Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's Ithaca Energy plc H1 2026 financial results. My name is Drew, and I will be the moderator for the call today. After the prepared remarks, we will hold a Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad, and to withdraw your question, it is star followed by two. With that, it is my pleasure to hand over to Yaniv Friedman, Executive Chairman, to begin. Please go ahead when you are ready.
Thank you, Drew. Good morning, everyone. Those of you who are unfortunately not on holiday and joined us, and those who are, welcome to our first half 2026 result presentation. My name is Yaniv Friedman. I am the Executive Chairman of Ithaca Energy, and with me on the call today, Luciano Vasques, our CEO, and Iain Lewis, our CFO. First slide, as you can see, delivering on our strategy. I think this is a perfect example of a first half of a year that we have been executing on all pillars of our strategy. What we will cover today in our agenda, as you can see on slide two, is first half 2026 highlights, our strategic and operational review, financial updates, and then we will open it up for questions and answers. If you will please move to slide four.
High level, again, our vision for scale, stability, and strength, well demonstrated in our first half 2026. Record quarterly production of 131,000 bbl per day of barrels of oil equivalent , with an improved cost outlook that supports our robust cash flow generation. I could say that we had, as we said last quarter, we saw the trend going into Q2. We are seeing this trending into Q3, which is a heavy tar quarter for us, but we are recovering very well from the tar season. We are seeing this strong production trending into the third quarter as well. Stability. Rosebank nearing final stages of execution, and we are moving our organic portfolio forward with a pipeline of projects to enable us to take final investment decision on through the end of 2026 and into 2027. Strengths. Significant available liquidity. We have $1.9 billion of available liquidity.
We also have an accordion that we can expand in our reserve-based lending facility of about $400 million. So significant liquidity. We are also tuned to the market and taking advantage of opportunities. So we have done a private bond tap of our euro bond, EUR 155 million at 5.5% to further support our growth ambitions and optimize our balance sheets. With that, we value distributions. We understand that this is important to our shareholders. We are announcing today our first interim dividend for 2026 of $255 million. We are upgrading our management guidance of our dividends to $500 million-$530 million, and Iain will talk through that later as well. If you will move to slide five, what we did in slide five, we are focusing on stability. We wanted to show that this is not a one-off quarter or one-off first half of the year.
What you see here is really a snapshot of the last 24 months since the effective date of our business combination. These are the type of charts that we like. Scale of production going up, OpEx going down, and stable cash flow production and distribution. I could also say, and Luciano will speak to that safety is obviously paramount to us, and we are seeing improved metrics there as well. If you look at this slide, first half production in 2026 of 128,000 bbl. OpEx going down from $22 a barrel in 2024 to about $18 in the first half of 2026. As we said, distributions are important for us. As you can see, we have, to date, announced over $1.65 billion in the course of the last three years, and upgrading our dividend guidance range for 2026. We will cover strategic and operational review.
I will hand over to Luciano to talk about safety, production, and projects. Luciano, please.
All right. Good morning, everybody. If we now move to slide number seven. Our performance in the first half is fully consistent with the pillars of our strategy that we have presented several times. I will take you through the first two this morning, extracting value from our versatile portfolio in U.K., p rogressing discipline, organic flow, growth opportunities, which are strengthening our business for the future. The operational momentum from 2025 carried strongly into H1 2026, delivering clear progress across safety, environmental performance, production efficiency, as Yaniv said, and cost discipline.
This, of course, reflects our focus on the operational excellence which we have done through our perfect day, safer, stronger reliability, and a lower operating cost per barrel. On the growth side, we have continued selecting investment across the producing portfolio, prioritizing fast cycle value opportunities on Captain, Cygnus, and also J Area, Elgin/ Franklin, as I will speak through.
At the same time, our organic growth pipeline is moving forward with purpose, with Fotla, Tornado, and Cambo progressing towards readiness for FID. Rosebank has also reached a major milestone with the FPSO now on location ahead of the expected first production in H1 2027 and following ramp up. If we can now move to slide eight, I want to stress that our excellent overall performance in H1 2026 was underpinned, as Yaniv said, by strong health, safety, and environmental results. For the 10th quarter on a roll, we recorded Tier 2 zero process safety event, and sustained again a positive total recordable incident rate trend at 1.2 cases per million man-hours in H1 and 1.7 on a one-year rolling basis, well below the U.K. North Sea basin average of 3.95.
This is particularly notable given that two operated assets reached cessational production, and this required greater focus to safely execute non-routine end- of- life activities. Both the FPF-1 and Alba FSU were removed from their locations, transferred to decommissioning yards as planned without any recordable incident. The emission performance also remains strong, with emission intensity now at 16.4 kg CO2 per barrel equivalent, which is substantially below the basin average of around 25, and continuing to trend downwards. This reflects the increased weighting towards lower emission assets and the retirement, of course, of the higher intensity Alba and GSA fields. If we move now to slide eight. Sorry, to slide number nine with production.
We achieved, as we said, record production in Q2 2026, averaging 131,000 bbl per day as operations rebounded strongly from the weather-related challenges experienced in Q1, confirming the robustness of our portfolio despite the challenges, both in the operated and the non-operated assets. This performance supported an average production of 128,000 bbl per day in the first half, and production operations continue strong, as we said, beyond Q2, which provides us confidence in our production outlook for the year, still appropriately allowing for the planned impact of the Q3 turnaround season. The production mix also strengthened with gas now representing 48% of H1 volumes versus 41% in H1 2025. The shift reflects the strategic portfolio reshaping that we delivered through the M&A activities in 2025, particularly the increased contribution from Cygnus and Seagull gas fields. If we move to slide 10 now.
At Captain, the deployment of the PBLJ is already demonstrating the value of our industry collaboration model, unlocking near-term production through three months rev drill program on well B15, which is progressing well and expected to be on stream from early Q4. The wider Captain 13th well campaign remains on schedule. The well C75 was successfully brought on stream in Q2. Following the current ongoing rig maintenance activity, the final well of the campaign, which is an injector, will be executed. Captain continues to deliver fast cycle, high- return opportunities with the 14th campaign planned to follow immediately after the 13th one. In parallel, sanction of the Captain subsea well campaign, which comprises two wells and will leverage it again, the PBLJ capacity is expected to be reached in Q4 this year.
The first production from the subsea campaign is targeted for 2028, adding further depth to Captain's long-term production outlook, which is underpinned by the EOR Stage 1 and Stage 2 initiatives that are delivering in line with our field development plans. If we now move to slide 11, we talk about Cygnus, where the infill drilling program continues to make strong operational progress. The C13 well, which was brought on stream in May, is performing ahead of expectations, thanks to a successful completion, design, and execution of the hydraulic fracturing program. C14 has since been spudded and remains on track to for first gas in November. Before then, the campaign progresses to C15.
On completion of C15, the rig then is expected to move to the Bravo area in Q2 2027 for the C16 and C17 two-well campaign, which we expect to sanction in the second half of this year, subject to the required field development plan approvals. C16 is a clear example of production-led exploration, reinforcing our commitment to maximize value from Cygnus. Timely regulatory approval is essential to maintain momentum and support continued delivery of domestic gas from one of the U.K.'s most significant fields. If we move to slide 12. Now, we turn to two key assets in our non-operated portfolio. J Area continues to provide a stable, low-cost production contribution, supported by strong performance from Jocelyn South and Talbot, which continue to be ahead of expectation.
The operator performance remains high, underpinned by an open and constructive partnership, and the assets offer further upside through well interventions, new infill wells, as well as production and infrastructure-led exploration and appraisal opportunities such as Courageous and Peach, with the potential to replicate the Jocelyn South success. At Elgin/Franklin, with the new operator NEO NEXT+ , we have sanctioned a two-well program comprising EIJ and EIH, which was an opportunity previously deferred in response to the Energy Profits Levy. The campaign is scheduled to start in Q4 this year and represents a short cycle, again, high- return investment, targeting 4,500 bbl per day of net incremental production in 2028, with EIJ expected on stream in January and EIH in August.
If we move to slide 13, we talk about Rosebank, which continues to move into its final stages of execution, with the operator now narrowing first production in first half 2027 and ramp up to plateau from summer next year, subject to regulatory approvals. A major milestone was achieved in June with the FPSO arriving and being moored on location after a short dock phase in Bergen. At this moment, hookup activities are ongoing, which will be followed by the commissioning prior to first oil. Following the April equipment handling incident, the drilling rig returned to service at the end of July after a period off hire and has restarted well activities, focused now on delivering the minimum well stock required for the planned ramp up.
2026 capital spending now expected to be lower than previously guided, reflecting the rephasing of this drilling activity and associated costs into 2027, including the final FPSO commissioning. Rosebank remains attractive as a project with expected post-tax CapEx below $4 per barrel equivalent, reducing to below $3.5 with the anticipated high-value eighth well and an overall cost performance within project contingency envelope. To close, we go in slide 14. Our key organic growth projects, Fotla, Tornado, and Cambo, have all progressed materially and now are technically assured with front-end engineering design and tendering largely complete. Fotla is moving towards execution, supported by the successful firm down and rig sharing agreement with Harbour Energy. The key long-lead items, including installation vessels and PBLJ drilling rig capacity, have been secured, reducing development risk and increasing confidence in reaching FID in 2026.
The West of Shetland remains central to our strategy and an important growth basin. Tornado will be a key gas enabler for future tiebacks and has advanced towards FID following the obtainment of 18 months license extension to March 2028, with critical long-lead items and vessels secured alongside our partner Adura, subject to regulatory approvals. Cambo, the largest pre-FID undeveloped discovery of the U.K. continental shelf, remains a strategically important option for both Ithaca and the U.K. indeed. With front-end engineering and tendering substantially complete, major contracts ready for award, value engineering, re-tendering, commercial, and financial work streams progressing, the project is increasingly de-risked as it moves towards sanction and equity firm down. With that, I pass the word again to Yaniv.
Thank you, Luciano. You just spoke about organic growth opportunities. If you move to slide 15, it is really a snapshot of kind of the high-quality projects that we have right now and our ability to convert 200 million barrels of resources into production over the course of the next 18 months through FID decisions that we intend to make. I will not run through the projects again, but this gives you a good idea on the organic growth potential that we have and the materiality and quality of our pipeline. If we move to slide 16. We have shared a version of the slide in one of our conference call before, and we talked about how we are seeing visibility on a 1 billion barrel of license potential. Luciano alluded to that as well.
We are prioritizing infrastructure-led exploration and production-led exploration opportunities as additional avenue for long-term value creation with our 660 million barrels of oil equivalent of 2P, 2C resources. We are seeing kind of unbooked 2C contingent and prospective resources up to 1 billion. We also have another tool, which is the Transitional Energy Certificates that are providing a pathway beyond the existing license resources for additional value creation. We are working this, and you see this, and we are maturing those, and they will obviously, through the maturity, convert them to resources and then to projects that we can take final investment decision on. We are seeing significant value in the U.K. continental shelf. When people talk about no new exploration licenses, what we want to show is that even without new exploration licenses formally, we have where to grow in the U.K. further.
Active but patient pursuit of M&A. What we are doing as well is optimizing our balance sheet to support our growth ambitions and strategy. If we look at the U.K. and consolidation in our core UK CS market, we just talked about our organic portfolio and obviously projects or potential acquisitions, apologies, in the U.K., needs to compete for capital with our organic projects. We have a very strong portfolio of organic projects. At the same time, we are looking at opportunities. As we always say, we look at this with a casual lens, so they need to meet our investment thresholds. When we look at international expansions or focused international expansions, we are maintaining an active but patient pursuit of opportunities. We have a very clear strategy around this, right?
We want to deliver both growth and yield through these acquisitions, and sustainable production and cash flows. It is important for us to keep the strength of our balance sheet, agility, and flexibility. We are imposing a ceiling on our leverage position. We are looking at regions that would not be a one-off, that would offer further expansion opportunities to ensure that we can develop our business, and continue and ensure sustainability and scale going forward. At the same time, regions or geographies that are offering a stable fiscal and regulatory regime. We talked about our available firepower in terms of liquidity. That is definitely supporting potential M&A activity in the future. With that, I will hand over to Iain Lewis for our first half financial update. Iain, please.
Thanks, Yaniv. Good morning, all. If we can go to slide 19, please. As usual, we call out the key numbers here on the finance side, the green numbers really describing the performance in the half year, and then the blue ones are financial position at the close of June. Strong production delivery, 128,000 bbl a day, remembering that we recovered from some difficult weather in January in the production front, so posting strong production delivery. The cost per barrel result of $18 is very pleasing. Our medium-term plan, of course, has been to maintain the $20 a barrel region, able to push that down to $18 this half year. That is the aim as you move forward in the year. Able to today announce reduced management guidance on OpEx due to the cost control in the company.
That enables additional free cash flow and EBITDAX. You can see the $1.1 billion EBITDAX for the half year, free cash flow of nearly $500 million , and net cash from ops of nearly $1 billion, and a profit of $127 million. On track, robust, and continued good financial delivery. I suppose in terms of the plans for the future and the optionality that Yaniv and Luciano referred to, we are maintaining a high liquidity and low net debt position, 0.49x pro forma leverage at the end of June, with $1.9 billion of liquidity available. That is part of our strategy. It enables us to look at opportunities with clear pathways to deliver the financial capability to land them, and as part of our story as we move forward. Slide 20, i f we can move to that, summarizes the financial position in a bit more detail.
You can see that we are at the end of June in the net debt position, sitting on significant net cash on undrawn RBL of $1.3 billion and $571 million of cash, taking net debt down to just over $1 billion. You can see in terms of the liquidity position there that our undrawn RBL of $1.3 billion and the cash balance can be augmented by an open and untriggered according facility on the RBL. Material debt capacity in the business and cash position. That was added to in the quarter, the last quarter, by the bond tap. As Yaniv mentioned, this is an opportunistic and highly valuable delivery of additional cash flow. Strong demand for bonds in the market.
Responding to that and adding to liquidity on the euro bond was well received and set us up as we move into the next phase of the business. Leverage, you can see, has been very stable in the 0.5x now through from December 2022, right through to where we are today. So stable management of the balance sheet and significant liquidity capacity at the end of the quarter. Move to slide 21, the hedge book, which continues to be of significant interest, obviously, in a volatile oil and gas market. You can see on the charts here that we've shown the forward curve as at 17th of August. Then the average hedge floor and average hedge ceiling that is in our hedge book, the average ceiling being the combination of swaps, collar floors, and also wide collar floors that we put together.
I think the key thing to point out to everyone is that we are well hedged the next two years. We are right now just riding the price curve and taking the upside on the unhedged barrels. You can see that what we've been able to do on the hedge front, on oil particularly, is to take the hedge ceiling and floors and move them upwards as we move through into 2028. Able to add to the hedge book through 2028 in these last few months. That's really been our focus, as has been our characteristic trend here. We look at 12, 24, 36 months in advance and seek to establish strong cash flow delivery certainty out ahead in the business. We see that on the oil side.
On gas, you can see there's a significant upside in the market currently on the front end. We deliberately have left more unhedged on gas at the front end for exactly this kind of eventuality. In Q4 this year, for example, when prices are currently sitting at 150 and above, we're 30% unhedged for gas in Q4 2026. I think continuing the trend of long-term stability in our cash delivery of the business by hedging well, but leaving upside on the table to benefit from just exactly the kind of environment we're seeing at the moment. Then in slide 22. Of course, the output of all of the management of the business from an HSE perspective and production and cost management and good investment is the ability to deliver dividends to shareholders.
We are very satisfied with the record we have here of delivering returns from 2023 at $ 400 million, increased in 2024 and 2025 to $ 500 million, and now, as per our guidance update today, expecting to be above $ 500 million for 2026, with a $ 500 million-$ 530 million range, representing 30% post-tax cash from operations. Remember, we moved to a 50/50 payment structure in terms of the dividend this year, so that we have a flat dividend across the year. We are, for this half year, delivering a $ 255 million dividend, as the first interim declared today. Obviously, on the market guidance numbers, the $ 500 million-$ 530 million tells you there is some upside in that, but delivering $ 255 million for the half year. So, solid return on the dividend upgrading thanks to production, prices, and cost management.
If we move to slide 24, this will just reinforce the guidance that we gave at the start of the year and upgrades in a couple of areas. We are reaffirming all guidance across our suite of metrics here, but we are reducing the OpEx, reducing it $20 million at the midpoint. That is at a $1.35 rate. Of course, a significant amount of our expenditure is in pounds, and actually, the average rate for the first six months has been below $1.35, so the FX- adjusted reduction would be lower. But good, strong cost performance in the half year has led us to be able to forecast out a reduction for the full year. But you can see Rosebank CapEx down $35 million at the midpoint.
That, again, is reflective, as Luciano has mentioned, of the Rosebank rig deferral, given the 3.5 months of delay on the rig program. But again, as referred to, not impacting first oil and the ramp up through 2027. All of that flowing through with higher prices into a higher dividend of $500 million-$530 million as outlined. So going back to Yaniv for slide 25 to close us out.
Thanks, Iain. As mentioned, slide 25, just some closing remarks. So, record quality production, as mentioned, 131,000 bbl per day production that we have achieved in Q2, trending into Q3, and strengthening confidence in our full- year production outlook, and management guidance reaffirmed. Disciplined and agile balance sheet management, s trong cash flow generation, o pportunistic M&A, as Iain mentioned, that supports increasing our firepower to continue and deliver growth in the business. We are accelerating organic investment delivery with incremental barrels in a high commodity environment. So, immediate deployment of the PBLJ rig to the Captain B15 well. Depth and quality of our organic portfolio with growing momentum towards final investment decision on several projects, and focusing on building the next wave of optionality beyond the 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent resource potential that we believe is definitely doable.
At the same time, delivering attractive returns to shareholders. First tranche of 2026 dividend of $255 million declared today, a nd upgrading our dividend guidance for the full year of 2026, as Iain said, with some potential upside. With that, and before we move to questions and answers, as always, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the entire Ithaca Energy team. Yes, you are seeing and hearing us here, but this is the work of many behind the scenes, and I would like to thank them on behalf of all of us. With that, Drew, I hand over to you, and we will be happy to take questions.
Thank you. We can now start today's Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. To withdraw your question, it's star followed by two. With that, our first question from Cian Evans-Cowie from Bank of America. Your line's now open. Please go ahead with your question.
Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I just have two, please, if I may. Firstly, it's nice to see the dividend guidance upgrade today. But given your payout policy, there's also an implicit CFFO upgrade in there. Iain, you spoke a bit about this, but it'd be helpful if you could just talk through perhaps in a bit more detail the moving parts in this upgrade, please. I know some of it, as you mentioned, is related to your OpEx guide reduction. But given that your production guide is unchanged, I suppose, what are the other components that are in there? Then just related to that, if you could talk us through again what your assumptions are that you're making for the rest of the year on the macro front to arrive at that guidance, please.
For my second question, on the production profile side of things, if my memory serves me correctly, your maintenance drop-off should look substantially shallower this year compared to last year. Is this still the working assumption? Then how would you guide us to think about the movement or the quarterly delta for 3Q and 4Q? Thank you.
Thanks, Cian. I'll move to the first one there, as requested. So yeah, look, our guidance on dividend upgrade is really driven by pricing, but also by cost control. As has been mentioned, we are stable in our production range and continue to expect to deliver within that. Costs have been well managed. A little bit of FX help as well, but this is largely cost management. In terms of pricing and price assumptions, obviously, we don't give specific price assumptions. But actually, our hedge book probably tells you a lot of the story. If you look for the rest of the year, we have this in slide 21, we're kind of 85% downside protected on oil at $60 for the next six months. So you can assume that the bottom end of our div range is kind of correlated in that kind of region.
I guess that's the kind of downside position. Obviously, that limits the upside, but that's part of the oil price protection that we deliver through the hedge book. On gas, as you say, we've got significant downside protection, but also 26% upside exposure on unhedged barrels for the second half of the year, with 30% unhedged in Q4. Those are the kind of numbers we're dealing with as we get to our range of dividend position. Of course, as prices move and work through and costs are driven and production managed, we may well be giving guidance later in the year, a different dividend. It's not impossible that it goes higher, of course. We'll continue to keep the market updated. On production, we have Odin Estensen with us, the COO, who is very well placed to talk to the turnaround this year compared with last year.
Yeah. Thanks for your question. You are absolutely right. This year, we actually have approximately half the amount of turnaround days compared to last year. We are progressing very well. August and September are the kind of key turnaround months for us. So far, we have completed all our turnarounds except two. It's one for Cygnus, and it's a slowdown on the J Area. I'm very pleased to confirm that we have completed those turnarounds on plan or ahead of them. The last one on Erskine was completed this week, six days ahead of plan. The risk exposure for the production for the remaining year is kind of very much reduced, and we are kind of feeling very much in control of the turnaround exposure to this year.
Got it. That's very, very helpful indeed. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Mark Wilson from Jefferies. Your line's now open. Please proceed.
Thank you, and good morning, and congratulations on results. Again, unfortunately, I have to ask regarding a question about things maybe not happening. We are waiting for regulatory approval on Rosebank for production startup. You also talk to future drilling FIDs on Cygnus that require regulatory approvals to continue investment there. Can we talk about an expected timeline to certainly the first of those approvals? Can we talk to what happens if that does not come, or the variables that could actually be the decision from the government? Are we expecting just a straight yes, no on production startup, or could there be variables? As I say, what happens if that does not come? Thank you.
Yeah. It is good to hear you, Mark. I will take that one. In terms of Rosebank, look, we continue to see this as a regulatory process that is relatively straightforward. We have been asked for emissions data on Scope 3, we provided it, and answers have been given. This is a very straightforward process in lots of ways. Speculation on results of processes that are pretty straightforward is probably not that helpful, so you will forgive us for not speculating. I think in terms of other standard processes around approvals for wells and fields, et cetera, these are all well-worn regulatory paths, and nothing has changed on that for, in fact, some time. Nothing has changed on the approval processes around production because then it is either apart from the Scope 3 emissions change that happened last year. In lots of ways, this is regular business, normal business.
We have licenses as you need us, taking us through that are very large and wide-ranging, and we continue to develop under those licenses issued by the government, the oil and gas that is needed for the country.
That is very clear, and you certainly make it look like normal business. So, well done about that. My second point is regarding, it is definitely clear that the good operations that you are showing do also come from partnerships that are stable and involve motivated partners. You speak to Adura, west of Shetland, NEO NEXT, Elgin/ Franklin, even Harbour, J Area and Fotla, and you have consolidated Cygnus very much that that is going forward. Is that therefore an additional angle we should look for regarding potential future M&A is the partnership that would be in place following such things to enable good operations? Thank you, and I will hand it over.
Morning, Mark. I'm not sure I fully understood the question, but if your question was around UKCS consolidation, then I think I've captured that. We're looking at opportunities, but we will do the right acquisitions, and not an acquisition, right? We're focused on value. We have a high-quality portfolio, and I think it's reflected in our results. Our goal is to high grade rather than dilute what we have. I think all the names that you've mentioned are today large players in the UKCS after a wave of consolidations that I believe Ithaca started two years ago, and we've seen this developing in the past two years. I think these kind of names will continue to dominate the UKCS. Obviously, there's a lot of optionality for all sorts of corporation around that. I hope I've answered your question.
Thank you very much.
I'll maybe just add, Mark, so clearly the future of the North Sea matters to us, and the partnerships are deep and important. Therefore, whatever happens to assets in the U.K. matters. That's a slightly different question from M&A because we've always said it's the right assets at the right price. We like lots of assets that aren't available at the right price. I think the key thing for us is that the assets in the U.K. are in the hands of people who will invest. Clearly, we're the 100% owners of Cambo, which we believe should move ahead as a project. Therefore, partners in this basin who are committed to Cambo in this basin and an appropriately supportive regulatory regime is all important.
Partners are critical, and they do play into M&A, but it's both M&A and also field level equity support that is required as we move forward as a business in this basin.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Nash Cui from Barclays. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one is on Cambo. I wonder if you could give us an update on that and what are the key milestones before the expected FID in 2027. My second one is also on M&A. We have seen quite a number of transactions in the wider North Sea area in the last few months, and one of your peers is thinking about farming down their assets in the UK CS. What is your view on that, and do you see the competition on the wider North Sea resources has increased meaningfully, and how will that affect your inorganic group plan? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Nash. I'll take these. So, on Cambo, we continue to de-risk the project technically, commercially, financially, environmentally. So all these work streams are progressing, and as we say, with the target of taking final investment decision in 2027. I'm not going to go into specifics, but you know what constitutes projects, and there are hundreds of line items in the checklist that we need to complete. They're advancing on plan. Obviously, there is a regulatory piece to it, and there is a partner piece to it, and we're progressing all of those on our timeline. So, our expectation is that this would move forward. Obviously, we need the right regulatory conditions to enable that. On the M&A, I think what we're seeing in the U.K. is people settling or companies understanding better the regulatory regime we're working under.
With the proposed implementation of the success of EPL and the certainty beyond that allows investment going forward, t here is definitely movement on the M&A front. Again, as mentioned, we believe in scale. So we think scale helps, and we understand that consolidation is important, and we're seeing this in the market. As mentioned, I believe we've started that trend. So I think that right now there are, call it, four large players in the UK CS, that are controlling most of the productions and most of the future projects. So I expect that this is what it will look like in the future as well.
Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Sure, Nash.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. To withdraw your question, it is star followed by two. Our next question comes from Sam Wahab from Peel Hunt. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Morning, all. Congrats again on another very solid set of results. I have three questions from me. The first, at Rosebank, the operator has now narrowed first production to the first half of next year. Can you lay out what are the remaining critical path items we should monitor over the next 6- 12 months as you reach that plateau production? Second question is around OpEx per BOE. We have seen that fall quite materially, so that is all very positive. What are the core reasons driving that, and can we expect that trend to continue once Rosebank comes on stream? Finally, I know there has been a few other questions around inorganic opportunities, but how are you seeing the landscape in the U.K. currently in terms of the elevated commodity pricing?
And we've seen in the news that BP plan to push on with the divestment. Do you see reports of that $2.6 billion package as being reasonable value?
Yeah. So I think Odin will take the first one on Rosebank, then I'll deal with OpEx, and then to you, Yaniv, on the M&A, I think.
Yeah. So, on Rosebank, I think kind of the key things going forward now is to continue to have good progress on the project, making sure that we are liquidating the remaining hours on the installation efficiently. And then I think the other key performance indicator that we are looking for is the construction of the wells. That has now resumed again and progressing well. So, I think those are kind of the two key things that we will be looking for going forward. And at the moment, both are indicating well. They're back on drilling again after the incident that we had. And then we have full activity out on the installation, which is safely and robustly installed now on the field. Yeah. So, I think those two are the two key components that will take us efficiently to first production.
Yeah. And to answer your question, Sam, on OpEx, look, I often say operating cost is there are no silver bullets to maintaining operating cost discipline. It's, as Yaniv mentioned, a work of many. Everyone across the business touches cost some way or another. So it's around culture and around control, but also around the right supply chain relationships and depth so that we're working well with our partners in the supply chain. The OpEx per barrel number clearly is a combination of production and OpEx, and therefore, if we can keep our production high and OpEx in a good place, we drive that metric down, and that's what we've been able to do. But specifically in terms of all the effort that goes on, Odin and I were sitting in a tender board yesterday. We approve all contracts. I sign all the contracts.
The head count is managed on a day-to-day basis by the VP of HR and culture and myself in terms of numbers. That's about having the right people doing the right things, and partnering with the right people. Sorry, there's no silver bullet answer on OpEx b ut that's how you control costs over the long term. I would say one of the things that's not in here is the fact that we've managed the FX control. We normalize the margin guidance at 135. We've actually delivered over $10 million, I think it's nearly $20 million of FX savings by hedging GBP to U.S. dollar below the market position. We locked in some hedges when rates were really low. It's about discipline and cost management and risk management across the piece, which we're very pleased with the results of today.
There's an awful lot of effort goes into one number, which is $18 per barrel.
Yeah. Understood.
Yeah. I'll just echo that. I think what you're saying is really around discipline, but also agility and adapting to market changes, and our kind of very robust capital allocation framework, and our ability to keep flexibility and optionality both in our portfolio and the way we manage our investments, but also through our balance sheet. On your third question, I'll just say nice try b ut I'm not going to comment obviously on value. I would say that obviously in periods of extreme volatility like we've been experiencing the past six months, it is not easy to price assets and deals. Of course, there are ways of dealing with volatility, all sorts of mechanisms. I won't comment on that, and I think I already answered on the UK CS landscape in terms of M&A and where the market is. Sorry to disappoint on that.
No problem. Thought I'd try, but thanks very much.
Thank you. That concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I will now hand over to Yaniv for closing comments.
Thank you, Drew, and thank you everyone for listening and asking questions. We are always here to answer. Thank you, and we will speak again next quarter. Thank you very much. Have a nice summer.
Thank you all for joining. That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.