Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Vår Energi's Q4 presentation of 2023. Today's call is being recorded. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. I would like to introduce Head of Investor Relations, Ida Marie Fjellheim. Ida, please begin.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. A warm welcome to Vår Energi's fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. The presentation today will be given by our CEO, Nick Walker, and our CFO, Stefano Pujatti. Nick and Stefano will present the results, and afterwards, we will open up for Q&A. I will now give the word to Nick.
Good morning, and thank you, Ida. Good morning to you all, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results presentation. We'll also be providing guidance for 2024. Of course, as usual, as Ida says, we'll open up for your questions at the end. We were very pleased to report closing of the Neptune Energy Norge acquisition in January, and we're excited to welcome 300 new colleagues from Neptune to our team. The task now is to integrate the two organizations as quickly as possible, to work as one team, pulling together to deliver on our strategy and goals, and I'll come back to this later. The closing of this transaction makes Vår Energi the third largest operator on the NCS and the second largest exporter of gas from Norway.
So we're a major energy supplier to Europe, and lots of people rely on us to deliver every day. We'll hold our capital markets update in Oslo on the thirteenth of March, where we'll update on the delivery of our strategy for growth and value creation and the outlook for the combined business. And I do hope that you'll be able to join us then. I'm pleased to report a quarter with strong financial performance, supported by high realized prices and good operational performance. We continue to provide material dividend distribution, and we're on track to deliver high growth and value creation. Now let us look at the highlights for the quarter. Vår Energi is one of the fastest growing E&Ps in the world, and we're making good progress towards our target of producing around 400,000 bbl a day by end of 2025.
As previously announced, the Breidablikk and Tommeliten Alpha projects came on stream during the quarter and are producing strongly. We produced in line with guidance, with Q4 averaging 225,000 bbl a day, and we exited the year at 233,000 bbl a day. With the closing of the Neptune Energy Norge acquisition, this adds 65,000 bbl-70,000 bbl a day through to the end of the decade. Today, we're producing around 300,000 bbl a day. On the back of good operational performance, we continued to deliver strong financial results. Our gas sales strategy continues to realize above-market prices, with a gas price of $90 per BOE, which was $13 above spot.
Production cost beat guidance with $13.9 per bbl in the quarter, and we delivered strong cash flow from operations post-tax for the quarter of $857 million, and we maintain a strong investment-grade balance sheet. And lastly, we continue to deliver attractive and predictable shareholder distributions. We confirm, confirm a Q4 dividend of $0.11 per share, in line with guidance, to be distributed in February, and this means total 2023 dividend payout is approximately $1.1 billion. And we're providing Q1 2024 dividend guidance of $270 million, in line with 2023 payout levels, and are guiding full-year dividend totaling approximately 30% of CFFO after tax. This table shows our actual outcome for 2023 compared to the latest guidance we had given. You can see we've done well against all the targets.
As I've already stated, production was in line with guidance, and we exited the year in a strong position. Production costs beat guidance due to a combination of strong operational delivery and currency effects, and as most of our costs are in Norwegian kroner, we're helped by the strong US dollar. Our OpEx came within guidance, despite increased costs announced for our two big projects. Again, this was helped by currency effects. Overall, good performance against our key targets, which underpins our strong financial results. We were excited to close the Neptune acquisition in January. It's a value-accretive deal that adds scale, diversification, and longevity to our portfolio, and as we say, is the perfect fit. You can see some metrics here for the combined company. We have over 200 licenses on the NCS, of which around one third are operating.
We have shares in 47 producing fields, and our combined reserves, plus discovered resources, total around 2 billion bbl. The deal cements our position as a leading independent E&P, and we're the third largest operator on the NCS. We expect to yield significant synergies from the transaction, in excess of $300 million post-tax over time. This comes from a robust development and exploration portfolio, improved asset utilization, and commercial optimization of our gas sales. The Neptune assets are cost-efficient, with low emissions, and with limited near-term CapEx, making the deal highly cash accretive and strengthening future dividends capacity. Our 300 new colleagues from Neptune add significant capability to our team, and now comes the task of integrating both companies.
So that as quickly as possible, we have one team pulling together to deliver on our strategy and goals, and we're well advanced on the planning to make this happen. Neptune Energy Norge has been renamed as Vår Energi Norge and is operating as a fully owned subsidiary of Vår Energi. From the first of May this year, we'll fully integrate both organizations as one team, and the companies will, as normal practice on the NCS, consolidate both businesses in the second half of 2024. Turning now to our production outlook for this year, we're guiding for the full year a range of production between 280,000-300,000 BOEs per day, of which 35% is gas. The Neptune assets are included, from 2024, and you can see from the chart, Q3 is significantly impacted by planned turnarounds.
We're including Balder X and Johan Castberg assets from fourth quarter, and naturally, there's a range around the startup timing and the rate of ramp up for both of these projects, and this leads to the production growth towards the end of the year. Underlying the profile, we have natural declines of around 10%, which is partially offset by a continuous program of infill drilling. We've previously announced that we will dispose of a package of non-core assets during the year. Our guidance range for 2024 does not include the impact of this, and when we conclude the transaction, we'll update our guidance accordingly. Today, we're producing around 300,000 bbl a day, so we've got it off to a good start to the year. Looking now at longer term growth outlook.
From 2023, our average production of 213,000 bbl a day, we're set to almost double production to around 400,000 bbl a day by the end of 2025. We're already around halfway there with a ramp up of new production towards the end of last year and the addition of the Neptune assets. Our portfolio of nine projects in development, with the main ones being Balder X and Johan Castberg, will add significant new volumes, and as I said, we'll dispose of some non-core assets to high-grade the portfolio. For example, the Brage disposal we closed at the end of last year. When you put this together, it means we'll grow to around 400,000 bbl a day by the end of 2025. Beyond 2025, we will sustain value creation through four elements.
Firstly, infill drilling and improve recovery at our core assets, and I think there's a lot more to go. Secondly, maturing a high-value project portfolio to move our significant discovered resource base into production, and I'll come back to this later. And thirdly, drilling out our exciting exploration portfolio. On top of this, we'll also consider opportunistic M and A. So we're on track to deliver significant production growth and create value. It is our belief that it is important to position the company for the energy transition, to maintain relevance and investability long term, and we're doing just that, and are being recognized for it. Safety performance is top priority for us, and we have a good trend on improving our performance with zero actual serious incidents in the quarter.
Overall, last year, we showed about 50% improvement across a range of safety metrics, but we need to go further, and this requires focus from everyone every day. We're making good progress on emissions reduction, with carbon intensity in the top quartile of industry, and expect methane emissions in 2024 to be classed as near zero. We have a clear path to 50% operational emissions reduction from our portfolio by 2030. This is driven by a focus on investments in reducing emissions and electrification of our assets, and it's my hope that we can find ways to accelerate the path to Net Zero operations. We're also getting recognition for our ESG leadership, with being a top-ranked company by Sustainalytics. This is leveraging to how the company is viewed.
Looking now at production, we had strong operational performance in Q4, with production of 225,000 bbls a day, an increase from Q3. This is mainly due to completion of the turnaround season, good production efficiency across the portfolio, and startups of Breidablikk and Tommeliten Alpha in October, which have shown strong performance since they came online. As a consequence, we exited the year strongly, with production in December at 233,000 bbls a day, which is as per guidance. And now looking at production costs, we beat guidance last year with a full year at $14.1 per bbl, compared to the guidance range of $14.5-$15.5 per bbl.
For 2024, we're guiding production costs of $13.5-$14.5 per bbl, reflecting the increased production, relatively lower OpEx for the Neptune assets that come in, but partially offset by inflationary pressures. But we have a good trajectory longer term, and we'll see OpEx reduce materially, with the main drivers of this being threefold. Firstly, there are new projects coming on stream, which have relatively lower unit operating costs, our active improvement program, and rationalization of our portfolio. So now looking at our quality project portfolio, that is key to delivering our growth strategy... and this unlocks more than 500 milllion bbl of reserves. After the recent startups of Tommeliten and Breidablikk, we have nine of 18 projects remaining in execution, and with six of those more than 50% complete.
Let me remind you that most of these projects are subsea tie-backs. This means more standardized concepts and execution, and thereby less complexity and more predictable delivery. This portfolio drives our growth trajectory and creates significant value, which you can see with break-evens of around $35 per bbl for the remaining projects to be delivered. Turning now to our two large projects. First of all, Balder. The Jotun FPSO is a key enabler to continue to deliver material future value in the Balder area. This key project unlocks gross production of 78,000 bbls a day, and with low operating costs of around $5 per bbl. The potential is for up to 500 milllion bbl of additional resource remaining to be produced from the Balder area, which is as much again as being produced to date.
We continue to de-risk and appraise this material upside, and we expect there will be multiple future phases of development, and we're already working on some. The status of the project is that Balder Jotun FPSO completion is now over 90% complete. The other elements of the project, drilling and subsea facilities, are progressing to plan. We've achieved solid progress in increasing the pace of the remaining work on the FPSO, with overall progress only slightly behind plan, and completion of the project is in sight. However, certain critical path activities have not been completed according to schedule to allow commissioning to commence in time to achieve first oil in Q3 2024, and the targeted first oil is moved to Q4 2024. This requires that the FPSO sails away from inshore in August.
Activities are progressing well on all fronts, and Vår Energi maintains its target startup in Q4 2024, if weather conditions allow us to perform offshore installation activities in the autumn of this year. The P90 startup is by end Q2 2025. If first oil moves to 2025, it will have limited impact on 2024 production guidance. The company's target to double production to around 400,000 bbls a day by end 2025 is not influenced and remains unchanged. As the project is reaching completion, this is principally a schedule issue and does not have a material impact on guided costs. It's important, I think, to stress that Vår Energi has a high-quality portfolio, strong liquidity, increasing cash flows, and is placed to pay predictable and sustainable dividends according to the stated policy.
Now, Balder has been a difficult project, and we're over 90% done, and with completion in sight, and we're focused hard on meeting the target of first oil in Q4 this year. Turning now to our other major project, Johan Castberg. I had a visit to the FPSO at the storage yard in December. I was very impressed by the quality of build and the status of completion. The drilling and subsea aspects of this project are progressing to schedule, and we see that the FPSO is firmly on track to install in the summer and achieve first oil in the fourth quarter this year. Johan Castberg is a key catalyst for Vår Energi's growth profile, with plateau production from the field of around 190,000 bbls a day gross, with Vår Energi's net share being around 55,000 bbls a day.
These are high-value barrels, with OpEx of around $4 a bbl and break-even economics of $35. We see further value upside from extending the plateau through the area tie-back opportunities, where further phases of development are being progressed, and we will be drilling an exploration well in the second half of this year. Now focusing on our exciting exploration program. We've had another successful year. We made five discoveries from seven exploration wells drilled for an overall success rate of over 70%. This builds on our track record over the last five years, which has seen the company add, with the drill bit, over 150 milllion bbl of 2C contingent resources at an attractive finding cost of less than $1 per bbl post-tax and with a success rate of over 50%.
I'm really excited by the company's exploration portfolio, which has over 1 billion bbls of net risk resources, and most of these opportunities are close to existing infrastructure. So with success will be tieback developments with short cycle times, low cost, and strong economics. And you can see in 2024, we're doubling our exploration drilling and we'll participate in 16 exploration wells, seven of them operated, which are targeting net risk resources of around 150 milllion bbl . Our exploration spend guidance is $300 million for the year. These wells, as you can see, are spread through our four hub areas, and all but three wells are step-out opportunities from existing infrastructure. And I think it's gonna be really exciting to see the results from this program come in through the year.
As a company, I think we have an amazing portfolio with lots of optionality and growth opportunities, and we're working to move this forward at pace. Combined, Vår Energi plus Neptune, 2P reserves at end 2023 stand at 1.24 billion bbls, and this underpins our growth profile and what people see in terms of value. For the first time, we've also announced our 2C contingent resources, which stand at around 750 milllion bbl ... These are discovered resources, but where there are no defined development plan. With activity during this year to de-risk or move forward around two-thirds of these resources, and are actively working on development options for around 300 milllion bbl of the total.
And then if you add our exploration portfolio of over 1 billion bbls of net risk resources, we have around 3 billion bbls of potential in the portfolio. So once we reach 400,000 bbls a day at the end of 2025, it is this resource opportunity that will allow us to organically sustain our production going forward, and we will talk more about this at our CMU in March. Now, that rounds off my operational update, and I now hand over to Stefano to review the financials. Thank you.
Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everybody. Now, let's deep dive into the key financials for the fourth quarter and see why Vår Energi is a unique combination of value creation, extraordinary growth, distribution capacity, underpinned by an investment-grade balance sheet. We generated solid revenues and operating cash flow after tax of close to $857 million in Q4 on the back of continued high oil and gas price realizations. Full year, we were at $3.4 billion. Our financial position stays strong, with a leverage ratio at 0.5 net debt to EBITDAX, and $3.7 billion in cash and undrawn facilities. We confirm the fourth quarter dividend of $270 million, and plan to pay another $270 million for the first quarter of 2024.
I will now go into more details of our fourth quarter financial performance. We generated more than $1.6 billion of revenues, up $63 million dollars to previous quarter, mainly due to higher volumes. The realized price for oil in the quarter was $85 per bbl, in line with Brent. We continue our strong gas price realization of around $90 per bbl. Year to date, the average realized gas price is $115 per bbl, which represent a premium of $38 per bbl compared to spot. This amounts to more than $950 million in extra sales revenues in 2023. Taking a closer look at the gas sales in Q4, around 48% of the sales were on day ahead basis at $74 per bbl.
Around 27% was sold on a month ahead basis at $82 per bbl. Both month ahead and day ahead were weighted toward the French and German market. Remaining 25% were delivered under contracts with fixed pricing, realizing an average of $130 per bbl. Now, going forward, what can be expected? We continue to have our robust sale portfolio with access to several markets, and we will have flexibility in the contracts to decide the split between month ahead, day ahead, and fixed contracts. When taking into account also the new volumes from the Neptune portfolio, we will continue to have fixed price sales representing around 15%-18% of the gas sales. The prices for these sales are around $130 per bbl in the next three quarters, so until end of Q3 2024.
I would also like to mention that our oil production is fully hedged on a post-tax basis for 2024, including the Neptune volumes, with monthly put options at a strike price of $50 per bbl... or $50, and we plan to continue the program going forward also in 2025. Cash flow generation from operations in the quarter was $857 million, lower by $118 million than the third quarter due to higher tax payments, partly offset by reduced working capital and higher revenues. For the first 12 months, we have generated $3.4 billion in cash flow from operations after tax. Our CapEx for the quarter was $661 million, where Balder X and Johan Castberg remained the largest contributor of the total spend.
The strong operating cash flow covered the company CapEx with good margin. CFFO to CapEx coverage was 1.3 in the quarter. CapEx for the full year was $2.6 billion, within the guidance we provided for the year of $2.4 billion-$2.7 billion. Tax payments for the fourth quarter, including the revision up NOK 1 billion, due to stronger commodity prices, ended at $568 million. For the first semester of 2024, including Neptune Norway, we plan to pay NOK 15 billion, approximately $1.5 billion, and these are related to the remaining 50% taxes of 2023 results. At mid-year, we will update the tax estimates for 2024, and in the second half of this year, we will be paying approximately 50% of the 2024 estimated profits.
We have included a tax sensitivity for the second half of 2024 at different price scenarios, which we hope can provide some guidance on tax going forward. Important to state that also these sensitivities include tax, tax effects from the Neptune acquisition. Our resiliency and strong cash flow generation continued despite persistent volatility in the commodities into Q4. On the left, we see the development in our cash position from Q3 to the end of the year 2023. We generated $1.3 billion in CFFO before taxes and working capital, in line with previous quarter, and $857 million after tax and working capital movements. We further had cash outflow related to investments in our high-value growth project, and we had net cash inflow of roughly $200 million from financing activities.
We also distributed, as planned, $270 million in dividends to our shareholders. In summary, the cash position at the end of the year stood at $735 million, and our available liquidity was $3.7 billion at the end of Q4, including new long-dated funding raised in November, compared to $3.1 billion in the previous quarter, meaning we have increased further our already strong liquidity position at year-end. We are committed to maintain our investment grade rating. The leverage ratio, net interest being debt on EBITDA, ended at 0.5 at the end of the quarter, unchanged from the previous quarter, and this is well below our over the cycle target of 1.3.
Vår Energi has, in fourth quarter, issued a successful inaugural euro hybrid transaction, securing EUR 700 million of new funding. Having previously established our presence in the global debt capital market with senior dollar and euro notes issuances in 2022 and 2023, we are now broadening our range of funding sources, and we are diversifying our investor base and reinforcing our balance sheet with a new layer of capital. The weighted average time to maturity of our debt portfolio is approximately four years and a half, and when excluding the 60-year hybrid, and this is supporting the execution of our growth strategy towards end of 2025 and beyond. The strong financial position lays a foundation of for continued material shareholder distribution and growth. Strong and resilient financial performance support attractive and predictable dividends.
We confirm $270 million in dividend for the fourth quarter, which is equal to $0.11 per share to be paid on the February 27th of this month. The dividend guidance for the first quarter is $270 million, despite a continued volatile commodity price environment, showing the commitment and resilience of the company to attractive shareholder distribution. We maintain our dividend policy of a range of 20%-30% of the cash flow from operation after tax going forward, but with 2024 being in the higher range of approximately 30% of the CFFO post-tax. Now, a recap of our 2024 guidance, which includes Neptune Norway. We will elaborate more at our capital market updates on March 13, but I can summarize them as follow.
Production guidance estimated in a range between 280,000-300,000 bbls a day. Production cost expected in a range between $13.5-$14.5. CapEx guidance between $2.7 billion-$2.9 billion for development projects. Exploration and abandonment costs are expected to come in at around $400 million in total, due to the higher exploration activities expected in 2024, as Nick was mentioning. Cash tax payments, approximately $1.5 billion dollar, billion dollar in the first half of this year, and the dividend guidance, of $270 million for Q1 of 2024, and a total dividend for the year at approximately 30% of the CFFO after tax. So in the higher part of the 20%-30% range of the dividend policy, which remains unchanged. That concludes the financial section. I give the word back to Nick for some concluding remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Stefano. I've just one final slide to summarize. We're one of the fastest growing E&P companies in the world, and we're delivering on our strategy for growth and value creation. I want to leave you with the following key points that support this. We're progressing towards our target of around 400,000 bbls a day by the end of 2025. We closed the Neptune transaction, and that takes our production to around 300,000 bbls a day, and our project portfolio that is well advanced will get us to the target. You can see that we delivered strong financial results last year, underpinned by good operational performance and strong price realizations. Then lastly, we continue to provide attractive and predictable shareholder distributions. So those are our fourth quarter 2023 results.
Thank you for your time, and we'd now like to open up the call for your questions. Over to the operator, please.
Thank you. We will now start the question and answer session. If you do wish to ask questions, please press five star on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw it, you may do so by pressing five star again.... Please respect only two questions per participant, and afterwards, you can re-enter the queue for another one. There'll be a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question will be from the line of Matthew Smith from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line now will be unmuted.
Hey, good morning. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to sort of start on the key growth projects in Balder X and now Johan Castberg. So, yeah, I just wanted to ask around specifically, you've noted risks on weather windows in relation to Balder X. I just wanted to double-check whether the same risks apply to the Johan Castberg project or whether there was anything different worth highlighting there? And then perhaps my second question would be around the exploration spend, which you've noted it sort of steps up in 2024. I just wanted to ask whether that sort of signals any change in strategy for Vår or whether this sort of level of spend is a sustainable one going forward. Thanks.
Yep. Good morning, Matt, and thanks. Good questions. I think, you know, as far as Johan Castberg, it's a little bit ahead of us. So, you know, I think it's going to go out in sort of early part of the summer, depends what you class as summer, but, sometime in Q2, it'll start, sort of been going, leaving the yard. And so, you know, I think this is firmly on track to get installed in the summer. And so, as I say, it's a bit ahead of us in terms of completion level. So I think, you know, we feel good about, really good about this project coming on in, Q4.
And then I think your second question is around exploration, and, you know, I think I tried to get this across in the last quarter. You know, coming to the company, I'm super excited by the quality and the scale of our exploration portfolio. As I mentioned when I presented, we have over 1 billion bbls of net risk resources on our portfolio. It's been augmented by the assets that we got from Neptune as well. And of course, we also recently got the results in the recent APA round, which added to our portfolio. So, you know, we have a, we have over 200 licenses, spread all the way through Norway, and what we have is some really exciting opportunities.
So, a lot of these are, of course, step outs to existing infrastructure, but some larger prospects too. And we are stepping up spend this year, so we'll drill 16 wells this year. But when I look forward, I think, and we'll talk more about this as our Capital Markets Update, I think you can expect that sort of level going forward for the next number of years, given the scale and quality of the portfolio we have. So I have to say, it's really exciting, and it's gonna be great to see some of the results come in. Hopefully, that answers your question.
Perfect. Thank you, Nick.
Thank you, Matthew. The next question will be from the line of Vidar Lyngvær from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will be unmuted.
Thank you, and thank you for taking my question. Congrats on another quarter, team. First, on production guidance, 280-300, just looking for some clarification there. The low end versus the high end. Is there bbls related to Balder in the low end of that guidance? Or is the main difference between the high and low Brage? What I'm looking for is a confirmation that if Balder slides into 2025, it won't have a meaningful impact on 2024 volumes. Second question on Jotun sail away in August. First oil delayed into the fourth quarter, do you expect a faster ramp-up following the first oil compared to what you had previously in this with the sail away in May or thereabout?
Does this make any changes to the timeline for first oil to do a full production? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, and good questions. On the production guidance, you know, I think it's important to reflect that we have 47 producing fields in our portfolio, and each one of those has a range of outcomes around them. When we think about our guidance range, we think about it in the upsides and downsides of all of these things, and including the impact of shutdowns, which you see in there, and new wells coming in. So there's a lot of moving parts when you try to put the portfolio together and understand the profile.
But the reality is with the Balder and Johan Castberg coming in in Q4, and the ramp-up happening in Q4, they carry very relatively small volumes, whichever outcome you have, whether it's a fast ramp-up or a slightly earlier startup, impact on the year. So, you know, in the overall context, the impact and of those two is relatively small. But you can see, I think when you look at the chart, the broadening of the range in Q4 reflects the different outcomes that we assume, depending on, you know, when the startup happens.
And then your second question, around Jotun in terms of rates of ramp-up, I don't think we would see that this step-up in ramp-up will happen any quicker if it's from moving from Q3 to Q4. The reality is all the wells will be drilled anyway, and then it's about how quickly do we get stability into the process facility, and so that won't change if we go from Q3 to Q4. Hopefully, that answers your questions.
... It does, Nick. Thank you very much. I'll cue you for further questions.
Thank you, Vidar. The next question will be from the line of Lydia Rainforth from Barclays. Your line now will be unmuted.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Two questions, please. First, on the cost side, I just kind of come back to the idea that the 2025 target was to reduce unit OpEx towards $8 a bbl. And given that you are bringing Neptune in, I am a little surprised as to kind of the production guidance basically being broadly unchanged for 2024. Is that just a reflection of Balder X and Johan Castberg coming in at the end of the year and that coming down? And then secondly, I mean, just to come back to the dividend side, I'm going to be talking sort of the approximately 30% of CFFO after tax for this year. And I'm going...
This is kind of slightly convoluted, Nick, I know, but, given the level of dividend that you're paying out and given where the share price is, do you think that what isn't getting fully appreciated is, from the market side, is the idea of the resource base you have, and that's what the focus is in terms of the March presentation? Thanks.
Good, Lydia, and good morning, and good questions. In terms of production cost, you know, obviously, Castberg and Balder are very much lower operating costs than we have. And so, of course, there's some startup costs when you ramp them up, so we don't really get any impact. In fact, it's actually increased cost for the year as a result of those coming on at the end of the year. You'll only see once we get to plateau or to full rates on those, when you'll start to see the impacts, and that's for 2025, I think. And so, you know, we've also got costs associated with bringing Neptune in and all.
There's a bit of uncertainty around this, but the good thing is production costs are coming down this year. But as I said when I presented, they're going to come down strongly beyond this year as we bring in Balder and Castberg. We continue to drive costs out of our business, and there's lots of opportunities through synergies that come from the two companies together. And we also have a disposal package ongoing, and the part of the reason for disposing of assets is to dispose of some late life assets that perhaps don't have much upside, but also have high cost and high carbon. So all of those things will contribute to driving down the production costs over time.
Maybe I'll just start off with the dividend one, and then Stefano can step in as well. You know, my perspective is that, you know, we're trading at a 15% dividend yield, and our competitors are trading somewhat higher than that, which tells me that, if we can get belief in the sustainability of our profile, then we can get a revaluation of the shares. You know, what I don't think people fully appreciate, and that's perhaps 'cause we haven't told people, is what the opportunity is in our portfolio. Neptune obviously brings more things to it, but, you know, the slide I showed is that, you know, we have 1.24 billion bbls of 2P reserves, and I think that's what people value the company on.
But we have around 750 million bbls of discovered resource where we haven't defined projects for, and we're now going to move that forward at pace. As I said, we have around 300 million bbls of that 750, with projects already being defined, and we are spending money to de-risk and move forward other elements of that. And one of our big focuses is to drive that forward quickly and bring it into production and create value out of it. And I think it's that, plus our continued exciting exploration program that can provide the volumes to sustain the business longer term. And I think we'll come back to this at our Capital Markets Update and give more understanding of how we're going to sustain production longer term.
I think the portfolio is really exciting. It's got lots of optionality and I think we'll be able to give that confidence when we present. So, that's how I see it, but Stefano might want to add a piece to this.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Nick. No, I think on the dividend, you said it all. Maybe just worth specifying on the OpEx, so that the guidance we are providing, it's assuming a USD/NOK rate. There is an assumption of 9.5, which is a bit conservative. So that is probably also explaining a bit of the why it's probably a bit higher. If you should, let's say, use the 2023 USD/NOK exchange rate, probably you would see almost $1-$1.5 lower level. So probably that brings it a bit more into perspective of the trend you were expecting.
But we, in the Capital Markets Update, we will also elaborate a little bit more into the details of the assumption. So that probably will be, yeah, a good occasion to do so.
Brilliant. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you both in March.
Thank you, Lydia. The next question will be from the line of Teodor Sveen-Nilsen from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead. Your line will be unmuted.
Good morning, Nick and Stefano. Thanks for taking my questions. First, following up on your discussion around 2C resources and 2P reserves, I just wonder over the next couple of years, how much of your 2C resources should we expect to be moved into reserves? And can you maybe talk a little bit about which hubs you expect to make the largest changes around when it comes to transferring resources to reserves? That's the first question. Second question is on Balder. You're currently guiding for sail away in August.
... I just wonder, when is the latest date we can see sail away, and there still won't be any challenges with the weather window? Thank you.
Thanks, Teodor, and thanks for the good questions. In terms of 2C resource, you know, as I said, we have 2C resources of 750 milllion bbl . We have activity this year to progress around two-thirds of that towards realizing value out of it, so moving it forward, either appraisal activity or subsea under development studies, with the aim that we can move those things forward. And we have actually around to over 20 projects that we're starting to move forward, which account for around 300 milllion bbl of net resources. It's a bit. You know, we will come and provide some more color around this at our Capital Markets Day, but we're working hard to accelerate this activity.
We're in a good place as a company because we're most of the way through all of our major projects. Our capital comes off, our production rises to 400,000 bbls a day at the end of 2025 and can stay there for a little while, and we need to bring new projects in in 2027-ish. So we have a little bit of time, but not much time, and so we're working hard to bring those forward, and I think we'll give you some sense. It's spread actually pretty well all the way through of our assets, actually. That's the beauty of our portfolio. We've got some big hub areas, and we've got opportunities around all of it. And these type of projects, they're all subsea tie-back.
They're all quick cycle times, strong economics, and so, you know, our aim is to do these as a, you know, low cost and consistent delivery, and we're trying to string a number of them together, and they're not all operated. There are quite a number, but also quite a lot with Equinor, and they've been talking also about moving these things forward. So we will provide a bit more detail around this at our capital markets update. And then moving on to Balder. To achieve a Q4 startup, we need to install in August, and then after August, the weather starts to get worse, and it gets more difficult to install.
So it's not to say that we can't install after August, but it becomes more difficult, and and we need a sort of period of calm weather before we can install. So if we're not ready to install in August, there's some risk that this moves into a spring next year startup and or installation, and then we would be into you know, we're saying that our Q our P90 startup is it would be end of Q2 next year. But we're really focused on getting this done this year. As I say, we're over 90% complete on the FPSO. We can see the end in sight. Things haven't been... We haven't been getting things into commissioning as quickly as we wanted.
So we're firmly targeting getting this done ahead of the weather window in August. So that's where we stand. So hopefully that answers-
Yeah, okay, understood. Thanks. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you, Teodor. The next question will be from the line of Mark Wilson from Jefferies. Your line will be unmuted.
Thank you for that. Good morning. My first question, Nick, is that, if the, the, the last couple of years, there has been various changes to guidance through the year, both underlying production, and various startup dates. Could you speak about what you feel you've brought to change the method of guidance, since you started as, as CEO, to give us just confidence on both the production guidance and then the startup timings? Even though, granted, you've talked about the variables at Balder X, but if you could talk overall to those two forecast ranges. And then just a second point, Breidablikk has, came on early, got 14 more wells to come. Could you just tell us what plateau that is expected to reach and if that happens in 2024? Thank you.
Good Mark, and good day, and good questions. Guidance, you know, I, and you've also known me from my past, and you know, for me, what is important is delivering what we say we're going to do, and I've spent a lot of time within the organization, making sure that we can stand under the the forecast that we give. And so, you know, we've been spent a lot of time thinking about the risks and the ranges of outcomes, and you know, we want to be open about it as well. And so, you know, I'm determined that we do everything we can to deliver.
Now, there are no guarantees here, but we put a lot of effort into making sure that we balance the risks here and that we give ourselves a good chance of delivering all of the targets that we've set externally, and that is my aim, and that's the drive, and that's what the leadership team is focused hard on doing. But of course, you know, there are risks, and there's uncertainties, but we've tried to balance those. So hopefully we can get there, and that is my determination to do. On Breidablikk, actually, that ramped up very quickly, and yes, we have some more wells to drill, and that's what's required to get the full reserves, but actually, we're producing at the plateau rate already, I think. And so it's producing very strongly with good uptime.
So, you know, it's all going well, actually. And so the additional wells will just develop the full reserves, you know, as the wells start to water out. It's quite a low relief structure, so it cones water, and so we have to get the recovery factors, we have these extra wells, but as I say, it's already producing very well. Hopefully, Mark, that helps answer that.
Okay. No, thank you. Thank you for the answers, and, and good luck in the coming year.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mark. The next question will be from the line of John Olaisen from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line now will be unmuted.
Yeah. Good morning, everybody. I want—I got two questions. The first one is regarding Balder X. In the case of the project being pushed into to 2025, what would be the extra CapEx, roughly? So that would be my question number one. The second question is regarding the Neptune acquisition. The acquisition price of $2.3 billion should be adjusted for 2024 free cash flow. So I just wonder, what did the actual payable price end up being? Because I presume you paid this, paid, paid the Neptune acquisition now in January, February. Those are my two question, please.
Good, John, and good day. I'll take the first, and then there's a question for Stefano finally, so he can take the next one. In terms of Balder, I mean, what I said when I... You know, this, you know, we're, we're -- this project is reaching completion. So, you know, things like the drilling and the subsea are all on schedule and almost done, and so there's no growth there. And, you know, we built some contingency into the revised cost estimates we updated in September last year. And, you know, this project is reaching completion. We're over 90% done on the FPSO, so all the equipment's there, all the materials are there. It's about just finishing it off. And so this is not about... This is a schedule issue.
It's not really have any material impact on costs. We've built some flexibility into the offshore installation spend that we have, so we can manage that, whether it were to slip into next year without too much cost impact. So for me, this doesn't have an impact on cost. It really doesn't have an impact materially on value, because it's just shifting a short period of time. And it doesn't impact on how we see our guidance on production this year or our longer-term guidance and our ability to pay dividends. So hopefully that gives you some color around that, and then maybe Stefano will talk about the purchase price for Neptune.
Sure. So, the net cost, cash consideration, less the cash available that we paid, now at the end of January, was $1.2 billion. And, how this goes, what are the pieces that are the component of this? You are correct when you say that the enterprise value was $2.3 billion, but then you need to deduct roughly $0.2 billion in dividend and interest gains. And then also, to deduct, $900 million in cash that was available at the thirty-first of January, when we went to completion.
So if from the 2.3, you would deduct the, these two elements, then you go to the 1.2, net cash consideration we paid, at the end of January. Let me also add, a piece on this. We, as you're aware, 2023 cash flow, were ours, so this means that also the taxes related to 2023, will be as well. And we will pay, so in the first half, of this year, we will have to pay, for the 2023, cash taxes of Neptune, and that is estimated to be around, $700 million. So I hope this provides you, a good picture of, the components.
Yeah, sorry. So it's just for the dividend, $900 million in cash, and that's starting point, and then you paid $700 million. Did you say Q1? Sorry, what, when is-
No, no, sorry. First half, first half. The $700 million would be-
First half
... paid in.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that's included in the chart where you show the estimated cash payments in the first half, isn't it?
That's correct. Yes, that's correct.
Yeah. But anyway, the question regarding the free cash flow, because the free cash flow generated in 2023 is yours, isn't it?
That's correct, yes.
I presume that-
Yes
... is a significant amount.
That was a good amount. That is a good amount. I think if you add these elements together, you can work it. But you are right because effectively, the deal was effective from first January 2023. So, that was the cash flow was ours, but also the taxes that we will be paying in this first half.
Hmm. Yeah, but if... How would, how could I calculate the free... Well, from what you said now, what's the implied, or how could I get a better insight to the free cash flow estimate for 2023 for this?
Yeah, if you take the net cash consideration of $1.2, you add the taxes, which are related to the 2023 profits, you go to the $1.9, and then the enterprise value at that time was $2.3. So you might estimate that the difference should be more or less the cash flow generated in 2023.
Okay, okay.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Yeah.
What you actually paid in cash now in January, February was $1.2 billion?
Yes, that's correct.
... All right. Sorry, I saw them together. And then very quickly, Nick, to follow up on the potential delay in the Balder X. You seem to take it very easy on it, saying it has limited value impact. But I guess instead of starting in late Q3, if it started being pushed till Q2 2024, it's almost one year of production delay, isn't it? So it must be a huge, like, a relatively big NPV impact or don't you agree?
Well, the NPV impact is relatively small. You just move cash flow from one year to the next, and, you know, I think, when it's a really discounting, effect, it's quite relatively small.
Relatively small, but it's one year of NPV effect, isn't it?
Well, it's not one year.
Or it's-
It's from Q4 to middle of the year, so it's six months.
Yeah, but I'm talking relative to... Last time you spoke, you said starting production Q3 2023, 2024, yeah? And now, if it's being delayed this until Q2 next year, it is almost a year. Don't we agree? Or three quarters?
It's almost a year.
With NPV effect. Three quarters, yeah. So it's three quarters of NPV effect, isn't it? That's a, that must be a big amount.
It is, it is in cash flow-
The NPV effect.
On an NPV effect, it's relatively small. It's a discount rate for that period of time. So, you know, that's the way it works.
Three quarters of NPV effect discount. So it's okay. Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, it becomes a timing issue. Yep, I guess.
Okay.
Thank you, John. The next question will be from the line of Sasikanth Chilukuru from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I had two left, please. The first was related to the production guidance of 280-300. It's still a relatively large range, and you have highlighted limited contribution from Balder X and Johan Castberg in this figure. So it appears to me that the major uncertainty is most towards the turnaround activity. I was just wondering if you could contextualize whether the turnaround activity in 2024, relative to the 2023 levels, is it higher or lower in that way? And also, well, maybe slightly related to this, as just you highlighted current production of around 300, can you isolate what the contribution of the assets acquired from Neptune is within this figure?
The second question was on dividends. You maintained 1Q dividend flat and, and but have highlighted 2024 dividends at 30% of CFFO, which implies higher dividend payments in 2024 relative to 2023 based on current macro. Just wondering if we should expect a ramp-up in these dividends from 2Q 2024 onwards.
Yeah. So, I'll get the first question, then Stefano can take the dividend question, and good question. So the range of 280-300, it's actually not such a big range given the scale of the business. And it reflects, as I said earlier, the fact that we've got 47 producing fields and, you know, those all have some uncertainties associated with them. We do have a bit more turnaround activity this year compared with last year, and you can see that it's concentrated in Q3, which you see on the schedule.
There's a little bit in Q2, too, and, but you can see it on the, on the chart that we showed in our presentation, that we have a sort of dip in, Q3 and, and so, you know, that's built into our forecasts. And as I say, also the, you know, there's a range around, startup and ramp-up of the two big projects in Q4, all contributing to, to how we look at the, the guidance range. And, you know, as I say, 20,000 bbl a day range in a 300,000 bbl a day, company is not a very, large range, and I think is sort of similar to the type of ranges that other companies, use.
So, Stefano, maybe you can talk to the dividend question.
Yes, you're right. The dividend, let's say, has been reiterated of on a stable dividend on $270 million. Let me say, this is a range we feel comfortable with the current market conditions, and despite the fact that the gas prices are lower than last year. So yes, you're right, is something in addition that we are compared to last year in terms of dividend, effort from the company side. But let me say, why can we afford to do that? I think that is the important part. First of all, you've seen that there is a material production increase in 2024.
We have closed the deal of Neptune, which is highly cash flow accretive. We have good instruments in place for gas. We have a fixed pricing until covering until Q3 of 2024, where roughly, if you include the Neptune production, is roughly 15%-18% with a fixed price of $130 per bbl. And this will provide definitely, if gas prices remains as we see today, will provide a push in terms of gas price realization, as it has done in the past, and we still are on a strong liquidity in a strong liquidity position. We are in a low leverage position, well below the target.
So, if you even zoom out a bit from 2024 and we see a little bit the bigger picture, you can see that the company in 2025 will be producing 400,000 bbl a day. So, that will be a very strong position to be in with a lot of cash flow generation. So, that is why we think the dividend, and that is why we went with the dividend that we yeah we disclosed today.
Contribution of Neptune in 300,000 current production?
Yeah, Neptune produced last year 66,000 bbl a day, and so there are no major changes in that portfolio in the short term. So, you know, it comes in at around that level to this year.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Sasikanth. Unfortunately, as we are running out of time, they will have to follow up in writing, and I will hand it to the speakers for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Patrick. Maybe I can just say one, just a few points. You know, we're one of the fastest growing E&P companies in the world, and our strategy for value creation and growth is delivering. And we're on track to deliver our 400,000 bbl a day by the end of 2025. And as I said, we're almost halfway there with 300,000 bbl a day now. We had strong financials driven by good operational performance and good price realizations. And lastly, provide attractive predictable shareholder distributions. So I think a good quarter results.
I also just remind everyone, our CMU is gonna be on the thirteenth of March here in Oslo, and we look forward to as many of you joining there as possible. So thank you very much.
Thank you, and we will make sure to follow up on the written questions after this call. Thank you very much, and wish you a good day.