Thank you very much. It is my pleasure to welcome you to Vår Energi First Quarter 2023 Results Webcast and Conference Call. Joining us today is, as usual, our CEO, Torger Rød, and our CFO, Stefano Pujatti. Torger and Stefano will present the results, and afterwards we will have a Q&A session. I will now hand the word over to Torger.
Thank you, Ida. Good morning to everyone listening in on the call today. We deliver another quarter with strong cash flow generation. We have maintained a safe and stable supply of oil and gas, with Q1 production flat from previous quarter of 214,000 barrels per day, including a continued material gas share of 38% in the quarter. We maintain our full year production guidance of 210,000-230,000 barrels per day. We are happy to see new production coming in from new fields on stream, with a successful start-up of Frosk in March, Hyme and Bauge in April, and Fenja expected soon to start up. We have exceptional price realization for gas is driving strong cash flow generation in the quarter.
The realized price was on average $116 per oil equivalent in the quarter, with $176 per barrel for gas, which is due to a well-executed gas sales strategy and represents a significant enhanced value compared to the spot market for gas in the quarter. This provided a solid cash flow from operations of nearly $1.4 billion. We continue to have strong balance sheet with a leverage ratio of 0.3x at the end of Q1, which was the same as year-end 2022. The dividend guided for Q1 of $270 million is confirmed, Our forecast for the second quarter is to maintain a dividend of $270 million. Our main development projects are progressing accordance to plan.
We are on track to deliver more than 50% production growth by end 2025. We also achieved important milestones in this quarter. We continue to deliver exploration success and see high potential ahead. We started the year with exploration success in the Countach well in the Barents Sea. We have an exciting exploration program ahead of us this year, with wells with high impact potential commencing during the year. Here you see a summary of key performance indicators in the quarter. Safety is a prerequisite in all we do. We are pleased that we experienced no actual serious incidents for Q1, which is also the case for the last year of operations. Our target is always zero serious incidents and injuries. Our ambition is to be the safest operator on the NCS.
Estimated emission intensity of 13 kilo per barrel for operated fields reflect high exploration activity in the first quarter, combined with well interventions at Goliat. Production cost per barrel is reduced from previous quarter, mainly due to less maintenance and currency movements. We deliver a quarter with strong cash flow, and we confirm a distribution of $270 million in dividends for the quarter, as forecasted during the CMU in February. We move on to an operational review of the quarter. Safety is about people, and safe and responsible operations is a prerequisite for all we do. Vår Energi's highest priority is to operate without causing harm to people and the environment. The company's strong focus on the implementation of our safety initiatives continued through the first quarter, with a particular drive to improve the trend for Serious Incident Frequency, SIF, by prevent dropped objects.
We are pleased to see that the 12-month rolling average SIF rate was 0.5 in the first quarter, an improvement from 1.0 in the fourth quarter last year. This really confirming the improvement work ongoing. Q1 production was in line with Q4, with a continued high gas share. Our operated assets delivered 38,000 barrels with an improved production efficiency of 89% in the quarter. We had some impact for operational issues at the Balder FPU, which I will soon revert to. In the North Sea, the Sleipner and Fram fields delivered strong performance, while shutting wells reduced production from the Statfjord and Snorre fields. In the Norwegian Sea, production increased as the partner-operated Frosk project started production in March, only 18 months after submitting the PDO. Well done to Aker BP.
Production from the tieback fields, Mikkel, Morvin, and Kristin, was also fully restored after the fire incident in the fourth quarter at Åsgard. We have an unprecedented high value growth in front of us. As a beginning of this, we are very pleased to have the partner-operated Hyme and Bauge fields on stream in April, with Fenja expected to follow soon. These fields will have a positive contribution to our production from Q2. To summarize, we maintain our production guidance for the year of 210,000-230,000 barrels per day. An updated on our operated assets. Goliat continues to deliver strong performance and was for the second consecutive quarter above 95% in production efficiency. Our improvement program pays off. In the Balder area, production was positively impacted by the completion of the repair to the subsea systems late 2022.
The previously communicated riser integrity concern which occurred in February continued to reduce the production by approximately 5,000 barrels per day. Work is ongoing to conclude if accelerated production recovery is possible before the riser is permanently replaced in Q3. As earlier communicated, we are planning an extended maintenance campaign by use of hotel starting in May this year for the Balder FPU. This is to enhance the operational resilience going forward and to improve the efficiency and uptime of the asset. Balder FPU will as part of this also conduct a turnaround which is planned for in August. This will actually be the only operated turnaround this year. On the unit production cost, this improved to $13.1 per barrel for Q1, mainly due to less maintenance activities.
We maintain the full year guidance and our medium-term ambition of reducing OpEx to approximately $8 per barrel. On to our projects. We have a robust development portfolio of projects well into execution which overall are progressing as planned. These projects support our high value growth to more than 350,000 barrels by end 2025. Going into details, our own operated Balder X project is progressing towards planned first oil in Q3 2024. There has been high construction activity at the yard, and I am pleased to see good progress with an improved safety performance. The project reached the ready for refloat milestone as planned in the quarter, and we are planning for the physical refloat out of the dry dock in Q3.
The focus now is to execute a high construction volume and optimize the sequence of the remaining work. The consequences of the strike is being assessed, the pro-project is ramping up the activities again. On Breidablikk, the tieback to Grane platform is also progressing on plan with the high activity period ongoing at Grane topside, drilling remains ahead of plan. For Johan Castberg, construction activity have also progressed at Aker Stord during the first quarter with planned start-up in Q4 2024. Johan Castberg was also affected by the strike as activity was stopped at the yard there as well. As mentioned earlier, the Bauge and Hyme development successfully started up in April, with Fenja expected to come on stream later in Q2. The fields tied back to Njord A platform were somewhat behind the original schedule due to operational issues at the host.
Combined, the fields will contribute with approximately 10,000 barrels per day for 2023. Overall, we are on track for our end 2025 production target of above 350,000 barrels per day. In Vår Energi we are proud of our exploration capabilities, and this was recognized by the Norwegian Petroleum Society awarding us the NCS Exploration Revival Award in March as the best explorer. As communicated in February, we discovered oil in the operated Countach well in the quarter, which is nearby the Goliat field. First results indicate a size of 3 million-13 million barrels of recoverable reserves. We are excited about finding oil close to Goliat and see a significant follow-up potential in the area between Goliat and Countach.
We are currently evaluating to drill an appraisal well on Countach and potentially other nearby prospects to explore the potential and how to best develop the resources. The discovery adds to many discoveries and proven resources we have in this highly prolific region. Further, the Lupa and Countach discoveries confirmed our exploration models and serves both as potential play openers. And just to reiterate, the Barents Sea has a high potential not only for oil, but also for gas, as proven by the Lupa discovery last year. Gas has, however, been a long-lasting challenge in the Barents, where the lack of infrastructure and export capacity has been a constraint. Last week, Gassco presented their updated view on the potential for increasing the gas export capacity from the Barents.
In this report, Gassco concluded that a new pipeline from the Barents Sea is the best solution and that a development likely will represent a positive social economy. Gassco also indicate that further exploration activity is required to make the resource foundation for development more robust. As you understand, this fits very well with our view and our Barents Sea strategy. Regarding other exploration activity this year, we are excited about the high impact wells Rondeslottet and Venus, as well as the infrastructure-led exploration in the Balder area. I round off my operational review and give the word to Stefano, who will cover our financial results for the first quarter. Thanks a lot. Please, Stefano.
Thank you, Torger. Hi to everyone on the call today. Let's start as usual with a high-level view of some key financials for the quarter. We achieved solid revenue, EBIT, and cash flow generation on the back of strong realized prices in the quarter. Profit before taxes is reduced from the previous quarter due to lower sold liquids volumes, an unrealized Forex loss of $175 million as the NOK has continued to weaken compared to the dollar. With operating cash flow before tax at nearly $2 billion, we have maintained a solid leverage ratio of 0.3, stable from the previous quarter. We have strengthened our cash position in the quarter, available liquidity stands at nearly $3.8 billion at the end of the period. Production cost is at $13.1 per barrel compared to.
to 14.1 in the previous quarter. I will now go into more detail of our first quarter financial performance. More specifically on revenues, we generated more than $2 billion of revenues for the quarter. Compared to the previous quarter, revenues were down $265 million, mainly due to lower sold volumes. Gas continued to be a strong contributor to revenues, accounting for 55% of revenues and 38% of production. The average weighted realized price in the quarter was $116 per barrel. We are especially proud of our realized gas price of $176 per barrel, which was significantly above the average of the different hubs for the quarter.
In fact, comparing our realized gas price to the average spot price for TTF during Q1, we have realized $500 million in extra revenues compared to selling on spot. This is a strong testimony of our gas position and sales strategy. Going deeper into the gas sales in Q1, around 42% of the sales was on day ahead basis at roughly $100 per barrel, and 24% was sold on a month ahead basis at around $145 per barrel. Both month ahead and day ahead were weighted toward the French and German markets. The remaining 34% were delivered under contract with fixed pricing, realizing an average of $283 per barrel. Overall, strong results from our gas sales strategy in the quarter.
Going forward, we continue to have a robust sales portfolio with access to several markets, and we will have flexibility in the contract to decide the split between month ahead, day ahead, and fixed contracts. For Q2 and Q3 2023, we will have fixed price sales representing around 20% of the gas sales. Prices for these sales are approximately $190 per barrel in Q2 and Q3. I would also like to mention that we have now fully hedged 100% of our post-tax production of crude, including Q1 of 2024, with put options at a strike price of $50 per barrel. We had continued strong cash generation from operations in the quarter, amounting to nearly $1.4 billion, an increase of $950 million from the previous quarter, mainly due to less taxes paid.
CapEx stood at $642 million, down from $800 million in the previous quarter, with the three largest development projects, Balder X, Johan Castberg, and Breidablikk, representing around 70% of the investments in the quarter. CapEx for the quarter was well covered by generated cash, with CapEx coverage of 2.1. We expect to be within the CapEx guidance for the full year at between $2.4 billion and $2.7 billion. Tax payments for the first quarter ended at $577 million, down from $1.6 billion in the previous quarter due to only one tax installment paid in Q1. For Q2, we have two planned tax payments, estimated to be around $1.2 billion. Here, we see the development in our cash position from Q4 to the end of the first quarter.
As you see, the cash flow from operation of $1.1 billion before taxes and changes to working capital has contributed to a strong cash build. We further had limited cash outflow from financing activities in the quarter, and distributed as planned $300 million in dividends to our shareholders. Summarized, the cash position at the end of the quarter stood at $769 million, an increase from $445 million at the end of Q4. Our available liquidity stood at $3.8 billion at the end of Q1, close to the $4 billion in the previous quarter. This is a strong result given that the two bilateral RCFs of $600 million in total expired during the quarter, as these were taken during the particular times of COVID pandemic in March 2020, and therefore not renewed.
With a strong cash generation in the quarter, we have maintained our strong financial position and the leverage ratio. Net interest bearing debt on EBITDAX ended at 0.3 at the end of the quarter, on the same level as at the end of Q4. We remain committed to maintaining our investment grade rating, whilst heavily investing in developments which are fueling our growth, and we continue strong shareholder distribution and strengthening our balance sheet. We have a solid debt financing structure with diversification of maturities, instruments, and debt providers. The strong financial position lays a solid foundation for continued material shareholder distribution and growth. Vår Energi strong cash flow generation support attractive and resilient distributions. For the past four quarters, we have distributed more than $1.1 billion.
We confirm $270 million in dividend for the first quarter, which is equal to $0.11 per share to be paid May 10th . For the second quarter, as anticipated by Torger, the dividend guidance is $270 million, unchanged from Q1. For the full year, we confirm our dividend policy with an expected dividend of approximately 30% of the cash flow from operations after tax. Lastly, let me summarize our 2023 outlook and guidance. We maintain our production guidance in the range of 210,000-230,000 barrels per day. Production cost is expected to come in a range between $14.5-$15.5 per barrel. CapEx in a range between $2.4 billion-$2.7 billion. Cash tax payments of approximately $1.2 billion in Q2.
Dividends of $270 million for Q2 2023, and the plan is to distribute approximately 30% of the CFFO after tax for 2023. That concludes the financial section, and I give the word back to Torger for some concluding remarks. Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Stefano. To summarize, Vår Energi continues to deliver safe and reliable operations. We continue to generate strong cash flow from operations on the back of strong realized prices. Our main development projects are progressing accordance to plan, confirming an unprecedented 50% production growth by end 2025. We continue our exploration success with high potential for the campaign ahead. By that, I thank you all for listening in and give the word back to the operator for the Q&A. Thanks a lot.