Welcome, thank you for joining the Equinor Q4 analyst call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants are in listen only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touch-tone telephone. To register for questions, please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Peter Hutton, Senior Vice President. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Anna. You're very welcome to the conference call for Equinor's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Results. Welcome those analysts and investors joining us either on the call or those watching on the webcast, and media also joining us on Zoom. I'm delighted this morning to introduce Anders Opedal, Chief Executive Officer, and Svein Skeie, CFO. They will present the results and outlook for around 20 minutes each. Then we will move into a Q&A session for analysts and investors, which we hope to finish around 11:30 Norwegian time. At that point, the media will have an opportunity to move into their own Q&A session on Zoom. With that brief introduction, let me pass the word over to Anders. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Peter, good morning to all of you. I hope you and your families are safe and well. We are all used to digital events by now, but I really hope progress on vaccination will allow us to meet sometime soon. Today, we are presenting our fourth quarter and full year results for 2020. We are also announcing the sale of our Bakken asset today, and I will revert to that too in my presentation. In addition, we will take the opportunity to provide some direction on the strategy process leading towards the Capital Markets Day in June. This is the first time Svein and I present to you as CFO and CEO, and we look forward to a good and open dialogue with you all. 2020 was a year like no other, and the pandemic continues to impact people and society across the world.
For the global energy markets, the unprecedented volatility was illustrated by fluctuation in the Brent. From almost $70 at the start of the year, to even below $20 at the bottom in April. Now, it's showing signs of recovery, but we should still be prepared for volatility. It is in times of challenge that we see the true strength of the company and the quality of our people. Equinor kept operations running and responded forcefully. This was important not only to protect our financial resilience in 2020, but also to be in a strong position for value creation going forward. In addition to meeting and beating action plans to reduce cost and improve resilience near term, we took significant steps to transform our company. We have set a clear ambition to be a net zero energy company and to create value as a leader in the energy transition.
Our first priority is to make sure all our people can return safely home from work every day. In 2020, we have implemented measures to keep our people safe and well during the pandemic. For many, this has been a tough year, and I'm impressed to see how colleagues have looked after and supported each other. During the year, we experienced serious incidents in our operations. With the fires at the onshore plants at Melkøya and Tjeldbergodden, it is clear that we are not where we want to be. We will take learnings from investigations and avoid future incidents. For 2020 as a whole, we had an increase from 10 to 11 hydrocarbon leaks. We see from the reduction of serious incidents and personal injuries that we are moving in the right direction.
In fact, with a serious incident frequency of 0.5 and a total recordable injury frequency of 2.3, we achieved our best safety results ever. This gives inspiration to improve further in close cooperation with authorities, partners, suppliers, safety delegates, and union representatives. Shortly after our Capital Markets update last year, the pandemic hit and our established contingency plans proved their true value. We launched a $3 billion action plan to strengthen our financial resilience. Hard efforts throughout the entire organization succeeded, and we have delivered above and beyond our ambitions. In fact, we have achieved savings of more than $3.7 billion. We reduced the organic CapEx to $7.8 billion, almost all of it in our international portfolio. The temporary tax adjustment at the Norwegian continental shelf made it possible and profitable to maintain activity and progress projects.
We realized improvements and reduced our operating cost with around $1 billion from original estimates, well above the $700 million target. Our financial results were of course impacted by the low prices during the year. Our net income for 2020 ended at - $5.5 billion, and the adjusted earnings came in just below $1 billion after tax. We will continue to take steps to strengthen our robustness towards periods with lower prices, particularly in our international business. Due to savings and capital discipline in 2020, we delivered a strong cash flow from operation at around $11 billion after tax, and a positive net cash flow at an average oil price below $42 per barrel for the year. Last year, we reduced our dividend from $0.27 per share in fourth quarter 2019 to $0.09 per share for the first quarter 2020.
As a part of our forceful response to protect our financial resilience. Through the year, we have balanced capital discipline, investing in profitable portfolio, and return of value to our shareholders. We continue with this balanced and cautious approach. The Board proposed a modest increase in the quarterly cash dividend to the Annual General Meeting, from $0.11 per share in third quarter to $0.12 per share for the fourth quarter. We also continued to cut emissions and deliver on our low carbon emissions. We reduced our CO2 intensity from 9.5 kilo per barrel in 2019 to 8 kilos in 2020. Below half of the global industry average. We will experience variances from year to year. The long-term direction towards lower emission intensity is clear.
At end of 2020, we had an equity installed capacity of 0.5 GW renewable energy in production, and we are on track for profitable growth with 3.3 GW in development projects. Our agility in the market turmoil safeguarded our financial resilience last year. Even more important, we strengthen our competitiveness for strong value creation and cash flow in 2021 and the years to come. We have improved our unit production cost, achieving the 2021 ambition already in 2020 with a 5% reduction. Strict capital discipline and strong improvements have significantly reduced expected CapEx from the indications we have previously given. For 2021 and 2022, we expect CapEx levels of $9 billion-$10 billion annually. Cost reductions and capital discipline will significantly improve our capacity to deliver strong free cash flow.
In 2021, we expect to deliver a free cash flow of $6 billion after tax and before capital distribution at an oil price of $50. In addition, we will get the proceeds from the Bakken divestments. This demonstrates the true value of our improvements over the last year. We have initiated a strategy process towards the Capital Markets Day in June. Our clear ambition is to continue creating long-term value as a leader in the energy transition and become a net zero energy company by 2050. To us, this is a sound business strategy, creating long-term value for shareholders. We have a strong portfolio within oil and gas, and by optimizing it further, we will strengthen our competitiveness and value creation while reducing emissions.
Building on our competitive advantage from oil and gas, we will accelerate profitable growth within renewables, leveraging our leading position in offshore wind. Our capabilities from oil and gas also position us for developing low-carbon technologies and value chains. Let me be a bit more specific on each of these areas. In 2020, we delivered an underlying production growth of more than 2%. Johan Sverdrup officially opened at the start of the year and continues to deliver beyond high expectations. The field reached plateau production sooner than expected and at a higher level, capturing value from the use of new technology and digital solutions. In the middle of this year, we expect a third production increase, taking the capacity to around 535,000 barrels a day, around 100,000 barrels above the estimate at startup. Johan Sverdrup Phase 1 investment was NOK 83 billion.
Today, we can announce that for Equinor, this investment will be paid back after tax this month, or to be precise, actually this week. That's 16 months after startup. In my view, quite impressive. Snorre expansion came on stream towards the end of last year, ahead of schedule and below cost estimates, adding 200 million barrels of recoverable oil reserves. Last year, we also established a new unit focusing on improved value creation from late life fields. In fourth quarter, this unit delivered solid production efficiency at 98% and updated the plans for Statfjord Øst, increasing the recovery rate from 56% to 62%. In the other end of the life cycle, we keep developing high-value projects and delivered development plan for Breidablikk with a break-even well below $25 per barrel. Our international business is significant, it's not sufficiently robust in low prices periods.
It is clear that we have to improve our operations and our portfolio to increase resilience. This also means taking actions where we don't see the profitability and robustness we seek. This is the basis for the decision that led to the impairment of our asset in Tanzania. It is also the basis for the steps we are taking to shape our portfolio to be more robust and competitive. We are today announcing the divestment of our Bakken asset. By doing this, we are focusing our effort and capital towards more competitive projects in our portfolio, enabling us to deliver higher value creation for our shareholders. In the results we are presenting today, the Bakken asset is reclassified as held for sale, leading to an impairment of around $300 million for the quarter.
The Bakken investment was done at the time with high and increasing oil prices, and based on price assumption, that proved to be way too optimistic. We have taken impairments, and we are realizing a significant loss. I would also like to thank the organization for impressive improvement efforts in recent years, making it possible for the Bakken asset to actually deliver positive cash flow in the period from 2016 to 2020, and to realize this transaction at competitive terms in today's market. Last summer, a temporary tax regime was put in place in Norway to maintain the activity level in the industry through a period with lower prices. Equinor has delivered on these ambitions, and we are on track with the projects to be sanctioned for the Norwegian continental shelf in 2021 and 2022.
The temporary tax regime, combined with our improvement efforts, lowered the break-even price for these projects with around $10. We have reduced costs and improved our projects to be sanctioned in 2021 and 2022. For the total portfolio in this period, the break-even price is around $30, and the net present value is $3.9 billion at an oil price of $50 per barrel. This portfolio includes several electrification projects, reducing CO2 emissions from production, and in total, making this project portfolio carbon neutral in operations. We kept progressing our renewable portfolio last year with the final investment decision for Dogger Bank in the U.K. This is in fact now the largest project in our portfolio and the largest project development ongoing in the North Sea. For Dogger Bank A and B, we leveraged the toolbox to increase equity returns with project financing and a farm-down of 10% equity interest.
In the U.S., we have entered a strategic partnership with BP to create a platform for growth. In January, we were selected to provide New York State with offshore wind power from the Empire Wind 2 and Beacon Wind 1 projects. In total, our capital gain from sales of renewable assets was around $1.2 billion. This gain will be booked in 2021 and is clearly demonstrating our ability to create value. The construction of Hywind Tampen is ongoing, the world's largest floating wind farm to date. Floating wind farms will provide new market opportunities in deep waters. For 2020, the equity accounted net operating income from our renewable business was $163 million, and gross production of electricity was 1,662 GWh . Going forward, we see increased investments in profitable renewable assets.
In 2020, we made investment decision for $3.2 billion with low carbons projects, with the gross CapEx of Dogger Bank as the biggest investment. Equinor will become the operator of Dogger Bank at production startup. By the end of the year, we will start construction of the operations and maintenance base in U.K. Our capabilities from oil and gas position us for developing low carbon technologies and new value chains within handling of CO2. Northern Lights is a groundbreaking project to build new and commercial value chains to capture, transport, and store CO2 from industrial sources in Europe. In May, we took the final investment decision together with our partners Shell and Total. With government support, construction has started. Let me end with our guiding.
We expect an annual average production growth of around 3% from 2020 to 2026 from our highly competitive project portfolio within oil and gas. From 2021, we expect to deliver around 2% production growth. We are reducing expected exploration spend to around $0.9 billion. For 2021 and 2022, we expect organic CapEx levels at between $9 billion and $10 billion, significantly below our previous indications. 2020 was a year like no other. The world is not yet back to normal. We spent the year improving, and with our strict capital discipline, we can deliver strong value creation and cash flow in 2021 and the years ahead. With that, I leave the floor to Svein to take us through the results. We look forward to your questions afterwards.
Thank you, Anders, and good morning, everyone. I must admit, it's a bit unusual for me to be on this side of the stage for the quarterly presentation. Normally, I'm in the back with my spreadsheets and the numbers, but this also feels good. We really appreciate you joining us today. I look forward to the dialogue with all of you. In this industry, we are used to the highs and the lows of the economic cycles and demand. The disruption caused by COVID-19 is unprecedented. COVID-19 hit demand hard, and Equinor responded early and forcefully, also strengthening our position long-term. The impact on value creation and cash flow this year and the next will be significant. As Anders said, we have delivered above and beyond on the plan we launched in March.
We said we would deliver savings of $3 billion, and we have realized more than $3.7 billion. In fact, more than $4 billion if you use the same currency as we assumed in March. We have shown very tight capital discipline in 2020. Organic CapEx spending was strictly controlled, and for the year, we ended at $7.8 billion. This is well below our initial guiding of $10 billion-$11 billion, and also below our updated guiding of $8.5 billion. This reflects reduced activity, especially onshore U.S.A., and our decision to postpone sanctioning of projects to remain resilient. We have continued to improve our project. For example, Bacalhau in Brazil, and Askeladd Vest and Kristin South on the Norwegian continental shelf. We also reduced exploration activity, and we reduced investments on partner-operated fields internationally. In addition, we deferred some scope to 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID situation.
Last year, we said we would realize a 5% improvement of the unit production cost from 2019 to 2021. This we have already delivered one year ahead of schedule, as supported by high production on Johan Sverdrup due to the strong regularity and the rapid ramp-up. The high production also contributed to the early payback of Johan Sverdrup Phase 1 despite the low prices in 2020. We have also reduced operational costs in the different segments, capturing efficiency gains, and we are benefiting from the full implementation of our integrated operation center for our NCS assets. We continue to deliver on our improvement program, realizing around $0.5 billion in 2020 from new digital and technical solution. The improvement program continues, and we must make sure to keep focus on implementation and realization.
Our rebased production growth was 2.4% in 2020, also supported by higher production from Johan Sverdrup, good regularity in the fourth quarter, and high flex gas production as prices recovered in the fall. We expect annual CapEx at $9 billion-$10 billion for 2021 and 2022, well below indications given at our CMU last year when we said $10 billion-$11 billion for 2021 and around $12 billion for 2022. Solid improvements and tax adjustments in Norway has enabled us to strengthen our highly competitive project portfolio even further. For projects on the NCS planned to be sanctioned in 2021 and 2022, we have reduced the average breakeven with around $10 per barrel. In total, for all the projects we plan to sanction in 2021 and 2022, we have an expected breakeven of around $30 per barrel.
The net present value of these projects net to Equinor is around $3.9 billion at a $50 oil price. We have improved the portfolio since our last Capital Markets update. Some of the operated projects we expect to sanction in the next two years are Bacalhau in Brazil and several fields on the NCS. The projects on the NCS benefits from the temporary changes in the tax regime, such as Wisting, Krafla/Askja, and Oseberg Gas Compression Unit. On the NCS, we also plan to sanction electrification project such as the Troll field electrification. We will continue to mature and improve our projects. The improved portfolio is more robust and enable us to deliver a strong cash flow going forward. At an oil price of $50 per barrel, we have the capacity to deliver a free cash flow of around $6 billion before capital distribution in 2021.
This is not including the proceeds from the Bakken divestment. Before Bakken, we are cash breakeven after tax and before capital distribution at $30 per barrel, clearly demonstrating our robustness. Now on to the financial results. The fourth quarter results reflect the lower commodity prices. Our average liquids price was down 28% from the same quarter last year. Average invoice gas prices in Europe and U.S. were down 5% and 11% respectively, despite the European gas price recovery, which we saw during the second half of 2020. The IFRS net operating income is negative by $989 million, while adjusted earnings in the quarter is $756 million, down from $3.5 billion in the same period last year. IFRS net income is - $2.4 billion, highly impacted by impairments. The organization delivered solid operational performance, taking group OpEx and SG&A costs down by 13% in the quarter.
This reflects cost discipline throughout the organization. For the full year of 2020, we have realized cost savings of around $1 billion, significantly above the $700 million we set out to achieve in March. We see improvements across the company in all segments. On the production side, our financial results were impacted by production outages at Hammerfest LNG and Peregrino in Brazil. In addition, we are taking action to optimize our oil and gas portfolio, leading to impairments of Tanzania LNG and Bakken in the U.S. in the quarter. In addition, the transfer of exploration obligation in Russia had some impact. On our refinery in Norway, we take an impairment of around $600 million, mainly driven by lower expected future margins and a somewhat higher cost base. The group-adjusted tax rate in the quarter was 173%, mainly due to write-downs in entities with no or low reported tax.
Let me give some comments to each of the reporting segments. E&P Norway delivered adjusted earnings before tax of $1.8 billion. High production despite the Hammerfest LNG outage and improved production efficiency in several fields made a difference. In addition, we reduced underlying OpEx and SG&A by 11%, which includes positive development in the field cost. The adjusted tax rate in the quarter was 61.6%, benefiting from the temporary tax change in Norway. The losses from our two international segments for the quarter and for the year demonstrates that they are not sufficiently robust towards lower prices. We take steps to focus our portfolio towards countries and projects that can deliver long-term value for our shareholders. For this quarter, the impact is negative. E&P International delivered adjusted earnings before tax of - $1.2 billion.
The result is impacted by lower prices and the shutdown at the Peregrino field in Brazil, leading to a negative result this quarter for our Brazilian business area. An impairment of our Tanzania asset by around $1 billion had significant impact. We see solid cost reduction in the segment, with OpEx and SG&A down 18%, supporting positive cash flow from operation of around $400 million for the quarter. The low tax rate of 3.1% is due to the earnings composition. Results from E&P U.S.A. are also impacted by the low prices. CapEx and cost have been forcefully reduced as operated onshore drilling and completions were stopped early on in 2020. In the quarter, underlying OpEx and SG&A is down 16%. Adjusted earnings before tax came in at - $172 million, while net cash flow was positive, with cash flow from operation of around $300 million.
Our MMP segment delivered strong results from European gas sales and trading, offset by the shutdown at Hammerfest LNG and low refinery margin. The OpEx and SG&A are down 14% year-on-year, mainly as a result of lower transportation cost. In total, MMP delivered adjusted earnings before tax of $352 million. Fourth quarter is the last time we report activity on renewable energy projects and production in our other segments. From the first quarter of 2021, our renewable business will be a separate reporting segment due to the strategic importance. In the fourth quarter, we had high availability on our offshore wind farms, and our equity accounted investment delivered net income of $21 million. Overall, adjusted earnings were negative, these results will be improved as we have been reimbursed for half of the project development cost related to Empire and Beacon in the U.S.
Let me reflect some of the production and reserves. Our production in the quarter is stable. We have not seen negative COVID-19 effects on production. The total equity production in the quarter came in at 2,043,000 barrels per day. For the full year, we delivered 2.4% rebased production growth. We adhered to the production curtailments imposed during 2020. We used the opportunity to perform modification and upgrades on certain fields and installation without further production impact. Ramp-ups and new wells put on stream contribute to the rebased production growth. We drilled more than 90 production wells last year with high value creation and a breakeven well below $10 per barrel. New technology, such as automated drilling control, contributes to the lower breakevens for the wells. In the quarter, Johan Sverdrup produced 95,000 barrels per day, more than the same period last year.
We also increased our NCS flex gas production to capture additional value as the European gas prices continued to recover through the fourth quarter. Our priority in 2020 was to strengthen financial resilience. The deferral of project sanctioning impacted our reserve replacement ratio for the year, which came in at -5%. The three-year average for this was 95%, and the reserves to production ratio based on SEC reserves is 7.4 years. Based on all resources, it is 24 years. All renewable electricity production in the quarter has been high and in line with expectations for the season. From 2019 to 2020, we increased our full-year rebased production. In the fourth quarter, we continued to demonstrate that we can capture value in our renewable business by taking in a strong partner at the right time.
We divested 10% of our Dogger Bank A and B to Eni with a net gain of around $270 million, expected to be booked now in the first quarter. In the U.S., we secured the largest ever U.S. offshore wind award for our Empire and Beacon Wind projects. In Poland, where Equinor has several offshore wind position, the government recently approved offshore wind legislation that will increase the probability of new developments going forward. Summing up, 2020 has been a year of solid production as well as value creation and strategic progress within the renewables. To the cash flow. We deliver a strong net positive cash flow of $1.4 billion in the quarter based on strict cost and capital discipline.
We also deliver a positive net cash flow for the year, which is a true testament to our resilience and flexibility in a year when Brent averaged below $42 per barrel. The net NCS tax payment in the fourth quarter was NOK 3.5 billion, or slightly below $400 million. For the first half of 2021, we expect NCS taxes payable of around NOK 2 billion. We paid $550 million for the KGN acquisition in Russia, and we also received a $500 million prepayment on the U.S. wind deal. Our net debt ratio ended at 31.7%, fairly stable from 31.6% in the third quarter of 2020. Let me end with the outlook. Anders presented our guiding. Let me repeat the key messages.
We expect around 2% production growth in 2021, 3% compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2026, exploration activity at $0.9 billion in 2021, and $9 billion-$10 billion annual CapEx level in 2021 and 2022. With this, we have the capacity to deliver a free cash flow of around $6 billion before capital distribution in 2021 at an average oil price of $50. This represents a cash breakeven of just $30. With that, I hand it back to you, Peter, and I look forward to your question. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thanks very much, Svein. With that, I pass that over to the operator to open up for questions. Thanks very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. The first question comes from the line of Biraj Borkhataria of RBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I just had a few on the free cash flow guidance. I believe that's at $4 NBP for 2021. Are you able to provide a sensitivity on cash flow for European gas? I know you provided the earnings, cash flow would be helpful. Secondly, embedded in that guidance is an assumption on cash taxes for the full year. Can you say anything at this point on what you're assuming for the second half of the year? Just a quick final one. In that $6 billion free cash flow guidance, can you just confirm the Carcará unitization payment, which is due this year, is already reflected in that number? Thank you.
Thank you very much. Let me start with the Bacalhau question. Yes, this consideration is included into those numbers. Maybe you want to elaborate a little bit on the tax, Svein?
Yeah, I can do that. On NCS, it is so that we pay half of the tax the year it occurs and half of the taxes the year after. For the first half, we will pay NOK 2 billion in taxes for NCS. That is based on the results that we generated in 2020. On the question regarding then the prices that we've used for the $6 billion, that is $50 oil and $4 MMBtu for the gas prices. Looking into what will the payment in the second half be. Of course, that will depend very much on the prices and what we see now during the year.
How we do it is that when we come to June, then we will do a calculation based on what we have realized so far in the first months, and then an outlook of how it looks like for the remaining part of the year. We will decide the taxes. Also the questions on the gas prices. In the presentation, there is a slide which is then showing the sensitivity on the gas prices, just both pre- and post-tax for a $1 change in the gas price.
Just circling back on the gas price sensitivity, are you able to say about the cash flow sensitivity? Because I know in the slide it shows earnings.
What typically happens is how the totality is that you see it's $ 2.1 billion pre-tax, $0 .8 billion after. Remember, then you have the half year deferral. Half of it will happen this year, and then you will get half of the effect next year.
Okay. Understood.
On the Norwegian part of it. On the U.S., there is no tax.
The next question comes from the line of Oswald Clint with Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Thank you both. Good morning. Anders, I'd like to explore a little bit more what you mean by optimizing the upstream oil and gas portfolio and really looking out a little bit. Is this about long-term growth, but increasingly from a low-cost, low-carbon barrel? Do you think there is an optimum size for the upstream going forward and you'd have to bend the portfolio the other way? I'm really thinking post-2026 and into the next decade, especially, with your aim here to be a leader in the transition. Perhaps for Svein, 3.7% cost reduction last year, there was $1 billion of fixed costs within that number.
It'd be great if you could talk about what are those big cost buckets in that $1 billion, which regions, and really just confirm that it won't rise back up, won't spring back up here now in 2021 with higher commodity prices. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question, Oswald. We say we are optimizing oil and gas. When you look at the future demand as we see it will gradually increase towards around 2030, then we expect to see a slight reduction in demand over time. We are building a portfolio now that we also are able to capture the growth in demand and building increased resilience in our portfolio. We will focus on value creation and we will focus on robustness. That's why you saw we took the actions with Tanzania and Bakken today. That enable us to take the consideration from the Bakken and reinvest it in our more profitable portfolio with break-evens around $30.
Of course, we are also investing in low carbon solutions and renewables to find a very good balance between optimized oil and gas, accelerate growth in renewables, and also build some more projects into the low carbon solution, in addition to the Northern Lights that we already sanctioned this year. Both within oil and gas and with renewables low carbon, we will focus on growing value going forward.
To the improvements as well. What is good to see is that when we set the ambition of $0.7 billion, we focus on all segments in the portfolio. We have been able then to see that there are positive cost developments from all business units. It's coming down from taking down, for example, activity that we did in U.S. with that one being taken down. That has contributed. We have also focused on then making sure that we are continuously looking into, can we do things smarter as we are moving along? We're also seeing it utilizing, for example, technical solutions in a new way, which are also then benefiting us in the totality. Where we now focus is then we need to make sure that we are keeping these improvements and continue to improve going forward as well.
If you look at the fixed cost in totality, of course, when new fields are coming on stream, which is not in production today, they will add some costs related to it. The main focus is now is then to maintaining and continue to focusing on then improving as we move along.
That's great. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Thomas Adolff with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Good morning. A couple of questions, please. In offshore wind, you've done an excellent job unlocking value last year through farm downs in the U.S. and also in Dogger Bank. As it relates to the 4 - 6 GW medium-term target following these farm downs, how do you feel about that target? Do you feel like we might need some shorter cycle solar to hit your target, that 4 - 6 GW range? Secondly, you've talked about the optimization in upstream, and you've done Tanzania, you wrote it off and you sold Bakken. I wondered if there's anything else you're planning on doing near-term in terms of asset sales, and maybe you can also comment on the fairly sharp cut in CapEx in 2022, and I'm assuming this cannot be all related to capital efficiency. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you very much for the acknowledgement of the value creation in offshore wind. We see opportunities also going forward in these new areas coming with potential bid auctions like Svein mentioned in the presentation, like Poland, and also in Asia. Our targets for 4 -6 GW in 2026 remains firm. We will, of course, always seek to move into those projects where we see we can use our capabilities, our experience, and seeking the return of 6%-10% that we also said last year at the Capital Market update. We will continue working on growing our portfolio and remain firm on the target.
When it comes to optimizing oil and gas, I mentioned Tanzania and Bakken today, but of course the most important actions we are doing to optimize the oil and gas is to continue improving every project that we do have. We postponed the FID of Bacalhau some months to make sure that we could have fully improved that project. We are doing the same on all the projects on the Norwegian continental shelf, ensuring that we can deliver this project with as lowest possible breakeven and maximum value creation. Of course, BD is a part of our toolbox for value creation, but I cannot comment on any future potential BD deals.
Maybe I can take some on the 2022 topics as you asked about, Thomas. What we have been doing there is then focusing and prioritize within the portfolio on the overall context. For example, we have taken down activity in the U.S. and said that, for example, on the operated, we stopped production and drilling, and those are, for example, some of the measures that goes in. We also said earlier on that we postponed some, for example, on Bay du Nord, working further on that one, taking also in the results then from the exploration wells there, which has an impact on the totality. As Anders said on Bacalhau, then moving it a bit out in time, getting slightly different profiles, but getting an improved portfolio compared to where we were last year. That has an impact.
It's a combination of then the focus that we are doing and the improvements that we are doing to our projects. Which then brings us into a situation where we have a portfolio that deliver $3.9 billion based on investment that we are doing in 2021 and 2022 and a breakeven of $30.
What does CapEx look like in 2023 then?
That is too early to say, but we will continue optimizing the portfolio and we'll guide that at a later stage.
Okay. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, please press star five by one to ask a question. Your next question comes from the line of Mehdi Ennebati with Bank of America.
Hi. Good morning all, and thanks for the presentation. Thanks for taking my question. Two questions please. First one, a follow-up one regarding the sensitivity that you provided. Yes, you provide sensitivity on the EBIT. You provide sensitivity on the net income related to the oil and gas prices variation. You did not provide any sensitivity on the cash flow from operation as usual, but my question is very simple. If we want to have an idea on the cash flow from operation sensitivity, would you say that we should look at the EBIT sensitivity given that you will pay very low tax amounts this year in Norway or rather the net income sensitivity? That's the first question. The second question is about your guidance on the free cash flow.
You said this takes into account the Bacalhau payment of around $600 million if I am not mistaken. Can you just tell us what M&A transactions did you take into account to get to that $6 billion free cash flow guidance? If all those M&A have a negative impact or positive impact on your $6 billion cash flow? Thank you.
Well, let me first take the second question, and you continue on the sensitivity.
Yeah.
It's fine. Basically, the consideration that is in the guidance is, as I mentioned, Bacalhau. It's the U.S. wind with BP and also the Eni on the Dogger Bank. We have not included the Bakken transaction in those. All known M&A are included in this guiding.
Just to build further on that, Anders. Also remember that we have a prepayment of $500 million that we received, which is included in the 2020. Those have to be adjusted for the gross amount that we got. That means that on net outstanding, approximately $700-ish million on that one. Going into the sensitivity, if you should look at the EBIT or the net income, I would say you have to look at both. Due to the fact that the EBIT is giving the sensitivity pre-tax, remember that in Norway you will pay half of the tax this year and half of the tax the year after. You will get a bit in between.
On our international portfolio, then there will be some other countries we pay taxes, but while all those countries where we are not in a tax position, then it's the pre-tax. Sorry then for not being into the exact number there, but it's a combination due to the fact that the Norwegian taxes are set in June, and then we are paying then three installments in August, October and December.
All right. Understood. Thank you very much, Anders.
The next question comes from the line of Teodor Nilsen with SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Two questions from me, if I may. First one, a follow-up on the cash flow guidance of $6 billion this year. I just wonder, how would that number look like without the NCS tax incentives in place? I guess that's a substantial positive impact on that number. My second question is on reserves. You report reserve replacement ratio of -5%, and I understand, of course, that that's due to lower oil and gas price assumptions, partially. I just wonder which fields in particular did contribute to that low reserve replacement ratio for 2020. Thank you.
Let me start with the reserve replacement ratio, and you can prepare on the cash flow. It's fine. We used 2020 to deliberately postpone some project, improve some project to maintain our financial resilience. That caused the annual RRR to be negative. The three years average is 95%. The next project that are due for FID is the Bacalhau that will considerably change this. We deliberately moved Bacalhau from FID in 2020 to 2021. This is the biggest impact you will see.
On the cash flow, Teodor, what we are now doing is that we are focusing and prioritizing investments on the Norwegian continental shelf due to the tax incentives that are available there. That means that we have seen a lot of projects then coming up for sanctioning. I mentioned the Wisting, the Oseberg compression unit, for example, but also the electrification. That means when keeping up the activity and focusing there to benefit from where it is, then we also get the positive cash flow impact on it. For 2021, we estimate it to be around $2-ish billion in impact.
We will also, as we mentioned earlier today, we focused a lot of our activity in Norwegian continental shelf due to the tax package and increased profitability. We drilled more than 80 production wells in 2020, and we will continue with high number of production wells on the Norwegian continental shelf and also high exploration activity also for 2021.
Just to be clear, those $6 billion will be $4 billion assuming a normalized tax regime on NCS?
We are focusing on capturing the value from the tax incentives that are there. The effect on the tax package in itself is around $2 billion in improved taxes for 2021, which is benefiting and taking down the breakevens in the portfolio with around $10 there. It's focusing on the NCS activity, which gives the benefits to us and has an impact on around $2 billion.
Okay. Understood. Thank you.
Comes from line of Lydia Rainforth with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Thanks, and good morning. Two questions, if I could. Just going back to the cash flow numbers and just to be explicit, what do you expect to be the use of that free cash flow? Just in terms of the priorities, and obviously there probably is upside at the moment if I look at where gas prices and oil prices are. Any excess free cash flow, what happens to that? Perhaps just related to that, is that what constrains the renewable side at this point? Is it level of investment or is it opportunities? Just a final question on the safety element. Clearly there were probably more incidents than you might have liked over the course of 2020. Can you just talk through what specific actions have been taken to try and address some of that going into next year? Thank you.
Yeah. Let's start on the safety. We clearly see that we need to improve on safety. We're still with our best results in terms of serious incident frequency and total recordable frequency incident. We see that we have too many incidents and too many people are getting hurt. Particular will our focus be now to avoid major accidents. We're putting in an additional focus on process safety. We will use external company also to see how we can improve even further. That is the biggest steps we are doing. We're also working together with the unions and safety delegates to improve how safety delegates are involved in the way we work on a daily basis. We have built during 2020, a solid financial framework.
We will continue to make sure that we are solid in terms of both the net debt ratio, the financial flexibility. We will look for opportunities in the market, both organically and inorganically. We will have a value over volume focus on both on the oil and gas and on the renewables. We will only pursue those opportunities that will create value for our shareholders. Maybe you will have to elaborate a little bit more as well, Svein, on this.
I can elaborate a little bit on where we are in the current situation is that we are at a net debt ratio at 31.7%. It's slightly above our long-term ambition. We are comfortable with that one. We also have a strong credit rating, which is in place there. Building on what Anders is saying, we also have a very good portfolio ahead of us. As we said, the breakeven for the project expected and to be sanctioned over the next year, at $30, clearly robust portfolio, adding a lot of value. It's a kind of a combination of the totality within the financial framework that we are looking at and working on a regular basis.
Great. Thank you.
Next question comes from line of Jon Rigby with UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. Hi, Anders. Hi, Svein. Two questions. The first is you referenced a sort of cautious increase in the dividend at 4Q, sort of mindful that you wanted to indicate progress but not get ahead of yourself, which I think is sensible. As we head into June, the corporation, the company has sort of expressed its desire to get the dividend or the payout back to pre-COVID levels. Obviously with the cut, it gives you a degree of flexibility about how you think about that. Without committing yourself ahead of June, I kind of wondered whether you could think about or discuss a little bit about your thoughts on that and the sort of ability to introduce some sort of shock absorbers into your distribution policy around volatility, et cetera. The second question is on LNG. You've written off Tanzania, impaired Tanzania.
One of the things that's always sort of occurred to me or interested me about your portfolio is your strength in natural gas in Norway and your sort of integral position in the European space, but your sort of shortfall in your exposure to LNG, which is widely regarded as a transitional low carbon source of energy for quite a long time to come. Without Tanzania, does this leave a sort of strategic gap in your portfolio? Is it one that you, all things equal, would like to fill, or are you comfortable just leaving it as an absent piece? Thanks.
Thank you, Jon. Let me elaborate a little bit on the dividend first. You're right, we took extraordinary measures in this unprecedented situation in first quarter of 2020 from $0.27 to $0.09, a reduction of 67%. As you might recall, it's a three-point reference for long-term dividend level. First, our dividend policy remains firm, we will grow dividend in line with our long-term underlying earnings. Our dividend level also needs to be competitive, and of course, the fourth quarter 2019 dividend level. The speed of any return towards pre-corona level will depend on several factors. The Board of Directors will consider both the cash flow, CapEx plans, financial requirement, and also the financial flexibility we need against the macro outlook. The dividend level will be decided quarter by quarter.
We increased it last quarter from $0.09 To $0.11, and this one from $0.11 to $0.12. This is how we are thinking around the dividend level. Regarding gas, the decision around Tanzania must be seen as a more project asset decision, and not necessarily a wider thinking around our view of gas. We have not had any progress in developing this project despite a lot of hard work, and we have not seen any progress also in the regulatory framework lately. With no current plans to develop these assets, we took an impairment this quarter. Having said that, we are increasingly more and more exposed to LNG prices in our portfolio. We see that when Asia has been spiking due to cold weather and LNG outage other places in the world. We have seen also price increase in Europe due to LNG being more moved to Asia.
We don't have to be in a physical LNG plant. We can also use contractual arrangement. We are using that. A combination of contractual arrangement, gas prices in Europe exposed more and more to the LNG market give us some exposure. This is not changing any view on gas. I would also like to refer to the gas market seminar. Now I can do the marketing here. On the 19th of February, where MMP and Irene will give a more broader view on the gas outlook.
Very good. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Alastair Syme with Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi, Anders. Nice to meet you and wish you the best in your role. As you look at the mandate the Board has given you to accelerate Equinor's development as a broad energy company, do you think the company has all the skills it needs or are there areas of competency that you think you need to build? Secondly, follow-up, it struck me that the 60-month payback on Johan Sverdrup is totally outstanding. What sort of perspective does that give you around the shift to renewables? I presume there is nothing in renewables that even comes close to that level of payback if you put aside the sort of the farmed-down economics that you've been doing. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. I wish there were more Sverdrups. Sverdrup is an outstanding asset. Outstanding in terms of how we developed it, and also outstanding how we're operating it and how we actually including new digital technology to take out more value. I was not precise in my speech when I said we will have a break-even this week. It's actually on Saturday. This is outstanding work. Of course, not all assets are at the same return as Johan Sverdrup. In the long term, we see that beyond 2030, there will be a decline in demand for oil. Then we are building up a portfolio also to have cash flow capabilities beyond when we see the oil and gas going down.
That's why we will like to both optimize and invest in oil and gas, but at the same time also invest in renewables, building future cash flow capabilities as well as we see oil and gas will come down. Competence. We have been able to build up. I see more and more analysts as putting value to our renewable business. We have been able to build up this renewable business using the competence and the ability to learn new technology and industrialize based on the technology. This is really the core skills of this company, being able to working in offshore, working in harsh environment, doing the engineering, be able to operate it, and that's what we have done with renewables.
This is also what we have done in a low-carbon solution now with the Northern Lights, where we need the geologists, we need the drilling engineers, we need the pipeline engineers, everything that we do have in order to work also in that space. As we have done in 49 years, we will continue to develop our competence, our skills, develop our technology, in particular in the digital space. At the same time, we will also attract talents outside the oil and gas that we have done now for several years, coming into our renewable business, into our oil and gas business, and also into the low-carbon solution business. That is how we're going to develop these technologies and these value streams going forward. Anything to add, Svein?
No, I think you cover it well, and as you said, with the Sverdrup, with the payback. Also remember, some of the good features with the renewables is also that we're also getting some fixed income streaming into the portfolio, giving a different risk profile to the portfolio. Also there we have, by then taking position early, and then the farm down, we have also seen pretty good payback on those as well. It's not black and white, of course, as you said. Yes, we would like more Sverdrups in the portfolio, but it's about also then getting into projects which has a different profile related to it as well.
As a follow-up to the first piece, can I ask, do you think that the oil price forecast you're using, which I think is now $65 real 2020 money in the middle of this decade, is stringent enough to cause that rotation of capital that you really think you need?
I didn't hear quite the question.
Did you ask about our economic planning assumptions?
Well, yeah. It's really if the core is to find projects with very good payback, do you think that the oil price criteria you're using, because I think your fair value analysis is still based on $65 real 2020 money? Is that putting enough of a pressure on the organization to find really good projects?
Well, when we are deciding projects, we're of course using our planning assumption, but at the same time, we're adding robustness criteria to this, where we're really also look into the sensitivity and make sure that we are, in addition to maximizing the value of the project, are driving down the break-even. This is independent of the expected oil price going forward. We are seeking this robustness for every project, for every well we also are drilling. Here, it is a combination.
Okay, thank you for your time.
Can I just take this opportunity to ask people to be relatively tight in terms of the questions? We've got a few more to go, and around 15 minutes left. If we can keep it more towards the one question, please. Thanks very much.
The next question comes from line of Christyan Malek with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen, first of all, congratulations, Anders and Svein, on these appointments and the best of luck. Anders, in your first 100 days, I guess the first question, I'm sorry I'm going to have to make it two because I wasn't clear about the difference earlier that Jon asked. The first is around track record and M&A. When you've looked at the business, and seeing the sale of Bakken today with the write-down, and just reviewed the strategy, the decisions made, what do you think needs to change in terms of the way the company operates, whether it's assumptions around the macro environment, where you should be thinking about the portfolio internationally?
I just wonder to what extent do you think there is either an immediate or more urgent pressing need to sort of review the decisions and track record of the businesses internationally to obviously match the very high bar that you've set within Sverdrup, which I now understand is exceptional. The second question is the dividend. I'm still not clear. You've got a yield, one of the lowest yields in the sector with one of the best portfolios and growth outlooks, and I was slightly surprised by the dividend increase today. I thought it would be more, if I can be really honest, and I just wonder to what extent is there a more kind of desire to raise the dividend commensurate with your growth outlook and the cash flows that you're generating through this year, particularly if the macro environment is conducive.
Apologies for that second follow-up, but thank you very much.
Yeah. Thank you very much. First of all, if I kind of reflect a little bit on, you say, the strategy and the urgency, I think we demonstrated today that we have a solid financial framework. We spent the 2020 well, and also the energy transition and the way we have built up also a portfolio of renewables that taken place over many, many years. Credit to the previous CEO. I think we are very well placed, both on the financial, taking advantage of increasing oil price and gas price. We have built up the capabilities to do and move into projects like Dogger Bank and the Empire Wind, competing for the big contracts in renewables and taking significant step into the low-carbon solutions. This is a solid fundament that we will build on.
We see, as I said earlier today, that we are not robust enough in the international oil and gas. We will continue working on that and enable further growth both in oil and gas and also taking the new opportunities that we see, particular in other areas for offshore wind, both in Poland, Asia, et cetera. This is not any need for any turnaround is to build on the strength and continue to take steps such that we are a leader in the energy transition. We have a history of being first out with some technology, first out with a lot of technology, compressor at the subsea for oil and gas, floating wind parks for renewable and then also the Northern Lights and CCS storage for the low carbon solution. That is the fundament we will build on in the strategy update.
You will see us continuously developing in the direction I've indicated. Regarding the dividend, same as I said to Jon, the dividend level will be based on those three points of reference that I mentioned. We will look at the cash flow, the CapEx plan, the financial requirements, and also the financial flexibility we need in terms of the macro outlook we see. But also remind you that there are volatility. What we learned in 2020 is that there are surprises and that's why we're saying we will evaluate this quarter by quarter.
The next question comes from line of Yoann Charenton with Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Anders and Svein. My question will relate to the 2021 production guidance. If we adjust for the Bakken asset sale, it looks like the guidance calls for broadly flattish or very slightly rising production growth this year. Would you be able to provide some color on the factors across your portfolio that offset Norway's production strength in 2021? I will be keen to really understand, for example, what is the implied decline rate in Angola and what sort of production profile is assumed in the Appalachian. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you for your question. As we said, it's the around 2% growth from the end 2020 to 2021. If you look at Bakken in itself in 2020, it had an average of around 70,000 barrels per day. It was ending then towards 60,000 barrel per day. There are declines since we have stopped then drilling on new wells and then also the fracking there. The expectations then for 2020, if it has been in our portfolio, it would then be lower than the exit rate that we had. That is some of the consideration around that one. If you look at the decline as a totality, I think where we are operator, and we need to comment on where we are operator, we see a 5% decline rates in the fields. That we have said earlier and that we say now.
On the Angola one, there we also need then to ask also questions towards the operator in those assets, because we also see that there have been some optimization in the COVID situation, taking measures there in that context. On Appalachian, there are still rigs that is then being drilling wells there because we see that there are opportunity to continue then to deliver low cost gas barrels into the market in U.S. Where we are partner, then there are rigs then drilling new wells as we speak and as also been done in the fourth quarter.
Thank you.
Next question comes from line of John Olaisen with ABG. Please go ahead.
Oh, sorry. Actually, I remove myself from the queue. All my questions have been answered. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Peter Low with Redburn. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Thanks. Just a quick one on your growth aspirations in offshore wind. Are you able to confirm whether you bid in the latest U.K. lease round, the results of which were announced this week? Perhaps more generally, are you seeing competition for new acreage increase, and how confident are you that you can remain competitive? Thanks.
Thank you. We are not able to confirm if we participated or not, generally speaking, we see an increasing competition in the offshore wind segment with new competitors coming in. We have 15 years of experience from offshore wind to build up the capabilities both from operation, project development. We've been able to bring down the cost quite substantially from the first project that we did on Sheringham Shoal to now Dogger Bank.
We have been in this improvement mode for many years and are confident that we will also be competitive in the areas where we select to compete. We will select areas where we see that we can utilize our experience, our competence, and particular where we can utilize the offshore floating wind, where we have a leading position with the biggest floating offshore wind park being developed at Hywind Tampen that will supply five oil and gas platforms with power. That is how we're thinking about our competitive situation.
Thanks.
Next question comes from line of Anders Holte with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. It's a question to the CFO. It goes more to the point of the spending levels that you have guided on for 2021 and 2022. Obviously, what you spend in 2021 is going to be covered by the tax amendments currently in place in Norway. My question is more precisely at what percentage of the 50% spending level in Norway is going to be covered by the amended tax regime in 2022?
In 2022, the exact numbers that we will need to come back to at a later stage. We see that full benefits then in 2021 on the tax packages in Norway. What will then happen for the CapEx in 2022 and onwards is that the things that we sanction now in 2021 and 2022 will then start and to have also the benefits as we move along. Normally, what you typically see is that you have a ramp-up of projects. When you sanction it, you are not spending most of the money early on before you opt then to the running speed. That means that you have less impact in the early days, but then more impact from the tax benefits in those projects when we are welcoming from 2022 and 2023 and onwards.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question is from the line of Martijn Rats with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
I had removed myself from the queue. All my questions have been answered. You covered an awful lot. In the interest of time and to do Peter a favor, I'll hand it back.
Thanks, Martijn. I will always take a favor when it's offered, so I appreciate that one. Thank you to everybody for calling in. I'm pleased to be finishing absolutely at 11:30 CET, so I'm very pleased about that one. Can I take this opportunity to thank Anders and Svein? We will now close the equity part of this. Thank you, Anders, for the reminder of the gas seminar later this month. You'll be getting invites to that one. Of course, if there are any questions in follow-up, please don't hesitate to contact us in investor relations. With that, as I say, we'll close the equity part. The media one will continue on Zoom. Thank you very much for joining.
Thank you, Peter, and good morning everybody. My name is Bård Glad Pedersen. I'm Head of Media Relations in Equinor, and will run this Q&A session. We are ready to start that immediately. This will be run on Zoom, and you have two different opportunities to ask questions. Either you can use the function to raise your hand, and you will be called upon when it's your turn to ask a question, and then please unmute when you ask your questions. Alternatively, you can ask your questions using the chat function, and I will read the questions, and some of you have already taken that opportunity. We will continue to run it in English for the benefit of those international journalists attending and for those watching the webcast still ongoing. Both Anders and Svein will continue to be on stage and available to respond to questions.
With that, I think we start. I'll kick us off with a question that has been posted in the chat field. Actually, a double question from Ole Helgesen in Upstream. The question is, "Total said today that underinvestment, OPEC Plus production restraints and cracks in the U.S. shale model, we risk a 10 million barrels per day global oil supply shortfall between now and 2025. Do you agree with this assessment of supply and demand?" The second part of the question is, can you elaborate on how the future split between renewables and low carbon on the one hand versus oil and gas will be in the future? Could rising oil prices affect this split?
Thank you. I'm not going to comment exactly what Total is saying, but how we see the market is that the OPEC Plus and the compliance with the decision OPEC Plus is working. There is a high degree of compliance and we are seeing that in terms of gradually increased prices. We know that there are more supply behind the valves that can be opened up at the moment. We also see that there are quite a lot of demand for oil and gas over the next period of time. We see also the storage going down and the investments are going down. We're also seeing in two to three years that the supply and demand will meet. This is reflected in our long-term EPA prices where we see a $65 in 2025.
The second question you have to remind me, Bård.
The question was on how you see the future split between renewables and low carbon on the one hand, and oil and gas on the other hand, and if a spike in oil prices can impact that.
Yeah. As you saw earlier today, we said that the amount of gross CapEx we committed or made investment decision for in 2020 was $3.2 billion. That included the Dogger Bank A and B and some electrification projects on Gina Krog and Sleipner and also the Northern Lights project. We will see that the balance between oil and gas projects and renewables low-carbon projects will gradually increase over time. We see a substantial higher amount from renewables and low carbon. For independent of oil prices, oil prices are volatile. We will always seek to make sure that we have robust projects even if we have short time spikes in the oil price. We are preparing according to our EPA prices and adding robustness criteria to that. We will do that independent of the oil price.
Thank you. We will take the next question from Marius Lorentzen in E24. Marius, please unmute and ask your question.
Hello, thank you so much for taking the time. I have a couple of questions regarding your results. First of all, can you say what refinery you impaired in Norway? Secondly, in the measures you took starting at the beginning of last year to cut costs and investments you mentioned that your operating costs fell more than expected, can you say what other elements gave that increase from $3 billion to $3.7 billion?
Yeah. You prepare on that.
Yeah
The slide.
Yeah. Refinery in Norway. We have done some impairment on Mongstad. This is due to we see pressed refinery margins over the time and also somewhat higher cost going forward. That has led to the impairment of this asset.
Yeah. On the $3.7 billion or more than $3.7 billion, as we said, it comes then from CapEx, OpEx, and exploration. Let me then reflect a bit on it. A year ago, we said that we had a guiding of $10 billion-$11 billion for investments for the year. We delivered $7.8 billion. In a way, you take from $10.5 billion to $7.8 billion. That is the first element that comes into the equation. The second one is then regarding then the OpEx, where we then set a target when we launched it back in March of more than $700 million. In fact, on the operating cost side, we delivered $1 billion.
If we then had taken into account the same currency rates as we used when we launched it in March, it would have been even bigger both for CapEx as well as for OpEx part of it. We also reduced exploration activity from $1.4 billion, and we delivered $1.1 billion.
Just want to remind you to avoid double counting on those one in the cost, as well as we are also then capitalizing some of the exploration. We say more than $3.7 billion. If you look at the split of it, we have seen on the CapEx side, we have taken down a lot in the international segment. For example, what we did in U.S. with onshore there, and coming down. We also have worked consistently across the organization with improvements so that we have been able to take down OpEx in all segments as we have been able and to deliver on. Those are the building blocks going into the more than $3.7 billion in savings that we have realized.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. It seems the preferred solution for many is to post their questions in chat. I'll take one from there. It's from Nerijus Adomaitis in Reuters. The question is, did you participate in the latest U.K. offshore lease round, and what is your view on the outcome, especially the prices paid? Do you also have more details regarding your plans for participating in the upcoming Norwegian tender? Will you participate for both Utsira Nord and Southern North Sea 2?
Yeah. Thank you. We are not able to confirm if we participated or not. We have noticed the strong competition, but we are also seeing that there are growing opportunities in other areas as well, in addition to those in U.K. We will compete in upcoming auctions based on our competitiveness and experience. We have been in this market for many years and demonstrated a strong value creation. We come from Norway. We have developed the oil and gas industry in Norway, and now we see also an opportunity to continue developing the offshore wind. We are already developing floating offshore wind in Norway with the Hywind Tampen project. We see the opportunities coming both on Utsira and the southern area as very interesting.
What we can offer into this is that, of course, demonstrated experience and capabilities for offshore wind, both on floating and on the fixed bottom wind turbines.
Thank you. The next question is from Morten Ånestad in Dagens Næringsliv. How, Anders, would you explain the difference between your strategy internationally and the former CEO? How will you characterize the international expansion from 2007 after the Hydro merger and up until today?
I'm actually very lucky taking over after Eldar Sætre, that has built up a very strong Equinor together with all the employees over many years. We have struggled in the international portfolio for a while and been working for several years to improve it. There has been taken significant step to improve our efficiency and competitiveness in U.S. onshore and elsewhere over the last years. We see that other competitors have also improved and particular in U.S. conventional, there are others that are able to operate in a much more cost-efficient way. Among that, we enjoy that working together with Chesapeake on the Appalachian gas asset and the Southwestern. We have invested quite a lot in the international business when the oil price was much higher.
This has proven not to be robust enough when the oil price has been falling, and we have taken significantly impairment and losses. My job now is to look forward. We have the portfolio at the moment, and we will continuously improve that one. We have taken steps today, and we will continue working in improving both the Norwegian portfolio and the international portfolio, actually both in oil and gas, but also in renewables. Continuous improvement will always be our preferred tool to improve our business.
Thank you. Let me remind reporters that you can use the Raise Hand function to ask your questions yourself, but I will continue to take those that has been posted in the chat function. There is a question from Lars Taraldsen in Bloomberg. Total has taken the step of only selling debt that has some sort of sustainability criteria. Is that something that Equinor might do? If so, how soon? If not, why not? Do you see a divide opening in the oil industry between clean and dirty producers, with some branding themselves as ESG investment options?
Let Svein, the CFO, take the bond question.
Thank you, Anders, thank you for the question there. What we see as a group and totality is that we are in a situation with a solid balance sheet, being able then to manage through 2020 with the COVID crisis. We are now in a situation where we have a net debt ratio of 31.7%. We also have a strong rating. We are rated AA- as a group. That means that we are able then to borrow money at good conditions, at good terms in the market. Of course, we are also following what is happening within the green bonds and all those there. We're also seeing it from a corporate perspective, seeing how can we raise funds, what is the best available solutions offered to us.
That's why we also, when we raised bond during 2020, we selected then to do it on a corporate level. We also then in the renewables projects, we also project financing, and we see that there's also attractive offers available then for project financing into the renewable. We do a kind of a mix on how we are financing it. We are following the market closely as it develops.
Yeah, and let me just add on, we have a very strong credit rating with A A on both rating agencies. There has been some revision of the oil and gas sector, and there are many that's been on the watchlist, but we are not on the watchlist, so we are very good credit rating, and we have access to competitive spreads in the market.
Thank you. The next question is from Deb Kelly in Energy Intelligence. How do you strike the right balance between slimming down the company to position for a profitable future and maintaining the manpower that will allow you to develop both your upstream portfolio and the new offshore wind projects? To that end, could we see Equinor in any bigger transactions involving utilities in the future?
Well, BD is of course one of the toolbox we do have for creating values, but we never comment on that one. We will of course continue to build the competence in the organization. We see that there are a lot of people that will retire over the next 10 years, so we will need to recruit. We will need to recruit both in the oil and gas and in the renewables and low carbon solution. We will need new talents with new skills also into all parts of our business. We might be fewer in the future, but that does not saying that we're going to scale down. We are reorganizing at the moment, but that is not a downsizing exercise. Any reducing of people will be based on activity level in certain areas.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from you again, Marius Lorentzen in E24.
All right. Thank you. Over the past years, also recently, you've booked some significant profits in renewable deals. When you look at what happened in the U.K. just the other day and the prices that BP and others were willing to pay, as you view it, the window of opportunity closing to make good profits from these types of projects, or do you still see viable paths for Equinor to acquire acreage and make profitable projects?
We see that offshore wind will be needed for many countries to provide more clean energy, and the world need more clean energy and more and more regions need that. Offshore wind is the closest you come from a renewable to a base load. We will see a growing number of countries that will also include offshore wind into their energy mix. In that respect, we will seek those opportunities. We see there will be a growing number of opportunities, and we will capture those opportunities that gives us the required return from this business. We are in a very good position to capture that based on our experience and been reducing cost over time. Hywind Scotland to Hywind Tampen was a reduction of 40% per megawatt, and we will continue to do this kind of work.
I think we are well positioned, even that we see increased competition, in particular in some areas.
Thank you.
Thank you, Marius. I have a question from Herman Moestue in Montel. Let's see. It's written in Norwegian, so I'll translate as we go. Can you say something about the development of European gas prices this winter? Cold weather has given higher prices. How do you see the price development going forward? Connected to that, the last couple of years, there's been talk about an LNG glut. Is this situation now more normalized, and could that contribute to upwards pressure on prices?
On the gas prices, this has been a combination of many factors lately. We have seen an outage of some LNG plants combined with lack of transportation vessels and also a strong cold winter in Asia. This in combination directed a lot of LNGs to Asia that should have come to Europe. Then we have seen an upward pressure from European piped gas. We see now that due to cold winter also in Europe, more and more gas is being used and with less LNG coming in, the delay in the Nord Stream 2, the storage and withdrawal from the storage is increasing. That gives a support for a positive outlook of the prices also coming into the summer season.
I think we will see a volatile market based on this a little bit here, but we see that the market is more balancing when we move a year and two ahead.
Thank you, Anders. The next question is from Morten Ånestad in Dagens Næringsliv regarding Mongstad. Have you made any assessment of the costs related to getting Mongstad in compliance with Norwegian environmental regulations?
Well, this is related to the water treatment facility, and also the oil pipes there. This is included in our cost estimates for the Mongstad refinery. We will, of course, run the refinery within all regulations from the environmental agency. All elements are included.
Thank you. A question from Nick Coleman in Platts. Please clarify FID plans for the next year or two internationally. Is Bacalhau the only one, or do you expect others? "Do you expect Rosebank FID by May 2022?" he asked. Also, are you confident of Wisting investment decision by end 2022 given the complexity of this?
Bacalhau is the project that we will do an FID in 2021, the first half of 2021. We are waiting for the regulatory approval of the unitization. For the other international projects, we are working now on improving them, ensuring that we are able to deliver them with the lowest breakeven and the highest net present value that we are able to achieve. We have some plans, but we have no firm plans and exact dates for the FID. We will make the FID when we think they are good enough and also in accordance with the expectation from the local authorities as well. We're working very hard on the Wisting project now.
This was one of those projects that we highlighted as a project that we would sanction as a part of the tax package discussion to demonstrate the value creation for the supplier industry and local societies. We are progressing this project now according to the plan, and we'll do the FID towards late 2022.
Thank you. The next question from Lars Taraldsen in Bloomberg again. Do you have any plans on further divestments from American shale?
Well, we announced today that we are divesting from Bakken. Let me just elaborate on that we have a very strong, solid position in the U.S. left with our U.S. offshore fields in Gulf of Mexico contributing significantly to the cash flow outlook we gave earlier today. Also the Appalachian gas assets that is very close to the market, where we also see that we have trading opportunities on top of an integrated midstream position. We have significantly value left in U.S. We have one small operated position, and we will look also at the strategic option for that potential JV with some other operators in the neighborhood. That is just one of the strategic option we are pursuing, and we have to come back to that at a later stage.
Thank you. I have one question noted left, that is from Deb Kelly in Energy Intelligence, I will take that now. There has been a few question that has been on the same subject, I've taken only one of them, I think I have covered all. If there are any outstanding question, please take the opportunity while we cover the final question from Deb. The question from Deb Kelly is, can you provide some color around your exploration strategy going forward? What are your thoughts on the best way to realize value from your venture capital investments in the clean energy space? Two questions in one there.
For the exploration, we have focused our exploration strategy. We see good possibilities in already prolific areas, where we do have a position, particularly in the Norwegian continental shelf, in Brazil and Gulf of Mexico, among others. The exploration departments worked really hard to improve over the last year in terms of administration costs and reduced significantly on the costs. That's why we are able to guide a little bit down for 2021. We are going to drill between 20 and 30 exploration wells also in 2021. Exploration is significant part of our business, but every well will be high-graded, and they will also need to meet the necessary value creation potential and the potential life cycle break-even as well. Regarding the venture portfolio, it's a very exciting portfolio with a lot of new technology.
For us, of course, there is a potential to have increase in the value of the investment itself, but we are always looking for potential to integrate this technology into our business and really scale up the value substantially. Let me give you just one example. We are investing in a company called Gumbo, a blockchain. As you know, we have digitalized Johan Sverdrup. We have a lot of sensor collecting data. Using blockchain, we are able to set up new types of contracts that actually we are measuring data Johan Sverdrup, but this is automatically by new types of contract being converted into the price we're going to pay to the supplier, and it can be paid immediately, and nobody needs to be in between. This is somewhere where we can use the exciting technology from the venture portfolio into our business.
We get a value creation on both sides.
Thank you. During that, we got two more question, one on Mongstad, one on Peregrino. If it's okay with you, we will cover those in one go, and that will be the final questions of this Q&A. The question on Mongstad first, it's from Mikael Holter in Dagens Næringsliv now. On the impairment, can you provide a more precise figure on that and some more details on the causes behind it? You said part of it was due to lower margins and part higher cost. Can you provide a breakdown of the two? Can you confirm that the costs are related to upgrading the facility to get in line with regulations? That's the Mongstad question. The one on Peregrino, when will the production start again? What is the status for phase two? That's from Erlend Skarsaune in Stavanger Aftenblad.
Yeah. Let me start with the Peregrino question, and since there is detailed numbers, I leave it to the CFO for the Mongstad. That's the CFO job. On the Peregrino, we're working on the risers on the main field, they erupted last year. We are a little bit delayed on fixing those risers due to COVID-19. We have had outbreaks on the facility and had to take down the manning several times. During first quarter, we should be able to have the first riser installed. Let me also elaborate a little bit on the Peregrino 2 project. This was a project that one year ago was on time and below budget, but due to the COVID-19, we have had to demand the flotel many times, and in periods have no progress on the project.
The production startup that was supposed to be end of last year will be in end of this year. For all of these projects that are highly affected by manning and due to infection risk they have some uncertainty in them.
On Mongstad, as I said in my speech, we have an impairment of around $600 million related to it. It's then regarding then several factors that is impacting it. It's both the refinery margins on the totality and the outlook there going forward, which is then a very important part of generating the cash flow. It's then the cost side, and then also related to the CapEx side, as well as the totality on the EU ETS, the taxes and so on. I can't be specific on how much each of the elements are. It's a combination of all those three that is important.
The margin and cost and CapEx in totality meant that we did an impairment of the size that we did know in the fourth quarter.
Thank you. With that, we round off the Q&A session also for media. Thank you very much to Anders Opedal and Svein Skeie, for taking the questions. Thank you to all journalists attending on Zoom and asking questions. Thank you to all of you who have followed the webcast since 10:00 this morning. Thank you all, and have a good rest of the day.