Good morning and welcome to Aker BP's presentation of our Q2 2024 results. Today's agenda reflects a strong quarter, with clear momentum across both our operations and our strategic priorities. We will begin with an update on our operational performance, which continues to deliver solid results. We will move on to our field development portfolio, where we remain firmly on track and where we have sanctioned two new expansion projects this quarter at Johan Sverdrup and at Yggdrasil. We are also pleased to share encouraging news from Yggdrasil on the exploration side, where we have discovered more oil in an ongoing exploration well. As always, our CFO, David Tønne, will guide you through the financials later in the presentation. In the second quarter, production averaged 415,000 barrels per day, down 26,000 barrels from the first quarter.
This decline was primarily due to a one-month planned maintenance shutdown at Valhall and Ula. Despite the shutdown, we maintained a portfolio-wide production efficiency of 95%. Our other assets, including Johan Sverdrup, continued to perform really well, with a production efficiency ranging from 96% to nearly 100%. During the Valhall shutdown, we also reached a key milestone on PVP-Fenris: the successful installation of the jacket and the connecting bridge for the new platform. Looking ahead, we expect lower production in the second half, driven by scheduled maintenance and natural decline. However, with a solid first half now behind us, forecast uncertainty has been reduced. As a result, we are narrowing our full-year production guidance, raising the lower end of the range from 390,000 to 400,000 barrels per day.
Unit cost edged up to $7.30 per barrel in the quarter, primarily due to lower production volumes, higher maintenance, and a weaker US dollar against the Norwegian krone. Nevertheless, we remain firmly on track to meet our full-year production guidance of $7 per barrel, a level that remains highly competitive within the industry. On CO2 emissions, the picture remained consistent. Our emissions intensity held steady at 2.8 kg per barrel, an industry-leading level that continues to set the benchmark globally. At the start of the year, we outlined our ambition to sustain production above 500,000 barrels per day beyond 2030 and to pursue further growth. We are working every day to make this a reality. On this illustration, the dark blue area represents our current business plan, covering production from existing fields, ongoing field developments, and regular IOR activities.
Key growth drivers include the large-scale Yggdrasil development, the Valhall PVP-Fenris project, and a series of tieback projects to Alvheim, Skarv, and Gregorsen. It also includes the Johan Sverdrup phase 3 project and the tieback of the East Frigg discovery to Yggdrasil, which have now both been formally sanctioned in the partnerships. This visible outlook supports our target to produce around 525,000 barrels per day in 2028. Beyond 2028, the light blue wedges illustrate our potential to sustain production above 500,000 barrels per day through infill drilling and tiebacks from known discovery across our portfolio. Progress this year has further strengthened our confidence in this trajectory. Looking even further ahead, we see additional growth potential beyond the current outlook. With continued exploration success and selective M&A, we see a clear path to expanding our production base well into the next decade.
This is our ambition, and we are well equipped to deliver it. We have the people, the assets, the supplier, the digital ecosystem, the capital, and maybe most importantly, the track record to make it happen. Our projects continue to advance steadily, with several key milestones being achieved in the recent months. These include the successful offshore installation of the Valhall PVP jacket, the completion of the Fenris drilling campaign, and others. As we speak, we are preparing to install the jacket for the main Yggdrasil platform, the Huginn. These achievements reflect the scale, pace, and precision of our execution. They are the result of close collaboration across teams and partners, and they mark critical steps towards delivering on our long-term value creation plan. Since images speak louder than words, let's just have a look.
This video highlights the scale and complexity of the projects we are delivering, and the impressive effort from our teams and alliance partners to make it happen. Offshore projects progress through distinct phases: engineering, procurement, construction, offshore installation, commissioning, and finally handover to operations. The successful execution is defined not just with project progress within each phase, but by the ability to transition smoothly between them. If a project is off track, it typically becomes visible at these transition points. We are now roughly midway through the execution phase, with engineering and procurement largely complete. We are well into the construction phase, and we reached a point where the modules are being assembled into complete platform units. This gives us a clear operational visibility into the remaining work and resource needs in the different projects.
In this context, we have conducted our most comprehensive project review and budget update since action. The conclusion is reassuring: the plan holds firm. The projects remain on schedule for planned startup in 2026 and 2027, as originally communicated. That said, we have naturally faced some challenges along the way. Some work packages have experienced delays, macroeconomic conditions have impacted prices and currencies, and labor markets have tightened. Finally, the security situation in the Middle East has led to longer sailing distances between Asia and Europe. All these external factors are driving up costs across the industry. While we can't control global inflation, we can and do respond decisively. We have mobilized the necessary resources to navigate and mitigate these challenges, maintain focus, and ensure momentum in the project execution.
Now, taking all of these factors into account, we now project a roughly 6% increase in investments for the ongoing projects. This includes a 10% contingency of the remaining capital, and the adjustment reflects the full scope of what is needed to deliver on time and with quality. Now, importantly, when we look at the value creation plan from 2023 to 2028, the total investment estimate for all the PDO projects sanctioned in 2022 is up by only 3%-4% on a like-for-like basis. This signal is a strong signal of disciplined execution in a highly dynamic environment. Let's now turn to exploration and to what is arguably one of the most exciting wells on the Norwegian continental shelf this year, Omega Alpha in the Yggdrasil area.
This well is remarkable, not only because we have discovered oil, which I will return to, but because we are breaking new ground in how we explore. Omega Alpha is pushing the frontiers of what is technically possible, using advanced geosteering to drill ultra-long, high-precision horizontal sections with unprecedented speeds. This enables us to map the subsurface with high accuracy and pinpoint oil accumulations with confidence. Two years ago, with the East Frigg well, we set a new benchmark by achieving more than 13 km of reservoir exposure. Since then, we have equipped our rigs with wired pipe technology, a high-bandwidth data link between the drill bit and the surface. This innovation allows us to drill faster, steer with greater precision, and access significantly more reservoir in real time. To put it into perspective, a typical exploration well might intersect a few hundred meters of reservoir.
Omega Alpha, by contrast, is on track to exceed 20 km of reservoir exposure at only twice the cost of a conventional well. Moreover, the quality and quantity of the data we are acquiring are vastly superior, substantially reducing uncertainty and accelerating the timeline from discovery to development. The East Frigg well is a prime example, with only two years between the discovery and the final investment decision. Omega Alpha is a multilateral well targeting five different structures: Omega, Alpha, Alpha South, Sigma NorEast, and Pi. The combined pre-drill volume estimates ranged from 40-135 million barrels. Drilling started in May and is progressing really well. We have already covered the Alpha structure and parts of the Omega structure, confirming commercial oil volumes in the range of 20-40 million barrels.
Operations are now progressing towards the northern part of Omega, as well as the Sigma Northeast and Pi, which together have a pre-drill volume estimate of 30-70 million barrels. Geologically, this setting resembles the East Frigg discovery, with thin oil zones sealed beneath a shale layer that effectively traps the hydrocarbons. We will, of course, provide further details once drilling is complete and the data has been more thoroughly analyzed. However, in my view, this is already a success and will contribute valuable additional volumes to the Yggdrasil development. In essence, we are also pioneering a new exploration method, one that paves the way for efficient future exploration in the Frigg area, west of Yggdrasil. Frigg was, as many remember, originally developed as a gas field in the 1970s and was decommissioned 20 years ago after producing 700 million barrels of oil equivalent exclusively of gas.
The initial explordation well also identified an oil zone with an estimated in-place volume of 1 billion barrels of oil. However, this was never produced as horizontal drilling was still years away at that time. Based on the current geological insight, we see significant potential for further oil discoveries in the Frigg area, and this represents a substantial upside for the Yggdrasil development. That is why we, together with the Yggdrasil partners, have secured this acreage and will be drilling additional exploration wells in the years ahead.
Good morning. Aker BP has delivered another quarter of strong operational performance. Although commodity prices were down and we had planned maintenance at several fields, the operating cash flow was in line with recent quarters where we paid two tax installments.
Our current investment level is high, reflecting strong progress on our field development projects that were sanctioned back in December 2022. As Carla has just mentioned, a thorough project review completed this quarter confirms that the ongoing projects are on schedule, while total investment estimates are up around 6% compared to original guidance. In sum, this implies a significant de-risking of the business cases of these highly profitable projects. Furthermore, we continue to see substantial upsides, as exemplified with the ongoing exploration in the Yggdrasil area. At the end of the quarter, Aker BP's financial position remains strong, with ample available liquidity, low leverage, and low net debt. Altogether, the quarter marks one more step forward on our value creation plan.
We are well positioned to navigate market volatility as we focus on maximizing shareholder returns by maintaining financial flexibility, investing in profitable growth, and delivering a resilient dividend that grows in line with value creation. Let's now take a closer look at the main drivers behind the results. Net production declined slightly, impacted by a one-month planned shutdown at Valhall and Ula for maintenance and project activities. Production in the quarter was 415,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, and with a very small underlift, sold volumes ended at 414,000. Operating cost increased to $7.3 per barrel, driven by reduced volumes and a strengthening of the Norwegian krone. Year to date, our unit cost is $6.9, and we are on track to deliver on our full-year guidance of approximately $7 per barrel. Cash flow from operations reached $1.2 billion in the quarter.
This is in line with previous quarters where we have paid two tax installments, as can be seen on the illustration down to the left for the second and the fourth quarters last year. Investments in the quarter increased to $1.9 billion, reflecting high activity across our project portfolio. Within financing cash flow, the main item was the dividend payment of $0.63 per share. Zooming in on a few items in the income statement. With lower volumes and realized prices versus the first quarter, revenues decreased to $2.6 billion in the second quarter. As mentioned, production cost per barrel increased due to lower volume and stronger NOK, but remained relatively flat on an absolute level.
Net financial items were impacted by currency losses on non-dollar denominated balance sheet items, mainly from the revaluation of our euro-denominated bonds, while our Norwegian krone hedging program, covering current tax liabilities and investment plans, generated a solid gain this quarter. As shown in the notes to the balance sheet, our derivatives positions are now valued at around $200 million. Impairments totaled $717 million in the second quarter, consisting of technical goodwill on Johan Sverdrup, Valhall, Grieg Aasen and Alvheim , mainly driven by lower forward prices for oil and gas. Since goodwill impairment has no tax impact, this leads to an artificially high reported tax rate of 138%. Adjusted for impairments, earnings per share was $0.62 in the quarter, and the effective tax rate was 75%, which should be more in line with expectations.
For more information on technical goodwill and impairments, I recommend watching the explanatory video that our IR team has published on our website. Let me also briefly comment on cash flows. Taxes paid was relatively high. It was, as mentioned, impacted by two installments this quarter compared to one in the first quarter. These payments are for taxes accrued in 2024. Taxes accrued in the second quarter was significantly lower than the taxes paid, which materially reduces tax payables in the balance sheet. For the quarter in isolation, this lowers free cash flow, but as tax payable is reduced, we also expect lower tax payments in the coming quarters. The observant reader may also have noticed a new line in this statement: investment in financial assets of NOK 300 million. This is short-term financial placements in liquid notes to enhance returns on surplus cash while maintaining liquidity.
While this is formally classified as an investment, it is considered as cash equivalents under our bank facilities and by rating agencies, and is also included in the net debt and leverage ratio calculations. With the strong operational performance flowing through to the financial performance, we exit the second quarter with a continued strong financial position. Net interest-bearing debt increased to $4.6 billion, but as we illustrate to the left, the main driver was the high tax payment in the second quarter, which reduced tax payables with an almost equal amount. Our leverage ratio remains at a low level, now marginally up to 0.4 times net debt to EBITDA. Total available liquidity remains conservative at $6 billion, providing a lot of flexibility. The decrease quarter on quarter is driven by the tax payments and a planned step down in our undrawn RCF facility from $3.4 billion- $3 billion.
Following the completion of our comprehensive project review this quarter, we have also updated our total investment plan for 2025- 2028. The approximate 6% increase in investments for our ongoing field development projects is now reflected in this updated plan. We continue to expect 2025 to be the peak investment year, with capital expenditures reaching approximately $6.5 billion before tapering off from 2026 and onwards. In aggregate, the updated net estimates for the ongoing PDO projects reflect an upward revision of around $1.2 billion. As all of these projects fall under the 2020 tax system with approximate 87% tax deduction, the after-tax effect of this increase is between $150 million and $200 million.
One additional thing to note is that although this investment profile is sensitive to future changes in foreign exchange rate, the actual financial exposure to a further strengthening of the Norwegian krone is limited, as we have over 75% of the planned NOK expenditures for the next three years hedged at an average dollar NOK rate between 10.5 and 11. The updated investment estimates have a marginal impact on project economics, our value creation plan, and the financial metrics for the period up to 2028 that we presented back in February. The impact on estimated cumulative free cash flow generated across oil price scenarios largely follows the after-tax effect of the increased CapEx, with some variations due to phasing of tax and financing costs. Consequently, our financial metrics remain very robust across most plausible oil price scenarios.
Assuming a continued 5% annual increase in dividends, our leverage remains comfortably below the internal threshold of 1.5 times and well within the bank covenant limit of 3.5 times. Even in a prolonged $50 oil price environment, where we have conservatively assumed $50 per barrel from the beginning of 2025, as we also did back in February, our modeling indicates that leverage only temporarily exceeds 1.5 times in 2026 before declining again in 2027. In summary, our value creation plan is on track, and we have the capacity and resilience for attractive shareholder distributions in the years to come. Now, on the topic of shareholder distributions, our guiding principle is to maintain a resilient dividend that reflects our financial strength and outlook. To be clear, our ambition to grow the dividend by at least 5% annually through this investment cycle remains firm.
For 2025, our plan is to distribute a total dividend of $2.52 per share. We have already paid two of the four quarterly installments, and the Board of Directors has resolved to distribute the third installment of $0.63 in the third quarter. Now, let me round off with a few comments to the main elements of our 2025 guidance, starting with near-term tax payments. As mentioned, the tax payments in the second quarter were relatively high at around $1.5 billion. It is the result of taxes accrued last year. Now, in the third quarter, we will start paying taxes related to 2025, which will be significantly lower as the high investment level this year leads to higher tax deductions. This is a key feature of the Norwegian tax system. It provides resilience to market volatility when investing in profitable growth.
Moving on to the key operational parameters, production averaged 428,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the first half of the year, above the top end of our full-year guidance range, but in line with our expectations. We still anticipate some natural decline as the year progresses, along with planned maintenance shutdowns in the third quarter. With half of the year now behind us, we lift the low end of the guidance range and update the full-year estimate to 400,000-420,000 barrels per day. Production cost is $6.9 per barrel year to date, and although the recent strengthening of the Norwegian krone adds some risk to the full-year estimate before accounting for the financial effects of our hedging program, we maintain strong cost control and still expect to end at roughly $7 per barrel for the full year.
Investment activities are currently at peak levels, with construction activity at full speed and drilling campaigns ramping up. We invested $3.1 billion in the first half of the year, and we lift our full-year guidance to approximately $6.5 billion. The increase in 2025 is a combination of very good progress across the projects, updated investment estimates, and the cost impact of the strengthening of the Norwegian krone. While most of the after-tax financial impact of the latter is hedged, the reported investment levels on a pre-tax basis are still impacted. Exploration is progressing in line with plan. The program is somewhat front-loaded in 2025, so we still expect exploration spend of around $450 million pre-tax for the full year.
Abandonment activities are also on track, but we lower the cost estimate to around $100 million, reflecting good execution, but also some phasing of plugging and abandonment activities to 2028. With that, I leave the word back to Karl for some concluding remarks.
Thank you, David. To sum up, we have delivered a solid second quarter operationally, financially, and strategically. Our projects are progressing well, our exploration efforts are breaking new ground, and we remain firmly on track to deliver on our long-term ambitions. We continue to navigate a complex external environment with discipline and resilience, and we are confident in the strength of our portfolio, our people, and our partnerships. We will now take a short pause before opening the Q&A session.
To participate, please use the Teams link provided on the web page, or if you prefer to listen only, please stay tuned, and we will resume in one minute. Welcome back, everybody. As usual, Kjetil Bakken, our eminent Head of IR, is running the queue of the questions today. Kjetil, I assume we have a first question here or a first caller.
We certainly do, Karl. The first question is from Matt Smith from Bank of America. Please go ahead, Matt. Line is open.
Hey there, good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. A couple, please. The first one would be touching on the capital increases for the ongoing projects.
I just wondered if you could give us some sort of sense in terms of the contract structures and really trying to sort of reconcile, you know, what proportion of the project costs still are exposed to price inflation or price variation from here. That would also give us a sort of a sense of what the current rate of inflation today actually is. If we have an appreciation for what costs were already locked. The second question would be moving on to Johan Sverdrup and phase three. With that project now, FID expecting production in 2027. Just to give us a bit of a broader understanding of what you expect in terms of performance and contribution from that phase by the time that project starts to contribute.
Excellent. Thank you, Matt. We'll start with the CapEx question.
You know, all these projects, they go through different phases, right? You start with feasibility, then you move into early phase engineering, and then you have detail engineering, and ultimately you get into procurement, prefabrication, and then construction and assembly, and then finally commissioning, and then towards the end, handover to operations. As these projects progress, you get better and better clarity of both scope, volume, prices, etc. You have some sort of estimation going in, and then you have some sort of realization as you transit from one phase to another. What's happened now is that we have gone from basically we're done with engineering, we're basically done with procurement, we've done most of the prefabrication. There are only three pre-assembled units yet to be delivered until we're completely done with also the prefabrication. Now we're moving into construction.
What we've done is basically a new bottom-up revision where we've taken everything that's behind us, which is basically the earlier phases, and then had a new look at what we had to do. Obviously, as we are on time, there's not a lot of movement in terms of timing costs. What you're basically seeing is that there is some price increase outside of what we expected it to be. There is some movement because of things we cannot control. For example, the security situation in the Middle East has increased the sailing routes from Asia to Norway by about four to six weeks, which means that we had to find work or actually accelerate work to compensate for that time. There's been some FX movements outside what we've had, etc. It's lots of smaller things actually leading up to this change.
Now, basically, I would say the price, there's very, very little scope variation. So there's almost no scope change inside the structure. This is quite different from what you normally see, where scope variations are the main main driving change in terms of CapEx. So this is basically us just updating the estimates that we had. Going into the main construction phase. This also means that what is ahead of us now is basically assembly, commissioning, and then handover to operations, which is far easier for us to control as it's essentially ours as an input factor because both engineering and procurement is essentially behind us. So we felt it was prudent to update the market on where we were in CapEx at this point in time. Now, the good news is that the plan still holds, right?
With all these variations, with all these changes we have seen in the market since we sanctioned it back in 2022, maybe I am pushing the point here, but I still believe that if you look at the totality of that value creation plan and a price variation in the range of 3%-40%, that is actually pretty good performance. When you look across the quite fundamental changes we have seen both in capital markets, but also in retail markets in those three or four years or five years since we sanctioned the project. Now moving on to Johan Sverdrup, phase three. Do you want to do that, David?
Yeah, I can definitely do that. As you mentioned, we have sanctioned phase three this quarter. Two subsea templates. Initial scope is.
Eight new wells, and then there is an additional four available well slots that could be leveraged for additional IOR drilling. Startup time 2027. This will, of course, not only add the additional resources of roughly 40-50 million barrels gross terms, but it will also, of course, also accelerate production. That is part of the business case of sanctioning phase three. In terms of the exact contribution on production, I think I'll refrain from trying to give a detailed estimate on that. That, of course, is linked to the optimization of the full field. Of course, this is included in our production profile up until 2028. We are very happy to have this milestone behind us now and moving into execution. Yeah, I'll stop there.
Yeah. Thanks, Matt.
Perfect. Thanks for all the details. Happy to pass it on.
Thank you. Have a great day.
I think we'll move on, Kjetil.
Yes. Next question comes from Christian B of Citi. Please go ahead, Chris.
Hi, morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, please. The first one is on hedging. We've seen your U.S. peers across the Atlantic hedge quite aggressively this quarter to take advantage of the war premium to lock in high oil prices through 2026. It is a bit surprising to see that your hedge position hasn't changed materially and only limited to just 2025, especially given your policy allows hedging up to 100% of your production over the next 12 months and 75% for the subsequent six months, if I remember correctly. Could you please share your thinking here? Have you considered increasing your hedging to support cash flow through the production trough in 2026? The second question is on exploration.
I'm sure there will be plenty of questions on Omega Alpha, but I'd like to shift your focus to frontier exploration first. With both Bounty and now Wunder Slotter returning dry results in the first half and both having been positioned as high potential opportunities, should we expect a reset of expectations around your frontier exploration strategy? Specifically, are you looking more towards near field or lower risk prospects? Given potentially lower complexity, are you also considering how much you spend on exploration going forward? I'll leave it there. Thank you.
Excellent. Let's start with hedging, David.
Yeah, I can do that. You are correct. When you look at our current hedging positions, we have roughly 18% of the after-tax exposure hedged for the second half of this year using put options.
We have policies in place that allow us to hedge further out in time using different instruments. I think when we look at hedging, we look at the totality of the business profile, but also the fiscal system that we are in. Comparing us against sort of U.S. peers is not necessarily the right way to think about it, given that we have a tax system which makes it, call it, less relevant to some extent to protect liquidity to hedge. That being said, we are constantly sort of evaluating our hedge positions, also given the recent volatility that we have seen. This is something that we are consciously considering as we progress towards 2026.
Thank you, David. Moving on to exploration. Let's start with the strategy part of your question first, Chris.
For quite a few years now, we've basically had this balanced view on exploration where we spend roughly 80% of the XBEX budget on what you could call near field exploration. Near field for us is anything that's 50 km or less away from our own infrastructure. It's a pretty big area. We spend 20% on frontier exploration. I don't really foresee that changing going forward. I still believe that we will spend the majority of our capital building up under the evaluation plans inside our assets, and we'll spend 20% or so, of course, dependent on what kind of prospects we see. Now, Bounty and Wunder Slotter are two very, very different places, right? Bounty is a classical high-risk, high-potential play opener type of prospect. You will, of course, see the majority of these play openers fail.
Now, that's the nature of the game. The exploration potential here in terms of probability is probably around the 20% mark of discovering a barrel of oil, right? There is a certain risk element associated with this activity that's also reflected in our strategy. Now, Wunder Slotter is very different. It's a very different animal. For us, that is the first dip of our toes into this high-potential play of tight oil on the Norwegian continental shelf. As I said last quarter, I don't believe this is going to be a sprint. I believe this is going to be a marathon. I do believe that there will be lots of these wells in the future before we crack that code. Wunder Slotter also was a bit of a different one, right?
Because the first Wunder Slotter well drilled by ELIDA, drilled by Equinor called ELIDA back in the day, discovered oil. Now, we had a hypothesis that because of the depositional environment, you would see better porosity and permeability higher up on the structure. We do not know exactly what happened, but at that position, there was little or no reservoir. There might be some erosion event that has happened in geological time between these two geological positions. That is a very, there are two very different cases. No, there will not be a fundamental reset of our strategy based on those two wells.
Sorry, just one follow-up. Is there any intention to revisit Wunder Slotter through further drilling?
First, I think we will have to make up our minds about what actually happened here. Right now, I think that option is paused.
There might be a comeback if the geological evaluation tells us that that is an opportunity. For the moment, we do not have any such plans, no.
Okay, thank you. Thanks so much. All right.
The next question comes from John Olaisen from ABG. John.
Yeah, good morning and thanks for taking my question. A little bit on the increased CapEx. You mentioned that you have a 10% contingency on the CapEx for new projects. I just wonder if you could specify, is this contingency for the increased CapEx or is there a 10% contingency for the whole budget for those projects?
Yeah, what we have done now is that we have done a new bottom-up estimate. What I am saying, 10% contingency, it is a 10% contingency on top of the new estimate. On the going forward expenditure, right? There is some of this expenditure that is behind you.
The estimates, as you correctly point out, are going up about 6%. Of those remaining CapEx in the future, 10% is contingency.
So 10% of what is left on the total projects from here is contingency?
Absolutely.
All right. Does that mean that you used the 10% contingency for the CapEx that you spent up till now?
No, a little less. The total volume, we are about, I do not know, 45-50% into the total CapEx program. Some of the contingency that is behind us has been consumed and some of this has been transferred into the future contingency amount.
Okay. A little bit on the Yggdrasil development. I like the video. It is always nice to see it actually and how it works. Could you tell us a little bit more about which modules that are being constructed in Asia? It seems that.
All the projects going on in Norway seem to be going on track. Could you tell a little bit about the key risk you have towards Asian yards, please?
Yeah, we have two primary Asian prefabrication yards, or what you call pre-assembled units, right? NOV in Batam is producing MEGTEG regeneration and sulfate-reducing units. That is basically taking the sulfur out of the seawater before you are injecting it. Dubai Drydocks is constructing more, call it, pre-assembled units, which is basically steel works with piping and valves, which is used to stack up, as you saw in the video, before we finalize the construction at Stort. I think that the activity in both these yards has actually been pretty good. It is not what we are used to in Norway, of course, but I would say that we have been able to sail away on time for all the.
Piles that've been or pre-assembled units that've been delivered out of Dubai. It looks good also in Malaysia. The sailing time is increased, right? We can't go, no longer go direct via the Sinai Channel. We have to go around the Cape. That means that we have to spend some additional money both on sailing, but also on catching up those weeks that we lose in transit. You're absolutely right. We spend a little bit of resources monitoring and following up these yards to make sure that we have the quality we need when it gets to Norway. I think you're muted for some reason. At least we lost the sound.
Sorry, I think I was muted. When will all the key components being constructed in Asia, when will they have left the yards in Asia?
What's the plan for that?
The last departure, I think, is one of the last weeks in October. Everything will be en route to Norway.
All right, great. Then my final question. With the increased CapEx and also taking into consideration the exploration success at Yggdrasil in the Yggdrasil area, what do you estimate to be the MPV breakeven for Yggdrasil as it stands for now, including exploration success? If that's the number you have.
Yeah, I don't think we've done that estimation. But I think last in Q1, we talked about sub-25. It doesn't fundamentally, because of the CapEx before tax, doesn't fundamentally change the after-tax. It doesn't necessarily impact the breakeven that much. We have one quarter left. I would probably say that we're still sub-25, maybe even sub-20. Just to be clear, Jon, that's on a point-forward basis.
When we look at the full portfolio, including the adjusted CapEx estimates, we're still between $35-$40 full lifecycle breakeven on the projects. This does not include the latest discoveries in the Yggdrasil area. We keep adding to the profitability of the project. I think one additional point from my side here is that where we are now in the phasing of the project, this sort of updated baseline, including the milestones that are completed, marks a significant de-risking of the projects. Of course, we keep adding to the profitability as we add additional resources. I think one additional point, when we constructed Yggdrasil, we always thought of this as a hub. That means that both the top side, but also the subsea infrastructure, is all prepared to do exactly what we've now done in the East Frigg.
Now the Omega, this will be another bolt-on. We have standardized subsea equipment, standardized wellheads, standardized well technology, et cetera, et cetera. This is basically add-on. The additional CapEx will be limited, and that is, of course, increasing the MPV as we continue to add resources without, let's say, buying the infrastructure that you normally do in these Type X. When you say 35-40, that excludes both East Frigg and the other potential exploration success that you might have. That was the starting point.
Omega and everything,
absolutely. That was a starting point back in 2022, yes.
What kind of MPV breakeven would you need for East Frigg and Omega and for future exploration success, do you think?
We have not really updated the estimate. We are still using $35 as kind of a benchmark for these kind of decision bases.
Obviously, both East Frigg and also Omega, when the time comes, will be significantly lower than that.
Right. Thanks a lot. That's all for me. Have a nice day and a nice summer.
Thank you, John.
Thank you, John.
Okay, the next question comes from Naisheng Cui from Barclays. Naisheng.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, if that's okay. The first one is just to get some clarification on CapEx, especially for next year, 2026. I wonder, given the increased level of activity this year, your forex change hedging, can you provide some color on where we will land on CapEx next year? My second question is more on leverage and working capital. Let me see.
I'm just looking at slide 18 of your presentation because leverage ratio has reached 0.4 this quarter, kind of the highest level for the last two years. This quarter, we also had a very positive working capital movement. I wonder, where do you see leverage ratio by the end of the year, and how should we think about working capital evolution as well? Thank you.
Yeah, let's take CapEx first. Let's start with 2025 then, right? I think in the last quarterly presentation, I said that I would be very happy if we reached the upper end of the CapEx estimates for 2025. Now we have obviously increased those quite a little bit. That basically means that as we're taking delivery of quite a lot of these procurement items, we're also closing out those accounts.
In a way, you can say that the more we spend in 2026, the better it is because it actually proves that we have taken delivery of a lot of these procurement items and are now shipping them back to our site, as I went through both in my presentation and my answer to John. For 2026, I do not think we have guided specifically apart from what is in the deck. The way I would think about this is that the majority of the CapEx in front of us is basically a result of construction activities, meaning that we have passed procurement, we have passed engineering. You should not expect that kind of increase in 2026 that you have seen in 2025 because that is basically catching up with price increases and other out-of-control effects.
Leverage rate.
Yeah.
Let me just add one additional point to Karl's comment around the 2026 CapEx. Just to be clear for everybody, as I also said in my presentation, the updated investment profile that we now have in the slide deck includes also adjustments to the other years, not only 2025.
Yeah, which is slide 19 for your reference Naisheng.
When it comes to leverage ratio, Nash, it's the same. We have a slide in the deck which illustrates our leverage ratio development across various oil price scenarios. That's also been updated with the latest estimates on CapEx. I'll refrain from giving a point estimate with regards to leverage ratio because it obviously depends on commodity price and so on. I think that will give a very good outlook for where we expect to end, depending on ranges of outcomes in commodity prices.
Perfect.
Thank you so much. It's very helpful.
Thank you. Have a good summer, Nash.
Okay, next question is from Victoria McCulloch from RBC .
Morning. Thanks very much for your time to take some questions this morning. Maybe first of all, on Yggdrasil, can you give us an idea of how much the East Frigg, now that it's added to the development, has been able to add to the plateau at Yggdrasil, just to give us an idea of the impact that Omega Alpha could have if it characterizes in the same sort of size and way as that development has? Secondly, could you give us an idea of some of the maintenance that's scheduled for Q3 that's helping, I guess, is driving your guidance for lower production in the second half of the year?
Finally, it looks like you've given us quite a few wells into 2026 as part of the exploration schedule on slide 11. Of that, it looks like there's fewer wells being drilled. Should we see that as just a preliminary estimate and the exploration sort of budget is broadly remaining flat into next year, given the sort of opportunities that you're clearly unlocking in Yggdrasil as well as other geographies? Is that a reflection of a slightly lower sort of schedule for next year as it stands at the moment? Thanks very much.
Yeah, let's start with the last question. I think it'll be a fair assessment to say that the expect next year is broadly in line with what we delivered in 2025. The fact of the matter is that we are at this point in time rig constrained. That means that.
Even if we wanted to drill more wells, we would have to take on additional rig capacity, which we obviously do not want to do, simply because we are trying to make these rigs into performance machines. Every time you shift rigs in and out of the portfolio, you get some sort of startup issues that happen every single time. Moving on to Yggdrasil, one way to think about this is, and it will of course depend on the phasing of these reservoirs because Yggdrasil consists now of 8-10 different reservoirs. There are three production systems at Huginn in terms of oil, gas, and water separation. It will depend on the phasing of the different reservoirs.
An easy way to think about it is that roughly 50 million barrels should equate to approximately a year in extended plateau if you were to very simply simplify the way to think about it, right? If you remember correctly, that's about the size of East Frigg. Then depending on how much you find in the remaining part of Omega, this could now range from, let's call it, the midpoint between 20 and 40 is 30. Then you have 30-70 in the remaining part. You could easily end up anywhere in the range of, let's call it, 60-100. Obviously, 100 would be quite a big development for this area. This is exciting enough, Victoria, but what's really making Omega exciting is that we have proven that we have an ability to explore oil without penetrating these oil zones.
That means that as we are moving next year into the Frigg main, we can actually now drill a trajectory into Frigg and control the top and the bottom and the reservoir and understand the saturation profile in that whole trajectory. This is actually groundbreaking in terms of exploring for these oil pockets. That is what is really making this exciteful. This could be a significant upside for the Yggdrasil area. Maintenance in Q3. Maintenance in Q3. The way to think about this is that there is a lot of smaller stuff like ESDs or emergency shutdown tests and different tests of safety equipment. The majority of the activity is related to about a month stop at the Frigg Orson infrastructure. Then we have about two weeks at Alvheim, if memory serves me right.
Very simply, I would basically look at the Q2 maintenance program as similar to the Q2 maintenance program in terms of production effect.
Super. Thanks very much. Just to confirm, the production profile that you've provided in slide seven, that does already include East Frigg opportunity within it, doesn't it?
Absolutely. As we said, this now includes East Frigg. It includes the Johan Sverdrup's history and then includes some of the IOR activities that are inside the base business plan.
Super. Thanks for confirming. Thanks for your time today.
Thank you.
The next caller is Chris Wheaton from Stifel.
Good morning, guys. Thanks very much indeed. Three questions, if I may. Firstly, strategically, I would think you're starting to think about what happens next after Yggdrasil in terms of project sanctions.
Because if you're going to sanction, if you want to get this production on in 2028, 2029 and maintain that plateau above 500,000 barrels a day, you need to be thinking about sanctioning them next year, I would think. I'm interested in your thoughts as to what's front of the queue for the next set of project sanctions, being able to keep the conveyor belt, the manufacturing process, continuing to keep that going as production activity, or sorry, development activity starts to ramp down at Yggdrasil over the next 18 to 24 months. My second question was on Johnny, the Omega Reese discovery, if you've really found a way of tapping into tight oil here, I'm interested in how much of 2026 exploration campaign could be changed at this point to try and focus on that, because it feels like that ought to be some of your lowest incremental.
Cost to develop. Your highest incremental return. Resources, given the hub at Yggdrasil. Therefore, you should be focusing on those. I'm interested in your sort of capital allocation thoughts there. Lastly, a question for David. Your result account is always extremely beautifully easy to read. The one number that leapt out at me was the $350 million of other working capital inflow that was not inventory or trade payables. I wondered if you could explain what that was, because I thought at first that was derivatives, given you have talked about your hedging of currency. That does not seem to show up in the balance sheet. I wondered if you could explain what that $350 million was, please. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chris. Really good questions. Let me start with the strategy. I think you are absolutely right.
We are already starting to think about what's post 2027. Maybe two avenues of how to think about that. The first one is basically the portfolio. A lot of the stuff that will happen post 2027 will, to be honest, be, you could call it tiebacks, a series of tiebacks, or lifetime extension projects, etc., etc. We are already kind of doing a lot of the prep work while we are executing. In a way, there's a balance between keeping focus on the execution in this critical phase and then, of course, starting to think about the future. What we've done from an organizational perspective is we have split those two organizations. I have now one project organization who's only focusing on executing what we've already committed to and decided.
We are setting down a new team, which is taking all the beautiful learnings and all the good things that we have done in this, call it, generation of execution, and turbocharging that into the next generation of execution. The next generation will be digitally native. There will not be any documents. We are looking at a new generation of commercial models with the alliance partners, etc., etc. Long, long list of activities. Quite a bit of this is flowing in either through the drill bit or through the existing portfolio or through possible M&As. The way I would think about this is that in the future, in post 2027, you will not necessarily see the big topside project that you have seen now with PVP-Fenris and Yggdrasil.
You will see much more of these tiebacks going at high speed, where the game is to get from discovery to production in as short as possible time. That is what we're basically focusing on. Going forward, if you want a bit of a broad stroke. Changes to the 2026 program. The reality is that for 2026, maybe even for parts of 2027, we will be constrained by rig activity. Even if we wanted to fundamentally change that program, we will be very disciplined because we know that any changes to these exercises come with an execution risk and an execution cost. What we've demonstrated now with Omega is that we have an ability to fundamentally change the way exploration is done on the Norwegian continental shelf. We have drilled reservoir sections at unprecedented speeds that are outside the normal, you could call it, parameters of drilling.
We have proven that that is safe and we can actually steer and we can actually monitor the whole reservoir in one go in real time. It is quite a fundamental change. Now, while we are acquiring all this data, we also want to go back and have a look at what that actually means. What does it mean in terms of our drill-out strategy? What does it mean in terms of, do we stop drilling exploration wells and go directly for keeper wells? Or how do we actually think about this? My view on this, Chris, is that as exciting as it is, it is worth taking a little bit of a breather and having a look at what we have actually done and how that will impact our strategy.
I do not foresee big changes for the 2026 program because, one, I am rig constrained, and two, I really want to think about how we can actually leverage that possibility to the maximum of its capability. You want to talk about financial aptitude and working capital, unless you want to go into the nitty-gritties of the notes. You want to switch places?
No, no, no, no.
First of all, Chris, of course, thank you for the kind words with regards to how we position the accounts. The $350 that you are talking about, it can be split in two things, and then you find more details also in the notes. It is other short-term receivables and other current liabilities that change. On short-term receivables, one of the key things that we see a positive impact from is a reduction in prepayments.
This is actually an effect of the progress on the projects. The other one, actually, with regards to current liabilities, is also linked actually to the increase in investment level. As we increase the spending, that typically also has a positive effect on working capital as we typically pay the bills slightly after where the work has been executed. More information in note 8 and 14.
Thanks very much indeed. Can I have just one follow-up, if I may, just, Johnny, just on your answer? Given the cost inflation we are seeing, back at the CMD, you talked about $15 a barrel for incremental break-even for incremental projects. Are you still happy with that number despite the inflation you are seeing? Because it sounds like all the.
Manufacturing process improvements you can put in place that you've just talked about, which you're clearly super excited about, that feels like that could offset some of that inflation. Are you still happy with that $15 number?
If you're talking about COP per barrel, is that what you're talking about? $15? Yeah, I think I'm actually quite happy with that number. Some of these will be lower and some of these will be higher, but on an average, I think that will be a fair assessment. That being said, I think you're onto a point there that I don't think a lot have captured is that we have actually offset quite a lot of the price increase by a basic increase in productivity in pre-assembly and pre-fabrication.
A lot of these, call it early phase investments, both in as an alliance, but also into technologies like digital and machining and fiber lasers and all of that stuff, there's a long, long list, have basically ensured that we are able to catch up even as prices have increased and sailing times have increased and all of this stuff, we've been able to kind of safeguard the time of these projects. If we hadn't made those investments, you would have seen different numbers.
That's very clear. I look at what you're doing in the North Sea and think it's amazing. I compare it to the U.K. and think it makes me want to cry. Anyway, I'll stop there. Thanks very much indeed. Have a great summer holiday, guys. Thank you.
Likewise, Chris.
Thank you.
Next question comes from Mark Wilson from Jeffries.
Okay, good morning, gents. Just checking if you can hear me.
Yeah, we can. Absolutely, Mark. Go ahead.
Okay, very good. Okay, thank you. Okay, so all the questions are focused on Yggdrasil and the developments. Yeah, great job going on there. I'd just like to switch and just ask some final questions on Johan Sverdrup, the first of which ties in a little bit to what you're just saying about development costs. Johan Sverdrup, phase three, 40-50 million barrels and NOK 13 billion, so $1.3 billion. That's quite a high unit CapEx. I would calculate there about $29 a barrel. Maybe you could just speak to that in terms of the relative cost there to add 40-50 million barrels at Johan Sverdrup. That's the first question.
The second would be whether you have started drilling those multilaterals yet and if there is any update on your expectations of the plateau length at Johan Sverdrup. Thank you.
Yeah. You want to do the CapEx per barrel?
Yeah, yeah. I have been discussing this quite a lot.
Yeah, that is a good catch, Mark.
I agree, Mark. If you just look at the CapEx per barrel number, I agree that is high. Remember that the investment in phase three is also linked to acceleration. That is an important part of the business case, which drives the profitability of the project. In addition, the initial phase of phase three is drilling eight out of the 12 well slots. In addition, we also have room for more IOR and infill drilling out of those templates.
Although the CapEx per barrel number is high, the profitability of the project is also very high. This is one of the reasons why we need to look at a lot of different parameters when evaluating the profitability of our investment decisions.
What you are basically doing, Mark, is that you are investing a little bit now because the investments, if you were to drill these last four wells at the latest stage, would be significantly higher. That, of course, pushes the OpEx per barrel up beyond what you would normally see if you were just investing in the infrastructure necessary for the first four wells. As David said, a lot of this is also about exploration and not necessarily about net reserves.
Is it fair to say then there are additional contingent resources that could come from the additional wells, IOR, or even multilaterals out of those same templates?
Yeah, that's exactly why we're doing this. We have a tendency in the oil and gas industry to kind of overpredict and not necessarily understand the kind of outcome space that you can have following these resources. As we've talked about before, these kinds of reservoirs, they have a tendency of getting bigger. We have the tendency of needing more wells to extract at the optimal rates, etc., etc. That kind of experience from a philosophical perspective has been baked into also the onsite of phase two. Yggdrasil is a bit the same, right? We've built almost twice the number of well slots that we will initially set into production.
Now you see what's happening with the East Frigg and now with Omega and the other exploration wells to come is that this is actually necessary and brings down the ultimate cost of the project in a life cycle perspective. Moving on to the MLTs. Yes, we've done the first one. It's just set into production. I don't want to share too much details. I think the operator should do that. I'm very happy. I think I'll...
In which case, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good that you are happy, color. The final question for today comes from James Carmichael from Berenberg.
Hi, morning, guys. Just one quick one. Just as a follow-up to one of your answers earlier, color, you mentioned that from 2027 onwards, the expectation shouldn't be around sort of major topside projects.
It's going to be more sort of near-field. Or ILX type activity. I was just wondering if that, or if there are any implications from that statement with regard to Listing, or if that is still sort of ongoing in the background. Thanks.
Yeah, I was referring to what we are operating in Aker BP, and obviously we are partners in Listing. So there are, of course, projects on the Norwegian continental shelf that will require large topside construction activities. Listing is one of them. From an Aker BP perspective, our view is that quite a few of the projects going forward now will be either of the lifetime extension type of project, or they will be tiebacks, or they will be a combination of these. You might also see quite a few of these, call it, copycats of on-man production profiles of production platforms.
We also see a little bit of a, yeah, quite a few actually. Potential for reusing that technology in the future, right? I am not going to disregard that there will be topside activities in the Norwegian yards, but quite a few of the projects in the Aker BP portfolio will be dominated by subsea tiebacks.
Great. Thank you.
We have no further questions.
I think we say thank you so much from David and Kjetil and myself. We wish you all a very, very good and safe summer.