Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Energean January trading update - operational update presentation. My name is Laura, and I will be your operator for your call this morning. I will now hand you over to Mathios Rigas, CEO.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. Let me start today with some highlights of our results, our trading update. I think the biggest message that I want to give to everyone today is that 2023 was a year that Energean turned the corner and became a major gas producer in the East Med. Full year production of 123 barrels, 123,000 barrels a day, is representing a 200% increase versus our 2022 numbers. And that continues to grow. Peak production reached 150,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, and our exit was about 143. So we have become a major producer of gas in the East Med, and we continue to grow our production base.
Panos will go through our financial performance, but it has been a solid year with close to $1.4 billion of revenues, EBITDA of $925 million, and liquidity strong at $600 million at the end of the year. Group leverage continues to come down, and it will continue to come down in line with our plans. We will talk about the various countries. Egypt has been important beyond Israel, obviously, which dominates our production. And there, following the initial NEA-6 well that was disappointing during 2023, we had two very solid results from the remaining two wells that were brought on stream, on budget, on time, towards the end of 2023, and the project is producing in line with expectations, close to 13,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.
But this company is not just about production, existing production, it is about further growth with projects that are being developed. We will talk about them later in the presentation. Karish North, expected very shortly. Second oil train will be installed as soon as the security situation allows. And Cassiopea, the major project in Italy, is expected to come on stream in the summer of 2024, led by Eni, our operator there. Beyond that, Karish... Sorry, Katlan Phase One, FTP has been approved by the Israeli government, so now the decision is upon us to finalize, the EPC terms. We're obviously looking to improve costs and, there is no impact on timing of the project. We have farmed in to, a Morocco project, a new country entry for us, a diversification of our business in line with strategy, gas in the wider Mediterranean region.
New areas of growth we see in Italy, where the country is starting to open up concessions in the Upper Adriatic. Previously frozen areas are now opening to us and other operators for development. We are working very closely with the Egyptian government to improve terms on Abu Qir and NEA NI. And last but not least, our Prinos carbon storage project saw a solid development with the project being included in the European Commission's Project of Common Interest. On our financial side of our business, we continue to deliver dividends in line with guidance, $214 million return to shareholders, and we continue to be committed to our dividend policy that was announced previously. On page five of the presentation, I think that illustrates more than anything else, the solid growth that we've seen.
I remind everyone that Energean, in 2018, when we listed on the London Stock Exchange, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, was a company producing only from the Greek asset, from Prinos, close to 2,000 barrels a day. Within 4 years, 5 years, including 2023, the 2,000 barrels has become 123, and next year, we expect it's gonna continue to grow. We're driving towards 155-175. There are a lot of factors that will affect this production. Most important point is that our FPSO is working, and it's working extremely well. We will talk about uptime later, and our guidance for the near term remains at 200,000 barrel a day target, which we are committed to achieve from our existing assets.
I will hand over to Panos to go through our financial results, and I'll come back to go deeper into each country of operation.
Thank you, Mathios, and good morning from me as well. As mentioned, 2023 was a massive year for us, where in spite of the commissioning delays of our FPSO in the beginning of the year, plus the ongoing geopolitical tensions in our region, our group delivered 3 times increase in gas production, up to 6 BCM, 2 times increase in liquids production to 21,000 barrels a day, bringing our group production to a total of 123 barrels per day, which, as mentioned again, is 3 times what was recorded in 2022. As expected, and in spite of the softer commodity prices compared to last year, we more than doubled revenues to north of $1.4 billion. We achieved that by still keeping our cost of production well under control and getting very close to the $10 per barrel of cost.
Excluding royalties, this drops well into the single digits. EBITDAX doubled to $925 million, and as communicated before, our CapEx intensity softening after the peak year of 2022, with 30% less spent on CapEx in 2023. Finally, leverage has halved to 3x net debt to EBITDA, well on track to achieve our target to stabilize this well below 2x EBITDA. Our absolute net debt has stayed within guidance of $2.8 billion-$2.8 billion, in spite of the $100 million of windfall taxes we had to face in Italy, and we paid that in the summer of last year. Moving to slide 8. As we're getting closer to our target plateau production rate of 200,000 barrels a day, we're focusing on profitability and operating efficiency metrics.
As we grow production, our operating netback is growing, even compared to 2022, that our Italian assets enjoyed record oil and gas prices, and we're now sitting well at 65%. Our operating cost per barrel is dropping even faster than expected, at a level close to single digits, as I said, in spite of the bulk of our production being in OECD countries now and the continuing inflationary pressures in our sector. Finally, and as expected, 2022 was the peak capital intensity period for us, and in 2023, we recorded $650 million of CapEx, $250 million less compared to 2022.
Moving on to our guidance for next year or for this year, 2024, it reflects the expectation for another growth year for Energean, what we consider to be the final straight in our journey to achieve the production profitability targets, which we had set a few years back. As Matthew mentioned, we expect to bring our fourth well in Israel into production, Karish North, and complete the installation of the second oil train. And of course, in Italy, we expect the Cassiopea gas field to come on stream around summer of this year. Our production guidance for the full year is around 155-175 thousand barrels per day, with all the key country of operations, Israel, Egypt and Italy, all recording increased production.
Our net debt is expected to stay at similar levels, levels to 2023, as we continue spending in our sanctioned projects and slowly and cautiously increasing our capital spend in growth projects like the Katlan development and of course, the appraisal drilling, in the new country entry in Morocco. Production costs are expected to be at around $600 million, again, driven by, Israel, and a big part of that reflects, the royalty pay, linked to the production in, in Israel. Moving on to the development CapEx. Probably 2024 will be the first year, since the IPO, that Israel will not dominate the capital, allocation, as we expect most of our capital, development CapEx to go for the Cassiopea development.
Although we do have budgeted around $100 million of spend in our Katlan development, the first stages of the development that we will talk in the following slides. After a couple of years of break, our growth capital allocation, exploration spending is back to around $100-$150 million. That is driven by four exploration slash appraisal wells, one that is currently ongoing in Egypt, the Orion well, alongside Eni and its partners. Two appraisal, low-risk appraisal wells in Italy, around the Cassiopea gas field, and as mentioned, our appraisal drilling in the new country entry in Morocco. Finally, our decommissioning expenditure. We continue guiding, as we have done the last couple of years, of around $40 million. This is a cost line item that we continue undershooting.
The teams in Italy and UK do a fantastic job for extending the profitable life of those fields. In 2023, we underspent that in for more than half what we had guided. I'm not ready to revise this number down. We're only starting, so we're keeping it at $40-$50 million, but we do expect this this number to to go below and probably be revised at the next guidances we give. So with that, Mathios, back to you.
Thank you, Panos. I move to slide 11, and I want to tackle the issue of production, uptime, gas demand in Israel, which is dominating obviously our numbers. First message, as I said earlier, the FPSO is working extremely well, and I'm very proud that Energean, at 100% ownership, is owning and operating a machine that had 100% uptime in the last months, 99% at the fourth quarter. So our operating team is working the machine as it should. In terms of production, we have, at the moment, a capacity of 6.5 BCM a year that will increase as soon as we're able to install our second oil train and that will happen as soon as the security situation allows in Israel.
The M10 module, as we call it, is done, finished, ready to be lifted on the FPSO. I cannot give an exact date. We estimate, mid-year we will be up and running, but that depends on situations which are totally outside our control. In terms of the market, what we are seeing, what we did see was a warmer winter, and that has impacted short-term gas demand in Israel. We see coal phase out being slightly delayed, and I think everybody would understand that, when a country is at war, they need every source of energy security to be available in case required. That has an impact on less efficient CCGTs and, slightly lower gas demand.
The response to that from us as a management team is to go out and contract more gas to fill the boat, and that's exactly what we plan to do in the coming months. So we see a shift, a slight shift to the right, but no real impact in the long-term demand for gas in Israel and in the region. Egypt today is facing long electricity cuts because of shortage of gas. So the region needs gas, Israel needs more gas, and we're there to contract and sell and fill the boat, as I said earlier. So that's our number one priority for the coming months. Moving to the development side, we talked about Katlan. The Israeli government has approved the FTP on time, as always, and we thank them for that.
The FID is expected upon the finalization of our EPC discussions, but effectively, we are already ordering long lead items to secure the timetable. So I don't want to focus on the date, because for me, what is more important is to make sure that we meet our contractual obligations through the development of Katlan, which also, I remind everyone, has no restrictions on export, of gas. Our M10, which, if you have in front of you the presentation, you can see the size of it, as I said earlier, will be installed as soon as, we're able to do it, depending on the security situation. Moving to Egypt. Egypt has seen stable production of about 25,000 barrels a day, again in 2023, despite the decline.
I remind everyone, this is a very old, mature gas field that is declining, and the operating team has done a great job to arrest this decline and even see increase in production through the NEA development. What we are doing with, in cooperation with the Egyptian government, is we're trying to optimize the existing licenses through a merger of the three concessions that will allow us to see a longer life of the field, extend the economic life of the field. That will also allow us to invest more. We're drilling one more well as we speak, that we expect to have results in the coming months. The big well, obviously, in Egypt, and not only for us, but also for the region, is Orion. Eni is the operator. We have an effective 19% stake. It's a multi TCF prospect. High risk, obviously.
Exploration may bring results that could be a game changer for us and for the region, but also could be a big disappointment. We are not the kind of company that promises big exploration results, but obviously, if this well comes in, it will completely change the situation for us and for the East Med. So, in the next 40-60 days, we should have results, at least have drilled the reservoir and know what is going on out there. Moving to Italy. Italy, again, same message, solid, stable production, 11,000 barrels a day, growing with Cassiopea coming on stream later in the year. We expect summer based on the latest expectations of Eni, the operator. What we are seeing in Italy, and we're very pleased to see that, is new areas of growth, which were previously frozen.
I mentioned it earlier, in the Upper Adriatic and the Sicily Channel, we see the government opening up areas for development. I'm sure I will be asked the question, how much is expected from there? I would say, 30%-50% increase in reserves could be achieved from the prospects we have there, but it's still early days. Moving to Greece. The future of Greece and the future of Prinos is clearly the carbon storage project and the conversion of the Prinos field into the first CO2 storage in the EastMed. We've seen solid progress in the project. It has been included in the European Commission Projects of Common Interest. We have non-binding MOUs of at least 5 million tons per annum, which exceeds the capacity of Prinos.
Prinos has roughly a 3 million ton per annum capacity of storage, as confirmed by studies we've done. We have achieved support from the Greek government, from the Recovery and Resilience Fund, of EUR 150 million grants that have been committed, and we expect them to start hitting our accounts in 2024 to support the development of the project. This, for us, is a very important project following also COP 28, which I attended. There's a big focus on the industry, on decarbonizing heavy industries, and Prinos will play that role for us and for the Greek and East Med industries, in the decarbonization efforts of the government. Morocco, we farmed in the Chariot license, offshore Morocco. We're very excited about this project. It's a discovery that needs an appraisal well.
We plan to drill this well later in the year. We will be visiting Morocco and expecting the formal approval of the Moroccan government to name us as the operator of the field. We have, at the moment, an 18 BCM gas development needs to be appraised, but the great news for us in Morocco is that this is a market that has a much healthier gas price than the EastMed, and most importantly, it is connected to the European Union market through pipelines. So we are tapping the big European market. There is exploration upside there. Again, in line with what I said before, we are not the kind of company that will be promising big exploration results. We will celebrate them when they come.
But Morocco, for us, brings a very interesting and very exciting gas development story in line with our strategy to be the leading E&P gas company in the Mediterranean. Last but not least, ESG. I know that, when we have wars around the world, ESG is not in the forefront, but we continue to progress our net zero commitments. We are well below double-digit CO2 emissions in terms of kilos of CO2 per barrel of oil produced, and we will continue to reduce. Again, looking back to COP28, all the pledges that were agreed by the E&P sector that was present for the first time in the conference were pledges that Energean has made years ago. We were the first E&P company to commit to a net zero strategy.
We were, as you can see from the slide on page 17, have achieved huge decreases in our carbon emissions. Our switch to gas, our commitment to becoming more efficient and emit less CO2 is exactly what the industry is doing today. So with that, I will close with our outlook. 2024 is gonna be another year of the material growth of our production towards our near-term targets. The three key topics to look for is the increase of the capacity of the FPSO, the new gas contracts that we will look to sign, and bringing Cassiopea on stream. Demand in Israel and demand in the region will come, and we will look to sell as much gas as we can, both in Israel and the rest of the region.
Beyond our production, the growth projects of Katlan, Morocco, the Orion well, and the carbon storage projects are the four key topics to look for in 2024. In terms of our capital, we continue to be disciplined. We've set a target of $1.75 billion of EBITDA that will allow us to reduce our leverage to 1.5 times, and we will continue to be committed to our quarterly dividend policy as announced before. Last but not least, as I said, being a leader on the ESG front, we continue to reduce our emissions and continue our ESG strategy. As I said earlier, Energean has turned the corner, a major gas producer, but we're not stopping here. We grew from 2,000 barrels to 123,000 barrels in 2023.
We intend to continue to grow where we see the right opportunities. With that, I close the presentation, and happy to take any questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and wish to remove your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your questions, please ensure that your phone is unmuted locally. To confirm, that's star followed by one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of David Round with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning, and thanks for the presentation. First one, just... I suppose it's good to see the second oil train arriving in Cyprus. Just wondering how long that installation will take when you decide to do it. And also, are there any approvals that you need for this? And is the approval process in Israel running smoothly with everything that's going on? And then secondly, just interested in the slower coal phaseout that you mentioned. Obviously, you know, there are exceptional circumstances. I think we can all understand that. It sounds like you're accepting of the situation. You're not seeking any compensation or government concessions to make up for it. You're kind of... You realize that there's a bigger picture in Israel right now. Is that correct?
Well, David, how long will it take to do a heavy lift? It's a couple of days. When will it happen? I can't. As I said earlier, I can't guarantee when the security situation will allow the operation to happen. But we expect it to happen in the first half of the year. Approval process in Israel has not been impacted, and I think the proof of that is the approval of the development plan of Katlan before the end of last year, which is exactly what we expected. And although a lot of people in the past were telling me that Israel is a difficult country to operate, I have to say that every time we needed the government to give us a permit or an approval, it has done it on time, and the cooperation is excellent with the government.
I remind everyone that when Tamar was shut down, Energean stepped up, backed everybody up, and we ended up producing more than 60% of what the country was consuming. So we are a very strategic player for the country, and I think that reflects in the relationship we have with the government. The coal phase out that you questioned and compensation, no, we will not seek compensation. What we will do is look to do what is within our control, sell more gas to the market in the region. That is what we do, and that is how we operate in the countries that we do business. Same in Italy, same in Egypt. Every country has its own issues, its own problems. Rather than fighting governments, we work with governments to try to find ways to grow our business.
Example, Italy, as Panos mentioned, windfall tax. We are disputing the payments, obviously, but we are more interested in new areas of development. Egypt, we all know, payment delays, issues with the finances of the country. We don't fight the government. We work with the government to improve the fiscal terms of our licenses. Israel, same. We're looking to invest more in Katlan, and this is what Energean is about. We are in the East Med. We understand it's a complicated and challenging region, but we know it inside out, and we know how to navigate around very, very difficult situations sometimes, as we've done in the last five years since we listed on the market.
We've dealt with COVID, we've dealt with wars, we've dealt with issues around us, and every time we find solutions to continue the production growth, the delivery of results, despite the challenging environment next to us.
Okay, that's very clear. Can I, can I just a quick follow-up, might be one for Panos, but, just the, the installation of the oil train, just to check that that is in your CapEx number, even with the uncertainty about when it actually will happen?
Yes. Yes, it is. The bulk of the CapEx for the old train has already been incurred by constructing it. The remaining is the installation, but as Matthew said, it's a timing issue rather than anything else. So yeah, it is included, but it is not the bulk of the CapEx for Israel.
Okay, great. Thank you. I'll hand it back.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Matt Smith with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and thanks as ever for a detailed presentation. Very useful. I had a few, if I may. And the first one was really around the sort of near-term guidance and the dividend. I think the guidance or the indication before was essentially once you reach your near-term guidance, which is, you know, has a few metrics associated it, that the intention was to double the absolute dividend amount. So I just wanted to clarify if that's still the expectation and whether you're able to indicate, you know, when that might be. I appreciate there's perhaps some uncertainties at the moment, with the second oil train. So that was the first question.
My second question would be around the Katlan project. I just wondered whether you had any concerns about progressing that project at the moment, given the geopolitical impacts you had with the Karish oil trade. I just wondered whether there was any consideration to sort of pausing that project or slowing that down, given that you already have the wells to produce around FPSO capacity. So just wondered any details around that might be interesting. And then lastly, sorry, if you don't mind, just squeeze a third on is really around the Orion well in Egypt.
I guess I just wanted to question you, this well could be a game changer for the company and the region, like you specified, if it does come in line with some of the pre-drill expectations that we've seen. I guess I just wanted to clarify, would that facilitate or necessitate a sort of a wholesale change to your capital allocation program? Have we seen it today, or would we sort of very much expect any potential development there? I know, I appreciate we're talking hypotheticals, but any potential development there to fit within the sort of framework and the dividend policy and everything else that you've laid out so far. So thank you very much.
Right. Mathios, let me start with the dividend, and then you pick up the-
Yeah.
The rest.
Yeah.
Okay. So, as mentioned, we're not changing our dividend policy, so it remains and the communication we had at the targets, we have said, we are fully aligned, and we expect to achieve them. That's why we're not making any changes. I do not want, and I think it will be wrong at the time, to micromanage the timing of us increasing the quarterly payment. We're not, given quite a few of our current uncertainties right now. We're not prepared to commit to a date. I can say, and as I have said before... Right now it looks that we will be able to revise the current one, not earlier than fourth quarter of this year, and I expect that to be based on the current projections for first quarter of next year.
Again, assuming that things continue as we plan and if we achieve our targets. Now, it's not about the next 8 or 9 quarters, of course, the dividend policy. We want to be a long-term dividend player, dividend payer, that is credible and don't have to change the amount with every adversity or anything going not according to plan. We had to face a delay in the commissioning of our FPSO, geopolitical tensions that no one expected. They were decades since we had this type of tension in the region we operate, and we had windfall taxes, and we didn't change the amount of dividend that we're paying. So for us to increase it, we will increase it when we're 100% sure that we won't need to revise it again.
And it's not only about the next 8-9 quarters. It is the long-term dividend stream that we expect to give to our shareholders.
Yeah. On the, on the second question, are we considering a pause of CapEx? Absolutely not. And the reason I'm saying that is because I do see a lot of demand for gas, long term in the region. This world, this region, countries of operation, need gas, so we need to be able to produce this gas. And obviously, gas fields decline, so we need to make sure that we meet our contractual obligations. I remind everybody, we have 15-year contracts with take or pay, provisions and, ACQ. This year, we saw buyers nominating below ACQ for the reasons we mentioned, but I don't think this will continue long term. So we need to bring CapEx on stream to have absolutely maximum capacity for both gas and oil production for the years to come. The Orion well, and what does it mean?
I think it's too early to say. If it is a 10 TCF discovery, obviously it's going to be the game changer I mentioned earlier. If it is a 1-2 TCF discovery, it's gonna be a very different story. If it's a dry well, it means nothing for the future. So I think it's too early to talk about developments and impact on our business. Rest assured that as major shareholders of this business, we are very committed and disciplined to our capital allocation policy that Panos mentioned. So for us, the maintenance of the dividend policy, the deleveraging, and the continuous growth are the three pillars that this business will continue to focus on, regardless of what happens around us. And when, and I really hope that the results come in at the upper end.
When that happens, we will talk about what is the best way to execute the development.
Perfect. Well, thank you very much for the detailed answers. Much appreciated, and happy to pass it over.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sasikanth Chilukuru with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I had two, please. The first was related to the Karish North startup. You're talking about unexpected startup now in 1Q 2024. I was just wondering what was left to do for the startup from here on? Slightly related to this, and then it's possibly a clarification. I was just wondering if the delay in installing the second oil train in there has any impact at all for the startup of Karish North and also to the overall gas capacity of the FPSO. The second question was related to Morocco.
If there is an appraisal well planned, and if the appraisal well there turns out to be successful and achieves the objectives, how should we think about development of the field there? How quickly should we expect for you to move on to a development in that area?
Thank you for the questions. Karish North startup. At the moment, as you saw from the slide that I presented, we are producing to meet nominations, so it's not critical to the business when Karish North starts up. We will start up, we will clean up the well, and we will start it up in line with nominations and in line with gas demand in the region. So in order to make it a major event, because at the moment, as I said earlier, we have the capacity to do 650 million scf/d from the existing wells. So it will start, but it's not critical to the business. What is more critical is gas sales, and that is what we're focused on at the moment.
On the second oil train and whether it impacts our overall gas business, the wells that are coming on stream do produce liquids, and we have a unique situation where our production of liquids at the moment is around 16,000 barrels of liquids a day. It will grow as gas production grows, so we need the second oil train for backup for the first one, but also to be able to deal with higher liquid production. Again, this is not critical for the next months. What is more critical for the next months is to sell more gas, which is what we're focused on. Morocco development, rest assured that Energean, as a company, moves extremely fast. You've seen us, we took over Karish in 2017.
2018, we took the final investment decision, and with COVID and big problems in shipyards around the world, we brought the field on stream in 4 years. We will follow a very similar path. We will move extremely fast, and the reason why we will move extremely fast is because there's a very healthy gas market in Morocco and in the wider region that underpins a fast development. I don't want to give you numbers on development costs at the moment because, again, it's too early. We will be ready to talk about this as soon as we drill that appraisal well later in the year. So for 2024, expect the appraisal well, and as soon as we have results, we will be talking about the optimum development plan, timing, impact on CapEx, et cetera, et cetera.
Very helpful. Thank you very much.
The next question is from the line of Igor Sutyagin with ING. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for picking up my question. Actually, I wouldn't imagine myself asking this question, but on the back of this Red Sea development recently, how do you actually estimate how Karish project well protected from any hostile actions? This is like a tough question. In terms of insurance of the project and the objects, what exactly is secured with regards to disruption of any gas production, deliveries, gas production, or damage to of equipment? And can you like disclose the amount of well potential insurance? And were there any changes in terms of price of insurance? I guess that since October 2023, I guess that they've gone up because maybe there is some long-term contracts.
And on CapEx, what breakdown—what exactly goes to, like, in the existing investment projects, and from the announced amount, and what is the amount for the new project, like, Katlan, Morocco, and Orion? Thank you.
Okay, I'll take the first question, and Panos will answer the insurance and CapEx questions. No private company, no matter how small or big, can provide protection against hostile military attacks. But a company that produced 60% of Israel's gas demand is critical to the country and is extremely well protected by the country's defense forces. So we are totally confident in the ability of the Israeli government, the Israeli military, the Israeli Defense Forces, to protect the FPSO, and not only the FPSO, every piece of infrastructure in the country, every piece of critical infrastructure in the country. I can't comment any more than that. This is protection and security provided by the government of Israel. We have seen so far no disruption, as we've said before. The people on the FPSO feel very safe.
All the contractors that we worked with continue to be working with us, so we've seen no impact. We have seen no impact on delivery of services or goods, and we are solving any problem, any difficulty, and this is what we're here to do. But beyond that, I think it's the government. Panos, do you want to take the insurance and CapEx questions?
Yes. On insurance, yes, I can assure you it has been a pretty volatile, intense period. The last quarter, as you can imagine, all insurers were worried with war and price. But I can assure you, we have assured the investors, stockholders, and all our stakeholders are intact. Our insurance cover for the assets, it's more than $1 billion, and includes more than the recovery, of course, and the BI, which again, is north of $1 billion, which is business interruption for two years, again, it's in place. Cost-wise, as we expect, premiums have increased, and we expect in 2024, that part of the cost line to increase.
But we do not have or we have no visibility or any information that those covers will have to be revised in terms of the cover we're getting. As a group, we are committed, of course, to continue having the best possible cover, as comprehensive as possible.
... in spite of the situation. So we are keeping all, insurance companies, and our brokers, informed about what we do and what, of course, the Israeli state is doing to keep all state strategic assets, well secured. Now, regarding CapEx, on Israel, as I said, around $100 million of the guidance that we have given is attributed to Katlan for this year. We expect most of that expenditure to materialize towards the second half of the year. And on the rest of the portfolio, most of it, most of the $250 million is attributed to Cassiopea. Around, $200 million goes into the project and the gas field that we expect to bring online, in the summer of this year. Have I missed something on the CapEx question, that you wanted more clarification?
I think, that's, that's fine. Thank you so much for explanation.
Thank you for answering my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mark Wilson with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. The most important thing for me in this in today's update was this point you made, Mathios, about slightly lower gas demand in Israel and going out to look for new contracts. So can we understand then, therefore, that you have lost some contracts or some clients have changed their contracted demands? And then... And therefore, so what is-- what are your current contracted gas supply contracts? 'Cause I... As we understood it, I thought it was over 7 BCM. Thank you.
We have absolutely not lost any contract, Mark. But I'm sure you know very well from your experience in gas markets around the world, that contracts have ACQs and have take or pay levels. What we are seeing is buyers of gas from our existing customer base, because of the situation, nominating at levels below ACQ, giving us the ability to sell more gas to the market. So in the beginning of 2023, we obviously were very conservative, and we're limiting our sales efforts to see the nominations from the market. We have now a year of operation behind us. We see behavior from buyers. Obviously, there's seasonality, and I'm sure you understand that, seasonality is everywhere in every gas market. In the summer, we see peak demand. In the warmer months, we see less demand.
So now we see that we can actually increase our contracts and increase sales, both to the local and to the export markets. So naturally, this is the evolution of a business. We learn the market. We see additional opportunities. We are going to go out and contract more gas, both locally and internationally. But no, we haven't lost any contract. All our buyers are there, and our target is, as I said earlier in the presentation, in simple terms, to fill the boat and sell as much gas as we can to the maximum operating and production capacity that our technical team can produce.
Okay, got it. That's really good clarity. Thank you very much for that then. So second question then is on those international markets and the potential to export gas from Karish. In prints, you spoke to getting the additional, the 2P BCM for a future, I think it's the Nitzana export pipeline. Are you able to export through your existing infrastructure and agreements from the Karish FPSO?
Two answers to your question. Karish, from day one, was and still is a field that is dedicated to the local market. Katlan, that follows, is, has no export restrictions. So we are working with the developers of the Nitzana pipeline to secure capacity. But this is a project that is gonna take a few years because of permits, because of long lead items, and that will be debottlenecking the export routes to Egypt today. There are two export routes that exist today for Egypt. One is the EMG pipeline, and the second one is the pipeline that goes through Jordan. And obviously, Chevron and the other partners of Leviathan and Tamar are occupying most of the capacity.
There is some export capacity today, but Katlan and the new pipelines are open to us to export markets to the export markets of Egypt. I remind you also that we have talked in the past about Cyprus, a country that is still burning fuel oil for power generation, and we are in discussions with them about the potential to export gas to Cyprus and bring their emissions down to the levels of every other European country. We have ongoing discussions in Egypt about exporting gas from our existing production. That would need the approval of the Israeli government, and we're not there yet because we do see a lot more demand in Israel.
So we prefer to focus on what we consider solid demand with strong credit quality buyers that will buy and pay for the gas on time, and that is clearly the Israeli market for us. So that's why I said earlier, our priority at the moment is to sell or contract more gas and sell to high credit quality buyers that we see in Israel.
Makes a lot of sense. Thank you. Very good clarification on the Katlan point. Very clear on exports. Thank you. I'll hand it over.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ella Fried with Bank Leumi. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my call. It's actually Ella Fried. I have two questions or three questions left. The first one is about the potential use and the potential growth of Prinos, and what exactly is the usage and what did you mean when you mentioned the potential for the area?
For Prinos in Greece?
Yes.
Yes. Um,
The CO2, of course.
Yeah. The Prinos field is a mature field that has been in production for about 40 years. It is approaching the end of its economic life. Obviously, the Epsilon project is the growth of the oil business, but we like to see beyond the next 3, 4, 5 years, and we want to secure the future of this asset as a carbon storage project. So the future growth of Prinos is not in oil, it is in the carbon storage business. And that is why I mentioned, and I dedicated a slide in this presentation, showing the progress that we've achieved with EUR 150 million coming from the European Union through the Greek Recovery and Resilience Fund. That's a grant. And this is a clear focus for our business. But as I said earlier, this is beyond the oil.
Oil, uh-
Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. The question actually is about the usage of the CO2. I mean, the storage.
Yeah
... how is it going to serve? If is there an industry, blue, green? What-
Yeah
... what are your plans for the storage after it retires?
Phase one of Prinos is oil production from Prinos and Epsilon. Phase two is contracts with the big emitters of the country, and the big emitters are the cement factories, the refineries, the power generators, the fertilizer companies. We have, as I mentioned earlier, secured 5 million tons of LOIs from industrial emitters that want to store their CO2 emissions and not pay the CO2 penalties that are being imposed by the European Union. This CO2 will be liquefied, transported, injected in Prinos, and stays in the ground where it came from. This is a carbon storage project that has close to 100 million tons of storage capacity over its life, and that can reduce the industrial emissions of the country significantly. 3 million tons represents close to 30%, maybe 40% of the industrial emissions of the country.
This is a project that stores the CO2 permanently in the ground.
Okay, thank you very much for this description. The second question is about Italy, about Cassiopea. You mentioned in the presentation that you have two nearing fields potentials there. So what is your expectation for this project for 2024, and then we say the following two years? How do you see the development there?
I, I repeat what I've said twice so far. We are not the kind of company that, tells stories about exploration wells, and expectations of development on the back of wells that haven't been drilled. You have to allow us, Ella, to drill the wells, confirm the results, and then we will talk about solid, numbers and development plans. I prefer to see and view, exploration, even appraisal wells, as, investments that we can afford to lose, as I always say, and talk about solid results when the wells have been drilled.
Okay, we will wait patiently.
Okay.
The last question is somewhat technical about Karish. Could you give us the production mix for the quarter and for the year between the gas and the liquids in terms of BCM and barrels?
...Of course we can. I will ask our IR team to give you a specific breakdown of gas and oil, so you have the specific numbers. So Maria Martin will take that and send you the specific details.
Okay, thank you very much, and thank you for this very elaborate presentation.
Thank you for the questions.
The next question is from the line of James Carmichael with Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning, guys. I was a bit late, so apologies if some of this has been covered. If so, just three quick ones, I think. So just, on Israel and the outlook, I was just wondering how sort of binding is the country's plans to decommission those coal plants? Various sort of say they're gonna be gone by 2025. But is there a risk, you know, given the current environment, security of supply, et cetera, that those, the life of those plants is extended and obviously, you know, that has ramifications for, free gas demands, potentially over a slightly longer period.
Second, on Egypt, just wondering if you gave any sort of color on the potential life extension that you're thinking about through the consolidation of the three licenses there. And then thirdly, actually back in Israel, sorry, just on the FPSO capacity, just wondering if there's any impact on gas export from the second oil train, I guess there's a bit less certainty on the timing of when that work gets completed. Thanks.
Starting from your last question, as I said earlier, the second oil train doesn't impact our ability to export. Exports are expected from Katlan, which is the field that has the ability to export, and that's not expected to come on stream in 2024, obviously. So there's no impact on exports from the second oil train. Egypt life expectancy, as again, as I said earlier, Abu Qir has been in production for decades. It is in natural decline. We're managing through interventions of infill drilling, and of course, the addition of the NEA production to arrest this decline and increase production. But we need an improvement of the fiscal terms, which we can achieve through the consolidation of the concessions, and this is not the first time that Egypt is doing this.
There are multiple occasions where other companies have done exactly the same. We're following exactly the same route. It doesn't make any sense to have three separate concessions in the same area owned by one operator. We are 100% there, as you know. It is less administration, it is less G&A, it is giving us the benefit of consolidating all the CapEx that has been spent on NEA in the Abu Qir concession, and that increases the cost pool, allows us to have a longer economic life of the field. Obviously, we are talking also to the government about gas prices that will allow us to continue to grow the business and invest more into the longevity of the Abu Qir field. Your first question about Katlan, correct? If I missed that.
The first one is how binding Israel's plans after the decommissioning of the-
Ah, yes.
Risk of the-
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Sorry about that. Sorry. On coal, again, this is in my view, this is my personal view, a very short-term issue. It is not a long-term issue. No country will be able to continue to rely on coal-fired power generation. It is an extraordinary situation that we faced in the last quarter, after the events of the seventh of October, and obviously, I think everybody understands that in a war situation, every source of energy supply has to be there to secure the country's electricity.
Today, Israel is back into a normal situation, and, you know, I will be visiting in the next weeks again, and, I invite anybody that wants to come down and see the FPSO and the situation in the country to join me, to see a country which is operating normally, with life back to a normal situation. So the short-term impact of the phasing or the delayed phasing out of coal will not impact the long-term strategy of the country. But we are in a war, and this is something that we're dealing with. We see, as I said earlier, the opportunity to sell more gas to the local market, and that's what we plan to do over the next months.
Thank you. Thank you.
In the interest of time, we have to stop the Q&A session, and I hand back to Mathios Rigas for any closing remarks.
Thank you, and thank you everybody for participating and your great questions. As I said earlier, Energean has turned the corner. We are a solid gas producer. We are dealing with a challenging geopolitical situation, and we're dealing with it the best way we can. The short-term impact of what we discussed will be dealt with by management through additional gas sales and the focus on every country of operation to improve terms, increase production, and reach our long-term goals of the 200,000 barrels a day, plus our solid dividend policy, deleveraging, and growth are and will continue to be our focus for the years to come. Thank you all, and look forward to seeing you very soon. Thank you.