly in June, July, and August. Basically, the premium paid as the oil remained high. These options were not exercised, so it is the value of the premium of these options.
And also, we had an impact of around $23.5 million related to the marking of unsettled hedges. And these are positions from September, October, and November, which, due to the fluctuation in the value of these hedges, we posted as a negative this quarter, although this has not been something cash or something fully realized. In addition, the company experienced an increase in gross debt, which amounted to approximately $4.6 billion, leading to a slightly higher financial expense, something around $68 million in the quarter, which helps to explain much of this increase in financial expenses. Now, moving on to the next slide, number 12, we talk about funding. Already looking at the central charge on the amortization schedule, what is important for us to note here?
We have a large amount in 2026 of $600 million, referring to our bond maturing in the middle of next year, in the midst of 2026. Therefore, it's important to highlight that in October, we issued a new bond. We made a tender offer on top of the existing bond, which had an acceptance rate of around 70%, meaning that we bought back this amount of $430 million, $431 million, leaving around $170 million still on our balance sheet for this original bond, which will mature in June. With that, we issued $700 million in a new transaction, this time senior unsecured, while the previous bond was senior secured. Now we are migrating to the senior unsecured modality with a five-year term, a rate of BRL 6.75 per year, I mean, $1.65 per year in dollars.
That being in the next quarter is a subsequent event because it occurred in October. We will already see a change in this amortization profile in the next presentations. Okay. Moreover, we also issued $539 million in the debenture swapped for BRLs. That is total exposure of this amount to the dollar over the term of the two series of the debentures. We had already done a lot of work to bring the maturities of working capital lines to the years of 2027 and 2028, as we can see. Therefore, with this bond issue, our 2026 has virtually no debt. The value is very small, and we have a lot of peace of mind at a very important moment of capital allocation when we have Peregrino coming along, the closing of 40%, followed by the other 20%. We also have the end of Wahoo's CapEx.
Therefore, this is a moment of tranquility for the year of 2026 in terms of maturities. Duration of 2.78% in the third quarter and an average cost of debt of 6.35%. With the bond, we will be able to increase this duration a little more, considering this five-year term with a duration of around 4.4 or 4.5 years. Moving on to the next slide here on net debt variation or proxy for our cash generation, we are coming out of a net debt in the second quarter of $2.77 billion, our adjusted EBITDA IFRS of $320 million, as we've said earlier, working capital expenses of $75 million, largely explained by payments to suppliers and also because we made several sales but have not yet received the cash. Therefore, we still have a large amount of receivables coming along.
CapEx largely relates to the development of Wahoo, which is now in full swing, well, we had the workover in TBMT, integrity expenses in Albacora Leste, and there were also issues related to the Peregrino shutdown. $20 million of this OpEx from Peregrino that is outside the adjusted EBITDA, so to make up the cash, it enters here in a separate column. Share buyback of $7 million and financial result of $80 million, largely explained here by $14 million of the premium paid in hedge, with approximately $66 million in interest or financial expenses from our debt portfolio, and with that, we arrive at a net debt of $2.8 billion at the end of the third quarter, well, now slide number 14 is on leverage. We basically measure here the net debt indicator to the company's adjusted EBITDA.
In the third quarter, we reached 2x , which is slightly higher than the second quarter of 2025, which was 1.8x. This slight increase, I would say, that is largely associated with the Peregrino shutdown, generating less EBITDA, less cash generation. So it pulls this indicator up a bit, but still well below the 2.5x limit we have in our covenants. It's important to mention that we have an important event related to the closing of Peregrino that should take place probably in February or maybe even sooner, and we are in a very comfortable cash position, which currently is about $2 billion. With the Peregrino closing bringing in an additional 40% of Peregrino's position, with Wahoo coming in over the next year, we expect strong cash generation and considerable financial robustness for the company in the coming quarters.
With that, I'll hand over to Roberto to talk about ESG and the next steps. Thank you.
Thank you, Milton. Well, I'm going to talk a little bit about environment and society, and then we'll talk about the company's next steps. We continue to work on the sustainability front through our PRIO Institute, working on programs such as the Open Sea Initiative, which connects local fishermen to the oil and gas sector, and so on. On the safety side, we conducted an emergency drill with the Navy, IBAMA, and Albacora Leste , which went very well. We held a second meeting on safety knowledge bills and also trained competent personnel who work at heights. We conducted SGSO, SGIP, and SGSS audits. So safety is always a non-negotiable thing for us and a very important item in our culture.
Within the health and well-being pillars, we achieved, through our traditional programs, some important things. We promoted a race. We had our first PRIO-owned race, which took place at the Jockey Club. It was super interesting: cardiological and preventive evaluations, yoga, and so on. In the third quarter, I mean, we had sponsorship events in the third quarter, like racing and other events. And we also sponsored other events like Prima Facie and Rio Gastronomia. Now moving on to the next steps, slide 16. Here, we have almost the same steps as shown in the last quarter. The focus on safety and health will always be present as well as M&A opportunities. And in the middle, that is important, within Albacora Leste's operating efficiency, we had promised in advance in this operating efficiency. I think it has happened.
Today, we have a very specific issue related to gas compression, but the Albacora Leste field has been operating in a very stable, very safe, very consistent manner. So I think this is already a gain. We still have to resolve the gas compression issue, but I think we already reached a new level at Albacora Leste. At Wahoo, we have made very good progress in the two wells we have already drilled. The results were very much in line with what we expected. As for the pipeline, the boat is already in Brazil, and it will now undergo inspection by IBAMA, so it can go to the field to start the pipeline. It will load the pipes after launching the line.
So everything is on track and moving forward so that the first oil is expected to come in between March and April, as we promised in the material facts. Costs are also very much aligned with no major setbacks. And the last point here that was pending is the closing of Peregrino. This closing of Peregrino is contractually scheduled for February of next year. However, now, after this interdiction and the return back into operation, we have worked together with Equinor and ANP right after we resumed production, authorized the closing, meaning that today there are no impediments from their regulators or any competent agency. And so today we are ready for the closing as ANP has already approved it. And then there is the transfer of L.O., but this will happen right afterwards with IBAMA.
Therefore, today we are ready for the closing of Peregrino, which is supposed to happen in February of next year. Today we are working with Equinor to check the possibility of anticipating the closing. Nothing is settled yet, but we are prepared since it makes a lot of sense to us, I mean, taking charge of the operation and start working to capture synergies in the field. In the coming months, our focus will be very operational, as you can tell. Of course, M&As are always important, but it will take a backseat during the next few months, and as I said, our focus remains on the operational issues, and very soon, we will go from 115,000 bbl a day to slightly over 150,000 bbl a day with the entry of Peregrino and later with Wahoo, we will reach 190,000 bbl a day.
Then with the remaining 20% from Peregrino, we will surpass 200,000 bbl a day. Therefore, the next six to eight months will be crucial for us to reach these 200,000 bbl a day with great focus on the operational side. I'll stop here by thanking our employees and society and shareholders who are always with us. Now I will open the floor for questions. Thank you.
[Foreign language] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Q&A session of our earnings conference call. We're opening the floor for questions. First question from Gabriel Barra with Citi. Barra, go ahead.
Hello, Roberto and the whole PRIO team. Thank you for taking my questions. I'll try to focus on one question, but kind of a long one regarding the company's capital structure.
I think that this was mentioned, that the company's cash position is the closing of Peregrino to happen in the short term. In Treasury, you have a high percentage of the company in the buyback that you've done recently. The first point I would like to understand is why not cancel the shares now. Just try to get a sense of why not canceling the shares and get to the 10%, given that you're very close to the number. Anything related to the closing? Because it seems to me that the cash position of the company is very comfortable. I would like to understand the company's strategy regarding that. The second point, and perhaps it's a philosophical discussion we've had with the company for quite a while now.
The company was always a very strong company in M&A deals, creating a lot of value to the shareholders, given a very successful execution of capital allocation. But when we look at the company today, as Roberto has just said, we are getting close to 200,000 bbl daily. And with a very strong cash generation starting next year, and with a CapEx plan that accommodates the operating cash generation. So how should we think about dividend payout and share buyback looking forward, Roberto? Because I think that the company has a slightly more leveraged now, but looking at cash generation, it seems that you are kind of comfortable as of 2026. So if you could speak about shares in Treasury, how we should think about that, and how we should think about dividends looking forward. These are the main two points of my question. Thank you.
Thank you, Gabriel.
[Foreign language ] One way I like to look at the company is through the forecast for the next 12-18 months, at least the end of next year, and the forecast of cash generation and consequently our cash position until the end of next year. So even with oil slightly stressed at $60 per barrel, some people say it can go temporarily to $50. But just to do an exercise, considering $60 per barrel, we can say that our minimum cash for the company, if we don't do anything, and I mean, if we don't have any M&A deal or any other investments other than what is already in the radar, investments in Wahoo, Peregrino, Albacora , Frade, everything that is in the plan, that we would have a cash position, a minimum cash position, which is always greater than $900 million.
So clearly, we have a stronger cash position for us to think about the next 12 months. So that's the things that we can do. One of two things. We can have M&A deals. And like I said, I don't think that this is going to be our focus in the coming months or quarters. This is not something we are working actively on. And we can reinvest in our own company because today we find much superior returns to returns we've had in the past in M&A deals by buying back the shares of the company. So this issuance was very important to us because we kind of equalized all maturities. Now we have a very comfortable cash position for the next 12-18 months. And looking forward, our cash position is very comfortable. We have a lot of leeway there.
And with that, as soon as we start seeing this leverage curve declining, I wouldn't like to go back to buying back the shares when the curve is upward and we don't know where it's going to stabilize. But the moment it stabilizes and the moment we understand that it's starting to drop and we'll look at that on a monthly basis, then I think it is the right moment for the company to go back to the market and start the buyback. And if we do repurchase the shares, we have to cancel them. So canceling the shares, to me, it's kind of a secondary move. The decision is whether the company should go back to share buyback. It should happen eventually. But due to financial discipline, it is important for us to only start that move when we see our leverage starting to invert the leverage curve.
Once we do that, we'll have sufficient cash to make that move with a lot of comfort. Truth be told, there's no investment that we can see in Brazil, abroad, anywhere that would give us the return that we envision for our shares. This is what's going to happen. I guess that you and I are just debating the timing. The path is exactly what you outlined, Gabriel.
Roberto, just to close this point, the leverage you should pursue post-Peregrino closing would be which one for you to be comfortable to start purchasing shares again? What would be the optimal level?
Gabriel, we think that we're going to get to close to 2.3x. It was slightly lower than that before, but with the shutdown at Peregrino, this ratio is going to increase. I think that we're probably going to get to 2.3x ratio.
But we will be comfortable to restart the buyback when this level starts dropping. We can start or restart the buyback program with a relatively high level of leverage as long as we can find that sweet spot when the curve starts reducing. We will not start the buying back until we get to the maximum level. And the maximum threshold will happen now with the closing of Peregrino, either now or in February. It really depends on some negotiation and some conversation with the operator, Equinor. But the point is, if we don't do anything in terms of share buyback, we'll get to 1x net debt to EBITDA by mid-2027. This is kind of what we're thinking. We can get to mid-2027 or at the end of 2027 with 1x net debt to EBITDA. But we want to get to 1x net debt to EBITDA ratio.
We believe that M&A will play a secondary role in this second year. We will focus a lot more on the operational piece. So to us, it's kind of easy to get to a lower leverage more towards the end of 2027. That opens up space for a buyback program, a good share buyback program.
Okay, super clear. Roberto, thank you very much.
Thank you, Barra. Next question from Monique Greco with Itaú BBA. With Itaú BBA. Go ahead.
Hello, thank you for the opportunity to ask a question. Actually, I have two questions. Roberto, I think that in your final part of the presentation, it's clear your expectation regarding the timing of Peregrino closing. But I would like to ask you, what about the discussion on a potential reimbursement of these 10 weeks of downtime? Could you perhaps bring the closing forward?
The question, the second question would go to Francisco Francilmar, or whoever prefers to answer. Francisco Francilmar talked about drilling wells at Wahoo. It became clear that considering positive and negative news, this was in line with what you expected. I'm kind of curious to know how the second compared to the first, because I remember that you said that the expectation was that the second well would be better than the first one. You could elaborate on that and if your expectations were confirmed or not. Thank you.
Do you want to start, Francisco Francilmar?
I can start speaking about Wahoo. What we expected to come better was in terms of the thickness, because it was in a superior position in the reservoir. We had a confirmation of this position slightly below what we expected, but the reservoir performed much better than we expected.
So overall, Monique, everything is in line with what we expected in terms of the final sum of the process. And I think that the net pay of the first well was 40 m, and we were expecting 60 m for the second one. We expected more net pay, and we did have more net pay in the second well. The quality of the rock is the same, so a quality that was superior to what we expected in the past. And net pay was higher in the second well compared to the first one as we expected. So everything is in line with what we expected. The quality of the rock was definitely better. In this regard, Peregrino, Monique, this is exactly the link that is missing for the closing. We've got authorization for everything. ANP was important. IBAMA is an authorization that we ask for after the deal.
Once the deal is confirmed, when the concession contract is signed, then they transfer. So in terms of the legislation, everything, all of the requirements are met. And your point is exactly the debate that we are having with Equinor. A good part of that has to do with this adjustment and how they will address this downtime. But that's it. I don't have a lot to tell you right now. I just need to say that there is goodwill on both parties, both parties towards the closing. So let's see what's going to happen.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Regis Cardoso with XP. You may proceed, Regis.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon to all of you, and thank you for taking my question. If you allow me, I would like to ask a few short questions.
In terms of Peregrino's timing, I would like to know whether you are certain that it will be 2026 or it could be even 2025? I don't know if you can give me any guidance about Peregrino. And earlier on, when you talked about leverage, I just want to understand the comparison base just to see if my calculation is fair enough. If you're recognizing 12 months of EBITDA of that 40% of Albacora, I know you talked about that in previous occasions. But if you allow me, another question is on CapEx, which was quite high in the quarter. Could you tell me how much of that is Wahoo or if there is anything related to something else? I mean, if you want to repeat that. That was a follow-up question.
Okay, let me answer each question separately. I mean, Peregrino timing, yes, it could even be this year.
I mean, soon means this year. Today, contractually speaking, it would be in early February and when I say that it could happen sooner, so I'm referring to certainly yet this year. Now, in terms of the gas import, that we call it, the gas import line, we already removed everything that was in the bottom of the sea. Now we are solving that offshore so that we can redeploy between April and May of next year and with that, we will have the gas back again at the end of May or maybe June, already in the field. The vessel that will do the pipeline is already available. It's Sapura, that's the name, so the vessel to do the pipeline is Sapura, and then there is another vessel that we already have in our fleet to do the rest, so everything is in line.
Everything is in place to allow us to move on. CapEx for the quarter, the bulk of it with Wahoo. I don't have the exact number in mind, but there is a relevant amount, 60%-70% of CapEx is associated or attributed to Wahoo. Certainly, you will see information in the P&L. There is another question. Oh, it was about leverage. Oh, leverage takes into account the last 12 months of EBITDA, plus the pro forma EBITDA of the amount of buyback in Peregrino.
Okay, thank you. That's it.
Thank you, Regis. Our next question is from Gustavo Cunha with BTG Pactual. Gustavo, you may proceed.
Good afternoon. I would just like to hear your update about your next or the scheduled drilling for Wahoo and if we could expect higher CapEx from Wahoo given the drilling schedule of the wells.
If you could briefly tell us, I mean, an update.
Thank you. Wahoo, I think Milton was doing an update just now. With this quarter, we have about $670 million year-to-date for Wahoo. So the bulk of it, the bulk of the investment is done. Now I would say that it will be almost divided by the number of months. The effort now will be pretty much constant, both in terms of pipeline and drilling. I think it will be a good calculation to take that $200 million that still remains. So because we mentioned reaching $870 million against the $680 million already spent. I think we should probably use $100 million now and $100 million next quarter. Pretty much like that, more or less. Now, in terms of the schedule, the well schedule, we are just completing the second well.
Now we will go to the third and fourth wells. With that, everything will be concluded by March of next year. Everything is in motion for that to happen. It took a bit longer for that well because we wanted to run many tasks in the well. We removed several samples. We collected several samples from the reservoir to be very certain about the next steps. We just want to make sure that we are stepping on firm ground. Maybe we will not run so many tests in the next wells, not as many as we did in this one. The hedge structure today, we are hedged until November at $67.50. We have about 1.8 MMb , 1,850,000 bbl in October. September, you shouldn't consider September because we are now in October.
So for next quarter, we have 1.85 MMb and then 1.8 MMb in October and November. And the strike is $68, $67.50. So that's it. This is our strike. We lost some money with hedge last quarter. So I would say that today we should be making money with hedge. I mean, year-to-date in the quarter, we are making money with hedge. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Gustavo. Next question with Thiago Casqueiro with Morgan Stanley. Thiago?
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I have one follow-up question to follow up to Regis' question on CapEx and my own question. As regards to follow-up, how can we reconcile $188 million of CapEx you have for the bridge to the $ 275 million, which is the true expenditure within the cash flow?
I just want to understand if this is a build-up of working capital or if there's anything additional that we should pay attention to. And my own question, now that you have a clearer view of Wahoo's first oil, when should we start seeing the next steps, particularly in Albacora? When do you think it will start the drilling campaign over there?
Reconciliation of CapEx is basically material in our inventories. You can imagine we are starting to purchase things for the Frade campaign, for the Albacora campaign. There are also payments we pay for flexible lines, Christmas tree that we received. So we are always working way some time ahead before the projects actually begin and what you see in the bridge. What you commented on is what was really applied in the project, in the field. And your other question was what? Oh, the schedule.
The schedule, well, the way we will be drilling at Wahoo, she will stay at Wahoo until April, March or April, April of next year. We'll finish drilling the producing wells and then we'll drill an injector until Q3 of next year, August or October, drilling the injection wells. And then in Q4 2026, the rig will be relocated to Frade. At Frade, we'll have at least three or four wells to be drilled. So that covers all of next year, and we're already starting 2027. And in 2027, we'll move to Albacora. In Albacora, we have eight wells to be drilled, some producers, some injectors. But this is the program for 2027. And we will have the license for the area. We expect this license to be obtained at the end of 2027.
Well, perfect. Thank you, Roberto and José.
Next question from Tasso Vasconcellos with UBS.
Tasso, go ahead.
[Foreign language] . Good afternoon, Roberto and the whole team. Roberto, I'd like to get your feedback on the main lessons learned after the two more recent acquisitions. You had perhaps a greater challenge than expected in Albacora Leste . You were at the final phase of closing Peregrino. Perhaps this was a different kind of experience given the size of the asset and a different operator, and the company has a strong track record with M&As, but given the two more recent acquisitions and perhaps thinking about new M&A deals, what would be the main lessons learned with these two recent acquisitions and how these two experiences could influence new future M&A decisions? Second question, perhaps a follow-up on the very first question regarding capital allocation and dividends.
I know this is not the focus of the company at this point, but considering this whole discussion of the government thinking of increasing the income tax, is there any discussion, any possibility that you would announce a prepayment anticipating these changes in taxes? These are my questions. Thank you.
Regarding lessons learned, I think that one deal that gave us a lot of lessons learned is ABL, Albacora Leste. And lessons learned about two things. The first one, which is related to the interim period of operation of the field between signing and closing. In the time, we saw big degradation of the asset. When you're going to buy an asset, you do an evaluation closer to the signing, and then you get the asset after a long time at the closing. And the field of Albacora Leste showed a degradation in that meantime.
That was a big one I learned. The second lesson learned is how to address this point, which we used for Peregrino. And the interdiction actually came because of that. And I'll speak a little about that.
So how do we deal with this interim period of operation so that the asset will not degrade?
And the second lesson learned kind of related to maintenance strategy. We always had in our minds a predictive and preventive maintenance strategy. However, we thought that we would be able to easily migrate from corrective maintenance to preventive and predictive maintenance without having to really exchange a lot of the equipment. We thought that we would get the old equipment, we would repair them, and this equipment would go into preventive and predictive maintenance. And that did not happen. I guess this was the biggest setback of this operation.
We came to the conclusion perhaps way too late. I think last year in 2024 that we wouldn't be able to implement this strategy and that the correct strategy was to start replacing the big pieces of equipment, so we started buying new turbines, a new compressor, water injection pump, and so on and so forth, and these are expensive items, and it's not just only about the price, but it's the lead time that matters, and this was the big lesson learned in that deal. As regards the interim period of operation, that's what we implemented in Albacora. In the past, we suggested to ANP at the time of the Albacora deal, we suggested that ANP would perform inspection during the interim period. ANP agreed with that and did some inspections.
It's not that they went to Peregrino because we asked them to, but they included in their own methodology to run some inspections. It was our request and request from the industry to do inspections in the interim period. They did that. They identified document issues in the Peregrino platform, and we had to resolve that in the interim period, which explained that shutdown. It was a huge stress, but at least that happened while this was still the asset was still being operated by Equinor. It was all resolved under Equinor's operatorship, and it gives to PRIO and Equinor the possibility of having some kind of negotiation and come to an agreement regarding this shutdown, which derived from a non-compliance to the applicable standards. It's way too early to say what is the lesson learned of Peregrino. Still a bit early to talk about that.
I think that we applied what we learned in Albacora. I think that this shutdown, in a way, was the result of that lesson learned from Albacora. If ANP inspected and there was a document issue, okay. Whatever the problem that existed needed to be resolved before the transition. Of course, more than 60 days of downtime is not fun for anyone, but it was part of the methodology that we thought was efficient and correct, and was there another question?
Question on dividends.
Right. Well, dividends is not a bad word for us. It's just that dividends is something that needs to be done in a relatively big chunk, and it's a one-time thing. Today, we cannot speak about dividends at this point. We have a high leverage and so on. But the moment that that level is lower, we can think about, okay, cash generated, let's pay dividends.
But it's not to happen before the end of the year. We're most likely going to opt for a share buyback policy because this is something that we can do more continuously and always pursuing the deleveraging of the company and measuring whether the company is being deleveraged or not. And then we gradually buy back the shares. And the moment that we get to a low enough level of leverage that will give us comfort, then we can consider dividends. I don't know what the government is going to do regarding dividends. It seems that they're going to tax dividends. I don't know about the timing, but we are not doing anything in an opportunistic way because of this. We're looking in-house and thinking, what is it that makes sense to us for the company to maintain our financial robustness throughout this period?
Thank you. It's clear.
Tasso, thank you. Our next question comes from Bruno Amorim with Goldman Sachs. You may proceed, Bruno.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking my question. We saw that the regulator was very vocal in this past one year and a half with the intervention in several assets in the industry as a whole. So I would like to hear from you if that changed the way you operate or whether this led to changes in the way you operate and whether you're taking any preventive measures or not.
Bruno, we've been strengthening our security area that includes safety, operating safety, etc. We've been strengthening this area for quite some time. More recently, Thiago Almonte is leading the area. He comes from ANP. And in fact, I mean, Leandro went to do something else.
I think he did excellent work till now, and so now he is facing a different challenge in the company, and Thiago then came to lead this area. There is also Renan. He has years of experience in this industry. There is an ANP rule. According to the rule, I mean, we believe in the rule, and it has to be compliant. I mean, we have to comply with the rules. I mean, ANP, they are very rigorous when they do an inspection, and this makes us feel more comfortable. If you arrive at a conclusion that there is something else to be done, we will not just not comply with the rule. We just discuss with ANP and maybe discuss the possibility of making some adjustments if it makes sense.
In general, operating safety in our strategy is that we have to abide by the rules, and that's it. That's non-negotiable. We haven't changed anything. I think ANP is also enhancing their systems. The technicians from ANP are going abroad to improve their education. So they are very well prepared, which is very good for the industry as a whole. And we just try to follow suit. I think that's it. Do you have anything else to say? This is an evolution journey. They are evolving. And if you look at our history, we're also evolving. The Brazilian legislation on safety is based on best practices. And in that regard, I mean, the bar is going up and up because things are evolving. Therefore, this is certainly our priority because at the end of the day, this has to do with our business.
Not only does it impact the environment and lives, but it also has an impact on the business. I think that this evolution on the part of ANP is very well received by the industry and us. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Rodrigo Almeida with Santander. Rodrigo, you may proceed.
Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you, Milton. I just have a few follow-ups on our side just to understand. First of all, speaking about Peregrino and the closing, I know that right now it's difficult for you to share a lot of things, but I would just like to have a better understanding. This reimbursement would be like a criteria for the closing?
I just want to understand whether this negotiation could extend beyond the closing of the 40% and whether this has taken some of your time discussing that and how does that affect the closing if it does affect. On a second point, if you could give me an update on the licensing of Frade that you said it could happen very soon and the area license, I think you're putting all the documentation together so you can start working on that. Finally, if you could repeat your hedge position for the rest of the year, that would be helpful. Thank you.
I'll start with the hedging part. We have $68 per barrel. It's put for 1.8 MMb for October and 1.85 MMb for November. This is our hedge position.
In terms of the closing, you might recall that when we did the transaction, the amount in the material fact was $3,000,000,360 for 60%. This amount has to be adjusted. The price has to be adjusted, and this has to do with the cash generated by the asset throughout time. So when something like that happens, somehow you have to reflect that shutdown event and calculate that in the pricing. So it's very unlikely that the closing will happen without having arrived at an agreement related to price adjustment. This is a normal process whenever you have an M&A, when you get an authorization or an approval. There is a presentation of accounts from both parties, and then we arrived at the adjusted price amount. And this is the moment we are experiencing right now. It's nothing extraordinary. It's just normal run of business.
We are just trying to anticipate that. Maybe we will arrive at a conclusion that we will not anticipate and we'll close in February, but I can tell you for sure that it will not go any time beyond February because the contract, contractually, that's the deadline, but today, both parties are willing to do the closing, and maybe we could anticipate, and if we do not anticipate, it will happen in February. I mean, none of the scenarios are the end of the world because we have cash, and the cash that will be generated is also very positive for us from now until February that may reduce the cash to be dispersed, so that's it. It's just like I was saying, I don't have much to tell you right now, but this is normal run of business for every contract.
I would just like to revisit one point. I think what I was focusing on was on the reimbursement related to the shutdown.
It depends very much on price adjustments. I cannot speak about this item specifically.
Okay, it's very clear. I just have another point about the 20% remaining that it has to do with the arbitration. Do you think this will happen along the first half of next year? You said probably June or July.
Arbitration has nothing to do with that. There is our own arbitration with Equinor related to the 20%, but what will happen is that we will do the closing of the 40%. Once that 40% closing is completed, then we will submit it to ANP, and then we remove the arbitration. These two things will happen simultaneously. We will submit the concession request to ANP, and once we do that, we suspend the arbitration.
We'll cancel the arbitration that we have related to the 20%.
Okay. And then another point about licensing, if you could elaborate on that.
Licensing, we are about to receive Frade's approval, and that should come soon in the short term. And we are about to close the environmental document, to conclude the environmental document in the coming month. And then there will be an evaluation process, and this will go on towards next year. I mean, the previous conversation, or the last conversation we had with IBAMA, is that we had to finalize the two things pending until the end of the year, both for Frade and the environmental license, the environmental documentation.
Okay, thank you.
Next question from Leonardo Marcondes with Bank of America. Leo?
Boa tarde, pessoal. Hello, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions.
Actually, I think the most of my questions have been answered, but I have two more. When is the follow-up on Rodrigo's question? I'd like to know from you what were the lessons learned with the licensing process that could give us more confidence that both Frade license and area licenses will be obtained in the expected timeframe. My second question is about ABL. You have worked a lot on the platform, and it seems that you still have some things to do at Albacora. Please correct me if I'm wrong. So could you give us more color in terms of what's missing at the platform to at least bring it to an adequate standard or level, and how long should it take? Thank you.
The ABL platform operated in June and July with 97% operating efficiency, which is higher than Polvo and TBMT and at the level of Frade. We already know really well what needs to be done at the platform to get to this kind of efficiency, which is to resolve the compression system, as I mentioned in my presentation. We always knew that compression was an issue. It was our Achilles heel. Unfortunately, the compressors, some parts of the compression system have arrived just this week. They arrived at the FPSO this week, and we know what we need to do. We need to have redundancy for the compression system. Nothing other than that. We know that when the compression system worked well with redundancy, we reached an operating efficiency of 97%. You know that is it. Nothing else to say about this.
And another thing about Albacora, and this is a program for next year. We'll start implementing other types of improvements. We want to bring in a floatel, and we are going to carry out some integrity works. We'll start replacing ESPs, tubes, paint to the platform. But I mean, these are no longer critical systems. These are non-critical systems, which we will replace in order to continue to improve more and more. But what really can cause a problem, a downtime, or hit the operating efficiency is those big critical items that we know about, and we know what to do. We have to solve the gas compression system. Full stop. That's what's missing in Albacora.
And there's another question. Lessons learned about the licensing process.
Right, we spoke a lot about that. You know, we always talk about the lessons learned, but we forget that there was a strike. The licensing practically took a year that delayed the licensing at Wahoo. What could we do? We improved our relationship with IBAMA. Today, our relationship with IBAMA is much better. Undoubtedly, our relationship with IBAMA is much better now than it was two years ago. I think that the quality of the material that we have prepared has improved. This is what we could do on our end. But it's not like we have to learn how to deal with IBAMA. I mean, there was a strike that lasted eight months. When they came back, when they resumed operation. They resumed with a slow operation. Nothing really happened for a full year. We kind of have to consider that effect.
Right, very clear.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Leo. We are closing the Q&A session now, and I would like to give the floor to our CEO, Roberto, for his final statements.
Well, thank you very much. Thank you to you, our investors. Thank you to our employees who once again have proven to be very resilient, focused, and pragmatic, seeking the necessary results. And I will see you again in the conference call to discuss fourth quarter 2025 results. And hopefully, when that happens, who knows, Wahoo and Peregrino will all be included. Thank you very much. Have a good rest of the day.