Robert W. Dudley - BP Plc
Management
Great, okay. All right. Well, a very big hello and welcome to BP's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2017 Results and an update on BP's strategy. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us here in person in London, here in the room, as well as all of you out there online around the globe. And we have quite a few people signed up, so a big welcome. I know it's very early in the morning or late in the evening for some of you, so a particular thank you to you. I know the markets in general are a little bit turbulent, so I hope we can give you some good news today. Just to remind you, we are a very long-term industry, and we will keep advancing through any rough waters that the markets send us. And I just would reflect on, I think the markets are about the same level as they were in the 1 of January just overall. So before I begin, I need to draw your attention to the cautionary statement. It is long and detailed, but necessary. So please have a read of it when you have a moment. I'm not going to. So here's the agenda for today. And you'll hear from me first with an overview of our progress against the strategy we laid out a year ago. Brian will then take you through the financial results for the fourth quarter and also update you on the strategy looking out to 2021 and beyond. Lamar will focus specifically on our approach to the energy transition and what BP is doing across our businesses to adapt and position our self for a lower carbon future. That will provide you with some wider context for the updates from Bernard and Tufan on how the Upstream and the Downstream plans in the portfolios are evolving over the medium term, as well as what we're doing to create and deliver longer term growth prospects. We'll then take a short break, and we'll return. And I'll provide a summary before moving to Qs and As. So let's start with an overview of our strategic progress in 2017. At the start of the year, we told you 2017 would be very important for the company, a significant year of disciplined execution and growth across the businesses. I'm very pleased on how we've delivered on the commitments, which you will see in some of the highlights on this slide. You might recall we said we would start up seven major projects in the Upstream this year. To be honest, some people weren't sure we could do that, but we brought each project online, on average, on schedule, and under budget. These projects, along with the ramp-up of six start-ups in 2016, have contributed to a 10% year-on-year increase in BP's reported production. It's been many years since we've done that. We're on track with our plans for 800,000 barrels of new major project production by 2020. And we've also strengthened our portfolio, creating growth for the future. We had our most successful year in exploration since 2004, with around 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent discovered this past year. We had our best reserve replacement ratio in over a decade, estimated at 143%. And we sanctioned three new projects in Trinidad, India, and the Gulf of Mexico. We've also seen strong growth in the Downstream. In fact, one of our best years in history in terms of earnings, with our marketing and manufacturing businesses together delivering around $1 billion of underlying earnings improvement in the year. They've done that through continued volume growth in premium fuels and lubricants; the strong performance of our refining operations, averaging more than 95% availability across the year; and earnings growth of over 10% in fuels marketing. We now have around 1,100 retail convenience partnership sites around the world. And we have plans to continue to grow our retail network across existing markets as well as new markets, such as India, Indonesia, Mexico, and China. We also grew our alternative energy business with availability around 95%, resulting in strong operating cash flows in 2017. We went back into solar but in a new way in a partnership with Lightsource. This is a very exciting development for us. We're combining our scale, our relationships around the world, and expertise in major projects with Lightsource's expertise in developing solar projects. Overall, 2017 has proved to be one of the strongest years of operational delivery in recent history. And this is also reflected in our full year financial results. Our underlying replacement cost profit of $6.2 billion more than doubled that of 2016, and underlying operating cash flow of $24.3 billion, excluding pre-tax oil spill-related payments, and a gearing of 27.4%, comfortably within our 20-year and 20% to 30% target band. In addition, our organic capital expenditure was $16.5 billion. Total divestments and other proceeds were $4.3 billion. And we made pre-tax Gulf of Mexico oil spill payments of $5.3 billion. And we distributed $7.9 billion of dividends to shareholders, of which $6.2 billion was in cash. As you saw in our announcement in October with the strong underlying performance and our confidence in growing organic free cash flow, we recommended a share buyback program in the fourth quarter of 2017. Buying back shares through the fourth quarter offset the scrip dividend issued in September, or the drip in the U.S., and that commitment remains. Our 2017 performance was achieved in an environment that improved throughout the year, but which still remains challenging. So far this year, Brent's oil price has averaged almost $70 per barrel, up from an average of $54 in 2017, a year, which was hard to believe, the first average annual increase since 2012. The gradual decline in inventories over the past six months or so, together with heightened geopolitical uncertainty, has driven prices up. But our expectation is that some of this recent strength could be short lived, and that prices will moderate over the medium term. In terms of outlook, the base case of our 2017 energy outlook expects that global energy demand will grow. It will grow by up around a third over the next two decades. Virtually all of that demand is to come from emerging economies, notably China and India, driven by rising prosperity. And the rate of growth will then slow down compared to past decades, as the energy transition evolves. And there's increasing attention on energy sustainability and efficiency. On the supply side, there is a shift to an abundance of resources with natural gas growing faster than both coal and oil. Oil demand continuing to grow over the next 20 years or so with the prospect of a plateau further out. And renewables growing faster than any other fuel but from a low base. Spencer Dale, our economist – Chief Economist, will have more to say on the macroeconomic environment later this month when we launch our updated energy outlook. But for now, it's clear to say this is a time of transformational change. There's a challenge to produce more and more of the affordable energy that society needs that involves modernizing and embracing new advanced technologies, while being disciplined on capital investment, lowering production costs, and continuing to unlock new resources. And then there's also the challenge to produce energy that's less carbon intensive to help meet the world's climate goals. The key to this dual challenge is to recognize it's not a race to renewables, it's a race to lower greenhouse gas emissions. And as fast as renewables and clean energy can grow, faster than any fuel in history, the world is going to require gas and oil for some decades to come to fill much of its energy demand. In BP, we have been committed to the low carbon transition for a long time. And we've gained a lot of experience along the way that we're putting to good use. We're reducing our own emissions through operational emission reduction activities. We're improving our products to enable our customers to lower their emissions. And we're creating low carbon businesses to complement our existing portfolio. There's a lot of uncertainty around the pace and the direction of change. Probably more than at any time I can recall. But we have a strong and a flexible platform to build on, giving us the ability to adapt quickly in any environment. With the experience we have, the portfolio we have created, and the flexibility of our strategy, we can embrace low carbon future in a way that enhances our investor proposition. You'll hear more detail from Lamar later on what we've been doing around advancing the energy transition. Now turning to our investor proposition, which you can see on the slide. It's the proposition we set out last year at our strategy update. And I'd like to take a few moments to remind everyone of the key elements of that. Safe, reliable, and efficient execution is essential. A distinctive portfolio fit for a changing world and growing returns through value based, disciplined investment and cost focus. These all underpin our aim of growing sustainable free cash flow and distributions to our shareholders over the long term. And I'll take each of these in turn in a bit more detail. So first and foremost is safe, reliable, and efficient operations. It's a core value and our number one priority. Our focus, as we have said before, is on being systematic, disciplined, and process driven. And that has seen a continued downward trend in Process Safety Events. We're also focused on learning, investigating safety incidents and using leading indicators to monitor and strengthen the controls we have in place to prevent future incidents. We're looking increasingly at how human behavior influences safety and also how we can take people out of harm's way by using new technologies, such as drones and crawlers and autonomous vehicles. We have plenty of evidence that if done right, these approaches not only improve safety, but they also lower operating costs and improve business performance. We see this coming through in our strong operating reliability numbers, which was 95% in both the Upstream and the Downstream in 2017. Overall, we work hard focusing and simplifying how we work, embedding a culture of accountability and improving our execution, creating an environment where our people feel empowered to adapt and drive delivery both in terms of safety performance and also business outcomes. It is this focus that underpinned our confidence last year that we would deliver all seven major projects by the end of the year. And why we're confident we'll do the same with six major projects scheduled for 2018. This includes Shah Deniz Phase 2, part of the Southern corridor, the big megaproject, one of the most complex projects we have ever undertaken. It spans six countries, involves 11 shareholder companies with 176 million man hours worked since the FID was taken 4 years ago. Shah Deniz Stage 2 is on track for start up in 2018. It's on time and under budget with zero days away from work due to injury last year. Now a second element of the proposition is what we believe is a distinctive portfolio. Over the past several years, we have continued to actively high grade the portfolio, through focusing on quality, optionality, creating innovative commercial opportunities, and acquiring assets and positions that are accretive to our underlying business. What you see today is a portfolio that's global, it's integrated business with a strong and distinctive set of assets, brands, and relationships. It's a business portfolio that drives value creation today and has deep and flexible options to support future growth. In other words, I think we are resilient to a changing environment. And we're moving in a direction that plays to our strengths. In the Upstream, that means growing our gas in an advantaged oil portfolio, with assets that are low cost or high margin, and building on an already deep resource base. Including our equity production in Russia, we are a 3.6 million barrel per day company, with an estimated 18.4 billion barrels of proved oil equivalent reserves, providing us with 13.7 years of reserve life. Across our total Upstream resource base of 48 billion barrels, we have sufficient opportunities to deliver quality growth through the next decade and beyond without the need for acquisitions or further exploration. Of course, we will do some of those. Around two-third of our portfolio is leveraged to price, either through direct or indirect oil and gas indexation. But importantly, this is balanced with production from fixed price or similar contracts, which provide a base of steady, resilient long-term cash flow. We also have a strong and differentiated Downstream business, which some of you may be familiar with if you joined Tufan and his team at his Investor Day at our Downstream Technology Centre in Pangbourne last June. The portfolio today is a high quality group of competitively advantaged businesses. And it covers marketing, manufacturing, and our integrated supply and trading function, creating an integrated and value optimized business. A differentiated and high returning marketing business is underpinned by strong brands and a distinctive premium offer and has an increasing exposure to growth markets. And in manufacturing, the refining portfolio is geographically balanced, good access to advantaged feedstock, such as heavy Canadian crudes in North America. While in petrochemicals, our latest technology allows us to deliver industry leading cost and environmental performance. I've already mentioned our move back into solar. It's a significant addition to the wind and biofuels businesses in our alternative energy portfolio. We have one of the largest operated renewables portfolios among our peers. And we are selectively investing in emerging new businesses and technologies to ensure we stay at the forefront of changing global needs in the energy transition. A lot of people are working on this at BP. Another highly distinctive aspect of our portfolio is our strategic partnership with Russia's largest oil company. Rosneft has a strong portfolio of current and future opportunities onshore and offshore with assets in all of Russia's key hydrocarbon basins. We've developed our relationship with Rosneft in recent years to create what is a unique and advantageous position for BP in one of the largest and lowest cost hydrocarbon resource basins in the world, with access to huge markets, both East and West. Our 19.75% shareholding in Rosneft, together with two board seats, does allow us to influence the strategic direction of the company, as well as benefit from a diversified set of existing and potential projects in the Russian oil sector. In 2017, BP's share of production from Rosneft was around 1.1 million barrels per day. We also received $314 million in dividends, supported by the recent changes in the dividend policy there to pay out at least 50% of IFRS net profit. In addition to that equity position, we are building some material businesses that is generating incremental value through standalone joint ventures in Russia also and internationally. We currently have interest – some of you have asked this question. We currently have interest in three joint ventures in Russia. The Taas JV, in which we have a 20% interest, is developing oil and gas condensate fields in East Siberia. Field is currently producing about 25,000 barrels a day and expansion is expected to start up this year in 2018 and raise production to over 100,000 barrels a day by 2021. We have a 49% interest in the Yermak JV, which is conducting onshore exploration in West Siberia. Holds about seven exploration licenses. And we've reached agreement to form a new joint venture for the Kharampur field, in which we will have a 49% interest. Most of the regulatory approvals are in place. And we don't see any barriers for the deal closing later this year. Outside of Russia, we have a 10% interest in the Zohr gas field in Egypt with ENI, in which also Rosneft holds a 30% interest. And a third aspect, and an important one to the relationship, is technical cooperation to benefit Rosneft's performance and the performance of our JVs, particularly in environmental technology. We're cooperating on health, safety, and environmental issues, including providing these services on a contractual basis to Rosneft. We share a lot in the areas of health, safety, and the environment. In addition, we're developing and applying new methods in production to improve the mature oil fields as we did with TNK-BP as well as refining. Obviously, we work within the sanction requirements. We always will. Over time, we expect to continue to work with Rosneft to further build I think an important partnership across a range of activities. But we'll always work within the laws. Now the third element of a BP proposition here is our focus on returns, as Brian will tell you. Returns have been a challenge for our industry as a whole in recent years with heavy investment through high price, high cost cycle that we've been through, followed by the challenging times of bringing costs down in a lower price environment. And for BP, we had the impact of portfolio changes and our own significant build phase. So what do we mean by focusing on returns? So first, as you'll have heard me say many times and Brian, it is a continuous drive to simplify and reduce our costs without in any way compromising on safety. Second is to be very disciplined on capital investment in both the Upstream and the Downstream. We maintain strict investment hurdle rates of return, ensuring we only progress the best options forward. And then once sanctioned, we also optimize full cycle returns on each project as they progress through the life of the project. Third is the active optimization of the portfolio itself. We manage for value over the long term, seeking new ways to grow in returns inorganically. Two recent examples are the transaction in the Norwegian North Sea to create Aker BP and the merger of BP and Bridas to create Argentina's largest private integrated oil and gas company, Pan American Energy. So fourth, very important, building mutually beneficial relationships that allow you to operate further down the cost curve. This can be with resource holders in the most competitive basins or with business partners with complementary capabilities, as we're doing with Kosmos Energy to develop our offshore discoveries in Mauritania and Senegal. We are now seeing the benefits of the significant build phase of the past few years becoming evident in the bottom line. As our Upstream and our Downstream businesses earnings grow, cash grows, return on average capital employed, or ROACE, more than doubled in 2017 versus a year ago. It's up to 5.8%, obviously still a long way to go. We have a big balance sheet. As volumes and margins continue to go across our operating businesses, we expect our ROACE to recover steadily and exceed 10% by 2021. So you've heard a lot from me, but let me briefly sum up before I hand it over to Brian. As you'll see from the results in a moment, our five-year plan is delivering results. We have rebalanced organic sources of supply, sources and uses of cash. We have a clear set of strategic priorities that are shaping how we will continue to generate value in a rapidly changing world. In the Upstream, we are focused on growing oil and gas in a way that offers us advantages in terms of margin and value, which contributes to our ambition to advance the low carbon energy transition. In the Downstream, we continue to develop our advantaged manufacturing and marketing businesses, focused on maximizing value from the existing and new and emerging markets. BP has been through a lot of change over recent years. But it's shown it's resilient over recent years through its focus on simplification, cost and capital efficiency, and strong underlying financial performance. We're modernizing how BP works, using technology to work more efficiently and digitizing our processes. We're also looking to the future and showing characteristic BP innovation and leadership when it comes to the dual energy challenge of more energy but lower emissions. We're doing this across our operating businesses and by leveraging our existing knowledge from the development of our alternative energy businesses. And we're investing in new emerging companies and technologies through our venturing arm, as well as creating new low carbon business models. We are one year into a five-year plan, but we have real confidence across BP and a strong platform to build on. With that, I'll hand it over to Brian now, who will take you through our financial results and the framework.