Okay, good morning, everyone, and I hope you all had a good summer and had a nice break. It's great to have this opportunity to update you on our business. I'm delighted, Richard Miller, who's our interim CFO, he's also here with me, so he's gonna answer all the difficult questions. You know, a little bit of reflection. I mean, two years ago, we embarked on a pretty comprehensive turnaround. It's really designed to bring a very private equity type of value focus mindset to the business. You'll remember we implemented a very radical restructuring of our cost base, really looking at both OpEx and G&A. You'll see the impact of that today on our EBITDAX and the cash flows. We also sold non-core assets.
We restructured our debt to provide us the runway to invest in our business. At the same time, we worked hard to improve capital efficiency. You'll see evidence of that today in the drilling performance. Now, what we did do is we focused our CapEx on this incredible resource base that underpins our assets. What you'll see is that we invest, the production increases. It's a very simple equation, and that's clearly evident in the performance of Jubilee that I'll share later today. The returns on these assets are phenomenal. For example, our CapEx from last year, that's already paid off, and all this is of course delivering cash flows. Richard will demonstrate that the business this year will deliver nearly $400 million of underlying free cash flow.
If you account for the acquisition of the additional stakes in Ghana, the legacy litigation payments, we'll still get free cash flow to be over $200 million. When you look at that, we started like, say two years ago, oil price outlook was less. You know, it's higher today, and on the back of improved operating performance, we're clearly ahead of our long-term plans both in terms of delivery. so we started to pay down debt. The year-end guidance for gearing is 1.5x . that's to compare that to where we were two years ago when we were looking at achieving that in 2025. Now, between this year, 2022 and 2025, the current business plan will deliver nearly $2 billion in free cash flow at $100 oil.
That's more than double our current market cap. They're just going to give you some more color on that. Plus, there is very significant value from contingent payments that we expect to receive in Uganda, in Equatorial Guinea, and in Gabon. That's at the kind of core business plan. We've looked more deeply at our asset base, we've identified multi-billion dollar investment opportunities that deliver cash flows beyond the current business plan. These will enable us to grow and to add value beyond sort of what the plan is that we're implementing. With this asset base and the operational platform, we're confident we'll deliver very material value. It's important, I think, again, and what we built along the way is a very scalable operating platform with a focus on cost, on value, and sustainability.
I submit to you that this is very unique. In fact, I'd say it's priceless because you can't really buy this. You know, this is something you can only build. I think the merger with Capricorn, it enables us to accelerate on the additional opportunities. I'll talk about that in my presentation. That is gonna deliver material value for both sets of shareholders. I think the key thing I wanna share with you from a team perspective is two years into the turnaround, people are highly energized, very motivated, and where we see Tullow is we're really well positioned for growth as the industry restructures. That's kind of little quick introduction, and then let me hand over to Richard, and he'll talk about the financials.
Thank you, Rahul, and good morning. I will now take you through a strong set of financial results for the first half of 2022. The continued operational delivery, our relentless focus on cost and improved oil prices are accelerating underlying deleveraging. Our strong operational performance through excellent uptime and focused investments on our producing asset base is reflected in our results. On a like-for-like basis, if you exclude the impact of the assets we sold in Egypt and Gabon last year, production is up 5%, despite the planned shutdown at Jubilee in the first half of 2022. Thanks to this strong performance and combined with higher prices offset by hedging, revenue has grown to $846 million.
Our continued focus on cost has enabled us to keep OpEx and G&A flat on 2021, despite inflationary pressures, the higher Ghana equity interest following pre-emption, and the planned maintenance shutdown on Jubilee. Increased revenue with flat costs has resulted in significantly higher EBITDAX of $1.3 billion over the last 12 months, and therefore material improvement in gearing. During the period, we have increased our capital investment to $156 million, of which nearly 90% was allocated towards producing assets to drive production growth, deliver material value through short cycle returns, which Rahul will touch on later. We have also invested $126 million in Ghana pre-emption, which would have paid for itself within this year. Despite the significant investment in the first half of the year and the one-off legacy Norway arbitration payment, free cash flow is effectively neutral.
If you take into account two early June liftings that were received shortly after month end. Our free cash flow guidance for the full year remains at $200 million, or as Rahul said, $400 million on an underlying basis, excluding the one-off payment for Norway and also pre-emption. This demonstrates the robust cash flow generation of the business. Our guidance for 2022 remains unchanged. However, current business performance and oil price, we expect deleveraging to accelerate with gearing below 1.5 x by the end of the year, something we previously guided as Rahul said in 2025. If we move on to hedging, whilst we've seen material payouts from our hedging program in 2022, we have realized the price of $87 a barrel against the pre-hedge price of $107.
During this period of high prices, the hedging we put in place as part of our 2021 refinancing has come into focus. It is important to remember the hedging requirement of our bonds are not a rolling requirement, but instead required a set volume from May 2021 forwards. As a result, our hedging levels, as you can see by the graph, do decline over the next two years, providing increased access to possible upside in oil prices. As you're aware, Tullow has significantly benefited from its hedging program in the past, and as such, we'll be reviewing the implementation of our hedge policy for 2023 and beyond as part of our annual budget process. A key focus for Tullow continues to be the deleveraging of the business.
We are able to achieve this objective while investing up to $2 billion in self-funded CapEx through to the end of 2025. During this period, approximately 75% of this expenditure is allocated to drilling. However, in the near term, we have taken advantage of higher oil prices and fungible period under our bonds to pre-invest in more infrastructure. This capital program provides high return, short cycle opportunities, which aim to maintain the underlying gross asset value of the company through to 2025. This will deliver close to $1 billion of free cash flow by the end of 2025 at $75 a barrel, with significant exposure to upside in oil prices, which at $100 a barrel could deliver a further $1 billion of incremental free cash flow over this period.
Self-funded CapEx and the ability to maintain gross asset value while delivering material deleveraging provides significant potential equity accretion for shareholders. In addition to the base plan, and as a reminder, we have very material upside from contingent payments linked to previous divestments. Take the Uganda payment, with first oil targeted in 2025 and a plateau production of 230,000 barrels a day, it will deliver a material additional income stream to the group, which we have not included any long-term guidance. The group is also due to receive up to $40 million contingent consideration for EG and Dussafu. In summary, Tullow continues to deliver both operationally and financially with like-for-like production, EBITDA and profit up on prior year, while maintaining cost discipline and keeping costs flat despite increased activity in an inflationary environment.
We have a clear runway to deliver significant free cash flow while maintaining gross asset value, providing significant potential equity appreciation for shareholders. With that, I'll hand back to Rahul.
Okay. Thank you very much, Richard. Let's move on to the operations. Yeah, thank you. What makes Tullow unique really is the depth, the diversity, and the quality of the resource base, and this is really what underpins our ability to deliver visible production growth. If you look at our 2P reserves, nearly 80% of those are in Jubilee and in the non-op assets. These 2P reserves, they drive near term production and cash flow. At the end of June, we calculated the NPV10. This is something that is done for our bondholders, and that was $4.7 billion. I think that represents. It kind of highlights the value that's associated with the cash flows from these 2P reserves.
If you look at the 2C, it's really dominated by Kenya and TEN, and it's the conversion of the 2C to 2P that will help drive medium term production growth. As you know, material part of the TEN resource base is undeveloped, and we're working actively with our joint venture partners to come up with an optimized development plan for this. Then separately, we've talked about this before, we're actively pursuing a farm down in Kenya, and I just wanted to highlight these numbers here. The Kenya resource is prior to any farm down. What would happen if we did a farm down, it would reduce the interest, but importantly, it would significantly derisk the project and therefore increase the value therein materially. I also wanna make a special note of the pre-emption of the Oxy sale.
Richard talked about how much this is accretive from a value perspective, but it also just to note, we've added 22 million barrels of 2P reserves and another 43 million barrels of 2C resource from this. Just another point to highlight that our group production guidance remains unchanged, and that really underscores the focus that we have on our operating performance and the control and the influence that we have across both our operated and the non-op business. That's important to ensure the timely delivery of our plans. Let me move on and talk a little bit about drilling, because drilling is important because it's the single largest component of our CapEx spend, right? Therefore, it's a really important driver of returns. What you see here is that we've really achieved this step change in our drilling and completion costs.
If you look at the current program, we are delivering wells at about $15 million, and you compare that to about $75 million, which is what we were doing in the previous program from 2018 to 2020. You're drilling cheaper wells, but they're also faster. That's really what it is, kind of top quartile performance relative to the industry. Since the start of the program, we started in April last year, we worked on 11 wells. Now not all of these will have been completed and connected. They only contribute to production this year if they're completed and connected. As a consequence of the acceleration of what you see in the bottom is the two kind of red lines of what the initial plan was and the final end.
That demonstrates to you. As a consequence of the acceleration, we've been able to bring forward here sort of three Jubilee wells, the drilling of those wells into this year. These will be completed next year, so they'll contribute to production in 2023. What's interesting is that these performance levels will be able to deliver the planned program well through next year with just one rig. That means we can deliver the same program in a much more capital efficient manner. We've decided then to defer the decision on the second rig in Ghana. I think as you reflect on the step change in the performance, really the way we've been able to achieve that is through a focus on operations, through innovation and through continuous improvement. We've got long-term contracts in place.
We've been able to work a lot more collaboratively with our suppliers and major contractors to proactively manage the inflationary cost pressures in which we talked about and that the industry then currently faces. That's a little bit of drilling. Now moving on to production, could you go to the next slide, please? Thank you. What I've illustrated previously was the depth and the diversity and the quality of the resource base, and also like the step change in drilling performance. This slide really demonstrates the key premise in our plan. It's a very fundamental equation, which is that as we invest, we will increase production. If you look in Jubilee, the June production averaged 90,000 barrels a day.
You look back and you compare this to in December of 2020, so let's say that's a little over 18 months ago, the production was 71,000 barrels a day, right? You've seen a dramatic step change increase in production. It's a direct consequence of the addition of new wells, of improvements in processing capacity and better reservoir management. If you look in the first half, what did we do in Jubilee? We added two water injectors, we added one producer. These were brought online, connected, and together these added material production, as you can see, that more than offset the natural decline. Now as I mentioned before, we're adding three new Jubilee wells in the second half, that's ahead of schedule, but these will only be completed in 2023.
What you can see in our second half output for Jubilee, we've got no new wells contributing to production. The flip happened in TEN. In the first half of production in TEN, we had no new wells added in the first half, but we were able to flatten the decline rate. In Ntomme, we're performing better than expected of our forecast in terms of base decline, and that's due to the gas injections. You may remember late last year, we put on stream a gas injector in Ntomme that's helping now kind of flatten the decline. In the end, what we've done is as a strategy, we're targeting new parts of the field, so that's also helped stem declines. We're adding some new wells in TEN this year.
The first strategic well that we drilled in the riser base was unfortunately water bearing. Again, that's part of a multi-well program to look at both pluses and minuses through that program. On the plus side then, we had a stronger than expected result from the first Enyenra North well, and that's expected to come on stream in Q4. Even in TEN. Sorry, could you go back to the slide, please? Thank you. What you'll see in TEN, of course, in the second half is that as we're adding new wells, you will see production. That's just reinforcing the promise of very high quality resource, and as we invest, we see production growth. Now we can move on to non-op please. The non-op business, again, it really delivers consistent production and very high returns.
The focus, particularly in Gabon, I think as you look at the business, we're well placed to consistently deliver, I'd say 15,000-20,000 barrels a day, right? The production is underpinned by a focus on near-field developments and infrastructure led exploration. These are also like in Ghana, they're very high return investments. Now you'll see we had little production kind of added, this year, and part of that reason is that 70% of the capital spent in non-op is invested in infrastructure. That's important because it will support future production growth. For example, we're adding a mobile processing unit in the Tchatamba field in Gabon, and that's gonna facilitate the development of the Tchatamba South development and then a number of ILX projects there.
We also have a long-term well test is underway on a discovery that we made last year. This is in Gabon again, and that'll help test future development potential of a new play which is in the East. In CDI, kind of our focus is twofold. One is we have some production from the CNR operated Espoir field and where we're looking at various options for the remediation of the FPSO. Then separately, we have a Tullow operated block, CI-524, that's adjacent to the TEN facilities where we're targeting the westward extension of the Ghana play. That's pretty exciting and we'll update you as we go along. I wanna talk a little bit about now our focus on cost reduction and efficiencies.
We've got a deep-seated belief that every barrel matters and every dollar counts. That drives what we call kind of a relentless focus on both cost reduction and efficiencies. You know, as a business model, you say, look, as you deliver volume and you control costs, you create a lot of value, right? That's simple math. Now, since 2019, we've achieved a material step change, as you can see, in operating costs, while at the same time we're increasing investment in system reliability and availability. One of the big drivers of this is that the teams are better integrated across the subsurface, across wells, operations, maintenance, and so you're able to drive a lot more optimization.
Also at the same time, in the year, we've the net G&A, which you see from this is more than half, and we've delivered over $240 million in cash savings over the past two years. There's a culture of continuous improvement and cost focus is deeply embedded in the organization. I would say it's kind of working more like a private equity team, which is well-placed to identify and deliver material synergies in M&A deals. It's that experience that we have and the track record that gives us the confidence in our ability to deliver synergies from the proposed merger with Capricorn. I think also over the past two years, we've really built a very unique and a scalable operating platform.
I've highlighted earlier the stellar drilling performance, and you've seen the very material improvement in the FPSO uptime, which is over 95% consistently, and then also, our track record in managing, gas production. We do here was illustrate what we are doing operationally to achieve the next level of operating performance. Over the past two years, if you look the systematic improvement that we had in our operating performance is the direct result of greater control by Tullow over the operating environment over our operations in Ghana, right? Now on the first of July, it was a big day for us because all the components of the Jubilee operations are finally brought under our direct control. That's the culmination of months of intensive work as we transition to more equitable contract. Now why do we do this?
It's gonna help us drive efficiency improvements, cost reductions, and it's gonna help improve system reliability. What's also critical is that we've built now our own operating team. It's scalable operating organization. It's got a strong culture, and it's got the appropriate systems and processes. That, I would say, creates a really differentiated capability that we can bring to other assets and to other opportunities as we grow our business. We move on to kind of sharing with you a little bit more of a strategic perspective, and I really wanted to start with a focus on sustainability. We've got a strong commitment to responsible operations and with that, we're ensuring that the oil and gas resources of our host nations, they're developed efficiently and safely, while at the same time we're minimizing the environmental impact.
At the same time, we're also delivering economic and social development in our host nations. I wanted to share maybe two projects that really illustrate the impact that we're having and also our capabilities. In Ghana, for example, with our JV partners, we have a program where we support micro and small and medium-sized enterprises through something called the Fisherman's Anchor Project. What it does is it really enables the beneficiaries who are dependent on the fishing industry to access finance to develop additional source of revenue. This is a pretty high impact project because since 2019, over 1,000 small businesses and individuals have received training and business development support. Just this year, we've seen 17 new businesses have been established and over 280 loans have been disbursed.
What we're trying to do now is working to see how we make the project sustainable for the long term and make sure that can be scaled up. On the other side, looking at carbon offsetting, that's a really important contributor to our net zero strategy. What we decided was, rather than simply acquiring carbon credits in the market, we work with our host nations to implement projects on the ground up. In Ghana, we're working with the Forestry Commission to identify a jurisdictional project that's already been identified. What this is, it aligns with also Ghana's REDD+ strategy, and it also aligns and facilitates the delivery of their Nationally Determined Contributions.
Important to also highlight, we are very much on track to deliver our 2030 net zero target and also the interim target of eliminating routine flarings by 2025. Here too, you can see how we're building a differentiated skill set that delivers very real impact. Let me move on to kind of just reflecting on the business plan. Richard talked about the current business plan that will deliver nearly $2 billion in free cash flow during the 2022-2025 period at $100 oil. Now that's really based on a very disciplined capital allocation to well-defined opportunities. On the left here, we presented some of them. The ongoing Ghana drilling program and the pre-emption are both rapid payback opportunities, and they really illustrate the sorts of things we wanna redeliver.
The Jubilee Southeast and Northeast projects are well underway, and what they do is they provide visible growth in both in value and in cash flow in the near term. That's kind of with the business plan as is, right? What you won't be surprised then to notice is that to learn that we've pushed ourselves to think beyond the current business plan. To that end, we brought a lot of focus and creative thinking to our assets, and we were able to identify some very material additional opportunities. These I've highlighted on the right. On a cumulative basis, if you stack all of these up together, we estimate these opportunities would require a development CapEx in the range of $1.5 billion-$2 billion. That's net to us. Right? It's quite a material CapEx requirement.
Importantly, they potentially deliver over $5 billion in operating cash flows net to Tullow. You know, you can get a sense of why we're so excited about these. I think we'll provide more color on these at our capital markets day, but I just want to pick maybe just one to just illustrate the mindset and the approach. If you look at our business plan and the focus on Jubilee, post-2026, the CapEx in Jubilee falls off. We looked at the field and we say in 2036, at the end of license as currently stands, it's still producing 30,000 barrels a day. It's got a lot of resource left.
The team looked at that and they said, "How do we bring this forward within the license period?" It's $140 million kind of a gross resource, right? They're looking at ideas of additional infrastructure, infilling to bring this forward. That's the sort of ideas that we have in the portfolio. The other one, of course, in Kenya, as you know, we're making good progress to bring in a strategic partner that is confident that we'll be able to share that progress before the end of the year. Importantly, as you know, yesterday was a landmark day in Kenya, where President Ruto was sworn in. Following these elections, we expect a new administration in place, and then we're working pretty closely. We plan to work pretty closely with the new administration to progress this project.
That truly is gonna be a project of national significance in Kenya. We're pretty excited about that. As I reflect on all this, it's hopefully you agree this is the delivery of our current business plan is well underway. It's gonna create a lot of value. With additional capital, we can do a lot more, right? Let me just pull all that together. When I joined Tullow in January of 2020, I think someone joked that I'd gone into a burning house, right? I would say kind of many times it felt like it was an apt comparison, but I think it's fair to say that all that is kinda in the distant past. We've truly had a pretty remarkable journey. I think we started in 2020.
It was challenging, but we reset the business, and we set out a very clear long-term strategy. We embarked on a pretty comprehensive turnaround, and it's really rewarding for me to see that's going better and faster than I'd expected. I think it's important to say there is more to come there. All of that has placed us on a path to delivering our strategy. I think most fundamentally, we've got a really inspired and committed team, and we have a scalable operating platform. We're really, really well positioned for future growth. That remains very much what I'd call kind of planning.
Moving on, you said with regards to the Capricorn merger, we're very committed, remain fully committed to that combination because we see the potential of material value creation through the acceleration of the implementation of a new business plan which allows us to accelerate some of the investments I talked about, leveraging the operating platform that we have and the synergies. Also, while the Capricorn board is also committed to the merger on the current terms, we understand they have stated publicly that they're reviewing potential alternative transactions. We have to wait to see what the Capricorn board, I think, intends to conclude on that process and provide an update to the market in due course. What we've outlined today is the exciting potential that we have on our standalone asset base and our operational performance.
We're very confident, as you can hopefully see, about the value creation of our own business, and therefore we are very comfortable with our own future platform irrespective of the outcome of the Capricorn merger. I won't really have much more to say while we await Capricorn's assessment of alternative whatever the alternatives are. I hope you understand, I won't be able to engage with questions on this, whichever way artfully, I would say, you guys wanna frame that. The key message is that we're looking to the future today with a lot of excitement and confidence. With that, let us move on to our Q&A. Richard and I are looking forward to answering the questions.
Thank you very much, Rahul and Richard. We'll now move over to Q&A. We have our first question from Nathan Piper at Investec. Nathan, please go ahead with your question.
Thanks, Matt. Morning, everyone. Thanks for the presentation. I guess I've got two questions which I know you've tried to head one off in the past, but let me have a go. First of all, on the transaction between yourself and Capricorn, given the arithmetic of the deal and who seems to be owning the stock, can you maybe talk through, I mean, I guess, being a former investment banker, what options you have in front of you to try and conclude that deal? Secondly, on the Kenyan disposal or the Kenyan transaction, you've been quite clear that you expect some progress by the end of the year.
That suggests to me that you're talking to one person and are sort of finalizing what the deal might look like. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick there? You know, what is the state of play there really? Then lastly on Ghana gas and realizing value there, could you maybe provide a bit of detail on that as well, please? Thank you.
Thank you. Nathan, you're putting me in a really awkward spot 'cause you asked two out of the three questions. No, but I'll try and answer. I said I won't answer. Look, on the Capricorn merger, it's very simple, right? From our perspective, we've got a good business. That's our plan A. We believe we can do better with the merger and create a lot of value for both sets of shareholders. I keep reminding people that the new company is gonna be owned by both sets of shareholders, right? There is very material value from the synergies, from the acceleration of the business plan and, you know, some of the opportunities that we highlight. We're very confident that on the current terms, the merger creates a lot of value for both sets of shareholders.
I think it's a decision for the Capricorn board and their shareholders to say, "How does that value compare to any other real opportunities they have?" Not spreadsheet opportunities, but real opportunities they have, right? My submission is that it's a very simple equation, and they have to be able to assess that and then present it to their shareholders candidly and take a call. That's on the merger. On the Kenya deal, yes, we're confident. I think we're in a good place with the elections behind us, I think, so we can move forward, and you'll hear from us in due course on that. I think it wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on who's in the process and who's not in the process.
Let me leave it to that. I think on the gas commercialization, I think a couple of things. One is, look, what's interesting is that these fields have a significant amount of gas reserves, 1.5-2 TCF of gas are number one. Number two is that it's the fact that the way the energy flows have happened is that you're seeing lower gas being diverted to Europe. That's creating an imperative within Africa, and particularly the same countries like Ghana to really accelerate and facilitate the development of indigenous gas resources to facilitate energy security. That's a real driver. We have a strong commitment to obviously support the government in that endeavor.
We're working hard with the government, strong engagement around what is a commercialization strategy for the gas resource. I think that's the focus and we're looking to progress that. I wouldn't wanna give you more color than that because again, that's all sensitive. Hopefully I've answered your three questions in some way.
In some way, Rahul. May I have one last go a different way around. I mean, I guess some people who own Capricorn are not completely convinced and have been public about not being convinced about the combination of the two companies and the deal as it currently stands. I guess where I was trying to come from was, you know, how do you acknowledge that and incorporate that feedback within the proposal to try and put the two businesses together, as I suppose?
Again, I come back, Nathan, to the point that, you know, our job is to deliver, to demonstrate and deliver the value of what we have, right? We will do that every day. We've done that. Today, we're showcasing the very strong operating platform we've built, with the track record that we have, $250 million really of G&A savings over two years. We're reinforcing our confidence and hopefully building conviction around the synergy. I think all of that should help people, when they do their assessment, to be able to compare the two alternatives. Right? That's. I will defer to the smart people. I defer to their judgment on say, "What's the realistic alternative I have?
How does that compare to the value creation from the Capricorn deal, the Capricorn total budget? Of course, we see a lot of value, we have a lot of conviction around that, and that's why we're staying firm with that conviction with our recommendation there.
Understood. Thank you very much, Rahul.
Okay. Thanks, Nathan.
Thanks, Nathan. Now our next question is from Chris Wheaton at Stifel. Go ahead, Chris.
Good morning, Rahul. Good morning, Richard. Firstly, well done on getting the uptime up, getting the well factory going. That's really good progress in terms of pulling those wells forward. My first question is on the drilling. You mentioned the first strategic and Ntomme well was dry. Could you perhaps run through why that was and whether that alters your plans, near-term plans for what you do next with the TEN field, given that obviously the dry well wasn't in the plan?
Look, I've always said that the important thing with any program is you put yourself in a position where you're drilling multiple wells, and you're not dependent on any single well, and you're gonna have surprises, positive and negative. The Ntomme riser base well was a surprise. I mean, I was definitely disappointed. But the next one, the Enyenra North well, was better than we expected. Part one is that any single well doesn't change the overall sort of picture. We have another well in that riser base area we're gonna drill later this year. Then we have, you know, other wells sort of planned in different parts of TEN.
I think the key to remind our listeners is that we have a very large undeveloped resource, and we just need to kind of improve the infrastructure there, and continue the drilling program. Yes, disappointing for sure. Doesn't change our plans in the near term.
That's great. Thank you. Could I then perhaps move the conversation on to what happens next in terms of going after that additional resource base you referred to on those slides, the 320 million BOE and the gas on top? At what point does the balance sheet start enabling you to do that, to commit to a second rig and therefore, you know, a three-year higher CapEx program? I would have thought if you're looking for sort of one times net debt EBITDAX, you're probably there at current rates close to 2024 probably. Is that the point at which you then start, you decide, you know, second rig, and we go after the additional things?
This is all of course, assuming the Capricorn merger doesn't go ahead because clearly if that happens, as you've said, you know, you delever to below 1x net debt EBITDAX, you know, instantly. You know my views on the Capricorn merger, so I won't ask any more on that. Could you perhaps talk about that timing and then therefore your willingness to go ahead in the commitment on that second rig?
I think point one is, as you've said, and I'm just building on this is that we are not opportunity constrained. Okay. We had our business planning session, you know, last kind of sort of Richard and I have been doing this with our teams the last couple of months, and the opportunity set that we have underlying the business is fantastic. We're not opportunity constrained. I think the key for us is that whether it's the second rig, whether it's acceleration of Jubilee, whether it's TEN enhancement, gas monetization, you know, all of these things really is a capital allocation decision that Richard and his team will do. If oil prices are sustained, I think we can bring these things forward.
If we go into the Capricorn merger, we can bring these things forward. Really, in a very simple sense, there's a lot more we can do with the business, with more capital, and the capital can come from different sources. We're not fussed about that. I don't know if Richard said.
Rahul, I think that's fair. You know, at $75, we're generating $1 billion of free cash flow after investing $2 billion. You know, at $100 a barrel, you know, we're doubling that to $2 billion. That provides a lot more flexibility, particularly given our debt maturities, to either invest in the business or seek to do other things with that cash. I think the other thing that's probably worth highlighting is, you know, the drilling performance. You know, the business plan as it sets out going forward and our capital program is all based on, you know, a P50 outcome from a drilling perspective. You know, we have performed against that at the moment.
Not only is it sort of oil price dependent, but also our underlying performance can help drive our ability to bring some of those investment opportunities forward.
Great. That's really clear. Thank you. Richard, last question from me to you. The working capital build in the first half, you can sort of explain, you know, $200 million of that from the delay to the receipts of the cargos. There's another $100 million odd of trade receivables in there as well. Are you expecting all of that $330 million of working capital then to reverse in the second half?
Yes, it's a good question. I think it's partly due to unfortunate timing. We had two cargos that lifted right at the beginning of June, which we received on the, I think, the first and fifth of July, so just shortly after month end. You know, we don't usually sort of give this guidance, but at the end of August, we were sitting on net debt of $2 billion. So it shows that a lot of that working capital has already sort of played out within the last couple of months. There will be, you know, a lifting potentially that happens in December that we won't receive the cash for this year, so it may not completely unwind.
I think the other thing I'd point to as well is, we did have a large stock build in Gabon, with the challenges we had with the Tchatamba test field. We've got plans in place to fully monetize that during the second half of the year.
Okay, that's very helpful. Brilliant, guys. Well done again and well done to your teams again. Thanks very much indeed.
Thanks, Chris.
Thank you, Chris. Next question is from Mark Wilson of Jefferies. Go ahead, Mark.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. Rahul, just wanna check the three wells that you've added to the drilling program, be able to drill much more efficiently at Jubilee. Can I just confirm those are Jubilee Southeast development wells I think you've spoken to before?
Yes, exactly. What will happen, thank you, because I just want to clarify, 'cause those will be hooked up once the Jubilee Southeast infrastructure is completed. That's probably a kind of 2Q sort of event.
Got it. Okay. Thank you. You've spoken about being able to get a lot more wells into the year from the current one rig setup in Ghana. When we speak, looking forward to the idea of acceleration of the opportunity set, are we specifically talking to the idea of putting a second rig in? Because, you know, clearly you're working what you've got at the moment very well. Is that what you're talking to specifically, or does it also talk to gas side of things, Kenya potentially? You know, what encapsulated in that acceleration of the opportunity set? Thank you.
I think the glib answer is all of them. When we look at acceleration, I think what's very interesting is that the opportunity set that we have is across the board, right? We've got Kenya, we can accelerate kind of that. We can take FID on a gas commercialization project. We can take FID on a TEN enhancement project. We could now look at accelerating further, the Jubilee resource recovery into the license period. We've got a number of ILX opportunities in Gabon. It's across the board. The interesting thing is gonna be how do we prioritize that, right? With, let's say kind of we have additional capital, whether it's through higher oil prices or Capricorn, how do you prioritize that?
Now, I think what's also clear is that if we were doing everything that we wanna do in Ghana, you'll need a second rig. Right? If you were to say, "Look, I wanna really accelerate gas wells, I wanna accelerate 10 wells, I wanna drill more in Jubilee," even with the super kind of performance that we have, I think we would still need a second rig. I think what we've managed to do with the efficiency that we have is we've deferred that decision. I think the inventory of opportunity is big and it's growing. If we wanna do all of that, we will need more gas.
Okay, thank you. A couple of points for Richard, just for clarification. The amortization of the 2026 notes, should we consider that to be $100 million in May each year going forward? That's the first question. The second point, I noticed cash tax in the first half was higher than it's been in other years. What would be the general guidance for cash tax in the coming years? Thank you.
Sure. Thank you. Yes, the amortization is $100 million per year in May. It's a simple one. In terms of cash tax, obviously the tax we pay in both Ghana and Gabon, 35% in Ghana, 45% in Gabon, is very much linked to our sort of underlying gross profits. Obviously at higher oil prices, you know, those gross profits are greatly increased. Therefore, you know, the tax that we're paying has increased sort of just linearly. The one thing I would just add is on timing. Ghana, we make quarterly equal payments based on our estimated tax bill for the year. In Gabon it tends to be deferred.
We'll pay the bulk of the tax bill for 2022 in early 2023. The final thing to add that sort of plays into the mix is the UK decom refund. We receive that in the second half of the year every year. Should be about $20 million for 2022. Obviously as that activity sort of starts coming off, going forward, spending less on decom, the tax rebate will get less. That's a small offset for cash tax going forward.
Okay. Thank you for those questions, and answers. I'll hand it over.
Thanks, Mark. Next we're gonna go to James Thompson, J.P. Morgan. Go ahead, James.
Thanks for that. Good morning, gents. So yeah, thanks for giving us a little bit more detail color there in terms of the longer term growth opportunities. Just on the roll, in terms of that development CapEx, you identified $1.5 billion-$2 billion. How much of that is Kenya? You know, previously you've been guiding on CapEx, assuming essentially no spend in Kenya. It'd be just interesting to know the split of that development CapEx between the Ghana opportunities and Kenya. Then secondly, thinking about Ghana, I mean, obviously you kind of gave us the detail there that Jubilee will still be producing 30 kboepd by the end of the license. What are the options for you now to extend that, should you want to? Can you engage in those discussions yet?
In terms of Côte d'Ivoire, I mean, obviously it's still very much the exploration stage. Have you had any kind of initial discussions around this kind of scope to tie that back into facilities in Ghana? Or is that something that's still to come?
Matt had warned me. He says you're gonna ask for a breakdown of the CapEx. He named you, and he said you're just gonna ask him. I think what we'll do is we'll give you a better sort of individual project color around the Capital Markets Day. If you don't mind kind of holding on to the question till then. But the general point I wanted to make is that it's, you know, we have a very rich opportunity set. These are approximate numbers, so depending on the deal structure and stuff, the precise numbers are gonna change. But the message we wanted to drive was that these are material and very profitable, right? That's kind of your first question. Your second question was Jubilee expansion.
I think the way kind of we would look at it, and I think this would be very much in the government's, kind of nation's interest, is I think the first step is to make sure that we're not leaving any stone unturned in terms of accelerating the potential. Like I said, the way our current business plan is, the CapEx in Jubilee kind of just tails off after 2026. The team's gone back in looking at that and it's the kind of sorts of things we're gonna look at is to say, where do we need additional substantive infrastructure? Where do you need additional wells? If you have multi-phase flow, you know, subsea, what sort of pumping facilities we need and things like that. That's kind of what the guys are working on.
That's the Ghana, the Jubilee one. On Côte d'Ivoire, it's as you know, kind of the border dispute was settled. We have not had discussions yet around sort of joint developments and things like that because that's premature. I think both sets of governments are aware because we've shown them the data around the extension of the play across the border. I think both sets of governments are aware of the proximity of the TEN FPSO and the Alizé.
Mm-hmm.
I would say it's a bit premature to go further than that. We will see synergy. We've gone into the next phase in Côte d'Ivoire. From CI-524. We plan to drill a well there sometime in the next couple of years, and there'll be clear synergies from the drilling because we'll essentially use the rig that was for Ghana as part of our program. There'll be clear synergies from that.
Okay, thanks. A couple more for me. Obviously results are cleared now for yourselves and Capricorn. Can you give us any more granularity in terms of timing or expectations for the circular and the CMD?
I think we're working backwards from the vote. We said, look, we're targeting shareholder vote towards the end of the year. We work backwards from that, and I think James, we had given pretty good guidance and timing, so we're gonna align with that. You need to have a circular and prospectus in time for that, and we would do a capital markets day ahead of that. All of that is sort of driven in some ways by timing of various government approvals, which have been generally going well, but the government approval is kind of hard to be prescriptive on or be specific on the timing of that. I would say, look, we very much look towards shareholder vote towards the end of Q4.
Okay. Thanks, Rahul. Just finally, I mean, in terms of the carbon bit you talked about there, I mean, you're still targeting eliminating routine flaring by 2025. That's been quite a challenge for the business over the last couple of years. Can you just remind us what's kind of key to achieving that?
We already see. I mean, look, it's a pretty well-defined program because it's about, in essence, it's about enhancing gas processing capacity on both the two FPSOs, right? That work is underway. We've increased gas capacity a little bit at Jubilee. We'll do more next year. There's a TEN shutdown which will be done in the next 18 months or so. We'll do increase in gas processing capacity there. It's really very, very explicitly linked to some pretty well-defined projects, which are part of the business plan, part of the CapEx program. That's it.
Okay. Thanks, Rahul. Thanks for your office. I'll hand to Eva.
Thanks, James. Apologies, I don't think we'll be able to get through all the questions. Myself and Rob will follow up with any further questions afterwards. I think we can probably squeeze in two more before we finish. The next question will be from Dmitry Ivanov from Jefferies.
Thank you very much. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Yes. Thank you for the presentation and congrats on the strong results. I have, like, two questions. The first one on the situation with the in Ghana, with Ghana initiative to bolster this state reserves by purchasing FX liquidity from oil and gas companies and mining companies. Could you give us more color on the real implications for Tullow in terms of your ability to repatriate cash? Are there any kind of deterioration in this environment? Then the second question, I know it's like a quite tricky kind of headline with Ghana, but do you have, like, any kind of plan B if the situation deteriorates, and you see more kind of capital controls in Ghana?
For instance, maybe you have like, you will use more cash from Gabon to upstream to hold or to pay for holding company expenses and etc. Any kind of color on the situation in Ghana would be very helpful for investors. Thank you very much.
Let me just give you a high level view and then I'll get Richard to give you more specifics. Firstly, Dmitry, I think it's important to recognize that we've been working in Ghana a number of years under a trading agreement where we sell our crude oil offshore, the funds are received overseas, so we don't actually bring any capital into the country or nothing comes in unless we choose to. Right? That's just to be very, very clear on that. Right? The other thing I would say is the government has always been very consistently supportive of that arrangement. I don't think that there is a concern around that, the basic sort of construct of the contracts and we're not alone. That's just...
I just wanted you to be very clear on that. There's a separate piece which is that the government is. We recognize, look, you know, we've been in Ghana a number of years. We're very supportive of the government and kind of we recognize what the issues are. Let me hand over to Richard, and because he's been in the middle of a lot of the discussions about how we're constructively and voluntarily looking to support the government.
Yeah. Thanks, Rahul. I mean, I think the key thing for me with this is, you know, obviously we've been in Ghana for a very long time, and we want to continue our presence and increase investment in Ghana. We want to help out where we can. We've had sort of, I think as has been documented and you've referenced a number of requests that have come forward. We are sort of analyzing those with other oil companies and mining companies as well in terms of how we can help out. I mean, I think one of the clearest things that we can do, we purchase $100 million worth of cedis every year. That tends to be through sort of indigenous banks.
Doing that through the Bank of Ghana provides, you know, that dollar liquidity straight into the government, which will help. In terms of, you know, repatriation of cash, as Rahul said, you know, we have a contract in place that dollars are paid offshore. It's something we will maintain. I think the second thing is, you know, as and when we can help, you know, with liquidity constraints, particularly around tax payments, we'll look to sort of help to optimize, cash flow, by potentially advancing, payments to the Government of Ghana as well that are contractually due. We've got a plan, in terms of how we can assist and which we're proactively looking at it.
I suppose not just looking at the requests that are coming from the Government of Ghana, but proactively looking at how we can support them as well. I think that's the best way forward. It, you know, needs to be, and it so far has been very much a collaborative approach to some of the requests that have come through, very much an open dialogue and discussion.
Understood. As of now, kind of there is no deterioration, so business as usual and kind of you continue just to collaborate without any kind of additional impact on the business, on the cash flows and the repatriation, right?
That's correct. Yeah, it's just to be clear, there is. We receive the funds offshore, so it's not like we're getting them onshore and then repatriating. Just that, just want to be clear that we don't use any of that. But it's just, you know, whatever we can do voluntarily to help within the scope of our business, I think is. I mean, look, the best thing that we're doing to help the nation really is by investing, right? 'Cause we have short cycle investments that generate a lot of cash immediately at the high oil prices. Disproportionately the value goes to the nation. Really, you know, that, the value of that is far in excess of any divide that can come. I think there's a strong alignment in that.
Thank you very much. Apologies for two broad questions. Thank you.
No, it's good. Thank you.
Thank you, Dmitry. I think we've almost run out of time, I'm afraid. We're gonna have to wrap it up there. Thank you for all the questions and any follow-up, we will usually follow up afterwards. I'll hand back over to Rahul.
Okay. Look, I just thank you all for your interest and support and just encourage you all to reach out if you have other questions. We are excited about the business, so hopefully that comes through. Let us know how we can help you understand this better. Have a good day everyone.