Thanks a lot. Just a reminder, my name is Gilad Myerson. I'm the exec chair. We have Alan Bruce, CEO, and Iain, CFO, Catherine leading IR. Thanks a lot for coming. It's very exciting for us. This is our first time we're publishing our end of year results for 2022. It's been a fantastic year. The way I would like to run the session is half an hour, we'll run through a presentation, leave the other half hour for Q&A. I'll dive directly into the slide that summarizes where we are. 2022 has been a transformational year for Ithaca. We completed three very significant acquisitions, the major one being Siccar Point, and we listed on the London Stock Exchange.
If you look at the operational highlights, we produced 71,000 barrels per day at Q4 80,000, which was the upper range of the guidance. Captain EOR is progressing on plan. It's. We're the only company that produces polymer in the North Sea. Abigail came online in October 2022. It was a fantastic development. 10 months from sanction to having first oil. Successful drilling campaign at Jade, infill drilling at Mariner, work at Erskine and Alba. A lot of operational work as well that has come through. We are very clear on our net zero target. We're doing a lot of work to decarbonize our platforms, improving compressors. We're also looking to electrifying Captain asset.
We are trying to do as much as we can to make sure that we are, one of the pioneers and leaders on that dimension as well. Financial highlights, adjusted EBITDA of $1.9 billion, which is an 84% increase from 2021, and we have significantly de-leveraged our balance sheet. Currently have a net debt to EBITDA position of 0.5x, quarter net debt of $971 million. All this is very much in line with what we discussed during the IPO, and we're very happy to be able to stand here today and talk you through these results. Just a reminder, who is this again? What do we do?
We're one of the leaders in the U.K. energy landscape, the second by resources and third by production. We have a track record of value creation through developing skills, through the acquisitions that we've done. We've got the most attractive pipeline of organic opportunities. We are oil independent with the diversity of development opportunities. These are all resources that can and will be developed, the likes of Cambo, Rosebank, Marigold, Fotla, and others. We have deep operational expertise. There are very few independents in the North Sea that operate majority of their production. We're proud to be that operator. We're proud to essentially control our destiny. Our capital allocation framework is very balanced. Was one of the most important points that we heard from investors in the run-up to the IPO.
They were looking for growth as well as dividends. We continue to provide that growth outlook as well as a very concrete dividend. We are en route to providing that $400 million we've committed to in 2023. Already announced $133. We will be announcing $267 as we go through the year. We have, once again, clear focus on decarbonization. That's part of our license operating in North Sea and pioneering some fantastic studies, which hopefully we'll be sanctioning in the near future around electrification, around other type of flaring improvements on the platforms themselves. A reminder of our strategy. Our strategy is very simple and clear. We're following it. Buying assets is the first element of our strategy.
We've demonstrated our ability to do accretive M&A, Siccar Point recently, also Summit and Marubeni were completed last year. Before that, obviously Chevron was the first large acquisition that we did and Mitsui as well. Building assets, the second of our strategy, we have Cambo, Rosebank, Marigold, Fotla, and other assets that also are in our pipeline to build. Finally, boost the asset performance. Alan will talk you through some of the operation improvements that we've been running on our platforms that have enabled us to essentially reach the top end of our guidance in Q4 last year. Just a reminder of the track record.
This is one of my favorite slides, which just demonstrates year-on-year through the COVID cycle, how we managed to essentially increase the equity value of the company. This once again, is the equity value as per the definite results and core reports that we report year-end. Now the 2022 number is complete, and we can see this continuous growth, and we're now looking to continue the growth by sanction project, potentially by additional acquisitions to continue this trend. I'm going to address EPL because it's such a huge topic, and it has impact on the business, and I'm sure there'll be quite a few questions about it. Obviously, the whole industry is talking about EPL and its impact. I'd start by saying that Ithaca Energy is very, very focused on accelerating our development.
When we listed the business, we spoke about the desire to accelerate Cambo. Initially, we planned for an end of 2023. Sorry, the Siccar Point is planned for end of 2023. We wanted to accelerate that, as well as Rosebank and Marigold and Fotla, and looking to other assets as well. The purpose is to deliver energy security as well as economic value, as well as employment in Scotland. These assets are a clear win for the economy, for the country, for Ithaca, for our shareholders, and therefore, we look to FY 2023 and 2024 most of our development. Our EPL has been unfortunate in that regard. There are two major unintended hurdles, consequences of the EPL. Number one is JV partner confidence.
While we are very keen to continue to develop, you need partners in this industry. You need to make sure that the partners are as willing to invest equity as well as debt, that they see their future in the North Sea. It's fair to say that quite a few partners have turned around and said, "No," they do not want to invest in the U.K. North Sea, given the fiscal instability. The second element is the debt capacity.
This is something that we have spoken very constructively with the Treasury about and explained to them that when there is no price floor, the simple implication is that the RBL banks, who in any case lend to the industry on a reduced $ per BOE, roughly $52, when you put 75% tax on a reduced oil and gas price, ultimately the credit availability just dries up. Therefore, the banks are unwilling to invest or to provide capital to the industry to then go and develop assets. Therefore, this has put us in a position where we now need to prioritize, and we can't accelerate the development at the pace that we'd like to once again due to the partners as well as due to the debt availability.
We have aimed to be as constructive as we can with the government. We understand the need for the government to increase taxes, to raise more funds for the economy. It's worth mentioning that the concept was a windfall tax on windfall profits. Where commodity prices are at the moment, there are no more windfall profits coming through at $70, $75 per BOE gas as well at 100 pence per therm, which once again just translates to roughly $70 per BOE. So there aren't those windfall taxes going forward at least at current profits, and therefore, it's hard to justify the windfall taxes. It's fair to say that the discussions that we've had with the government have been constructive, and they are aware of the situation.
We've seen rumors about the government reconsidering some of the EPL elements, and we are hoping that there will be changes in the short term that will allow us to continue to move ahead and develop these assets for energy security and employment in Scotland and the U.K. more broadly. Happy to answer additional questions on EPL, which I'm sure you'll have later in the presentation. With that, I'll pass on to Alan to walk through the operations.
Great. Super. Well, thank you everyone. I gonna start on page nine here. Gonna touch a little bit on safety, then a bit on production, finally the developments in the portfolio. Moving on to page nine, really first priority for us as a company in this industry is making sure that we're running our operations safely in an environmentally responsible manner. We've had a lot of activity in 2022, particularly around the major projects that we've been doing. The picture that you can see on the slide here is actually from our Captain asset. It's the installation of one of the clamps for the riser caisson that we'd spoken to you about during the IPO. You can see the rope access technicians getting that installed there.
A lot of significant sort of engineering and then construction complexity in the work that we've done. I'm really pleased to say that we've done all of that safely and with no no issues. Although, you know, we are continuing, and you can never take anything for granted, so we're continuing to try to improve. This last year we've been focused on leveraging the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers and standardizing our Life-Saving Rules and applying Process Safety Fundamentals, which is a focus area for us for 2023. On the slide on the right-hand side, we're just showing our outturn performance on emissions for the year. Our emissions intensity for 2022 sitting at 23.8 kg per BOE.
On a gross operated emissions basis, the 483,000 represents about a 15% reduction from where we were in 2019. That's our baseline. I'll talk about it a bit more in the presentation, but we're continuing to advance projects. We've had good success at FPF-1 with a couple of projects coming online last year. We'll see the benefit of that this year and beyond. We're doing engineering on some of the more complicated projects like Gilad alluded to, for example, around flare gas recovery and electrification at Captain. Moving on to page 10. This slide is just a summary of where we are from a production performance perspective. We've increased production 26% in 2022 relative to where we were in 2021.
Driven both by the acquisitions but also by our organic investments like the drilling campaign at Captain that's helped production. As you can see, during the year, we had higher volumes in the first quarter and then the sort of typical turnaround season second and third quarter and then again, really strong performance in the fourth quarter. Expect to see something similar in 2023 in terms of the phasing of production with the turnaround season in the middle of the year. The benefit of our portfolio really is the high-quality assets that we've brought in. With having stakes in six of the 10 largest fields, we've got a long life, strong production base. Just walking through sort of how the numbers stack up here.
The 56,000 barrels a day, we acquired the Moray Benny assets which started contributing from February. It was about 7,000 barrels a day added there. Further 11,000 barrels a day between the Siccar Point and Summit acquisitions in the middle of the year. That gets you up to about 74,000 barrels a day. As we're thinking forward, the portfolio declines at about 8% per year, so that's about 6,000 barrels a day. That helps give a bit of calibration for our 2023 outlook. We've obviously got some investments that bring us up to the sort of guidance range that we've got now for 2023, and we'll cover that a bit more in the later part of the presentation.
Long term, our focus is still on what we articulated at the IPO. It's the 70,000-90,000 barrel a day range. really that's gonna provide strong cash flows that will help support our capital allocation policy and help support our distributions. Moving on just to give a bit more specifics on the portfolio and the optionality we have in there. On page 11 now, given a summary of the resource base that we have. We've got over 500 million barrels of 2P/2C resource in the portfolio. That represents a reserve life of over 19 years. really strong optionality for us.
You can see that the optionality is all the way from, you know, big greenfield West of Shetland projects through, close to infrastructure infill developments, to, you know, infill wells from existing platforms. That optionality, you know, is really something that's valuable for us as a company. We've got a good mix between liquids and gas. The chart on the left-hand side is really just a summary of oil demand scenarios. And, you know, of course, not here to talk about, various oil demand forecasts today. You all have your own forecasts in terms of, different oil demand projections. But the key point for us is that the future is very uncertain. What we believe is that given the amount of uncertainty that exists, having optionality is something that's gonna be valuable.
That's what we've built into the portfolio with the acquisitions that we've done. You know, as we look to sort of allocate our extra capital and extra cash flow, we'll do that on sort of whatever adds the best value for the company. Having that optionality will be really valuable for us as we progress through the middle of the decade and beyond. Moving on to page 12 and just giving some specifics of the operated activity last year and where we are. A bit of detail here. I'll just pick out a few highlights. On the left-hand side there, a picture of the Jade platform working with Harbor Energy.
We've doubled the production in Jade in 2022 through drilling of two additional wells, which came on time and on budget, continuing to see good performance there. We've had other good performance from the infill drilling opportunities like the opportunities at Mariner. We're continuing to drill up the field, some of the well work that we've done in the operated portfolio like Alba and Erskine. FPF-1, we touched on Abigail coming on stream, I've seen being able to get that online in less than 10 months and seeing that continue to contribute. Lots of options in terms of West of Shetland, not just the Cambo and Rosebank that we talk about quite a lot, but also the Tornado gas discovery.
There's an exploration prospect called Tuck that sits on a similar license that offers some potential there as well. Just touching on Captain, clearly the flagship asset in our portfolio, over 1 billion barrels of oil initially in place and working to strengthen our recovery through the Enhanced Oil Recovery polymer injection scheme. As a reminder, we've already recovered about 10 million barrels of oil from that first phase of the project, and the second phase is extending it to the subsea area of the field. The major construction work was done last year, so that was all done safely and on budget. Riser caisson was installed towards the end of the year, the additional decks on the Bridge Linked Platform are all installed. The key scope now is completing drilling of the additional wells.
The rig came back on location, we started drilling the injectors. We'll get those completed over the next two years with a view to having first injection in 2024 and then peak production in 2025 as we start to see the impact of the polymer flood. Key message there is that the project is still on schedule and on budget. We're working really hard to continue to drive down the emissions intensity of the asset. The project is gonna help that, but we've also got a few additional opportunities like we touched on the flare gas recovery project and the electrification project, which we're actively pursuing.
If we can get those through final investment decisions and get them online in the near term, they have the potential to drive the emissions intensity down into the single digits on Captain as well. Really consistent with our strategy of developing long life assets that have a low emissions intensity. Just a bit of color on some of the future opportunities in the portfolio, you're aware of the main opportunities that we have, of course, from the big greenfield developments through near field high-value tiebacks like Fotla and Marigold, exploration opportunity like K2 and the Montrose infill project. I'll just pick out a couple of those. I'm on page 14 now and touching on the Rosebank project.
You will have seen the progress that's been made on that with some announcements in the news around the selection of the Petrojarl Knarr vessel, which is gonna be refurbished and will be redeployed onto the Rosebank field. Engineering is complete on that. We're at the point where the development program and budget is in a very mature stage. It's really nearing being in a position to make final investment decision on it and just working to make sure that all stakeholders are aligned on that one. Going back to some of the comments Gil had made earlier, just around having support for the project.
It's a really good project, low emissions intensity development, expected first production at the end of 2026. It will add 15,000 barrels a day of net production to Ithaca with our 20% share. Other one I want to highlight, we didn't talk about this a lot in the IPO, but we've signed up the rig contract to drill the K-2 exploration well, which is an opportunity that came into the portfolio through the Summit acquisition. It's a Forties target which sits near the Montrose, Arbroath, and Everest/Lomond area. An area that we know well, of course, we've got assets in that area in terms of our interest in Erskine and Montrose, Arbroath.
The intent there, if it's a discovery, would be that it could be a rapid tieback to existing infrastructure and really capture the value from a couple of perspectives for us in terms of the development itself, but then also the value through the infrastructure with our assets that we're already in. Hopeful for that and look out for the drilling results as we work through the summer on that one. Final slide for me really is page 15, and just recapping our strategy from a emissions perspective, unchanged from the IPO. As a reminder, we have short, medium, and long-term goals.
In the short term, our focus is driving down our gross operated emissions. That will come from projects like the Captain projects I've touched on, and the projects that we've done at FPF-1, reducing our flaring, continuing to optimize power generation and efficiency there. For example, the hydrocarbon purge replacement project on FPF-1. Continuing to do what we can on the existing portfolio in the short term. Medium term, looking on a net emissions intensity basis and really focused on portfolio transition as we bring in the lower emissions intensity assets. The assets that we're, you know, looking to develop have emissions intensity 65%-80% lower than the current U.K. average.
We really think that they're the right thing to be doing, you know, from a security of supply perspective, but also from the perspective of net-net having a lower emissions impact as a country than would otherwise be the case with imports. And that's all in service of our goal of net zero by 2040. Just quickly recapping then before I hand over to Iain to touch on the financials. You know, we've got a portfolio that's delivering really strong cash flows. We've got lots of great reinvestment opportunities, and we'll capitalize on those opportunities to deliver value, which will be able to support our cash flow allocation strategy and our dividend policy that we stated in the IPO and we remain committed to. Iain, over to you.
Thanks, Alan. Right, we're going to slide 17. Really, it's a slide summarizing the key numbers for the year. These are record numbers on every front for the business. We're very proud of them. From the production numbers of 71.4 to the EBITDAX that was generated from that $1.9 billion. Net income for the year of over $1 billion and group free cash flow of $1.1 billion. A real evolution of the business and really strong numbers. You can see in the bottom there that we've used quite a lot of that for M&A investment. We've nearly $1 billion of M&A cash flow evolving the business. You can see the reserves number on the right-hand side there, and resources.
That's come partly through the acquisition, giving us optionality that Alan's mentioned. We've used the strong performance here from a cash perspective to generate long-term value. We've been able to do that, however, by maintaining low debt, less than $1 billion of debt in the business, just over 0.5 times net debt to EBITDAX. At the end of the year, we had kind of available liquidity of $579 million. We closed the year out in a very strong position from both an earnings perspective, an evolution on growth of the business perspective, but also from a capital perspective.
You can see that on the right-hand side, we also continue to invest in our core base assets, over $400 million of CapEx in the base business. A lot in Captain, obviously, a flagship project and a significant investment there. Nonetheless, able to commit to the dividend that we paid, the first tranche of it in Q1, we said we would, and we have. I'm committed to continue that through the rest of the year with $400 million being the target that we look well in line to deliver as expected. In terms of the next slide 18.
What this is, I tried to give you a little bit of the evolution story on year on year position in terms of production, prices, unit OpEx and EBITDAX per barrel. Really it's showing the strength of the business, the evolution of the business. 26% increase in production. Strong realized commodity price positions, obviously, in the year that we've had, with $100 of oil and $150 per barrel, essentially on gas. Really pleasing to see the unit OpEx numbers staying low. Inflationary headwinds continue to be an issue, and we continue to face them, but we're able to manage that in 2022, continuing to deal with that prudently and responsibly in 2023.
Only a modest increase of 5% on the dollar per barrel of cost base. In fact, in Q4, it was $18 a barrel of cost. That's driven the EBITDAX number up 46%, $73 per barrel of EBITDAX, generating substantial cash. Little bit of more detail on that in slide 19. Lots of people like this summary that we provide, so we keep providing it of the EBITDAX. We've got full year 2021, full year 2022, and then Q4 2022 called out on the right-hand side. Again, let me just pull out a few numbers in the middle column. In full year 2022 here, on slide 19, you can see the production of 71,000, and the oil gas split there.
You can see that that's driven revenues actually before hedging losses of over $3 billion. That hedge position, of course, protects us in the down cycles. Still realizing from production post hedging $94 a barrel across the portfolio. With that relatively flat cost per barrel position of $19 a barrel, generating that $73 per barrel of EBITDAX. That's the kind of full year 2022 number that really rounds off the year for us, we think in very positive and highly cash generative position. To call out Q4 a little bit, you'll see the production capability of the business. Averaging 81,000 barrels a day in Q4. That's the potential of our asset base on stream. It's a strong production quarter.
Obviously, prices were a bit softer, particularly gas, day ahead gas pricing October and November was challenging, which impacted a little bit these numbers. You can see $129 average of gas compared to $149 for the full year. Nonetheless, $86 a barrel of value per production and $64 post costs to get the EBITDAX. Again, calling out that $18 a barrel figure in Q4. All that translates into profits. Pre-pretax profit of $2.2 billion. Tax charge of $1.2 billion. That includes $766 million of deferred one-off EPL charges that we have to take.
With the result of $1 billion of net income, delivered $1.026 per share, it's hard to get away from the fact that's a very strong result and a very strong year from an earnings perspective. That falls into the dividend. As Gilad said, we committed to this at the IPO. We delivered the first tranche and a clear line of sight to deliver the remainder of the $40 million of dividend. Next slide 20, just shows this cash generation and utilization really pictorially for you to give a bit of a sense of scale. $1.7 billion of net cash from operating activities.
You know, that high $300 million-$380 million of CapEx cash in the base business and the acquisition CapEx there that shows that reinvestment of substantial amounts of the net cash from operations. Obviously using then that cash through 2023, et cetera, as part of the dividend payments. You can see increase in cash and investment through the year. Let me call out the next slide 21, just giving some overview of really the robust financial framework behind the business. Say we're very proud of being able to develop the business, to grow the business, and to maintain financial discipline. We've a robust capital framework. At the end of the year, $65 million of bonds in the left-hand side there with RBL less cash of $346.
We had $1.2 billion drawn facilities. That's in the middle of the slide there at the year-end. We've obviously since paid down some of the RBL as we continue to be cash generative, as well as paying the dividend tranche in Q1. The key thing is we've grown the business substantially. As you can see, the EBITDAX line substantially grown, but the debt relative to that coming down. Very clear in terms of our position and our capability with liquidity at the end of the year of $579 million. Next slide is slide 22, which summarizes a little bit of the protection in the business. Again, the policy, the hedging policy, which we apply in a thoughtful way around the market.
We've been able to lock in some strong pricing for the next 12 months, so through 2023. You can see that we're between oil and gas. We're up in the 40%, 45+% of production guidance that's covered by oil and gas hedges. 2023 well protected. You can see the average floor of our pricing there is around $70 a barrel and 220 pence a therm, with ceilings that go up to $90 a barrel and 450, 500 pence a therm. You can see the solid hedging position for 2023, which again gives confidence in the numbers and the projections. Next slide 23, is really a revisit of our capital allocation framework.
We believe this is a unique element of our proposal for investors and the market. It stands out as clear and balanced and prudent. We start off with using cash from operations to invest in our core assets. As Alan said, that 70,000-90,000 barrel a day range is where that investment keeps us. We have the organic ongoing drilling capability in the business to sustain that kind of production range and at that kind of investment level in the $400 million-$550 million barrel range that investment takes us. Commitment to protect the business less than 1.5 times net debt to EBITDAX range. Again, we're nowhere near that at the moment.
At 0.5 times, we have significant headroom there, but the commitment over the cycle to keep ourselves below that position and to return. Again, as Gilad mentioned, we heard investors at the IPO. We were clear as to what was expected. So we pinned that clearly at a long-term commitment to 15%-30% post-tax cash from operations, with a clear commitment in the $400 million for this year. We believe this offers upside in the commodity cycle for investors with that clear commitment and ability to see where the dividend policy takes you in terms of your view on price hike. Glad to see that the way things are in the business that we have cash flow well beyond that for the evolve bucket.
This is our use of remaining cash flow post-returns to either grow, extend, or yield. The optionality we have, and Alan's mentioned this already, and really in the organic portfolio, we have substantial optionality, but also externally, we have optionality as well. We're well-placed in terms of our capacity to do what is best value for the business in terms of organic and inorganic activity. Moving on to close out with the outlook. Q4 guidance we gave at IPO, and glad to say that we have come in on the guidance actually above on the production guidance, over 80,000 barrels a day, outside the top end of the range.
On both the OpEx and the CapEx numbers coming in towards the bottom end of the range, lower than the midpoint on both of those cost metrics. Q4, again, solid performance on the delivery. The guidance for 2023 has been updated. So you'll see that production guidance range has gone from 72-80, down to 68-74. Also substantial reduction in our OpEx and CapEx positions. You can see coming through there in terms of a refining of our view of OpEx and CapEx. The overall change in the range through 2023 is partly reflected, you can see in the guidance for Q1.
About half of the 2023 guidance change is around Q1 short-term production issues that are now resolved. That kind of reflecting in the production numbers there. Again, lower guidance ranges for OpEx and CapEx as well in Q1. We've tried to summarize in the next slide the kind of cash impact of the changes. Using the midpoint at $75 a barrel, which is where we were when the slide was put together, slide 26 we're on. Looking at the offset of the midpoint changes for OpEx and CapEx in cash terms brings us down to a limited cash impact and with DD&A impact as well in terms of the profit figure. We don't expect a significantly material change in the profit view as well.
Update guidance, and clarity on where that's coming from as we close out the presentation for the year. Gilad Myerson.
Thanks, Iain. Just a concluding remarks on the final slide. We're very happy to say that we committed to our investors and we delivered on those commitments. One of the most important elements that we announced recently was the dividend. We committed to a $400 million dividend, and we've already paid $133 of that. If you look at the current share price, that provides a dividend yield which is very, very attractive compared to all industries and specifically also in the oil and gas industry. With the type of reserve life that we have, we believe the share price doesn't reflect the longevity of the business. We're talking about a business compared to other independents that has a OpEx ratio of 19 years.
If we can maintain that 70,000-90,000 barrels for the longevity of the business, that will enable us to keep that organic growth, as well as maintain that 15%-30% CFFO post-tax dividend target. What are you gonna see going forward? You're gonna see more of the same. We're going to be buying assets, very disciplined in M&A. You're gonna see us building assets, targeted capital allocation. It looks like Rosebank will be the first out of the gate. It may or may not happen very much depending on Equinor Partners, EPL, and other elements. Then you will see us boosting assets, working tirelessly to maximize the field recovery in the fields that we currently operate.
We recently entered the FTSE 250 as well, which was another milestone, and we look forward to growing within the FTSE 250 and being more prominent in the London Stock Exchange. With that, I'll open up for Q&A.
We're gonna take questions from the room first, and then, we'll see if we have time to give folks on the line a chance to jump in. Yeah, Cassie.
Yeah. I had three questions. The first one was on the Rosebank. Now that Equinor has kind of taken in an higher stake as well, is there any scenario wherein you're looking to take in an additional stake in the project for Rosebank specifically to get it going off the ground as well? The second was related to the Cambo FID. I was just wondering
What were the key hurdles for an FID there? Is it financing? Did the reluctance from your JV partner put in CapEx or profitability of this project? I was just wondering should we expect the Cambo FID before the first half of this year, or are you comfortable for it to pass into 2024? Last one is given the uncertainty of the U.K. fiscal terms and that we have right now, are you considering any scenario for expanding beyond the U.K.?
Great. Okay, sure. Well, I'll pick up one and two, and then I'll give Gilad a chance to jump in on number three. Yeah, first one was on Rosebank, and I think, look, what needs to happen there is the transaction that Equinor have announced needs to complete first. We'll need to let that, you know, process run its course. I think both on Rosebank and Cambo, good projects, you know, the two largest undeveloped discoveries in the U.K.. There, there's compelling economics associated with both projects. Really what we just need to see is, you know, across the whole portfolio is that broad support from all of our stakeholders to be able to progress through final investment decisions.
Yeah, that really just as Gilad mentioned earlier, that's the key point. On the overseas one.
Yeah. On overseas, our focus is value creation. That's really our true north. We're looking to create value. We weren't looking overseas when we were in the run-up to the IPO. Many processes and opportunities came our way, we discounted them, said we'd focus on the U.K.. I must admit that with EPL, the fiscal instability in the U.K., there are some opportunities now which are significantly more attractive abroad than they are in the U.K.. We're asking ourselves in terms of a capital return standpoint, should we be looking at these? We have started looking. We have internal capabilities. We have people who worked in other jurisdictions. Alan has worked extensively in the U.S. Iain has been in Canada.
We have teams that have been in Asia and other parts of the North Sea. We do have that knowledge base and expertise, and we fundamentally are very good at operating offshore platforms. We will look at opportunities elsewhere to diversify the risk. I would say that really our home turf is the U.K.. We know all the assets, we know the regulator, we know the partners, and therefore we have a lot of supply chain synergies. All else equal, we'll be investing in the U.K.. If the fiscal instability continues, we will look to diversify outwards.
Thanks.
Oh, I just wanted to ask about the dividend and sort of how you think about that. Obviously, you said 15%-30% of operating cash flow with the possibility for a little bit more on top, depending on how much cash you have. How much would you sort of focus on at least maintaining that $400 million level or as a sort of an absolute, or do you think about it more as a percentage? Could we see it fluctuate depending on what operating cash flow is? Do you or as I say, do you sort of back solve it from the $400 million and say, "We'd kind of like to keep it there. It's got to get quite a bit worse before we drop that." Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. No, sure. I mean, I think we-- our IPO statements were very clear around the fact that $400 million, the ambition is that we grow that. That's the ambition. What we wanted to make sure we locked our policy around something that investors could get their arms around clearly. That's why the 15%-30% post-tax cash from operations is there. Yeah, I think the $400 million is committed to. We'd like to see that grow. Obviously, oil and gas prices have a huge impact on that and our capital program, depending on the cycle as well. That's why we've given ourselves the room in that. I think $400 million with an ambition to grow remains our position.
Perfect. Thank you.
Ashley?
Yeah. I was just wondering how big, K-2 was in terms of prospective resource.
Yeah, I don't know we've shared that yet. I think, do we see on this slide? I think.
I'm not containing that.
Say again?
Maybe [Bart] can say that.
Yeah, yeah. I think, look, there's a bit of uncertainty, of course, like all of these, you know, potential opportunities. I think there's some offset wells that have some hydrocarbon shows which give us some confidence in this particular one. I think let's watch this space and we'll come back to you once we've drilled the well.
It's reasonable size. It's a nice potential development.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, as the potential to be anywhere from, you know, a small tieback to a standalone facility. You know, it's an exploration prospect, so we'll see where we get.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks.
Other questions in the room? Who wants to go first? Mark.
Can you tell us about the operational issues at Captain, please? Quite a step down from 80,000- 70,000. You talked to like, you know, a late start of the Pierce, but a late start of really doesn't. That's the really impact. Clearly it sounds like Captain was the major issue.
Yeah. No. Well, we certainly I'll take that one. A few things in the first quarter there. We had assumed production from Pierce for the whole of the quarter, that hasn't been the case. I think we're hoping it will get started up in the next few days here. Expectation is that that will be resolved going forward. On the Captain one specifically, I think, you know, a bit of a one-off issue where we had a problem with the pump. It turned out it had been maintained back on shore during COVID when we got that pump offshore, there was issues with the way the bearings had been greased.
I think a bit of a QAQC issue that just was a bit of a nuance because of the fact that it was, it was done during COVID, and we didn't have either us or the vendor didn't have the same access to the workshop at that time. It's a one-off issue that we were able to resolve, and it's now back up and running there. I think the other one we flagged on the first quarter really was around Abigail. With it being a gas condensate, you kind of have a fairly high decline on that. What we've seen is, as we sort of flagged at the IPO, the initial rate come in not quite as high as expected.
We were always expecting it was gonna fall off fairly quickly just given the reservoir. We're seeing a much sort of lower for longer profile. We've had some build-up tests on it. It looks like it's still seeing the in-place volume that we'd expected at the time of sanction. Still expecting that we'll recover the anticipated volumes from that. It's just a wee bit lower for longer. Just a bit of a phasing issue there.
Okay. Could you give us, like, a current group rate? The second question is, if Rosebank is going to FID in 1H, could you give us an idea of the CapEx on that project?
Yep, sure. On the current rates, I mean, we'll be on an instantaneous basis, I guess, you know, we'll be back up around the 80,000 barrels a day. Of course, we've got shutdowns coming up as we work through the rest of the year. We've got a fairly sizable turnaround on Captain, some of the tie-ins we need to do this year. It will be, you know, a bit lower and then higher again as we work through the year. On your second question was...
CapEx for Rosebank.
CapEx for Rosebank. Yeah. It's our share is around $700 million.
That would be at the 20%?
Dollars. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
That's over a, you know, five, six year period.
Yeah.
It's well within the kind of purview of our normal cash flows.
Yeah.
Okay, cool. Chris?
Two or three questions from me, please. Firstly, just clarification on the dividend, because that $400 million you paid includes $133 million effectively for 2022. You want to grow, but you're reiterating the $400 million is the dividend that you want to pay on an annual basis going forward. Is that correct understanding?
Yeah. So it's a 2023 dividend. We want to give a first interim early, which is what we did. I guess as a part of the timing of IPO actually, I guess drew a part of that. The commitment to $400 million for 2023 to reference that and to show the commitment to it, we want to pay the first tranche early, which we did, and we committed to. Then we'll be in a normal cycle. After the 2H or the 1H results rather, we expect to pay second interim, so kind of normal September, October type timeframe. Then the final dividend tranche at the end of the year, post the final year results for 2023.
The ambition is to grow that annual $4 million dividend in line with our 50%-30% post-tax cash policy.
Do you have any feeling for how you'd weight that interim versus final dividend?
The normal 1/3 , 2/3 will be the going forward. It's just this is again, the timing of IPO meant it was a slightly unusual year.
That's great. Thank you. Second question was on CapEx. Could you help perhaps unpick a bit more that $70 million delta? How much is deferral versus cancellation? If I say half of that's cancellation, you're probably looking at taking, you know, 3,000-5,000 a day off your sort of steady state production rate, all else equal. If simply there's less spending because of the consequences of the windfall tax.
Yeah, I'll have a run at that and I'll let Iain jump in, make sure I don't get anything wrong. I mean, I think the, you know, there's some, you know, optionality that in other circumstances, you know, we've got some options in the portfolio where we might have accelerated some capital given the change in production that's just been a bit of a challenge given partners' position on some of the other assets. Some of that, you know, capital still is available to invest if we end up with conditions that are supportive for the industry.
you know, I don't know, I would necessarily take it, you know, as a given, going forward, that we won't be in a position where the capital could come back.
Yeah.
Iain, do you wanna add?
Yeah. No, I mean, I think there are a number of deferrals, or you said cancellations. I'm not sure there's anything that's actually been canceled.
Just a permanent deferral.
Well, is it permanent? I would suggest some of it's not. It's signaling potentially from some of our partners. I guess the key point is there's a clear question around every capital program in a fiscally changing environment needs to be reevaluated. That's normal. Our partners are doing that. We're doing that. It's the right thing to do. That will mean that things like acceleration may change. I wouldn't see really anything of what's reduced in 2023 as really significantly affecting our production profile. The 70,000-90,000 barrel a day range continues. We expect to be in there, and it's relatively modest, the impact.
Okay. One last question, if I may, on balance sheet, which is how much cash do you, or how much capacity do you genuinely have for M&A, given gas price, gas and oil prices are going to be more volatile in the next five years than the past? I think that's a reasonable assumption to make. You have substantial CapEx with Cambo and Rosebank coming. As you said, I think very eloquently, given that the capital is being withdrawn from the industry, not just because of ESG factors, but because the government, you know, the government has just, I can't use-
Shooting yourself in the foot.
I can't use those words. I, there's so much I'd like to say, but can't. I'll get sued. You know, the government has seemingly deliberately undermined the industry with a tax that isn't a windfall tax, it's just a tax. There's a lot less capital, there's been less access to debt, which means you're reliant on equity cash flows. You've got a lot of CapEx coming that you've already effectively committed to pre-windfall tax, as long as the projects get sanctioned.
That suggests to me there's not that much balancing capacity available for M&A. You haven't got a share price that gives you an equity currency. How do you solve that envelope of constraints on the business?
Yes, I'm happy to pick that from a strategic standpoint. If we're having this discussion six months ago before the IPO, before the additional change to the EPL, where from 25- 35 and 2025- 2028 change investment allowance and remove the price floor, really the plan was to just go ahead and accelerate Cambo, Rosebank, Marigold, Fotla, Spitfire, Tornado and others. Really, the mindset was we're moving from a very acquisitive organization to a development organization, and the capital returns were extremely attractive, and therefore, we're going to dedicate most of our CapEx to those developments. Where we are now with EPL 2, the ultimate returns from these developments are less attractive than they were before.
On the other hand, the price expectations for some of the acquisitions have come down quite considerably because, you know, if you spoke to anyone with the gas portfolio in March 2022 before EPL, they were selling the gas at GBP 400-500 pence per therm, and hence their price expectations were sky high. They were paying very low taxes. They didn't have the Energy Profits Levy. All of a sudden, that has now reversed. We have gas portfolios at GBP 100 pence per therm with 75% tax, and therefore instead of the thing, we want out, and therefore the price has come down. When you weigh a development, including EPL versus an acquisition with lower price expectations, you then ask yourself, in terms of ultimate return to shareholders, what is more attractive?
I could say that some of these acquisitions will provide attractive growth. They will provide additional cash flow. They will allow distribution of attractive dividends. Therefore, one must ask themselves, is this something which is more attractive than developing a project? Especially when there are rumors or there's prospects of changes to the government, end of 2024, beginning of 2025. The fiscal instability is likely to continue. Therefore, we are looking at different opportunities. Therefore, to your question, specifically, use of balance sheet. We are looking at buying and building and asking ourselves, where do we get the best returns.
Yeah. Maybe I'll take one more from the room here now, and we can just give the folks online a chance. Yep. Just a quick one on net zero. 2040, it's a long way off in the future. you know, you've got a, an RP life of 19 years, 2014, 17 years away. Is it just an arbitrary date, and it's so far off in the future that it's a future problem? Or how do you actually get to zero? I mean, the partial electrification of Cambo and Rosebank gets you part of the way, and your average comes down. Is it through offsets? Is that the delta? You know, you'll get to zero through offsets.
Yeah.
Other projects that I'm aware of.
No, no. Yeah. Thank you for the question. What I would say is, you know, it really factors directly into our strategy. When we're looking at sort of the buying and building piece, it's something that we'll evaluate in all the opportunities that we assess. You know, the challenge just now is the business models for some of these other opportunities just aren't quite mature enough yet, really. We, you know, we understand the opportunity around CCUS and, for example, and we have, you know, capability that would be compatible with that.
Of course, you know, there's still a lot of work to do for that business model to be sufficiently matured that, you know, we would be in a position to evaluate it and understand what the shareholder return would look like and how that would compare to other things we've got. I think the key thing is that it's not an arbitrary date. It is, you know, we have modeled it out. We understand the various options that we have and it factors into our sort of strategic cash flow allocation.
Okay. Maybe you could ask the operator. We'll just take a couple of questions on the line, if there are any, before we reach our time commitment here.
Thank you. It's now on to ask a question. We have a question from Matt Smith, Bank of America. You may proceed.
Hey, morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Sorry I couldn't be in the room today. I mean, you slightly already answered my sort of burning question on the M&A. Perhaps I could sort of revise it slightly and put it into two parts. I guess the first part would be, we discussed M&A potential outside the U.K.. I just wanted to put to you whether you thought the post-EPL world had made U.K. M&A any more attractive? You know, the negatives are obvious, but perhaps the arbitrage between those with tax losses and without has become even bigger and the price expectations of sellers might have come down. I just wanted to test whether U.K. M&A could be more on the cards.
My second question was really what you alluded to earlier in terms of highest return capital allocation decisions. Could M&A feature ahead of the likes of, you know, the developments that you options that you already have in your portfolio? I think you're pretty clear in that it could. The potential for that. Perhaps I just revise the question. Do you think that's more of a M&A versus Cambo decision, or could this be Cambo? As well as Rosebank. I'm just trying to get a sense of what you think is highly likely to go ahead within your portfolio today or what is sort of up in the air. I appreciate that's completely dependent on what's competing within the M&A market. I'll leave it there. Thanks.
Yeah. Why don't I have a run, and I'll ask Gilad if he wants to add anything. I think you did a really good job of answering your own question there. And, yeah. I mean, well, I would say, and I'll give Gilad a chance to jump in here as well, but I think, yeah, I mean, look, just really focused on delivering the highest value and evaluating all opportunities on a consistent basis to be able to do that.
You know, like you alluded to, there could be some opportunities which enable you to do more, you know, Of course, if you're bringing in extra production, that could help from Chris's question on the balance sheet perspective could help there, and also help just support our cash flow allocation strategy. I think it's really dependent on the opportunity, but just kind of continue to focus on value delivery. Anything else you would add?
Yeah, absolutely. Specifically in the U.K., assets have become cheaper for two reasons. One is there's less cash flow in these assets, and number two, strategically, companies are looking to accelerate the exit from the U.K., given the fiscal instability. Therefore, it creates a slight dislocation whereby assets will be a lot cheaper and therefore potentially could be attractive. Therefore, we definitely are looking at assets in the U.K. as we speak. In terms of M&A versus development, really, as Alan mentioned, it's all about value, it's all about returns, and we'll look for the most attractive value accretive opportunities. We actually are blessed in that regard. We have very attractive development opportunities, and we have very attractive M&A.
Ultimately, we'll go to the board to prioritize capital allocation very similar to the way we've been discussing with yourselves today.
Great. Thanks for the question. Do we have any other questions online?
No.
Okay. Well, look, we're pretty much at our time commitment there in terms of almost 10:00 here in the room. Just would like to say thank you very much, everyone, for your interest in the company. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. Reiterate that, you know, we've got a great portfolio of assets, a company that's delivering strong cash flows, which will support our distributions, our strategy that we outlined at the IPO and our distribution philosophy. No change there. Thank you very much, everyone, and have a good day.