Welcome to Virtual Investor Conferences. On behalf of OTC Markets, we are very pleased you have joined us for the Oil and Gas Conference. The first presentation of the day is from BW Energy. Please note you may submit questions for the presenter in the box to the left of the slides. You can also view a company's availability for one-on-one meetings by clicking "book a meeting." At this point, I am very pleased to welcome Thomas Young, Chief Financial Officer of BW Energy, which trades on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol BWEFF and BWERY, and on OSL under the symbol BWE. Welcome, Thomas.
Thank you, Lin Espey. Good morning, everyone. Firstly, it's a real pleasure to have the opportunity to present here at the Virtual Oil and Gas Conference. To kick us off, I'll give you a bit of an overview of BW Energy, BWE. Sort of 2026 is actually the 10-year anniversary of when the group first came up with the bit of a hare-brained idea of starting an E&P company within an FPSO company. For those of you who don't know, an FPSO is a floating production storage and offloading, FPSO vessel. Since then, it's been quite a remarkable fun journey that's gone beyond our expectations. We have, through minimal investments, managed to increase productions from essentially zero to about 30,000 barrels per day, mostly through greenfield developments, so offshore Atlantic margin. The market has also seemingly picked up on what we do well.
Our market cap has increased to about $1.5 billion as of today. From these somewhat humble beginnings, we today have 700 employees and last year had an EBITDA slightly in excess of $400 million. Although we've grown significantly over the last few years, we try to remain true to our core strategy, which is to unlock marginal field developments through the use of repurposed production infrastructure. I'd like to think that the secret sauce that we have used to achieve this is a deep industry experience from production infrastructure side of business. It's a bit uncommon, let's say, in the E&P to put infrastructure first in a way. But we use this to create faster and more cost-efficient greenfield developments.
This strategy has resulted in an unlocking effect to proven reserves where other operators prior to us have struggled to reach FID on these greenfield developments offshore. As far as I'm aware, there's not a lot of our peers today our size, that not only can do greenfield developments, but also has the in-house capability to execute our own production infrastructure projects. As such, we really don't see a lot of competition in the, let's say, the greenfield development space. Onto the map. You can see our current portfolio is concentrated largely around Gabon and Brazil. In Gabon, we operate our largest current producing field, which is Dussafu. In Brazil, we operate the Golfinho field.
We also have in Brazil, Maromba, which is our next greenfield development project that is well on the way, and I'll get a little bit more back to that here in a bit. On the reserve side, we delivered continuous reserve growth, achieving 171% 2P reserve replacement ratio in 2025. With 600 million barrels of reserves and resources across our fully operated asset portfolio, we're in a great position to deliver organic value creation to our shareholders. Next slide here. We are, of course, continuously improving. The company has steadily grown each year as we have continued to capitalize on our opportunities in both Gabon and Brazil. From about 8,000 barrels per day in 2022, the company is now producing roughly 30,000 barrels per day.
Most of production increase we've had over the last few years has come from what is effectively infrastructure-led appraisal and exploration around our Gabon asset, as well as the acquisition of Golfinho in Brazil. It was always the plan per se, but we were very cognizant that when we initiated production at Dussafu, which is in Gabon, we wanted to target an initial development that minimized the cash at risk, and then rather organically grow into the opportunity by reinvesting cash. By redeploying the infrastructure, keeping the initial development low, focusing on cash at risk, we were then able to take slightly less subsurface risk and then grow into the opportunity. Of course, with higher production, we get lower OPEX per barrel, which is not so difficult to imagine.
However, there has, in fact, been quite significant reductions in the underlying absolute or base number that's been achieved for 2025. An example was for the BW Adolo, we took over the operations. That's the FPSO that's operating in Gabon. We took over the operations, which then gave us a significant cost reduction by doing it ourselves rather than outsourcing it. With this solid operational foundation, the company has a strong platform that will enable further growth. In terms of assets, let's start by looking at our core asset, which is Dussafu. You can see a picture here. Dussafu is really a textbook example of our strategy in action.
Since the first oil in September 2018, we've increased the gross production from an initial two-well case of 8,000 barrels per day to the FPSO, to its nameplate capacity of about 40,000 barrels a day, which we achieved in early 2025. If you look at the map there, you can see really how we achieved this. We started off with the FPSO. You can see that on the right-hand side. We started off with just two wells, then those two wells then subsequently financed the additional subsea wells. We have a total of six subsea wells that are directly below the FPSO. It also then allowed us to fund subsequent phases where we did appraisal wells after each of the production well campaign. That then enabled us to unlock the Hibiscus development, which you see over on the left-hand side. That's a converted jack-up.
During COVID, we actually acquired 2 jackups at a very cheap price, which allowed us again to be a bit counter-cyclical, which we then converted to a production platform. It's a little bit different again. Most of our peers in the region have focused on doing new build jackets to produce dry tree wells. However, by redeploying a jackup and using that as the long-term well platform, we were able to reduce CapEx by about $100 million, which was about 30% of the cost. So again, it comes back to this repurposing and reusing existing infrastructure, both the FPSO and the jackup both are redeployed, which enabled us to then do a development for $275 million. We did that in 18 months, which I believe is the fastest ever for a greenfield offshore development between acquisition and first oil.
In general, the Dussafu license has been very kind to us, and we hope it will provide us with more opportunities to continue to grow the field and sustain production in the years to come. I'll give you, kind of show that in numbers here. Through appraisal and exploration activities on Dussafu, we have managed to increase our 2P reserves by about seven times compared to the original FID volumes at Dussafu. Again, when we kicked off, we started off with FID volumes of about 24 million barrels. Through 11 out of 12 successful exploration wells and appraisal wells, we have then increased that reserve number by seven times.
Gabon has been very kind to us, and we continue to have success in our appraisal and exploration campaign there, which is actually with the most recent discovery, which is Bourdon in 2025, we added an additional 25 million barrels of recoverable resources. The next phase of Dussafu is what we call the MaBoMo Phase 2 drilling campaign. It will spud at the end of this quarter. We are adding four new production wells to the field. With all the infrastructure already in place, these dry tree incremental infill wells become very profitable. They have an IRR of about 50% at $60 Brent flat and less than a year payback from initial production.
We expect contribution from these by the end of the year, as well as next year with production increases of about 5,000 barrels per day per well on a gross level, which results in 2027 production well above our 2026 target. I don't think I mentioned it, but we own 73.5% of this field, and we are the operator. When we first kicked it off, we owned 91%, but we gave our partner a carry, so we were effectively paying for 100% of the development cost at the time. The first oil of Bourdon, which is the subsequent discovery that we're going to do a very similar development on, will come shortly after MaBoMo Phase 2. At this point, we like to kind of think about that as a bit of a bread and butter development for the company. We are following the blueprint from earlier.
We're taking a converted jack-up that we already own. We take it to yard, we strip off the drilling equipment, we convert it to a production unit. We will add four wells, and then that will kind of unlock a new satellite development in Dussafu. We're excited about that, and we will FID that in the months to come. As I started with, Dussafu is a very good example of our development strategy, which is again, kind of unlocking field developments through the use of repurposed infrastructure. Therefore we're confidently applying this same model to a larger opportunity, which is the Maromba field in Brazil. I'll show that to you here. I promise I didn't use the same picture. It looks very similar, but it's not, to Dussafu. Here we are using a redeployed FPSO again. It's the Polvo FPSO.
You can see that over on the right-hand side. That used to produce 40 km away from the Maromba field. We're also using a redeployed jack-up rig again. A key difference from Dussafu here is, well, firstly, it's in Brazil. Secondly, we are doing both the platform and the FPSO in one go, so we're doing it in two phases. Thirdly, that we will maintain the drilling package on the jack-up. That will give us then an integrated drilling dry tree production platform from day one. The initial development will target the Mistral reservoir at Maromba, with 12 producing wells. Mistral reservoir is estimated to hold about 500 million barrels in place, and we're going to start off with these 12 wells with an EUR, so recoverable 2P resource of 122 million barrels.
We're executing this phase, so we're doing 6 wells to start with, and then we're doing another 6 wells. CapEx prior to first oil is about $1 billion. Total CapEx for all the infrastructure and the 12 wells is about $1.5 billion. In terms of economics, we find them quite compelling. We have a NPV10 breakeven of about $40 a barrel and unlevered IRR of about 45% at $60 Brent flat. The project is set for first oil by the end of 2027. Targets are for total production of 60,000 barrels per day, making it a transformative project for BW. We are the operator and we own 95% of the field. On to the milestone plan for Maromba. Again, this is our biggest project, so this has a bit of extra focus. The project is progressing well and on plan and on budget.
I always get a question, what's the big milestones to look out for from analysts? It's in a way, a bit of a boring project. The FPSO since it used to be an FPSO, we're going to maintain it as an FPSO. It's in yard now, but there's no hull joining. As you have with a new build or new conversion of an FPSO, you have hull joining major module lifts. This is more like a ship repair, steel pipe replacement. No real exciting milestones to look out for other than sail away, which will happen early 2027. Similarly, with the jack-up, again, it used to drill. When we acquired it was drilling in Australia and we took it to yard. Again, it's more repair, life extension type work.
Very minimal modifications, before it will go out and do what it used to do, but permanently at location in Brazil. The scope is clearly defined. The FPSO has been in the yard now for more than a year. We FID the project in May, but we started the FPSO project a bit earlier. The rig we purchased through a short-term lease, and we have started converting that as well. That's in the yard, as we speak. Again, we're leveraging our experience from the successful BW MaBoMo conversion, which was the jack-up that you saw that we have in Dussafu. In sum, Maromba, it's a game changer for us, for the company, and is set to lift us to the next level once it comes on stream in 2027. Which you can kind of see the impact here.
Our ambition is to grow from 30,000 barrels per day to over 90,000 barrels per day by 2028. It's an ambitious target, no doubt, but as it should be for any company that tries to triple their production in three years. I am confident we can achieve it. As Maromba ramps up to full production, we expect a contribution, as I mentioned earlier, of 60,000 barrels per day at plateau. Additionally, we expect to maintain production close to current levels from Dussafu and Golfinho, through the contributions from the MaBoMo phase two, which is these four infill wells, as well as the Golfinho Boost project, which is a smaller project we're doing on our other producing asset in Brazil, where we're changing the artificial lift system from gas lift to ESPs.
In sum, this sets us up for reaching 90,000 barrels per day and is then changing the company as we see it today. It's also worth noting that these numbers do not include the contribution from Bourdon that we are planning to FID later this year, as well as Golfinho infill wells, which is some predefined wells into existing reservoirs that we plan to do also towards the end of the year, or rather FID towards the end of the year. As I've shown, we're in a high activity period, high CapEx, but it will transform the company, and it's supported by a strong financial performance and funding position. As the operational performance has continued to improve, our financials also benefited from that improvement.
We had a slight dip in 2025 EBITDA and operating cash flow, which was largely driven by a slight delay in a lifting that was planned for the very end of 2025, but slipped into 2026 as well as, of course, somewhat softer oil prices last year, which has now picked up. EBITDA and operating cash flows are strong, and we remain at a comfortable net debt level. The chart here, capital deployment on track towards first oil. It illustrates our capital strategy through 2027. On the left, you see our available liquidity and expected operational cash flows. On the right, how we plan to invest it.
The key takeaway is that without additional capital, even in a flat $60 price case from today until first oil, which arguably feels unlikely at current oil price, but regardless, we have more than enough capital to fund our growth until Maromba is online. Once Maromba comes on stream and we reach 60,000 barrels a day from Maromba in 2028, the picture will of course change quite significantly and we will be fully self-funded effectively. Last year we did spend a lot of time on raising financing. We raised about $1 billion in 2025 of debt through efficient and low-cost financing, focusing largely on infrastructure-based financing, so leasing and project financing the infrastructure. So in total, company is well-funded and positioned to deliver on our investment proposition. BW Energy is a highly resilient company with a differentiated growth strategy.
We have a diversified and material resource base of over 600 million barrels of oil equivalent and a fantastic foundation for us to grow organically. We're executing on an ambitious growth plan, scaling from 30,000 barrels a day to over 90,000 barrels a day by 2028. We are replicating a proven development model that delivers strong returns above 30% at a $60 oil price scenario, and we're financially secure. We have a healthy debt profile, strong cash flow from producing assets. We believe a smart cost-effective project financing. In short, BW Energy is well positioned to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. That was it for presentation. Then let's see if we have some questions. I have a question here, which is, "You've secured over $1 billion of competitive financing, including the Marumba Wellhead Platform lease.
Does that fully cover what you need to reach first oil at Maromba? Yes. On Maromba, we raised. The CapEx for the FPSO is about $440 million, which is, of course, low for an FPSO with 60,000 barrels a day production capacity. Because we're redeploying assets, we were able to reduce that quite significantly. A new build, new conversion, looking at $1.3-$1.5 billion. Also by doing a redeployment, we were able to access ECA financing in China. We did a 80% project finance over the $440 million CapEx, at construction plus seven years straight line at about SOFR plus 2.8% margin. On the platform, we did a leasing arrangement. What that means is it's a lease-based financing, so it's construction plus about 10 years. It fully covers construction cost and the effective interest is about SOFR plus 350 on that one.
That leaves us with effectively 65% leverage on Maromba. In total for the company across our projects, we are, as you could see in the capital stack from earlier, we are fully financed. Onto next question. "As CapEx on Maromba starts to roll off and cash flow rises, when do you see room for larger dividends or buybacks?" We have previously communicated that once Maromba is on stream, we will consider up to 50% of net profit dividend. Of course, that always depends a bit on whether or not we have continuously accretive projects that we can deliver on.
The type of projects we have today in the 40%-60% IRR range are good, but once Maromba is online, the organic cash flow generation that we will create should be enough to both fund further growth, especially in greenfield space as well as dividends and/or buybacks. Next question. "Given your track record of 11 out of 12 successful Dussafu wells, do you feel the market is fully valuing exploration appraisal upside baked into your current licenses?" It's a good question. We try to avoid speculating on our share price. Yeah, Gabon has been nice to us and we hope to continue. As part of these next few campaigns, we are planning to do a few more appraisal and exploration wells. We also just finished shooting new seismic over the block. Not that we've had any problems with our next door field.
I'm not sure we're going to do better than 90% success rate, but it will give us some more things to look at to further develop the field. They're still a young field and there's a lot of prospective resources there that we continue to look for. Next question. "As your profile grows and you publish more regular updates and detailed reports, are you seeing more long-only institutional interest in coming into the shareholder base?" Yes, I think a lot of our investor base is mostly long-only, yes. "Your reserve-based lending facility was increased to up to $500 million on attractive terms. Does stronger banking support give you more flexibility to add new projects on deals, on top of current plan?" Yeah, I would say there was a minute where it was harder to get financing from banks, especially post-COVID.
We saw a bit of an exodus from the market, especially in the RBL space. A lot of French banks pulled out. We have, however, seen a surge of African banks that have supported us. On our RBL in Dussafu, we have mostly African banks. We have tapped Middle East and Asia for additional financing. BW Energy is a member of the BW Group of companies. That's a rather large conglomerate, and we have a big owner sitting at 76.5% of the stock, who then helps us unlock quite a few doors on financing. I don't think banking support has been an issue for us, particularly how we approach it through them also the infrastructure side of it. I would like to say that we have a fairly creative and efficient financing structure and cost, really.
What do you think the market is missing most about the combination of Dussafu to 2053 and fully financed Maromba? I think Maromba is a greenfield project. Of course, that traditionally has a lot of risk associated with it. I think as we said earlier, it's a little bit unlike typical greenfield projects where you have a lot of new build or new conversion projects that have a lot of, just taking new build FPSO, it has a lot of project on project risk because of modules coming from all over the world and everything having to come together at the same time. Generally, when we do these redeployments, like I said, it's a boring project, but boring is good the way we see it. I think there's an angle to that.
Dussafu extension to 2053, really the key for that is really enabling us to then plan ahead in terms of appraisal and exploration. We just got a license extension to 2053. That will enable us to confidently go and drill more exploration, appraisal, and then develop that, and have that long run life on the license to really see the value of that materialize. Now that you've proven the repurpose and reuse model at Dussafu and Golfinho, do you see opportunities to repeat this playbook on new acquisitions? Yes. We've done it on Dussafu actually twice now. We're going to do it again now with the platform, the other jack-up that we're putting out in Dussafu for Bourdon. We're doing it as we speak for Maromba. That's both an FPSO and a jack-up. Our plan is to continuously grow in this space.
I mean, we're set up to do greenfield and smart and efficient greenfields, and we see that as being quite lucrative. We see brownfields market, Atlantic margin is tough. It's very competitive. It's a bit oversaturated now. There's a lot of competition, a lot of backing, especially from traders, PE. We see a lot of the value proposition is not as good, especially if you have an alternative way of growing, which is, for us, the greenfield side of it. We see that we can continue to deliver in that space without competition. Whether oil price is $50 or $150, we can pick up barrels in the ground, 2P resources that are around $1 per barrel, which allows us then to continue to deliver on this model, also having that in-house expertise.
Production infrastructure, particularly execution and management allows us to then continuously deliver on that model with that in-house expertise, which is harder than it sounds. It's valuable to us. Another question here. Is the cost and plan on Maromba on plan? What activity on Maromba is on critical path? Which yard is doing the conversion of the jacket to well platform? Any problems to get the wellhead out of Dubai to Brazil? For the FPSO, we're using COSCO Dalian. We have a long relationship with them through the BW system. They've done several FPSOs, very focused on our project also because of the ECA angle to it. It's on plan, on schedule, as planned. We have on the platform, it's in Dubai at the moment, Dubai Drydocks. As I said, because it's not a new build, new conversion, the supply chain isn't really an issue for us.
It's mostly steel pipe life extension, more like class renewal. We're not seeing a lot of supply chain disruption. Of course, if the Strait is closed until early next year, then we have to look at how do we move it out from there. As of now, we don't really see that being an issue. Because things aren't coming in there either, we're getting a lot of good focus from the yard on our projects. Still some ways away until we need to move that. Let's see. Next question here. Do you expect cash flow in 2026 to be strong enough to fund your planned growth projects without needing new equity?
Yes, as we showed earlier in the capital stack, at $60 flat without any new financing beyond what we have today, we are then fully funded to deliver on both Maromba and our projects on Dussafu. I think that's it. All the questions I have