Good morning, and welcome to DNO's third quarter 2023 interim results earnings call. My name is Gudmund Hartveit, and I head up Investor Relations here in DNO. With me today, I have DNO's recently appointed Managing Director, Chris Spencer, and our CFO, Haakon Sandborg. Chris and Haakon will give a presentation before we open up for questions in the Q&A session. Please note that the Q&A session is for investors and analysts. Any media requests will be dealt with separately. During the presentation, all other participants in this call will be in a listen-only mode. If you want to ask a question in the Q&A, please click on the yellow virtual hand on top of your screen. When you are selected, you will be notified on your screen that you are allowed to unmute, after which you must remember to unmute yourself.
With that, let's start the presentation, and I hand the word over to Chris.
Good morning. It's a great pleasure for me to join this quarterly presentation, the first time in my new position as Managing Director of DNO. We start this morning with a very important photo related to our current operations in Kurdistan, and that is of our Peshkabir tanker loading facility, which is a key for us to maintain local sales at the moment. In the times where the export pipeline is open, this is used for unloading oil coming in for export into the Iraq-Turkey pipeline system. Currently, now it is reversed, and we are loading our oil here for distribution to local buyers.
Thank you.
So in terms of Q3 summary and a couple of important developments post-quarter. Obviously, the results were significantly better than Q2, driven by higher local sales, predominantly in Kurdistan. But we also had better production in the North Sea, too. Third quarter revenues were up nearly 150% over Q2, and that led to an operating profit in the quarter. As I touched on, the net quarterly production for DNO was close to 40,000, with Kurdistan getting back to nearly 20,000 barrels a day, where we'd been at virtually zero in the second quarter. That reflects a gradual resumption of operations since the pipeline closure. And first, we brought the Tawke field back on stream and subsequently, Peshkabir. In the North Sea, the rebound in production is partly seasonal.
As most of you understand, Q2 is the season for the major shutdowns of host facilities in the North Sea. But in addition, we've had some encouraging results from one or two of our assets, which we'll come back to. West Africa, the Côte d'Ivoire operation, again, it's really the seasonal impacts that we see every year. In the rainy season, there's more hydro power generated, so that results in a slight reduction in production there. One of the highlights of the quarter for us was yet another discovery in the North Sea. Particularly pleasing for us since it is an operated well and indeed DNO's first operated HPHT well. On the development side, we're moving forward with the Brasse project again.
Very good cooperation with the new operator at Brage, OKEA, and the partners there, and we're hoping for an investment decision early next year. Finally, we picked up a very interesting block in the most recent U.K. licensing round. That was after the end of the quarter, but we're a 50% operator there with BP as partner, and we'll touch on that in a slide two. So, focusing a bit further into the Kurdistan side of the business. Obviously, as the headline describes, the key issue here remains the lack of exports to international markets, and as always, when the environment around us changes in Kurdistan, DNO has very rapidly readjusted to the new realities.
The key now is getting these local sales working efficiently, which requires us not only to be able to produce the oil, but to work very well with our new buyers in order to maximize production and sales through the local distribution networks. We've made a good start in Q2 and Q3 on that, and we're continuing to work very hard on that issue. Of course, the price that one can achieve in a local market is significantly below international prices, as is set out on the slide. But importantly, we are paid in advance, so we require payment before we make any delivery, and the payment is directly to us. Through these local sales, we've been able to more than cover our ongoing costs.
And as we ramp up, we hope to do better than that. That's the other side of the work, because although the biggest adjustments were made in Q2, we have continued to optimize our cost structure through Q3, and in this new environment, that remains a focus for everyone in the team. I really have to recognize all of our team for the speed with which they reacted to the situation, and of course, it's not an easy process to go through when you're cutting activity and therefore necessarily cutting jobs from your organization. So that's been a great team effort. As we ramp up now, we happily have restarted our Peshkabir field as well as the Tawke.
And that obviously our production operations teams like nothing better than to be running their oil and gas fields. So we're very pleased to be able to do that, and we're working hard to make sure that's stable through the next quarter. As it notes here, since the end of the quarter, our efforts to build local sales have been rewarded, and we are actually running at currently about double the average rate that we achieved during the third quarter. On the activity side, of course, as I've touched on, we've made huge reductions in activities and costs. You see that most clearly in the lack of drilling in Tawke and Peshkabir, so no drilling activity at all in the quarter. And the same at Bashiqa during that quarter.
However, we are now working on drilling Bashiqa-3 early next year. That is a commitment well at the Bashiqa license, where we still have exciting opportunities to drill for. It's the final commitment well of this phase of development, so it's gonna be a very important well for us.
With respect to the prospects going forward and all of the discussions around the pipeline and reopening and so forth, we note that our industry association, the Association of the Petroleum Industry in Kurdistan, of which we were one of the founding members, they have put forward the position that we need to know how we're gonna be paid, not only for the oil that we will sell in future, but also the oil that we have transferred and not been paid for in the past, before we're able to recommence pipeline exports. I think that's an important position. It seems to us that the various governments and stakeholders understand the background to that and recognize the validity of that position.
And that's our input into trying to help all the stakeholders come to a resolution that really Iraq and particularly the people of Iraq and Kurdistan badly need. We have to focus on the past sales and the, what we call the receivables, what we're owed. Because if you put the APIKUR members together, then we are owed somewhere in the order of $1 billion for past exports down the pipeline. DNO's share of that is, as noted in the quarterly report, over $300 million. And of course, DNO's been in this position before of having built up receivables. It has always been the case. The Kurdistan Regional Government has always honored their commitments in that regard.
I personally, in my time with DNO, have been through two rounds of agreements through which the Kurdistan Regional Government have made good on their credit. In that regard, we noted in the press release a rather small, but in my mind, a important symbolic action that even in this difficult time, the KRG have taken action that's allowed us to offset some bills that we would otherwise have owed them to reduce this debt. I think the figure was $8 million of DNO sharing in October, again, just after the quarter. So not a huge amount compared to the $300 million, but in my mind, symbolically important and once again, showing the KRG's responsibility in regard to debts. Thank you.
Turning to the North Sea, once again, the focus is on exploration, where we have had a very active and forward-leading drilling program this year and last year, and we've really been getting the results of that. This year, the latest being an exciting discovery in our operated Norma well, which is a new play, and has discovered very good quality reservoir sands at a very deep depth. We see a very big range on the announced resources, which reflects the uncertainties we have going forward on this new play. So we're eager to get on with the delineation and subsequent appraisal of that discovery.
We also have other prospects in that play within our very large acreage position there, which you can see in the blue outline. So it's a very exciting discovery. We're looking forward to following up on that. As with our other discoveries, we've been through our APA applications targeting licenses that are near to existing infrastructure. And here there seem to be at least two potential hosts that could take developments once we get to that point. It's also an important milestone for the company as an operator in the North Sea because this was our first operated high pressure, high temperature well, something not one takes for granted these days in on the NCS, that these operations are delivered safely.
I'm really pleased that our team achieved that, and it was all drilled very efficiently and came in slightly ahead of time and under budget. So an excellent performance by our drilling team in addition to finding resources. So this builds on the impressive track record we've had this year on the exploration side. Clearly, we have many interesting wells ahead, but we are now also have a very strong focus on trying to mature these discoveries to development. Important part of that is appraisal where we've already made discoveries, and that's what's happening at the moment. But both the Ofelia discovery in that Troll area and the Bergknapp discovery up in mid-Norway near to the [uncertain] tieback.
And both of those wells are down in the interesting part of the operation at the moment, so we hope to have announcements on those very soon. I think that concludes the comments that I prepared for this quarter. So I'll now hand over to Haakon for the financial piece.
Good. Thank you, Chris, and good morning to everyone. For the Q3 financial results, we have an increase in our revenues by up to $141 million. That came from a low level of $58 million in the previous quarter, and the revenue increase came partly from a restart of production for local sales deliveries in Kurdistan from mid-July. These sales provided $32 million in new revenues for Q3. In addition, the North Sea revenues increased by $53 million to $109 million. That came mainly from lifting from the Vilje field, but also from higher lifting at the Ula area and the Brage field.
Resumption of production at the Alve and Marulk fields also contributed to the revenue increase in Q3 because of the shutdown in Q2 on these fields that Chris discussed. So, looking at the Q3 operating profit, it increased to $40 million from a loss of $15 million in the previous quarter. So that's good, and this increase was mainly driven by the high revenues, but offset by higher depreciation from increased production volumes and higher production costs from the North Sea overlifting in this quarter. Now, under the Q3 financial expenses, we have reduced the book value of the KRG arrears by $45 million. This is based on an accounting adjustment to incorporate the estimated present value of the recovery of these overdue receivables.
There are also net unrealized FX losses of $7 million this time, and other finance items in addition. So as you can see, the net finance expense is high at $60 million for Q3. We have also a significant tax expense at $35 million, and this is primarily due to change in deferred taxes. So on this basis, we show a net loss of $55 million for the third quarter, as shown on the slide. But just to mention, not shown on this slide, on a year-to-date basis through Q3 this year, our revenues are down by 55% from the same period last year. This is of course mainly due to the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline closure.
But in addition, we also have realized the lower oil and gas prices in the North Sea year to date to this year. So our net profit has dropped to $14 million year to date in this year. Let's shift now to cash flow. We show an operating cash flow of $32 million in Q3, up from $16 million in Q2. The Q3 cash flow includes $35 million in working capital increase. That comes primarily from a reduction of payables in Kurdistan and from an increase in receivables in the North Sea. Shown here under the tax part, we received the expected $27 million in the UK tax refund in Q3, as we discussed in our Q2 presentation....
I should also mention that we expect to receive $6 million in further tax refund in Norway in Q4. And with the quick tax depreciation under new NCS tax rules, we currently don't expect significant tax payments in Norway in 2024. Under investments, the main items include CapEx at $26 million, mainly for development at Bestla and the Brage in the North Sea. And then we also have capitalized exploration at $35 million relating to drilling of the Bayerknapp appraisal well, and also the Norma exploration well. We had $5 million in cash inflow from West Africa, and also including other items. Net investments were thereby at $64 million in the quarter.
Net finance outflows, so $30 million, and mainly covered the dividend payment of $23 million in Q3, and also net interest expense. And, in sum, after net finance, our cash balances were thereby reduced by $34 million in this quarter. But, still, at a level of $708 million, we maintain solid cash balances, and we have a net cash of $142 million. So our balance sheet strength remains very much intact. The slight reduction of our strong equity ratio, down to 48% from 50% in this quarter, is mainly due to the net loss in Q3. Now, as we look ahead, we see stronger net production to date in the fourth quarter.
That is driven by higher demand from local trading companies in Kurdistan. We see that they are getting very attractively priced oil prices at the moment, which is way below the international market. Higher demand, and we think that's gonna drive up the production in our fields in Kurdistan in Q4. Our North Sea production is expected to exceed the high end of guided levels for this year. We had said between 12,000 and 13,000, and now we're saying 13,500 average for the year. This is being supported by good net production also in Q3. Q3 had a level of 14,300 BOE/D from our fields in the North Sea.
For West Africa, production is expected to average 3,500 BOE/D for this year. As we go into next year, we look forward to restarting production at the DNO-operated Trym field in Q1, and this is expected to build up to a level of 3,000 BOE/D net to DNO. So, with this start-up, and combined with good performance from our other North Sea assets, we thereby expect further production growth from this business unit in 2024. Otherwise, we continue to closely manage our spend levels, and with support also from FX changes, we further reduce our guided operational spend this year by $40 million to $550 million.
Of that amount, $418 million have been incurred already through Q3. Now, backed by our exploration success in the North Sea, we will maintain high exploration spend in this region also next year, at around the same levels as we have had this year. So, we trust that this program will add further to our reserves and resources in 2024, and also to the long-term values that we are building in the North Sea. We are also engaging in several North Sea development projects going forward and expect some increase in CapEx for these projects next year. For Kurdistan, for the time being at least, we remain focused on covering operational spend by cash flow from the local sales until we see pipeline exports resume.
As such, we will have a flexible spend program as we determine the actual expenditure levels for this region through 2024. As we normally do, we will present our investment and spend plans for the next year in detail at the Q4 release in February. And finally, we are pleased to confirm that the board of DNO has authorized another quarterly dividend payment of 0.25 NOK per share, and this will be payable on the twenty-fourth of November. So, thanks for that. I think we will then move over to the Q&A session, Gudmund.
Good. Thank you. Yes, we are then ready for the Q&A session. Again, if you want to ask a question, please click on the yellow virtual hand on top of your screen. We'll start. We'll take the first question is from Teodor Sveen- Nilsen. Teodor, please unmute yourself and go ahead.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Questions are around three topics. First, on local sales in Kurdistan. I just wonder how do you see the local market going forward? Is it saturated, or is it still growing after the expected growth you talked about for Q4? And do you know anything about who you actually are selling to and where the oil ends up? And finally, on the local sales, are you selling in dollars or local currency? And then one question on North Sea, on the Norma discovery, which definitely is promising. Could you discuss potential development solutions, and should we regard this as a tied candidate to either Alvheim or Valhall?
Finally, on NCS tax, Haakon, you mentioned that you do not expect any significant NCS tax installments for 2024. I assume that statement is pretty sensitive to your CapEx assumptions. I just wonder what kind of CapEx assumption you bake into that statement. Thanks.
Do you want to cover the first one?
I'll try to deal with the local sales. Thank you, Theodor. So the local sales, what we've experienced in the last two or three months, I think, actually in the last quarter's Q&A, this point was addressed, and what we do see is that the type of prices we are selling at, and Haakon touched on it, but there's a huge margin between that and international pricing. In Iraq and Kurdistan Region, generally, there are a lot of refineries or more simple refineries, topping plants, et cetera. And the ability to turn crude into products of varying qualities in order to take advantage of that price differential is clearly been expanding over the last few months.
So, when we think about the market, certainly the market for crude is within the region, but the market for products extends beyond the region, and I'd say that is the part of the market that is expanding. To the extent it can expand, I think as long as that differential is there from the prices we're selling to international prices, then there'll be plenty of entrepreneurs looking to make this market work for them. There's certainly a very strong incentive to do so. You touched on the destination of our crude oil and so forth, and that is very important to us. Obviously, as in this part of the world, there are certain areas where, for compliance purposes, we are not allowed to deal with directly. And so that is...
We deal with that in our contracts with the buyers, and we have a duty of following up to ensure that our business is compliant with all the rules and regulations that apply to us regionally, nationally, and internationally. So that's been an important part of our process. And in terms of the currency we're selling at, yes, we are selling in US dollars.
Good. We had a discussion on the Norma.
Ah.
-how it will tie in to the surrounding host platforms...
Thank you for the reminder. Yes, I mean, we just showed the map in the presentation. Clearly there are a couple of host alternatives for Norma, but the main focus initially has got to be on understanding where we are in that reserves, in that resource range. Clearly, that's what the partnership is focused on. Whether it's 25 or 130 million barrels makes a huge difference, so next step is gonna be appraisal there. But we're working very hard across our portfolio. We've got numerous discoveries, so we're working hard to mature those, and we're hoping, in the quarters ahead, we'll be able to provide some positive updates.
Good. There were a question from you, Theodor. Thanks. That was on why am I talking about taxes for next year? Well, one reason is that we had very significant tax payments in the H1 of this year, 2023, because of the strong results we achieved in the North Sea for 2022. So, you know, that was part of the reason we sort of had a reduction in cash et cetera in the H1 of this year. So I just wanted to put forward that it looks different now because of changes in the Norwegian tax rules and also looking at our spend levels, that we don't expect the same sort of big tax cash out payments for the H1 of next year.
So, we think that those will be limited tax payments or maybe no tax payments for the full year, 2024, next year, again, based on the new rules and also looking to our CapEx levels. At the moment, Theodor, it looks like an estimated $90 million or so CapEx for our North Sea business in 2023, and we expect... well, we'll guide you more on our Q4 presentation, but, as I said, maybe some increase on that level for next year. We also have an estimated exploration spend around, maybe a bit less than $150 million for this year, and as I said in my comments, around the same level for next year.
Very high activity on appraisal and exploration drilling also next year for our North Sea business. You would need also, of course, in your models to have an assumption on oil prices to make that statement, and we have, I won't go into great detail, but. It's sort of a modest oil price assumption when I say that, you know, limited tax payments next year. If taxes come out, if prices come up from our assumptions, of course, that picture will change. But I wanted just to put forward that we don't see the same big tax payments as we have had this year. I hope we covered your question.
Yeah, absolutely. That, that is clear. Thank you.
Thanks.
Good. Thank you. Next question is from Nikolas Stefanou. Nikolas, please unmute yourself and go ahead.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Yes.
All right, brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple to ask, if I may. The first one is more about, I guess, the negotiations between you and the KRG. So what I'm trying to understand is, are these basically, you know, bilateral negotiations between each company and the KRG, or are you or have you kind of like formed... Is it kind of like basically APIKUR who is negotiating with the KRG? That's the first one. Or are you even negotiating? I mean, is it just, you know, are they just kind of like going to come and tell you the terms, which is what happened last time?
And then the second one on this topic is, the previous mechanism, if I remember correctly, was that, you get, I think $0.50 for every $1, for every dollar over $50 for every barrel producers or something like that, basically. And the last time when we had these, receivables, and I think for all the IOCs, it was about $2 billion, you managed to recoup them within a year. Most of the houses there. And I think with this oil prices, if you had the same mechanism as last time, you'd be able to do this like, you know, again, within the next 6-12 months.
So is that basically kind of like the starting point of a new formula of how you're gonna get, how you wanna get back your receivables, or are you trying to get something better this time? Just, I just want a bit more color, like, on this kind of like negotiations and the formula you guys have. And then my final question, I think, you know, it might be a bit controversial. I just want to kind of like ask you, as the CFO, you know, we've got a few months where, you know, free cash flow has not been that strong. This quarter, you have not been able to pay the dividend within free cash flow.
Next quarter will probably be better just because you've got more production in the rebates, but you did say that 2024 CapEx will be, you know, quite a bit higher. At which point would you feel, you know, a bit uncomfortable having that dividend there? Or, you know, taking into consideration whether you should suspend it prior to having exports via the pipeline. Thank you.
Great. Good. Chris, have you covered the first one?
Yeah, just let me check your. You're talking about, you were referring to negotiations with respect to the past receivable, I assume, in that question. Is that correct?
Well, I mean, for you to send the exports via the pipeline, you want to find a mechanism for the receivables, right?
Indeed.
Yes, it is. Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, that's important clarification because it's difficult to isolate any one part of this complex picture. And indeed, we want to understand how will we pay for the oil that we put that we nominally sold to the KRG during the period October 2022 and until the pipeline shut. And in addition, we will need to know how we're going to be paid for any future oil we put into that pipeline. So the two elements are intrinsically linked, and when it comes to the second element, it seems clear, it seems clear, the contradiction in terms, everyone knows how murky these, or not murky, but how unclear the situation is.
But clearly, Baghdad has a role in payment for future exports, given the arbitrary ruling on ITP, that it is only, only SOMO who has the right to load oil from Kirkuk that comes through ITP. And secondly, the budget law, which is internally inconsistent in some respects, but clearly calls for an understanding between Erbil and Baghdad with respect to any such exports. So that is a complex picture. I think it's been helpful for APIKUR to be established and be in place and put forward, in general terms, what its members need to contribute to what everyone wants to happen, which is exports being restarted.
I think also APIKUR, we have tried to point to the impact of the ITP closure on the what you might call the normal people of Iraq, in particular, Kurdistan Region. If you think about the drop in activity level at the Tawke PSC, we had four or five rigs drilling last year. When you think of all the ancillary services and jobs and transportation and IT, all of these connected industries to an oil and gas operation, and all of that has disappeared from the local economy around our PSC and the local economies around all the other international operations, which is obviously a very bad news for those local communities.
I think APIKUR has pointed to that repeatedly in their announcements, and we hope that that will resonate with the politicians that there are daily needs of people that need to be taken into consideration. When it comes to specific negotiations, APIKUR itself is not in a position to negotiate for specific members because we each have each company has its own contracts, the most important of which being the production sharing contract, and that is signed between specific IOC and, sorry, international oil company is IOC, and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
There are confidentiality provisions in those agreements, and although the Kurdistan Regional Government has kept their model PSC as the template for all of them, there are some important differences between, and therefore, it's extremely difficult for any group negotiation. One has to have, ultimately, agreements with each member company on any of these issues. I hope that helps you with those matters.
Thank you. Yeah, that was helpful, but they would kind of like describe the situation is that this is more of a dialogue between Baghdad and Erbil rather than a dialogue between Erbil and the IOCs on how to, how say-
It remains multifaceted. Clearly, Ankara has said that they're, that they're ready for the pipeline to open, and yet that hasn't happened. So I'm not sure what the blockage there is between Baghdad and Ankara, but the key stakeholders remain the same. It must be Turkey, Kurdistan Regional Government, and the federal government of Iraq.
Okay.
Nikolas, I'm not sure if I got your second question. You talked about $0.50 or something. Could you kind of verify on that question?
So last time you had these receivables, then there was a mechanism on how the KRG was going to repay the receivables. And I think it was for when oil price was over $50, the IOCs would get $0.50 for each, for each.
Right.
Yeah, I, I don't remember exactly the mechanism, but that mechanism kind of like, played out like-
Yes.
After that, this one would be the basis, basically, for, you know, for this time, how you would do receivables. You have something similar now or something better?
Well, I think when one is thinking about how to recoup the debts, it's natural to look at the past precedents, and you're right to... That was the case the last time KRG owed us money. The previous time, the settlement was very different. Going back to 2017, I had the pleasure of being involved in the DNO team, but it was obviously led by our Executive Chairman and negotiated what we call the Receivable Settlement Agreement in 2017.
And that was a much bigger debt than the last time, and the mechanisms to settle that were that the KRG agreed upon were, first of all, to hand over the 20% government interest in the Tawke PSC to DNO, and also to give us a small, effectively a royalty, what we called the overriding royalty, I think it was, for five years. That turned out to be a very fair mechanism, and neither side knew what was going to happen because it's obviously related to the performance of the asset and the oil price. We were happy to back ourselves as operator of that PSC, and even despite COVID, with COVID, we're pleased with that outcome. So that's another model.
We see that each of those were tuned to the times, if I can put it that way, and so, perhaps there'll be another mechanism that's better in tune with the times of when ITP reopens.
Okay.
Thank you. Nicholas, your third question was on, if I understood it right, on the possible repayment time for the arrears. Is that right?
No, it was about how you as the CFO feel comfortable about maintaining a dividend when there are no exports.
We're getting to that point, but you had a third question around. Okay, so we're done with that then.
Yes, yes, yes, we're done.
Right. Now you want to grill me on the dividends then?
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
I understand. Next question, please. No, I'm good. Well, obviously, we have a very, you know, strong balance sheet, and we are building up our cash flow again now with higher production, both in the North Sea and expected in Kurdistan. So, we are sort of doing a very careful analysis from each quarter. Are we in position now? Is it good that we can pay out the dividend? And this is done by the board, of course, in our company. So, we also have good protection from the Norwegian tax system, that you spend the money on exploration and CapEx, and you get the tax expense and returned to you if you have losses quite quickly.
So we assess all these various factors, and at what time do I get uncomfortable on paying dividends? Well, this is, you know, by quarter- by- quarter and running assessment. We think it's important that we try to maintain the quarterly dividend program. It's been very well received by our shareholders, and we do want to continue. But believe me, we are very careful when we decide to do that by quarter- by- quarter. But over and above that, it will be dependent on how things look at at each payment quarter. So I don't think that we will be sort of in a position that we will be doing any irresponsible, if you want, payment of dividends. We are quite careful in assessing this from from each quarter. Good.
I think we move on to the next question.
Good.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next one in line is Tom Erik Kristiansen. So Tom Erik, please unmute and go ahead.
... I have one question on exports. Do you feel the main pressure points is discussions between Iraq and Turkey, or do you feel it is internal in Iraq, so call it the Iraq KRG company issues? What are the key to really unlock resumed exports at the moment?
Great, great question. I have exactly the same question. Sorry, I don't, I wish I, I wish I could answer that. It is, there's so many stakeholders involved. I think it's very easy just to discuss Baghdad as a single entity. In reality, if you... I'm sure you understand the politics of Baghdad as well, but as we saw with the process to approve the budget law, the political setup in Baghdad is very factional, and a lot of the factions have a lot of disagreements between themselves, even in Baghdad. So, unfortunately, I think it's a much more complex question than, you know, Baghdad versus Erbil versus Ankara.
There are many factions within the regions and and Baghdad, which make it very difficult to put your finger and pinpoint what the critical issue or critical stakeholder is. So, we follow it obviously very closely and probably spend a bit too much time speculating on outcomes that we subsequently find don't materialize. But, I can't really help with that one. I can certainly help you, as I tried to do this morning, on describing how we, as we've often done in the past, adjust to very uncertain times and still try to make a reasonable return for our investors.
Clear as it can be, Chris. Thank you. We want to try to finish by the hour. I think we're on track for that. There are two more on the list of questions. Next one in line is Renaud Saleur. Renaud, please unmute and go ahead.
Hello?
Hello.
Hello.
We can-
Hi.
Yeah.
Good morning. Two questions. Firstly, generally, have you hedged part of your production? Have you sold forward part of your production, and if so, at what price? Secondly, is the current situation between Israel and Gaza, and the different point of views of Turkey, et cetera, regarding this war, delaying the process or putting the process of talking Kurdistan even further than before? And if so, are you free cash flow neutral on Kurdistan at the moment?
Good. Let me try to comment on the first one, Renaud. Hedging is something we discuss and follow quite closely in DNO. We did hedge some of our North Sea gas production some time ago as the market started to move ahead of the big price movements. We are not currently hedged but we are focusing on if we do something on hedging, it will likely be on the gas side in the North Sea. We see that we are, you know, a big part of our production now is becoming more gas in combination with oil, of course. So we might do more gas hedging and trying to find a good strategy for doing so.
But at the moment, we are not hedged on gas. On the oil side, for Kurdistan, we have, as we talked about in the past, we have a sort of a natural hedge in our production sharing contract that, if oil prices go down, you get more cost oil barrels for your cost. So we have a natural hedge in Kurdistan, so we are not focusing so much on hedging for that region. So it's primarily a discussion on North Sea and at the moment, primarily a discussion on gas, but currently unhedged. And I'll leave the big question on political.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
No, that's a great question on the political situation. I think on how and whether the Israel- Hamas- Gaza situation will impact upon the reopening of the pipeline and so forth, I think it's too early to say whether that's gonna have any impact. I think from what I read many actors are trying to avoid that situation becomes a regional and spreads into have a regional perspective. So we'll see whether they're successful or not. Clearly, there have been some attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq the last few days. Touch wood as well, I know no casualties as yet.
But, I don't think as yet it's changed the dynamics on those negotiations.
I understood your third question, Renaud, was on whether we are free cash flow neutral on Kurdistan now. Just to comment a bit on that, if you look at our quarterly report, you will see information that could help you on that. We have revenues of $32 million in Kurdistan for Q3. We have $18 million of lifting costs, and we have $6 million of CapEx. So that gives you a net EBITDA cash flow, if you want, for Kurdistan for this quarter of around $8. This is, of course, a very low level compared to where we normally are with the pipeline exports. But the $8 EBITDA, if you want, is good, and we have also then had a repayment program for our suppliers in Kurdistan.
So for this quarter, we paid down what comes to $18-$20 million or so of supplier payables. So after that, of course, we are not showing positive cash flow and net free cash flow for this quarter. But if you think about that, repayment of supplier payables as a working capital movement, if you want. So, I think we will be heading into free... As we pay down these outstanding suppliers, we will be going into a free cash flow situation. We expect that in Kurdistan once we're done with the payable situation.
Okay. As mentioned, we'll deal with the media requests separately, but we have one final question then from David Mirzai. So David, please unmute and go ahead. David, are you, have you unmuted?
We can't hear you.
Sorry.
There we go.
Sorry. Yep, yep, that's me. It's all on me. Just a last question on capital allocations policy. You've said before, or I suppose if I look at Norway, you know, you, you entered into Norway for production, acquisition, but you've clearly seen better value in exploration, appraisal, development, and that's been a center of your, your investment, over the last couple of years. You said earlier, on this year, that you were looking to redeploy capital to grow a third leg of the business, in West Africa. Now, clearly, having an existing production business in West Africa, do you see the same, I suppose, variation in value between production assets and appraisal, development, exploration assets in West Africa?
Or would you be more tempted to that if you were gonna grow a business in West Africa, it would be based on acquiring already producing assets?
Thank you, David. Just first to touch on the Norway side of things, to give some perspective, because, of course, Norway is unusual, if not unique, in respect of its exploration friendliness with the conditions that the Norwegian government have put in place, in particular, the tax refunds on exploration expenditure. And so in Norway, one is able to pursue that strategy. It would be nicer to have production coverage, but it's not essential. And for that reason, I think in terms of your capital allocation question, we've seen, we have indeed seen better value in reserves replacement through exploration than acquisition, where Norway has been a hot market, I guess, for several years, as it has been a seller's market on the production side.
If we turn to those new regions, we've been working on the West Africa now for a year or so, and I think there, where you don't have that tax support for pure exploration, our aim is to combine production with development and exploration if we get a new position, so that one has a sustainable business. Again, we are trying to keep our capital discipline and not get carried away in these big rounds and so forth. And it's interesting that our experience has been that although there are definitely fewer buyers in the West African or African space more generally, several of them are prepared to bid what we think are pretty full prices. So, we're working hard.
We're looking at a lot of opportunities, and, I hope we'll strike when the time is right.
Well, that's great. Thanks for answering that question. Just one last one on rig availability. There's been a lot of press kind of comments from the service providers moving out jackup rigs from the North Sea, moving out jackup rigs from West Africa and moving them into the Middle East and Southeast Asia. How has this filtered through just the way that you see your investable opportunities and your development costs moving forward?
Well, I've read those same reports in terms of on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. I've read those same reports. Interestingly, there's no doubt the rig market has tightened and rates have increased since but they were at points that everyone knows that were in a way unsustainably low for that industry, and therefore there's been a correction of the rates. We're not seeing exorbitant rates, and we are still able to find slots for the operated wells that we have. So as yet, we don't see a crisis in that market, but we're watching it closely. Yeah, I think that's probably-
Good
... where it impacts us.
Very good.
Thanks very much.
Thanks, David.
Thank you. Thank you. With that, we're done for today. Thanks to you all for listening, and don't hesitate to get in touch with us for any further questions you may have. We look forward to reconnecting in February when we will present our full year results for 2023. Goodbye.
Thank you.