Operator
Operator
Good day, and welcome to Total's First Quarter 2018 Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Patrick Pouyanné, CEO. Please go ahead. Patrick Pouyanné - Total SA: Thank you, and good morning or good afternoon, everybody, wherever you are. I am with Patrick de la Chevardière, our CFO. I'm very pleased to join the call today together with him. We have been quite busy recently since we met most of you last February and so we thought it was worth a short update by the CEO himself. But as it is a tradition, Patrick will first review the first quarter results and then I will comment on the recent strategic activity and then we'll go to the Q& A. Before to leave the floor to Patrick, just and it's important because I would like to make a comment on the shareholder returns policy that we have presented in February. But we have decided, of course, to not only to propose but to implement and we have done what we said, which means that first, when we proposed this policy, we announced that we'd increase the dividend by 10% over the next three years and yesterday's Board of Directors consistently has raised – decided to raise the first 2018 interim dividend to €0.64 per share, an increase of 3.2% exactly on the path to the 10% over three years. So it's an implementation of this first comment (01:37). The second point is that we announced as well that we'll buy back all the scrip shares that we have been – which have been issued in order to avoid any dilution. So we've done it between February and April. We bought back 7 million shares, which we've issued in January for the scrip dividend payment and to be clear, we have just issued another 50 million scrip shares, which we'll bought back in the coming quarter. And on the top of it, we also announced that we will implement a buyback plan to buy up to $5 billion in – with the idea which was the idea to share part of the oil price upside with our shareholders, and this plan has begun. We bought back an additional 5 million shares for $300 million in the last two months, between February and March. And to be clear, more than $70 per barrel. Of course, we are very pleased with recent share price evolution – increase, I would say. But we'll continue to buy back shares as it was announced in order to continue to share this oil prices upside with all shareholders. So after I make these remarks, which are obviously very important and because we put into action our commitments to our shareholders, I leave the floor to Patrick, our CFO, to review the first quarter results. Patrick de la Chevardière - Total SA: Thank you, Patrick. Honestly, we are off to a good start in 2018, and we are on track to achieve our objective. First quarter performance is solid. Adjusted net income was $2.9 billion or $1.09 per share and debt-adjusted cash flow was $5.7 billion and our organic free cash flow was $2.8 billion. Looking at the segment, first quarter 2018 adjusted net operating income for E&P was $2.2 billion, up 58% compared a year ago, and 21% versus the previous quarter. Compared to first quarter last year, Brent increased by 24%, and our average realized hydrocarbon price increased by 25%. Production grew to 2.7 million boe per day in the first quarter, an increase of 5% from a year ago and 3% from the previous quarter, despite the end of the Mahakam license in Indonesia. There is a record level of quarterly production. The previous high was 2.66 million barrel per day in 2003. We benefited from major ramp-ups including Moho Nord, Kashagan, Yamal LNG where the first of three trains is producing 6.4 million ton a year, well above the nameplate capacity of 5.5 million ton a year. In Qatar, we took over operations on the giant Al-Shaheen field last year in July. So this made a strong contribution. First quarter startups include Fort Hills in Canada and Timimoun in Algeria. The Petrobras alliance and Maersk Oil acquisition made only partial contribution in the first quarter. So we are on track to do better than our target of 6% growth for the whole year. Before turning to cash flow, we note that the differential between Brent and our average realized liquid price increased to $6.5 per barrel in the first quarter of 2018 from $4.5 a barrel a year ago and $3.7 a barrel in the previous quarter. This is mainly the impact of growing Canadian volumes at a time when exports are pipeline-bound and netbacks are very weak. This is an exceptional situation not linked to higher oil prices. May I remind you that in terms of our oil price sensitivities, the calculation are made using constant differential, so, in fact, it should be used with the realized liquid prices. E&P cash flow before working capital changes was $4.3 billion in the first quarter, an increase of 28% from the same quarter last year and in line with the previous quarter. The ramp-up in cash flow will accelerate into the second quarter, mainly with a full contribution from Maersk and then gain momentum with the cash-accretive startups. Recall that in February, we told you that for a full year on plateau Kaombo, Ichthys and Egina would add $2.5 billion of cash flow, and Maersk plus Petrobras alliance would add another $2 billion, all that based on a $60 Brent. So the way forward is clear. First, organic free cash flow for E&P was $2.2 billion. E&P organic CapEx was $2.1 billion, and I will remind you that the first quarter is typically a bit light. For the Gas, Renewables & Power segment, adjusted net operating income in the first quarter was $115 million compared to $61 million a year ago and $232 million in the previous quarter, thanks to better result from the solar business. Moving to the Downstream then, Refining & Chemicals contributed $720 million of adjusted net operating income in the first quarter compared to $1 billion a year ago and $886 million in the previous quarter. Refining margin was volatile, averaging $26 per ton in the first quarter, a decrease of 34% compared to the same quarter last year and 28% versus the previous quarter. Seasonal weakness was more pronounce this year than last and essentially it has been the inverse impact of the ramp up in crude prices. Petrochemical margins have remained generally stable at a good level from the past year. So we consider Refining & Chemicals results are short by about $50 million to $100 million in the quarter, mainly due to operational difficulties at Antwerp and (09:11) and the start of the turnaround season. Note that we used the first quarter turnaround at SATORP to increase capacity to 440,000 barrels per day. Refining & Chemicals generated cash flow before working cap changes of $0.9 billion in the first quarter, compared to $1 billion a year ago and $1.1 billion in the previous quarter. Marketing & Services generated adjusted net operating income of $367 million in the first quarter compared to $301 million last year and $436 million in the previous quarter. Marketing is continuing to grow its retail and lubricant businesses. Global refined product sales are up 4% year-on-year. This is comprised of a 17% increase in Africa, Asia that includes the acquisition of GAPCO last year and a 4% decrease in Europe that reflects the sale of TotalErg in Italy. Marketing & Services is adding $100 million of cash flow per year by expanding in high return, high growth markets. The combined Downstream segment, Refining & Chemicals plus Marketing & Services, generated cash flow before working cap changes of $1.4 billion in the first quarter compared to $1.5 billion a year ago and $1.8 billion in the previous quarter. There is some seasonality in this result including recurring impact of about $100 million in the first quarter for the full year property taxes as per IFRIC 21 rule and the timing of dividends from equity affiliates. Finally, looking at the corporate numbers, the group's effective tax rate increased to 40% from 31% a year ago and 32% in the previous quarter. The rate for E&P increased to 48% in the first quarter as a result of higher oil and gas prices, and the share of E&P within the group results was much larger as well. The Downstream tax rate is relatively stable at around 25%, 30%. The group generated debt-adjusted cash flow of $5.7 billion in the first quarter. On an organic basis, excluding asset sales and acquisition, free cash flow was $2.8 billion despite the seasonal weakness in Downstream. So we are on track with the guidance we provide in February and we are confident that cash flow generation will increase over the year. Gearing, net debt to total capital increased to 15.1% at the end of March from 12% yearend 2017. This takes into account closing the acquisition, including the Maersk debt. There was also the working capital impact on cash that has affected the net debt at the end of the quarter. This will be corrected over the coming quarter. Nonetheless, the balance sheet is strong and we will maintain gearing below 20%. To summarize, we have a good start to the year. We are performing in line with our plans. The balance sheet is strong and the environment is favorable. Brent has been above $60 per barrel since early November or nearly six consecutive months. And we have been above $70 per barrel for most of April. Although product demand is strong, European refining margin has been volatile in an environment of rapidly rising oil prices. Petrochem margin have remained fairly stable at high level for more than a year supported by strong underlying demand growth. At the current oil price level, obviously, we have more cash flow than anticipated and we can execute comfortably our return to shareholder policy and that's what we are doing. And now, I hand back to P1 now. Patrick Pouyanné - Total SA: Okay. Thank you, Patrick, for these good sets of results and a record production and as well as, you said, the implementation of our return to shareholder policy. So just a few comments now about, I would say, the implementation of the strategic framework we described as well in February and we have made some various moves in those directions. According to what we said there, again, we told you that we wanted to take advantage of favorable CapEx (14:43) to invest consistently (14:41) and acquire some assets to create value. So what we have executed during this last quarter was, in fact, deals which were prepared in the previous year, I mean, where the price of the barrel was lower. And we told you that we will focus on where we are good, which is to play to our strengths, in particular in some (15:07) Middle East, the North Sea, Africa, deep offshore, LNG and in Downstream to focus on petrochemicals, retail and lubricants and that if there's a future, we will expand and we are expanding along the integrated gas and power value chain. So the activity has been quite intense and I would like to review with you what we've done and to explain you a few of these strategic moves. First, I would begin may be by North Sea where we closed the Maersk Oil acquisition in March, slightly went off schedule and so now we are the second largest producer in the North Sea. At the same time, by the way, we also closed the sale of Martin Linge. We have rearranged our portfolio with the objective to lower the breakeven of our operations in the North Sea. So it's done. It's been done. The integration is going very smoothly since mid-March. And by the way, I can only make a remark is what none of us when we negotiated the deal in spring 2016 were thinking that the price of the barrel would be at $70 today. So there is obviously some upside, which is coming very quickly in the picture. I would also say that we can speak a little more about synergies. And we plan to have $400 million of synergies, out of which $200 million were coming from OpEx cost. We reevaluate that today to $300 million from the cost of a global synergy package from Maersk, which would grow at $500 million plus. So this is for North Sea. Then the second region where we have been active is Middle East and North Africa. We have two recent moves, one in Abu Dhabi, the other in Libya. Coming back from Abu Dhabi, we have obtained two new 40-year offshore concessions, 20% of the Umm Shaif and Nasr concession and 5% of the Lower Zakum concession. I would say it's an excess to 1.5 billion barrel of reserves and production of 80,000-90,000 barrel per day. So entry cost of $100 per barrel with fiscal terms, which have been significantly improved compared to the old ADNOC concession. I would like also to make another comment. You probably noticed that we have a quite unusual high stake, 20%, on Umm Shaif and Nasr concession. Generally, in Abu Dhabi, it's more in the 10% to 15% range. We are very focused on that concession for two reasons. The first one is that it's a concession where there's a potential oil increase from 320,000 barrel per day to 450,000 barrel per day at 100% share. And more important than that, there is a very large gas gap, 5 Tcf of gap to be developed. And there is a change of policy in Abu Dhabi, a country we know very well, where Abu Dhabi has decided to really monetize its domestic gas resource. And so part of the focus on Umm Shaif because there there is a big upside and the fiscal terms on gas are very – it is a necessitation, be designed to be an incentive to produce this domestic gas. So there is an upside on Umm Shaif on gas, and this is why we focused to share there. We have taken a smaller share on Lower Zakum concession, 5%, because it's a more traditional oil concession, I would say, but part of our loyalty to Abu Dhabi was we were offered to be on both concessions, so 5% on one side and 20% on Umm Shaif. On Libya, we bought 16% in the Waha concession from Marathon. We closed the deal on March 31. It represents 500 million barrels of reserve, 50,000 barrel per day, a deal around again around $1 per barrel like in Abu Dhabi. The deal is closed, of course. You have seen some information. The situation in Libya is a little tricky from a political point of view. Let me be very clear on what we've done. Because we are polite, and with Marathon, we have a long relationship with Libya. We advised Libyan authorities far in advance that the deal has been settled between Marathon and Total, that we are intending to close it by the end of March. Legally, from a cyclical point of view, neither in the Libyan law nor in this oil concession agreement, there is a request for formal approval. So we advised them that there was a target for us, end of March. We wrote them again before. There was no objection. And so we decided to close and it is done. The shares are today of Marathon in Libya are in Total and because again it's a share there. We, of course, have a permanent open dialogue with the Libyan authorities and we will give them all the comfort they have legitimately requiring to reassure them that willingness would develop the oil field in the national interest of Libya. So this is moving, but again I would say when we close the deal, I said that we are not naïve about the tricky political solution there. So no surprise, but I think we don't give too much about some rumors like always. It's not really there. The situation is clear and we have a permanent dialogue with them. Then, the other segment where we have also – a core area where we have progress is deep offshore. We have in Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico, in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. In Brazil, we have closed the deal that was announced in January. I would also say just to comment but the deal was closed and negotiated early 2017, where again the price was under $50 so there is an upside coming very quickly because we produced already there on Lapa, on Iara and on Libra. So we have around 80,000 – 70,000, 80,000 barrels per oil per day producing there in 100% so we have a share of it. So it get some revenues, and revenue are unexpected. I would also comment that when I see the size of the bids which have been done in the recent exploration licensing rounds, exploration rounds, it puts a value of all this into I think a good perspective. On the Gulf of Mexico in the U.S., we have made beyond the giant Ballymore discovery, which was announced in January with Chevron. You have probably noticed, but we have acquired some Cobalt assets out of a bankruptcy procedure, which of course have been quite efficient from a cost point of view. We have increased our interest in North Platte from 40% to 60% and we have there becoming operator of this Wilcox discovery, 350 million, 400 million barrels of reserves there potential with some exploration license around which we own as well. So we'll partner with Statoil. We are pleased with this partnership to develop technology in order to make some profitable development of this Wilcox formation. And we have also increased our interest in the Anchor discovery done by Chevron and is very logical because we have, together with Chevron, an exploration program of many wells around Anchor. So I think North 32.5% was another move. All these moves have been done again at quite efficient cost of access because of this bankruptcy procedure. I would also praise my CFO because he made a bold move to acquire some second lien bonds at a discount price last spring and we will make there $60 million profit, which will diminish the cost of access to these assets. So we are innovative in Total and active in many ways when we want to have access to low-cost resources. Thank you, P2. And then, having said that, I will move to petrochemicals, which was another active area. You'll notice that since we met in February, we finalized in the U.S. again our joint venture with NOVA and Borealis, both on the cracker and on the polymer side. So it's a big expansion. We will together by putting in place this joint venture will be number three in the polythene business among in the U.S. among the top three sellers of polythene and polymers, which is quite a good position in terms of marketing and as well we have a very efficient cracker scheme and expansion on the polymer side. We have also announced recently a first step towards large expansion on our SATORP refinery together with Saudi Aramco, a giant petrochemical expansion, $5 billion for the scheme of crackers and polymers plus some additional units in which we will not participate the value part. It would be a world-class 1.5 million ton cracker based on advantage feedstock, first refinery of gas because there is a strong integration there, but also access to some ethane and LPGs. So it's a start of a new adventure with our friends of Saudi Aramco and it's fitting very well with the idea that we focus on CapEx in refining and chemicals on the integrated platforms where we spend a lot of money to put all the logistics in place with the refinery and now we want to capitalize on that together. And last, but not least, the fifth segment of focus on which we have also made some strategic move is integrated gas and power. The Engie deal was announced in November, give you some news. We have obtained all the antitrust authorization from China, Europe, U.S. and over the world. The social process is also over and now we have some approvals to obtain, some on commercial agreements on people around the world, but it's progressing well and we target as announced in November to close the deal by first quarter mid of the year, this year in coming three months I think. And then on the top of it, we have announced last week another move in the field of integration gas to power, which is the acquisition of the company called Direct Energie, which is a company, which is in the field of gas and power retail marketing but also a power producer. This company – so it's an opportunistic move which should not surprise you. We announced you, but we want to build a business in the low carbon business going downstream the chain of gas, gas to power. But we announced in October that we want to establish ourselves as in a position in the French gas and power retail market with a brand called Total Spring. In fact, the things have accelerated because these enhancements created another opportunity, the acquisition of Direct Energie. After we announced our entry in the French gas and power retail markets in October, we've seen that the share of Direct Energie has decreased and the main shareholders have decided that there was maybe right time for them to sell. So we have somewhere shaken the market when we entered and we are gathering the fruit much quicker than expected. So this fit is excellent for us because it gave us immediately sizable market share. We are reaching 7% of market share and you know in this retail business like we know well in our Marketing & Services business, market shares is of essence because you amortize all your advertising, your fixed cost on the larger base of customers and so it's a virtual cycle. The intent is to continue to grow on this market. Direct Energie was growing by 500,000 new customers per year in the last two years. We are also on all side, we are beginning to have 2,000 new customers per day so if you combine all of that, the ambition is to reach 6 million to 7 million customers in France, more or less 15% of the market share. This level, which will become a quite interesting business, but Direct Energie gives us again access to midsize and will accelerate our development. In the portfolio of Direct Energie, there were all the interesting assets, in particular they are some gas-fired power plants that they acquired at quite a low cost in 2015, 2016. So we will have 1.2 gigawatts of power generation there, which will come at the top by the way of the power generation gas-fired power plants we have in the Total portfolio. This is interesting because it's part of the integration between when you make a retail business you don't go only on trading to acquire power, but it's also good to have some physical assets that you produce yourself with a good cost of access, which would be the case with these assets and they have also renewable business, 500 megawatts which could grow to 2 gigawatts so this fitting well as well with our strategy, power strategy. So at the end, what we want to build in line with what we explained you and I think for some of you will follow us very precisely, remember, two years ago, there was a puzzle to explain the strategy so I think the pieces of the puzzles are put in place now, one after one so we'll show you a bit scheme and next September the strategy meeting, you will see how the puzzle is going together and this is quite logical. Now we are expanding a lot on the gas business. We have become number two in the LNG trade. There is a logic to sell this gas to customers, or gas to power integration and this go downstream to retail marketing including having in our portfolio some capacity of power production like gas or renewables. We'll be clear. We don't have any ambition to become a utility. We just want – we follow the value chain to get out of this gas value chains maximum value like we have done in the oil business with some success during years and years. This is what we target and obviously, we're not at the full capacity to produce the power we distribute because we'll buy and trade like we are doing already by the way some of the power that we will distribute to our customers. This business, Direct Energie, we evaluate that we – the objective is to reach cash flow from operations around $300 million, so around $350 million in five years, which is a target we have. There are some synergies by the way in this business because obviously by combining both companies means we are small, we will focus on one brand and not two brands, one brand in France, one brand in Belgium so it will save some money. But there was also two IT systems, (30:27) is a digital low-cost business and we will keep one digital platform, not two. We evaluate that to €35 million, to €40 million per year. So this is the idea, I think by doing these moves again what we want to do is enlarge the spectrum of activity of Total and to develop integration the gas evaluation and gas to power and to have access at the end of the day, to some areas, which are growing as a grow their potential growth in this market. And I think that for shareholders, it's a way also to give them access beyond traditional oil and gas to businesses, which offer higher growth for the future. To sum up, I would like also because I described many deals and many activities, some of you could be worried about the financial discipline. But I can tell you and you can be comfortable with P1 and P2. You've got two managers, there are very – keep in mind the discipline. We announced you a clear framework of allocation of capital: first, $15 billion to $17 billion investment; second, increase the dividend by 10%; third, keeping the gearing under 20%; and fourth, share buyback $5 billion to share the upside price. I confirmed today that will be in the range of $15 billion, $17 billion for the next three years and that for AGM, if I say you $15 billion, you will think it is too low, it's too conservative. I have seen some comments this morning that Total's management is conservative. So I will not be conservative. It will be $16 billion, probably $16 billion plus. But we will stay in the range of capital investments which was told you in February and I think it's important to tell you, by the way, we have sold already $2.2 billion of assets since the beginning. It's not just the acquired. We also sold you (32:26). If you remember, I told you that $2 billion an acquisition could be $3 billion minus $1 billion, $5 billion minus $3 billion, $7 billion minus $5 billion. But we'll be active, of course, on the sale of assets. And I would make one comment that, clearly, in this type of environment, $70, it's easier and could be even good to sell some upstream assets today. We are not so active in the last two years because we didn't want to lose value, but at this level of price, there are – we can be again countercyclical in the other way, which is to sell when the price are better. So this is part of our commitment. It's part, by the way, also for me of the restructuration of the portfolio with the permanent objective which is to lower the breakeven of a portfolio, and I think it's the last strategic comment I would like to do. Last one, don't believe all the rumors of bankers and Total is not interested by acquiring neither Santos nor Oil Search. We have enough interest in PNG with 38% oil and gas, solar energy with 27.5%. So I know people think – some people are giving rumors, but don't believe all of them. We are in line and we will stay in line with the strategy we have described to you, to focus on our core areas. With that being said, I think it's time to go to the Q&A.