Massimo Mondazzi
Analyst · Bernstein. Mr. Oswald please
Thank you very much. Good afternoon and welcome to our first quarter results presentation. Economic result and cash flow are presented as we did at the end of 2015 on a standalone basis. This means that Versalis is excluded both in 2015 and 2016, and Saipem is excluded in 2015, and equity accounted in the first quarter of 2016. In this quarter, we continued to perform in line with our strategy, progressing in all our businesses and delivering positive operating result in each of them. In particular, E&P we achieved as planned the startup of Goliat in Norway, Heidelberg in U.S., Mpungi in Block 15/06 in Angola, and Melehia deep in Egypt. This, together with the contribution from ramp ups, contributed to a volume growth of 3.4% versus first quarter of 2015, or 1.3% net of PSA effect. Development activities are progressing well. We confirm all the startups we planned this year, including Kashagan, which is expected on stream within the last quarter of this year. Talking about Zohr, after the final investment decision taken in February, we are preparing the fourth well while speeding up the award of main construction contracts both on and offshore. As far as exploration, we drilled three successful wells and other positive results are expected in the second quarter. In terms of guidance, we are very well on track to exceed the early guidance of 400 million BOE of additional resources at a cost of around €900 million or less. In mid downstream, all segments were profitable, achieving around €350 million or EBIT thanks to, in gas and power, a good quarter in a weak scenario that confirms the turnaround pace of this business that was driven by the improved competitiveness of our gas contracts and good result in retail. In refining and marketing, good performances in both, refining and marketing, the former confirming the expected 2016 break even at the margin of $4.5 per barrel. Overall, the Company generated an operating cash flow of €1.3 billion at the very depressed scenario of $34 Brent and capped leverage almost flat at 23%. Before entering into the performance of the quarter, I would like to focus once more on our upstream portfolio, taking advantage of our peers group complete set of numbers already issued either through the 10-K or 20-F files. The specific subject is the disclosure named standardized measure of discounted future net cash flows. The results value disclosure, together with its comparison with the peer group, provide some very powerful information about expected cash inflow, outflow and net value of the different portfolios and when the scenario drops dramatically, as it did in 2015, the variations give a comprehensive view of portfolio resilience and reflect the action taken to cope with this depressed scenario. Looking at the reported numbers in dollar per barrel terms, Eni's portfolio was the second best last year when a $101 per barrel oil scenario applied, just behind one U.S. major and in 2015, with the reference oil price halved at around $55 per barrel, our portfolio becomes the first one, confirming the strength both in high and low environments of our conventional and low cost assets exposed to PSA. Thanks to this, in terms of absolute dollar value, our portfolio now ranks fourth among our peer group, coming ahead of companies with proved reserves volumes which are much bigger than ours. We expect further announcement in this matter looking forward, either in the short and medium-term, thanks to projects that will contribute highly valuable additional reserves in 2016, such as Zohr in Egypt, and other recently made giant conventional discoveries later on and now, a few comments on the quarter's economic and financial results. One, adjusted operating profit amounted to €472 million, around €1 billion lower than last year. This drop was driven by the negative scenario mainly referred to upstream, which accounted for around €1.6 billion, partially compensated by our stronger industrial performance that improved by €0.6 billion. All our businesses recorded positive adjusted operating profits, reflecting the progress of our turnaround programs. The adjusted net loss amounted to €77 million and was penalized by the already anticipated higher tax rate paid on positive result in PSA, mixed with some negative result in concessions, which are subject to lower taxation. In E&P, hydrocarbon production was 1,754,000 BOE per day, 3.4% higher compared to the first quarter of 2015. Excluding PSA and other minor effects, production increased by 1.3%, mainly thanks to the startup of Goliat and production ramp ups in Angola, Congo, Egypt, Venezuela, USA and Norway. Operating profit was affected by the decline in oil and gas prices, which accounted for €1.5 billion versus first quarter of 2015, but partially counterbalanced by €0.5 billion deriving from lower exploration, DD&A and operating costs. 2016 production guidance is substantially confirmed, even if we assume a Val d'Agri shutdown, due to the current legal investigation lasting for the full year. The negative impact in this hypothesis would be in the range of 50,000 BOE per day. But it could be substantially absorbed by the production contingency and the expected better performance in other fields worldwide. The timing of the legal procedure in Val d'Agri cannot be predicted today. In gas and power, the scenario was depressed. TTF and PSV were down both versus fourth quarter and first quarter of last year. Also, the spread between the two halves narrowed to around $0.50 per 1 million BTU. Gas demand in Europe was lower than in the first quarter of 2015, due to the mild winter and high output of renewables in the power sector, particularly in Germany and Spain. In this scenario, the adjusted operating profit amounted to €285 million, almost in line with the first quarter of 2015, despite the warmer weather and lower positive non-recurring items for around €100 million, inclusive of the effect of the areas in arbitration currently under further renegotiation. This improvement has been achieved thanks to the upgrade of our gas portfolio renegotiated so far, lowered logistic cost and trading activities. In term of guidance, we confirm a positive adjusted EBIT in 2016, thanks also to the proactive contribution of GasTerra arbitration, forecasted by the second quarter this year, as well as the structural break-even from 2017. Turning now to R&M, this business, excluding the effects of significant decrease of refining margin from $7.6 per barrel to $4.2, showed an improvement year-on-year, with an adjusted operating profit of €66 million. In particular, refining has benefited from the ongoing progress on site turnaround, with an adjusted operating result substantially at break even. This is notwithstanding a capacity utilization rate which was down 9 percent points versus first quarter of '15, at 87%. This was due to higher maintenance activities triggered by a weak scenario, while marketing has been better than in the first quarter of 2015, benefiting from higher retail margin in Italy. We confirm our target for a 2016 refinery break-even margin at around $4.5 per barrel, on track with our program of lowering it to $3 by 2018. Finally, our financial position, net debt at the end of March was €12.2 billion, implying an almost flat leverage at 23%. The €500 million increase in debt versus here and 2015 is attributable mainly to the capital expenditure of €2.5 billion, counterbalanced by cash flow from operation of €1.3 billion, cash-in of €340 million from the conversion of the latest Snam shares that occurred in January and the effect of euro appreciation on the U.S.-denominated debt of around €250 million. All businesses, apart from E&P, contributed a positive free cash flow in this quarter. For the full year, we confirm our guidance to cover CapEx at $50 per barrel, with our cash flow from operation. Thank you very much and now let's start the Q&A session.