Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the second quarter of 2023. We have the presentations by our executive directors, our President, our Operational Director, the financial relations with investors, also New Business Director, and also accounting and intelligence. This is being recorded. It's going to be available on the site of the company in the relationships with investors. If you need simultaneous translation, we have icon interpretation in the lower central part of the screen. If you're listening to English, it's going to be original. Please send your question written down in the Q&A area. We will announce your name so you can activate your microphone and ask your question live. If you don't want to open your microphone, please write without a microphone at the end of your question.
I would like to say that any declarations are made during the video conference with regard to the business perspective of the company, operational methods, they are based on the premises of PetroRecôncavo, as well as the information available. These involve risks, and you have to understand that general conditions of the industry and other operational factors, they can affect the results of the company and can definitely change the results of what was said here. Now, the Director President, Marcelo Magalhães, will start the presentation with his comment. Thank you, Marcelo.
Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to have you here for this call in the second quarter of 2023, and we see a lot of resilience in the company results. We had lots of external factors that were not controllable, like the price of oil in the international market during the quarter, the value that is changing, some other restrictions, commercial restrictions that increased our production and could have impacted our results. Even so, I still believe that we were able to deliver a very sound quarter, and I would basically talk about the increase in average production compared to the last quarter, and more recently, as we said to the market, our production in July, that presents expressive increase of almost 10% compared to this last quarter. It's a better pricing.
We have great expectations in terms of our future results because of the increase in production, and this also impacts the expectations of the cost per barrel, and the scale also affects this aspect.
Marcelo, could we actually go to the first slide of the presentation? I think it's a very symbolic aspect that I wanted to show you. This is an operator, and this is basically what I said in the previous call. It's an opportunity for the company to, to look inside after some years of inorganic growth, with the huge increase in the asset base and a huge increase in the number of employees in the company.
We talked about how important it is at this moment that most of our attention be given internally. Going back to the quarter highlights, we can see very clearly these results of looking in and beyond what you can see, the increase in production, and there is definitely, we are sure that we are able to have the uptake of capacity and be able to, to have a cost production that is superior to, to what we see in the first half of the year. The issues of productivity that are being focused, and in the quarter, we also have the delivery of three more large equipment, large pieces of equipment, and we also have the conditioning in its final phase, and it's practically available to start the inspection process. This is, we're inviting everyone to, to go there in Bahia to take a look.
With these incorporations, we are very close to having our ideal equipment, and we are probably gonna go through the delivery and some third-party equipment that is going to allow us to focus on productivity, and we'll be able to use less equipment, more efficiency, less people, and many positive results. One of the very strong points that we see that impacting production, the results were extremely positive. Our interventions in the wells, if we're talking about the perforations or the drilling or in the, the results themselves, and we see that there is greater production. Also there's the greater delivery of facilities, especially in the Sabiá Complex and in others, that allowed this increase in production in Potiguar, the Potiguar assets, and we hope this will happen in Bahia as well over the next few quarters.
In terms of looking inside, we also concluded some very relevant hirings. We have a lot of upstream people acting in the company, and over the next few weeks, we hope to have a new technical director. These, two directors, they work inside the Troy structure, and this is going to allow us a lot more focus, either in production or in the future development of the fields. It's two people who are coming from abroad, one from Argentina, one from the United States, and we are very clear in what we want to do in Brazil, and we've been doing it since 2000, which is to bring this over to mature fields with low costs and with a verticalized structure that allows us flexibility to be able to develop our fields adequately.
I think this is reflected in the results that Rafael, Troy, and João Vitor are going to show you. I would say that it comes from the choice of the activities, those assets that Petrobras had, that excluded, that did not develop, and this allows us to have this resilient operational costs that are substantially cheaper than the average of the operators, with oil and gas that have a high value in the market. All of this makes us very optimistic with regard to the future company and the results that we are collecting now, and that we're going to deliver in the near future. Now I'm going to give the floor to Troy, who is going to talk about production and our internal infrastructure for development. Troy, please.
Thank you, Marcelo. Good morning. Production, as you can see, is already continuous. It's already gaining month-over-month increases in production with very little variation. We started in July, as Marcelo said, we had a new record in production, and this new record is a result of several works that are specific in areas like Potiguar Basin and some optimizations in Bahia, and in several other projects with facilities. We are releasing the production that was restricted in the past, and already expected that this production is going to continue until the end of this year and also 2020. Specifically, we are inside our development plan, and in these fields, we're very close to additional projects that we are using as we see opportunities. The best thing, as Marcelo said, out of the assets that the company has, we have several developments in each of the different basins.
The serendipity for the company to be able to, to practice and develop new, new work that we have already tested, and we have already seen a potential to grow. This is the, the part of increases that we're seeing according to what we saw in the last quarter, and then in July and August. I think that this trend is going to continue in the future. Next, please. Now we're looking at each separate asset, and in the Potiguar asset, you can see that in the second quarter, there's been an increase compared to the first quarter. Remember that in July, we're coming to an average for the markets, as was reported yesterday, 15.8 BOPD. This is a significant increase.
As we said, this is a result of what was done and several workovers in new areas, also the release of some production restrictions that we have, and also facilities. Specifically, facilities in the Sabiá Complex, as well as several compressors in an intensive program, maintenance program, that was preventive with the compressors that we already have, and to be able to get to the new fields. It is an intensive process to be able to work on all the compression system, and with this progress, the capacity of the company to deliver more gas in Potiguar is going to continue to improve. In Bahia, we're already working well on the development of Miranga.
In Bahia, we're already running a little late, with the optimizations that we have there. There's already some limitations in terms of water drainage in this field. We are developing this option to be able to optimize the reserves there and optimize production in the short and medium term. In Bahia, we already have some challenges in terms of gas. Also like the several points, we are implementing the solutions that we have already decided to implement. We're already seeing some increases in the production of gas, and also in the area of Miranga and Jacuípe, that is going to continue over the next year or 1.5 years. Next, please. To execute all of this, our equipment fleet, we have several units and departments that are going to continue to increase.
We have added four units in the last quarter, and these units are in the workover area, and we have 2 internalized workover probes, the perforation probes that has been third party, and a fracturing unit. This fracturing unit is being added to our fleet, so 8,000 HP. With the three fleets or three different sets of equipment that we are preparing, we're now coming to a level of 15,000 HP to be able to fracture in the future with the three units that we already have. When we talk about drilling, we already have a decent number of third parties, and there is a new probe that is coming in from Canada that was hired specifically to be able to improve our efficiency.
Also, particularly, this probe has the ability to perforate horizontally, horizontal areas that are very shallow. Specifically, areas that are between 400 meters and 700 meters, and we have several fields with this kind of area. In Canada, this kind of area is developed with horizontal technology, and this horizontal technology, we need to add this ability, so it has to be vertical as well. They also have. It's not three times higher. For this sort of thing, it's about five to two times more expensive. Our main objective: to bring this, very optimized and modernized equipment that can drill and develop these different areas that are shallow, exactly for that. To be able to implement this type of technology, horizontal drilling, and in these fields that have these shallow areas.
I've already visited this last week, and it was greatly optimized, and it is able to be used with only three people. We already have hope that this is going to help us to improve our efficiency and our reserves as well. Now I'm going to pass it on to Phil.
Talking a little bit about investments that the company has made with this graph. This is how much we invested in the first quarter and the acquisitions of the second one. We can observe that what we're calling development of new reserves, this is exactly the project that are compared to the reserve certification. We're developing the perforation of the rigs and the workovers and the facilities. BRL 205 million, and the next slide is going to compare the previous quarter.
It's very similar in general, the part about warehousing and the fixed issues, that's the growth of the stock. There was still growth in the quarter, but the rhythm is much lower compared to the previous one. According to our controls, starting in June, we started seeing some movement to reduce our stock, and we have the perspective that it's going to be a line of investment that will begin to be negative instead of positive, as it had been in the first quarter of the year. We have the investments during the second quarter, related mainly to the mobilization of equipment and rigs. There's also something has to do with software, but basically it's the equipment, the drilling equipment, and the workover, all of that, that was added over time.
To the picture, just to call your attention, we have lots of projects, facilities that were delivered in the quarter, and this helped to remove a few bottlenecks in terms of the production. This is in Carnaúba, and one of the compressors, and this is basically with the overhaul in the Lorena station. Then going into the specific CapEx for the development of reserves, so we're able to compare the first and the second quarter perforations, BRL 45 million versus BRL 48 million, as the workover is the same, BRL 7 million. Then these two activities, BRL 152 million versus BRL 155 million, that's practically the same financial volume and investments in perforations. The quantity of projects in a quarter went up a little from 63 to 72 projects. The average cost per project in the quarter went down compared to the first quarter.
On the right, we have the investments in terms of facilities. We can see that in the first quarter, it was BRL 34 million, in the second one, BRL 50 million, and it's inside our program that we have an increase in volume throughout the year. As Marcelo and Troy said as well, they're investments that are enablers. They don't bring gain in production by themselves, but they have to run in parallel with the development of rigs in the field so that all the efforts can be optimized. Once again, all of these projects that were concluded during the period, and also increasing the capacity of processing and delivery of oil and gas.
Basically, this was in the Carnaruba complex, and it allowed gains in terms of oil and gas, also several projects and the overhauls that Troy mentioned, that were spread out throughout the operations. We're going to be able to either add a new compressor or revitalize a new one and allow it to work more. We'll be able to release the gas production in the company.
João Vitor is now going to talk about the details on gas.
Thank you, Rafael. Good morning, everyone. This is the examples that we normally give to show the flow and build the commercialization. The main points, commercially speaking, is that in the second quarter, we signed a contract with COPERGÁS, which is from Pernambuco, and nowadays we have six contracts established with distributors in a total of eight, and it's a very important presence in the northeast. I would say that COPERGÁS, after Bahiagás, they are the biggest consumers of gas when we talk about distributors. This is the characteristic of the contract that repeats the model that we have with Algás, and we're strong with Cigás, and we have some long-term contracts.
This is also according to the Brent pricing, but the advantage is that we have a minimum pricing connected to a pre-established value of Brent. There's also a maximum pricing, and this is corrected annually according to inflation in the United States. In the second quarter, we also continued to sell to Unigel. This is one of the fertilizing companies. It was a sales for three consumers. Now talking about infrastructure, the news is in terms of PGN in Amanã. On the seventh of June, there was a transition of the operation. We have the same contract models. In the second quarter, I'm gonna go into the details. We suffered with a few issues that have to do with the drainage and the processing. The main message is that we have been obtaining a progressive increase in the operations in terms of drainage and also processing.
Ever since we went to 3R, even with some limitations that we brought to the market, we have still been able to convert the gas that is produced and the way that it is commercialized, and it's still better than what we brought to the market. It's also important to highlight that we have that we process the gas that comes from Hermenegildo in Bahia, and accept the gas that is being produced in Catu, and this happened in the third quarter, and we're maintaining the expectation in the last quarter of the year to have another gas treatment plant, and we're going to treat the gas from Hermenegildo, and also from our concessions of Pedro. This is an on-track project, and we're going to finish it in time, and the facilities are already well advanced.
Now, talking about the events that gave, brought difficulties in terms of commercializing gas, and this is- I'm going to focus on the Potiguar Asset, where we had a huge difference compared to the past. We converted the volume of gas produced into 90%, so this volume went to PGN, and it was processed. Then at the end of the third quarter, we suffered with this in the third quarter. We had a series of problems associated to the outflow, and Ipanema is the centralization, the point where there's the centralization, and this was concluded in June, this replacement. We brought this information to the market, and since then, we've had much better numbers. This gas duct did not present any integrity problem anymore.
There was evolution, a gradual evolution of the pressure because of the, the safety issues, but we have today an operation that is very safe where this gas duct is, and this allowed us to normalize it. This number is not normalized yet, and we still have the compression system, compression system going through preventive maintenance, and they informed us, the processor informed us. In July, we were already able to process more gas than what we actually informed the market to two points. First, because some days there is an idle capacity, so they have made the idle capacity available for Potiguar to be able to process the gas.
Also because more recently, we also have an instrument with 3R that allows us to change gas before PGN, and then we'll be able to receive this gas that is equivalent to energy at another point, and this point have been invited. In practice, we're able to commercialize natural gas, even though we don't have integral capacity to processing. Besides these two problems, we also have a non-recurrent factor in the second quarter, some electric failures, and we had a reduction of the gas that was processed in Miranga. This happened in upstream, the transforming unit in Miranga, but this problem has already been fixed, and the conversion of gas was normalized in the month of July. Looking at the financial aspect of the problem that we had in Potiguar, Ibirá, we looked at the production that we had and the production in the second quarter.
We stopped pro- producing natural gas, and that was BRL 48 million in revenues that was not produced, in gas that was not produced, and in the cost that we stopped having because of the processing of gas that was not produced. Also the fact that we have to make some trading operations, and the trading was to buy gas in the market to be able to supply our contracts. We always make a comparison, if it's better to buy the gas in the market or if we're going to try and supply it ourselves. In this case, we decided to buy gas in the market. The market net results that we had in the market, we did not have BRL 47 million reais, and this is represented by what we see on the right.
It's 19.9 million MMm³ of dry gas. This is what we produce because it's associated gas, but we were not able to, to do the outflow of it. This volume would have been produced, but in terms of the financial result, this pays for the royalties and all of the governmental participation. We have to stop some, some stations that are not associated to gas, it should not be burned, and that's 3.3 Mm³/day. We also had 1.9 of C5 and 3,800 tons of LPG, because LPG, because of this- of what happened in this quarter this year. Rafael is going to talk about the other aspect.
Talking a little bit about the cost per barrel the company has. We see the graph of historical evaluation of the cost in dollar per bbl, this is about the first compared to the second quarter. The variation in dollars was more because of the exchange rates. I would highlight at this level that we're in here, the average of the first quarter, $13.2, it's above what we would like to have. It's much lower compared to the competition. We understand that this number should be reduced, maybe in the long term, this should be one of our targets. Obviously, one of the main factors is the production volume. We're very confident because in the second quarter, we still have extraordinary events happening, and we think that we're going to be able to improve over time, over the next few months.
A little bit of reflex in terms of the process that began since followed by Ibirá. It was interrupted, but they returned to production, but there are still some oil ducts that were not, that did not return to their operations. In this quarter, we still had a bigger volume compared to what we usually have in terms of oil being transported per carrier. In the second quarter, we were incorporating the purchase of the Arruga and Tamaja fields, and Tartaruga, and we still had some people and offices and equipment that we dismissed and some arrangements that we were not able to capture completely in the, for the third quarter.
As Marcelo said in the beginning, we're coming very close to a phase where the mobilization of the equipment, especially Workover rigs and everything that was so intense in the first few months and very strong in the last six months, we're coming close to the end. Whenever you're mobilizing new equipment, we hire people two to three months before, before the equipment is beginning to be changed. There are some costs that affect the operational cost of the company. The first months where the equipment is operated, it is a bit lower. The teams that are already working together for a longer time makes a difference. While we received the equipment, we were hiring a lot of third-party equipment, and we have 100 Workover.
As soon as the equipment goes into our fleet for the operation, we also start a demobilization of some third-party equipment. They're a little more expensive compared to having our own equipment. This is also maintenance management, so we're talking about different sorts of equipment, and this is almost identical, and we have some efficiencies in terms of management. We talk about the objective of reducing the price per barrel in the second quarter. Looking at this period, we're, we're looking at a general stability. There's a lot of movement, especially in gas over here, because in the first quarter, we still have the swap with Petrobras, so this ends up being translated. We sold it, then we rebought it, and then there was a cost within this swapping associated to the repurchasing of gas with Petrobras. It doesn't exist anymore.
On the other hand, we had growth in the processing of gas, and we began to pay more bigger tariff associated to the processing. When we talk about other expenses, we're talking about releases. There was an old process, an arbitration process, that had a partial decision, and now in this quarter, the decision was definitive, so it was a portion that was missing, and there was an impact of approximately BRL 15 million and in other revenues as well. In terms of our book over here, during the quarter, the price went down a little bit compared to the first quarter. There was a negative impact of hedge in our net revenues. It was a reduction, BRL 71 million - BRL 60 million in the second quarter.
The graph shows this red line, it's the average price of swaps that we have, and the yellow line is the quote over this period. We still do not have the rolling of the hedging contracts and the, the financing. This is what we did, and before that, we already had, yes, automatic rolling, because today, with like gas in the company, this represents relevant volume in terms of revenues and results, and we have fixed prices. Even if they're associated to Brent, they still have a Brent baseline. The stability that we're talking about of gas, on the one hand, with the hedge contracts that we still have, the remaining contracts, we are very calm in this position with hedges that is quite high in the company.
This amount has reduced, and there's a negative effect on the results, but we're almost at the end of this period, a little over a year for some contracts, but the volume is decreasing over time. In terms of the cash position, this is the position we have in June. This is about under $63 million, and in July, we announced recently that we hired new funding, $60 million, and this is already, this is already in with the company, and it was associated to the short-term reimbursement that we have related to some acquisitions, and especially when we talk about the second half, in August, especially, it's about $55 million to be paid. Recently, ANP extended this, in Fortia, and this was from the last payment, and this is what we had.
The last payment that we had, this is also going to happen in the month of August, and this debt was financed to the payment that has to do with acquisitions in the company. Once again, our bank debt is well distributed, so only in four- years time, the funding that we got, $60 million, it was going to be paid in three- years, and it's quite comfortable for us, 0.5 in terms of the net debt and EBITDA, and it allows the company to capture future opportunities in M&A and et cetera, with this capacity of getting more resorts if necessary.
Now Felipe is going to talk about the next part.
Thank you, Rafael. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to talk about ESG in the company. First of all, we're talking about what we, we put in our report that is public. I would like to highlight a few progresses that we've had. First of all, representativeness in terms of women, and this is at the level of the organization as well. 5 basis points increase for women and the operators and services and in the assets, so women who are operators. There was also expressive reduction in the carbon footprint. This is also because of the efficiency program, energy efficiency project, and also better use of gas with the interconnection of our fields to the grid, and also avoiding ventilation. The second point over here is that the company decided, the board decided to create an ESG committee with people.
Before, it was only focused on people. Now it's for specifically for ESG, definitely the company is connected to this point. That's important for us to deal with this topic. This ESG topic has been happening since 2003, 10 years ago, where we launched our first social project or programs. Definitely we'll be able to accelerate this company agenda. It was also good because we started our diversity program. We launched it. We had a census here in the company. We understood our main gaps. We elaborated an agenda with a very clear strategy focused on activities and acceleration of their career plans to be able to receive more people here. There's intense work in terms of initiative. There are special governance with 3 directors participating. We believe that,
We believe in this company and its diversity, not only of people, but of thoughts. It's a way of working, and we have some strengths in here. Recently, our trainee program, we're going to launch it now in August. We have more than 70% of people representing at least one of the characteristics of diverse groups, so it definitely shows our commitment to this agenda. We also started another social program, it's very focused on the employability of adults. We did a census to be able to understand the communities where this works, and looking at the main gaps and the possibility that people would have to work in the future. There are a series of workshops that are being done, and workshops to be able to increase employability of the people who are participating in our project.
Finally, I'd like to talk about, about the awarding and the contribution that we provide in the association and all the thematic groups that exist. I'd also like to highlight that this was a very important topic.
Thank you, Felipe. I would like to thank you for... It's great to have somebody like you focusing on this ESG area and sustainability in the company. I think in terms of final comments, we're basically bringing a lot of focus on production. The numbers in July, we're very satisfied with them. We're very optimistic about what's happening. Because of the numbers, the, the results were results from interventions in the wells, they were very good. That's what we've had in the last few months, and it gives us safety that we are on the right track.
We always try to look inside, together with the gains in efficiency and productivity. As Rafael mentioned, we're also talking about a transition phase now. That's where we are, and we're focusing on our verticalized structure, having our own equipment, standardized with teams that are working together, increasingly together, and this is going to lead to increases in productivity and efficiency. Some of the points were already mentioned by Rafael in terms of intervention that we were able to use in this quarter and compared to the first quarter of the year. This is what we expect, and we think it's only starting.
It's a great challenge, and it involves all of the different management teams, and it's a great battle for continuous improvement and productivity, and in all the areas of the company, and allowing us to have increased profitability and to be able to have free cash flow. Together with the low leverage the company has, this will create opportunities for the companies to continue doing what it's doing. We have new business, and there's great looks outside, and we are sure that we're going to have opportunities over the next few years in the Brazilian market. We have a low leverage and a strong cash generation. We're going to be verticalized, so definitely there will be people. We will be in a very strong position to be able to take advantage of opportunities that are definitely going to come along for inorganic growth.
In the midstream activity, we're also going to be able to have a lot of opportunities compared to what we've had today. We're very happy to see this resilience, and we're very optimistic looking at the future and seeing very good results made by this company. Thank you, everyone. I think we're going to open up for questions.
Thank you, Marcelo. I'm going to ask Virginia to help us here with the question. Please open Pedro Soares from BTG Pactual, his microphone. I think you can hear me.
Good morning, everyone. First of all, the first question I have is more related to the expectations with the evolution of production in the second half of the year, and try to understand the best use of gas in Potiguar. We've seen the improvements that happened in July, but if you could actually talk a little bit more about the second half of the year, if we can start, or at least until the end of the year, we can start imagining this ratio going up more than 90%. If this is because of the problem that you had in the compression system with 3R?
A second question, in terms of CapEx and investment that the company has done, Rafael mentioned the expectation of a reduction in terms of warehousing and other fixed assets. In the second half of the year, we have to imagine this with values that are closer to zero, because the total CapEx of the company is closer to what is in the reserve, or is this gonna take a little longer? Thank you.
Well, I'm gonna start with the second question. Yeah, I can start that. The expectations that we have in terms of the stock, our expectations are for it to be negative. We're gonna start consuming stock, and we're going to contribute positively to the cash flow in the second half. That's what we expect. In terms of fixed assets, I would say that most of the CapEx has already been done, and we still have some remaining CapEx, especially associated to the rig that is going to get to Brazil. It is a rig that, that we saw... It's the last thing we saw, and there's refurbishing that is happening in the United States. They're going to finish the refurbishing, and then it's coming to Brazil. It's the equipment that is missing to complete the company's portfolio.
There are still some CapEx activities associated to this fixed asset. That's for the second half of the year. Expectation is going to be smaller, compared to the 1st half of the year, but it's because of this deep rig. It's the equipment that is still missing for us to be able to see or generate all the capacity that is necessary for the company.
Right, for about production?
About production, the results from the work that we had over there in Potiguar recently, so new areas, and we're continuing to develop this, and we have more or less the same rhythm now. There was an increase in June and July, and also in August, and we released part of the production that we had in the fields, but it continues to grow.
In terms of the production, and it's going to continue the same way that it used to be. Also thinking about reviewing this, the maintenance, the preventive maintenance that is being done, and it is something that I'm sure they're going to be able to go through, and what they're doing, everything they're doing over there, and in a few months, we'll be able to establish a good outflow that will be continuous and using the system that exists there. Well, well, I'd just like to highlight in terms of growth and production, there are different standards. You come out of the low-hanging fruit, what after you assume the operation, after 18 months, where you see continuous growth month after month.
Basically, we're talking about the return in terms of production, that you get to a certain level, and this is very common in Rio Grande do Norte. Maybe it's a little bigger compared to any historical peak in the field. You begin to see these bottlenecks in terms of facilities when we talk about compression. I think we saw that in Rio Grande do Norte when we talked about compression, also in Parque dos Sabiás. These are more recent fields with a very high development level, and we've had a lot of interventions there, but the results stopped because of infrastructure limitations. As soon as this limitation in infrastructure is addressed, and that's what we've done, of course, this is a continuous challenge, but there was a lot of delivery in Potiguar, and you can see how much the production has gone up.
We also have the same expectations for the Miranga field. It's a transition from the low-hanging fruit to growth regarding the recovery of the field, and as soon as we get in there, we have impacts in the delivery of production. I just wanted to talk about the issue of midstream. We brought this-- there, there's this conclusion of the maintenance that we're going to finish, as we said before, but 3R has already presented some areas that are according to the timing and even anticipated. With this operation, what we're talking about is making a swap, and we do not depend on the compression system. We-- they declared about 76% of the gas volume that is being converted into sales. About 10% of this volume, we are already delivering directly to 3R.
Even if we don't have the processing capacity, we're able to get to the previous levels, about 90%, and we observed this in the month of July. We already expect this value, in a way, answering your question, in the third quarter, we're already going to have some improvement in this value, definite improvement in the compression system.
Thank you, Pedro. The next person is Luís Carvalho from BTG Pactual.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you. Yes, go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. Marcelo, I'd like to start with one that is a little more structural. Recôncavo has, definitely over the last decade, always, it has always betted on developing its own structure, as you said in your presentation, and in terms of people and equipment. We have talked to, to some suppliers, onshore as well as offshore, and this is what the operating companies use, and they have invested in over the last few years, and the services industry has suffered a lot. Here in Brazil, the initial feedback we have is there is a bottleneck, a huge bottleneck with regard to people, probes, and equipment.
I would like to hear a little bit more about the strategy and what you see, and eventually, the competitive advantage the company has here. In second place, and I, I missed the, the first part of the first question, please excuse me if or just ignore it if it has already been answered, there were some declarations about Bahia Terra, the Petrobras, with regard returning to or not selling everything in the field.
Something that we think makes sense, we're talking about the needs the company has, maybe be interesting for you, is a production risk-sharing contract, as you have in amongst, for example. I'd like to understand from your side, how you see this, and if it makes sense to continue with this partnership with for a return to this field, or are you thinking about maybe doing this by yourselves? How do you see this? Finally, this comes from the previous question, if you could talk about the allocation of capital, because you have elevated cash, and of course, you've talked a lot about organic and inorganic growth and this opportunity. What do you think about it in terms of allocation? Sorry about the long questions, thank you.
Let me see if I, I remember all the questions. The first one was about the verticalized structure the company has. We believe increasingly that this is a competitive advantage, very relevant, and to be- to tell the truth, we've had the recent experience of allocation of a perforation rig that was from third parties, and we had low productivity and a series of mechanical problems. It was something that was very different from what we had with our own probe, one that we have operated for 12 years. We have al- we have already returned this probe, and it's going to be substituted by what Troy said, PR 23. It's a step up for the company.
Besides traditional equipment in Brazil, this rig is going to have a great relevance, strong relevance in terms of the drilling for the company, horizontal drilling, and this is something that is not used a lot in Brazil. There's still a series of operational problems, and we're going to learn a lot with the experience in the United States and Canada so that we can use it.
We noticed that it is a problem, and this gain in productivity from the gradual delivery of some third-party probes that are still here, this is something that makes us sure that we're going to be able to produce more with less equipment, less people, as we focus only on standardized equipment that is property of the company, and with a lot of safety and with an alignment of interest as well, in terms of the objectives of the company. Yes, we believe that having our own structure verticalized will provide us not only with smaller costs in the market, but above all, with flexibility and autonomy to be able to do what we have done ever since our acquisition, and basically implementing our labor project in these fields, and this will increase production and consequently productivity, and it will increase our cash flow.
Trying to go to the, the other two questions, I think the middle question, I think I'm, I'm lost. What was it again? Okay, Bahia Terra. I think all of you saw that we had some declarations and compliments coming from top management in Petrobras about PetroRecôncavo. We have a 23-year partnership, and we were the first operators with this kind of contract that you mentioned, and we've had some preliminary conversations with Petrobras, and we still have our partners. If these conversations evolve, and I think it's very important to have to look at formal aspects, and Petrobras still needs in terms of renewal of its strategic planning, but it's probably going to happen until the end of the year.
It still needs to change the disinvestment process for a partnership process, so allowing these process to provide not only internally, but also externally with regard to the TTU entities like PC. These are formal aspects that should happen before these conversations can go into practice. But we're very optimistic, and we understand that for the state of Bahia, as well as for both companies, PetroRecôncavo is the most enabled to operate mature fields in the Recôncavo, and its efficiency can generate a lot of value for the company, for Petrobras, and for the state of Bahia, especially the municipalities that depend strongly on royalties in the oil and gas companies, and this is in the norte Recôncavo of Bahia. We're optimistic, but there are a series of steps that still need to be concluded.
Once again, one of the strongest characteristics of the company is the value that we have provided. It's this partnership, 23-year-old partnership, and the resilience in waiting for the right moment for things to happen. I'm very optimistic that at some moment we're going to be able to get a good agreement with Petrobras about this. I do not think that it's going to be through a service contract. I think the regulatory point in the industry, this has changed since 2000, and I think there are other more common ways of doing this in the operational market through joint agreements and participation, and I think we're going to move towards this.
The last question, I would ask Rafael to address this question. Before, just to make an introduction here, I think we have a mandate in our board to look at the company as an upstream company, and it's bringing us business up the upstream area and in gas, but there's also a mandate that is optional. Trying to find business in the industry, so opportunities that come up. The fact that the company can generate a lot of cash and the leverage is low, it definitely puts us in a position, a very strong position, in case this kind of transaction appears in the future. Rafael?
In terms of allocation of capital, I think the company tries to position itself as a company that invests in the business to finance organic growth, considering the opportunities and considering the very attractive return.
At the same time, there's a company that pays a lot to its shareholders, so the logic of the financing has to be looked at. Since we're in 2023, and it's still very heavy in terms of the flow of the remaining installments that we have to pay in the Miranga, and this has been capitalized. This is the basic plan the company has, just like last year. Coming to the end of the year, November, December, we're going to distribute what is going to happen in terms of its own capital, and this is for the company, and there is anticipation of the distribution in the year, and there's an addition in the following year in terms of the shareholders. This is the basic plan the company has at the moment.
Of course, we have to, to follow the unfolding of the fiscal reform, and there's going to be the, maybe the taxes on dividends. Maybe we're going to have to make an accelerated distribution of cash because of that, but with fiscal planning, this is probably going to happen. We need to have patience in the sense of we see this attractive part, so following the basic company flow, and next year we're gonna have to been through all of this relevant phase, and we're going to talk about the generation of cash that is going to be available for this distribution.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next one is Leonardo Marcondes from Bank of America.
Hi there, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, and thank you for accepting my questions. I have two. My first one is about the human capital in the company. You recently announced two new directors, right? To work with Troy. Could you elaborate a little bit more about these hirings? I'd like to understand the valuation of the company, so why they hired these people, and if there is any specific point in the company, and if this has to be improved, and it's going to be improved with these new directors that were hired. If you can talk a little bit more about their CVs, that would be interesting.
My second question is about the planning of the company. I think it's about a year that you hired Rafael as the planning director, if I'm not mistaken. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I would like to understand what has changed in the company in terms of planning. We know that many times these things take time to be implemented, and if nothing has changed yet, I'd like to at least understand how the company's view has changed with regard to the medium and long-term planning? I think the internet is a little unstable here, I would like to hear your answers. Thank you.
Yeah, we could hear you well, and Troy and Philippe are going to address the question. I'd just like to remind you that there was a position that was open in the company for a while, and we've been looking for an adequate name, but I'm gonna ask Troy and Philippe to talk a little bit more about their qualifications, about these new, two new directors.
Thank you, Marcelo. These two new directors, as Marcelo said, the first one was the production director. With Ronaldo leaving last year, there was an open position for a while, and the selection of this production director. We were looking in Brazil and outside Brazil, and one person that has a lot of experience in integrating two new technologies, especially in the management of data that is coming in, production data, with an increased complexity that the company has. Looking at several compression systems and several facilities, so this is all integrated, and a large number of wells in different production areas with different needs.
We chose Guillermo, who has had a lot of experience in different fields around the world, especially in the United States, and he has implemented new systems with automation and assessment of connected systems, and this is very developed in the United States, and this was applied in British Petroleum, and also in several other countries in the Midwest, also in Iraq, and different positions that he occupied there. We're bringing him to be able to get this perspective of the integration for the management of data, and to be able to increase our capacity to optimize the production systems. Not only in terms of optimization, but also optimization of these integrated systems, that we can use, can use these systems and to be more efficient and to generate this for our operation. That's why Guillermo was hired as a production director.
The second area is in terms of development in the medium and long term, with our increase in terms of concessions and with 60 concessions now, also three different exploration blocks, we're already beginning to develop different, reservoirs. For example, in the Potiguar Basin, the recent success we've had is in several reservoirs that has a low permeability, lower than normal, because, that's what Petrobras used to do. This kind of stimulation, this kind of analysis, the reservoirs that are not conventional, we need abilities that we've been looking for outside Brazil. Waterways is an Argentinian, he is a person that has had huge experience in other parts of the world, specifically in Argentina, in the development of several fields and areas there. He has also had several positions in the Midwest and also in Portugal.
He has a lot of experience. He can integrate not only our resources, and in the short term and medium term. He also has excellent ability to integrate other activities in areas that are a little outside the normal conventions. If we're getting to areas that are much lower, and at some point, the company will begin to see different, different pathways, if it's about gas or anything else. Anything else to add to that, Felipe?
Yeah, just adding on to what Troy said, I think Troy talked a lot about expertise and bringing the new experience in the company, but there's also the point about focus. We're talking about two people who are going to help to guide the teams below Troy, focusing specifically in each area, and that's very important for us to have great evolution in the company in these areas.
Guillermo is already here with us, maybe, four weeks, and he is moving from Argentina to here. It's gonna start in two weeks' time. Yes. Second part of the question was about Rafael Sugino, and we call him Sugino, right? He's our Chief Finacial Officer, and Sugino works inside my structure, and this is the planning of the company. I think we have two areas here, focal areas inside the structure that he's creating. Of course, it takes a while, and we have to structure the people. There is a strategic process that involves huge integration between the board and the between the directors and the administration board. We have a two-day, a two-day meeting to define these macro issues. It's about what we're going to do for the company in five to 10 years.
There are several strategies, and under the umbrella of several directors and managers in the company, Sugino, in his area, they work as a private management office. In each of these initiatives, there is supervision and monitoring of the cost and the, the time for implementation of these initiatives, and the added value that these initiatives will probably bring to us, to the value of the company. There's another short-term part that is advancing a lot, and it has to do with the gains in efficiency and productivity that we mentioned in the quarter. This is the part of working on top of what the company always had. It was a very strong point. That was its agility to make decisions. This is historical in the company. In 23 years of operation, we've had this, and closed capital, and it's smaller.
Troy and Rafael, we decided to reallocate the equipment and reallocate people from one activity to another, and that was done very naturally. As the company grows, this process is going to be organized. I'm going to give you a simple example of that. Today, Sugino's area is the one that manages the intervention projects. They're going to provide us with authorization for expenses and the amount of return we expect for each of the projects, and even an individual budget for this project, and the priorities of this project. This is already in the allocation of equipment and the drilling inside this priority area, and this follows the cost of the interventions, and then it offers appraisals.
The objective is to not lose this value, still a huge value, but also to be very rational in governance in the application of this resource. The fact that Rafael mentioned that we have the expectation of the reduction of inventory in the company, this comes from a clear guidance that we are expecting the work, and we are going to do whatever is possible to be able to consume the, the tubes and the pumps, everything that is already in stock in the company, and this is coordinated by the company's PMO nowadays inside this area.
Either as an executor of perforation projects, or in the sense of carrying out the management of PMO as a consultative internal area that also moves to other areas with important projects, involving facilities and the small PMO technique, so that we can make it uniform, the way that the company sees all of its project. We're very optimistic, and we're already beginning to deliver results, and we're only in the beginning because it is a process, and also what was mentioned in terms of hiring people to solve problems. This is continuous improvement. We know that we always have things that can be improved, and it means also bringing new faces in and new heads, and adding to what we already have in the company, and this is going to lead us to different levels of productivity and efficiency.
Okay, that was very clear. Thank you for your answers.
Thank you, Leonardo. The next one is Bruno Montanari from Morgan Stanley.
Good afternoon, everyone, and I have two more important follow-ups and another question. Going back to the services sector, you think objectively that you have equipment and people enough for your market, and all the other operators will be able to carry out the development plans without difficulty and without any pressure from inflation? This is in the medium term, so not what you have to do now in the second half of the year. In terms of capital allocation, how would you consider the probability or your desire to actually have a greater partnership with 3R in Bahia, or looking at other assets that manage more synergies for PetroRecôncavo?
The last question is, if you can actually talk about the short-term possibilities with the gas problems, so and maybe we'll need less procs for oil in Bahia. That would be interesting. Thank you.
Bruno, although we have a huge view, a broad view of the market, we have some concerns in terms of the availability of equipment and trained teams. If you get the four or five biggest independent companies in Brazil, they all have very ambitious development programs, and I think it's going to be a problem. On our side, what we try to do is, we try to use this verticalized structure, and I think it's much more comfortable because we are comfortable because we have this, and we've had it for a long time. We know it's not easy to develop this from scratch.
Today, maybe 60% of the labor has already been allocated in this area, and many people work for mile. We have, we're gonna go through exclusive maintenance of our own equipment. Again, we insist that this is an area there's still a lot of gain and productivity to be implemented, and the fact that we have this under control, and this makes us very comfortable. I'm going to ask João to talk a little bit about the conversations with 3R and with other operators.
We're very open, especially for 3R, we're one of the greatest suppliers, the greatest customers, and we talk very openly about it, and this has to do with a lot that can come. This is not only with 3R, but also with other companies, and it is cooperative industry. I mentioned this, it is an international practice, huge international practice. They can do this in terms of diversifying. Companies can do this to diversify their portfolio. João, would you like to say something specific, and then Rafael can continue?
With regard to 3R, as Marcelo said, we operate in similar basins, and I think we have a series of concessions, even those that are in partnership here in Bahia. You know, coming closer to that, that's great. There are two points here. We clearly talked about our, our difficulties. I think, you know, this is part of our productivity vision, and today we are the first, the main people who hire in this area, and it brought the market, we have with 3R. More attractive conditions compared to what we have with Petrobras.
Of course, we look at the long term, and this could be generating some bigger partnerships. In the shorter term, we are interested in evaluating these new places and how this can be processed. It's important for us to be able to deliver third party and the PGN that we demand to process our gas. There are economic premises that need to work, but this is something that objectively would make a lot of sense. When we look at assets from Bahia upstream assets, our work is to evaluate the possibility to be able to add value and concessions. In the use of the verticalized structure that we have, and sometimes we're able to actually have a development program where we are very competitive, and we're able to exchange this for work interest and different from different assets.
As Marcelo said, especially where we operate, where we have the capacity to add value and reduce cost and add productivity and move equipment with greater agility, we have also evaluated all of the opportunities. 3R is definitely a possibility of a future partner with this greater priority in the midstream for the Potiguar assets. When we talk about cost per barrel, I, I think the company should move around $11 a barrel. That's something that we have here, and definitely it's very difficult to get this, this year. I think in the third quarter, there should be an impact as we mobilize this third-party equipment that was hired, and you have to do some kind of maintenance in this case, and we're talking about the return of the equipment and etc.
I would think realistically, it would be in the third quarter and close to $12.50 when you get to $12.00 in the quarter. In the midterm, for next year, we could think about something about $11.00 or something like that. That would be reasonable. There was a moment when, during this period, the, the plane was flying off and we were mobilizing a lot of equipment, and we were accelerating our rhythm of activity. In terms of the volume of activities for the projects, when we talk about facilities and equipment, we're already coming to a phase where there's a more constant activity. There's a lot in production, but the execution of projects, I think we're already getting to this stage for us to be able to, to look at the efficiency and gains in productivity.
That's why I think we can already bring some results this year when we talk about the initiatives, when we talk about optimization and reduction of costs, and there's greater priority that I'm giving the company.
That's very clear. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you. Next one is the speech from Bradesco BBI.
Thank you, guys. Thank you for allowing me to ask my question. I would like to maybe look at your production this year. I have three questions. First of all, what is the outflow production in July? I think it's 29,000. Depends on what you see in August as well. In second place, the compression in Miranga. In Fortilia, we've already seen that the results were great, and I'd like to understand if Miranga can actually get to this well. The interventions... With everything that you could add, because it seems that maybe you're going to end the year above 30,000. I'd like to understand if this is your base case. Thank you.
Well, in Miranga, thinking about an increase in gas in Miranga. Of course, in a gas field and, and the facilities in terms of compression that we have there, we're already doing more or less the same thing, and for Potiguar now. We're placing improvement in efficiency, we're doing preventive maintenance, this is happening there. The great problem that we find in Miranga currently is the drowning of the wells. These wells, they, they produce, they have some water, and we need to clean up and install systems that can actually allow us to work. I think that in the future, this gas in Miranga will continue to improve.
This will continue to improve. You're not going to see a great increase in the future in terms of facilities, because we are seeing these issues in Miranga. I think over the next six to 12 months, this optimization of the collection system, and also having the equipment ready in Miranga, this is what we're focusing on the most in these fields now, and this is going to generate a continuous improvement. With regard to Chie, Chie is... We're already going into an important moment in this field. There was excellent production last year. We already entered. We did not have the possibility of removing all of these issues, and we're getting to BRL 50 for this.
The situation in Chie, we have these workovers, but Chie, for us, is to configure the reservoir and the water injection to be able to optimize the recovery of the reservoirs. For the reservoirs in Sugi and Pupuenga, they're great. They are the best that I've seen in the basin. We need to configure our injection adequately to be able to optimize the reserves. You're going to see this over the next few years, and also in GF 5, that is very important in the short term to be able to optimize the production. We're already, we already started it. Removing the pressure on Troy, I'm going to talk about previous numbers.
We had this for July and the beginning of August, production came to 29,300 barrels, then there was some intervention that gave us a peak in production, but it was a level that was already achieved, definitely we're going to have this, these, these increases. I think you can add that in our planning, we're going to overcome the 30,000, that's, that's what we have. We can say that here. Lots of moving pieces. We can't give you a correct number, an accurate number, but it's already feasible according to what we have now. Yes, that's right. In our production nowadays, it's better than at any moment in the past.
Perfect, guys. Thank you. That was very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Vicente, the last few questions from Bruna Morkin, from Goldman Sachs.
Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, good afternoon. Actually, my questions, most of them were answered. I just have another question that has already been partly addressed, which is the CapEx expectations for this year and next year. If you could tell me what kind of numbers you have now and what we can expect. I understood that in the second half, the CapEx would be smaller, maybe, you know, just some number, BRL 1 billion or some number that makes sense. We have BRL 600 million in the first half. Then for next year as well, if you can give us some guidance about that. Thank you.
The number that we have in our internal planning is very close to this. It's close to BRL 1 billion that you mentioned, and we have about, during the year, in the first quarter, we had BRL 130 million in terms of stock. We believe that it's gonna go down in the second quarter, but in terms of the net values, in the BRL 1 billion, there's maybe BRL 80 million in terms of growth, and that's more working capital and not CapEx, not exactly CapEx. I think it's a little bit of what we have, and from what we've said, when we talk about the equipment that is well dimensioned, and we have seen this strategic planning, and we're trying to, to maintain constant activities in our assets, and this is over-- this is for 2024.
We've started this discussion about 2024 internally already, but I think the idea is to maintain a level close to that of 2023, maybe a little bit of the same equation, replacing a bit of this CapEx in terms of equipment and stock that was a load this year, and we're substituting it for more CapEx. Then in the beginning of next year, we're already gonna have these three rigs for perforation. The, the, the automatic and light rig that Troy talked about, that is already here in Bahia, that is just being revamped, and also the, the rig for very deep wells that is going to allow us to do this. We have not gone into a detailed discussions yet about the budgets for next year, but the view is more or less in this direction.
I don't know if I've answered your question, according to what you asked.
Yeah, no, that's fine. I think that helped a lot. If you can actually do a follow-up, based on that. From what I understand, you understand that productivity and CapEx, so it's the conversion of CapEx into production, it could be better next year, 'cause this year you prepared the company for growth, and next year, from what I understand, you're going to drill more, and we can expect a bigger increase in production for every dollar that is invested in CapEx. Can I think like that?
I think mainly in the first quarter of this year, the production did not come at the rhythm that we expected. There were several bottlenecks. When you look at the average of the year, I would say that most of this investment is paid over time. I think we can expect... It's a, it's a yes, but there's a phenomenon of, you know, it depends on the type of project and the quality and the results, so it's several moving pieces, but I think on average, maybe yes. Okay?
Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon.
Thank you, Bruno. Now we're going to have the final comments from Marcelo.
Once again, thank you everyone for, for your participation. This is a view of the company management with regard to future production and continued focus on efficiency. I believe that the company has always been positioned in terms of strong cash generation. This gives us strong options in terms of paying our investors, the dividends in our own capital, also increasing the work that is focused on the, the outcomes, as long as they're positive.
There's also this opportunistic view, because we are ready to do new business in conditions that generate value to our shareholders. I think this is something that should happen over the next few years, and even in a shorter horizon compared to, to what I had been saying from 18-24 months. I believe that there is the possibility of doing this earlier. Does anybody want to add anything? Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.