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Earnings call · FY2025 Q4
Executive readout · one minute
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Management tone
Confident
Net tone +72 · low hedging
Forward guidance
3 guided metrics
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Stated verbally and extracted from the transcript.
| Metric | Period | Guided | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
|
G&A
long-term
|
$35M | — | |
|
Incremental earnings from commodity upside
long-term, if LNG prices revert to 2022 levels
|
$2.7B | — | |
|
Incremental earnings from commodity upside at current levels
annual
|
$200M | — |
How the reported period landed and where the business moved.
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Welcome to the GOLA LNG Limited 2025 Q4 Results Presentation. After the slide presentation by CEO Carl Frederic Staubo and CFO Eduardo Maraniao, Tor Olav Treum will have some closing comments prior to a question and answer session. Information on how to ask a question will be provided then. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. I will now pass you over to Carl Fredrik Staudo. Carl, please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and welcome to GOLAR's Q4 2025 burning results presentation. My name is Carl Fredrik Staudo, the CEO of GOLAR, and as the operator said, I'm accompanied today by our CFO, Eduardo Maranjau, to present this quarter's results, and our chairman, Toro Lothrae, to give some closing remarks. Before we get into the presentation, please note the forward-looking statement on slide Starting on slide three and an overview of GOLAR today. GOLAR owns three FLNG vessels, all with 20-air charter backlog. Starting on the top left, the HILI is the best-performing FLNG globally and delivered another quarter of 100% economic uptime. The FLNG GIMME started its 20-year contract for BP Offshore Mauritania and Senegal in June 25 and is now producing above the contracted volume. The Mark II FLNG is under construction and on schedule for delivery by year end 27 and thereafter to start a 20-year charter in Argentina alongside the Hilly. We have three growth designs ranging from 2 to 5 million tons per annum, and we have obtained yard availability and pricing for all three designs during Q4. We're listed in NASDAQ with a market cap of approximately $4.5 billion, and pre-air end we had a cash balance of $1.2 billion and a net debt position of $1.5 billion. We have an EBITDA backlog standing at $17 billion before commodity link earnings and inflationary adjustments. Our adjusted EBITDA for 2025 was $232 million, and we expect this to grow to about $800 million once the fleet is fully delivered and on their long-term contract. Turning to slide 4 is just an illustration of the overview of the long-term cash flow visibility of our 20-year charters hilly will end her existing contract for perenco in cameroon in july this year and go via seat room shipyard in singapore for upgrades and life extension work before starting her 20-year charter in argentina during the second half of 27. gimme is producing under a 20-year charter for bp offshore mauritania and senegal and the Mark II is on schedule to start her 20-year contract during first half 28. On slide 5, we build up the adjusted EBITDA contribution from the existing grid. GOLART's 70% ownership of the GIMI provides us with an annual EBITDA of $150 million based on the contracted volume. HILI will contribute $285 million once on contract in Argentina, And similarly, the Mark II will contribute $400 million once operational in Arlington. If we then nest off our G&A of around $35 million, we foresee long-term EBITDA generation of $800 million a year before commodity upside, inflationary adjustment, and any incremental FL&D. The embedded commodity upside comprise of two components. It's the profit-sharing mechanism in the FL&D contract, as well as our 10% shareholding in thousand energy. The commodity upside provides Golar with an incremental upside of approximately $100 million for every dollar the off-stake price is above $8.00 Argentina, and a downside of approximately 28 million dollars for every dollar the fob price in argentina is below fetal's cash ratio we believe the skewed risk reward of these commodity exposure will contribute meaningful earnings over the 20-year life of our argentina contracts illustratively if lng prices return to 2022 levels the incremental earnings from the commodity upside would be an annual addition of 2.7 billion. Or if L&D prices remain at current levels, we see an additional commodity upside of approximately 200 million dollars per year. Turning to slide 6, highlighting some of the key characteristics of our FL&D charter agreements. We aim to structure our L&D contracts at solid infrastructure cash flow with meaningful contractual protections. Some of the key The key attributes of these protections include that all of our contracts are paid in U.S. All cash flows are paid offshore, net of any local taxes in the countries where we operate. The contracts are made under English law, and for all the long-term contracts, our operating costs and maintenance capex is either passed through or reimbursable by our counterparts. Moving to the next session and the business update starting at slide 8. Starting on the left-hand side, Q4 was another active quarter for Golar, concluding 25 as a record year of execution. During the quarter, all conditions precedent for the 20-year contract for March 2 in Argentina was successfully met. We concluded two financing transactions totaling $1.7 billion in the quarter, comprising of the new $1.2 billion bank refinancing increasing GIMMA from $630 million to $1.2 billion. The new facility has improved terms compared to GIMMA's initial financing facility, and And the new facility proves the bankability of our FL&D assets once operational on the long-term contract. We also entered the rated US unsecured bond market with a $500 million bond offering with a coupon at 7.5%. During the quarter, CEFA signed a letter of agreement for an eight-year offtake deal for the first 2 million tons of production in Argentina. The LOI was signed with CEFE, which stands for Securing Energy for Europe, a subsidiary of the German government. They are also the existing off-taker for Hilly in Cameroon today, so it's an off-taker we know and cooperate well with. The terms of the off-take agreement is 1 million tons is linked to Brent prices, and 1 million ton is linked to Henry Hub plus the premium. We expect these LOIs to be formed into a letter of agreement within Q1 of this year, at which point the details of the commercial terms will be disclosed. During Q4, we bought back and cancelled 1.1 million shares at an average share price of 37.76. We're also very pleased with commercial progress made in the quarter for a contemplated fourth FL&D project. We'll describe this in greater detail later in the presentation turning to the right hand side of the full development for the year 25 was truly a record year of execution securing 14 billion dollars in ebitda backlog across the two 20-year contracts in argentina we took new financing facilities of 2.275 billion across the mentioned gimme bank refinancing and the u.s rated bond as well as 575 million convertible bonds issued in June 25. We obtained the commercial operations date of GIMI and doubled our operating fleet of FL&Ds. We continue to perform according to our market leading operational uptime, and we're especially pleased to see the GIMI join the operational excellence of our sister Hilly, and both vessels produced above their contracted amounts, providing extra value to our stakeholders in total during 25 we bought back 3.6 million shares confirming the boards and management view that we see attractive value in our own stock we've truly exited L&D shipping after 50 years in the business with the sale of the GOLAR Arctic and our investment in Avonair shipping so all in all we're very pleased with the year that passed and hope to keep the same progress in the year we have now started. Turning to slide 9 and a snapshot for Hilly. Hilly continued her market-leading track record. For the year, we generated a slight overproduction, recognizing $2.5 million of excess earnings over the 1.4 million tons contracted capacity. In December, we had a major production milestone, producing our 10 million ton of LNG and start-up of contracts in 2018. At the end of the current charter in July of this year, the vessel will sail from Citrium from Cameroon to Citrium shipyard in Singapore for vessel upgrades and life extension work. The required long lead items and equipment needed for the work at Citrium have been ordered and the prefabrication of certain work scopes has started at the shipyard. During first half of next year, Hili will sail from Singapore to Argentina to start her 20-year contract expected to start during the summer of next year she will then contribute 285 million dollars of annual debita or 5.7 billion dollars over just the debita backlog slide 10 focuses on gimme as mentioned gimme achieved this cod in june 25 the unit is still optimizing operations in close collaboration with the upstream partners of the gta project Production is ahead of schedule, and solid optimization has been achieved to date. In Q4, we invoiced a day rate 3% above the contractual day rate, and we are now frequently producing at volumes that on an annualized basis would significantly surpass even name plate capacity. It's worth to note that the throughput capacity of any lipopraction plant is sensitive to gas quality and ambient temperatures throughput variation between winter and summer month should therefore be expected where colder ambient temperatures during winter benefit the production level however our contracted rate is based on 90 percent of nameplate and any production over and beyond that number is a pro rata increase to our earnings based on operations to date we expect gimme to produce above her contracted values volumes on an annual average basis and will continue to improve how meaningful that can be in the months to come turning to slide 11 and the mark 2 flng the construction of the unit remains on budget and on schedule for delivery by year n27 construction is now close to 50 complete and we have spent approximately 1.1 billion of the total 2.2 billion conversion scope the full 1.1 billion spent today has been equity final as you can see from the pictures on the right hand side meaningful construction progress is now advancing the midship manufacturing which will house the liquefaction plant is now well underway and the new midsection will be approximately 63 meters wide and approximately 80 meters long We've now also surpassed 6 million man-hours without any lost time injuries. On slide 12, CESA is also making strong progress on the infrastructure required to facilitate for the grass-gas grid connection of the FL&D healing, as well as the required land-based infrastructure to support FL&D operations in Argentina. CESA has now awarded approximately $500 million of investment to date, including the pipeline connection to the existing grid, support vessels such as tanks and supply vessels, and construction of the land-based warehouse to facilitate spare parts and operational support for our operations in Argentina. On slide 13, SESA is also moving ahead with a designated pipeline from Waka Moderta to the Gulf of San Matias. The pipeline comprise of three key components. The first component is the turbo compressors, and the contract for those was awarded in December 25. The second component is the line pipes, which will then bring the gas, the approximate 500 kilometres from Vaca Marta to San Matias. Those were also awarded in December last year. The remaining component is the ECC for the actual construction of the line pipes and the compressor, where we have received eight proposals and expect to have an award within the first half of this year upon which construction will ramp up turning to slide 14 during the quarter we confirmed yard availability and price for the three growth designs that we have in question ranging from mark one to be built at sea stream in singapore mark two at tnc raffles in china or a five million ton unit that could be built at samsung inquiry we're pleased to see that we still obtain attractive capex per ton and around three-year construction time for the conversion candidates and north of four years for the mark 3 this is helpful input in developing our commercial pipeline and the price point and delivery com is confirmed interest with our clients turning to slide 15 we see multiple discussions for FLNG deployment we see an increasingly strong demand for FLNG tonnage driving positive development of our commercial pipeline we're currently in discussions for deployment of projects in africa middle east and south america based on the pace of the commercial developments and differences in vessel design requirements of the projects that will dictate the design that we will order in the end we do not foresee any meaningful capex expenditure until the commercial terms for the next project have matured we will revert to the market once we have a meaningful update on our fourth unit turning to slide 16 and some of the overarching developments of the L&D market last year the L&D market was around 434 million tons expected to grow approximately 50% in the next five years mainly driven by supply out of the US we note with interest that the U.S., which is already the largest producer in the world, will take the vast majority of incremental growth. That's particularly interesting as the U.S. is already the incremental producer on the cost curve of LNG. We see strong demand development driven by volumes out of the Far East, where China is currently the most active buyer in the market. Going forward we need to see additional L&D FIDs to cater for the demand that's coming and this fits well with the delivery schedule that's just been confirmed by the shipyards and for the commercial discussions and their negotiations. I'll now hand the call over to Eduardo to take us through the group results for the quarter.
Thank you Carl and good morning everyone. I'm happy to share an overview of Gola's financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2025. To move to slide 18, let's review some of the key highlights of the quarter. Total operating revenues significantly increased in 2025, reaching 133 million dollars for the quarter and 394 million dollars during the full year an increase of over 52 percent when compared to 2024. This quarter we report a net income of 23 million dollars and a total of 113 million for the full year of 2025 an increase of 40 percent compared to 2024. Our Q4 adjusted EBITDA came in at 91 million dollars reaching a total of 265 million dollars for the year some key drivers of this performance were hilly as carl mentioned before has maintained its commercial uptime level of 100 and recognized an additional two and a half million dollars over production in q425 while guinea also saw increased earnings in q4 largely driven by higher production volume resulting from technical improvements and also improved ambient conditions on site. This quarter we declare a dividend of 25 cents per share with a record date of March 9 and a payment scheduled for March 18. In November, we approved a new $150 million buyback program of which approximately $41 million was spent during Q4 at an average price of $37.76 per share. Across the full 2025, we have been consistently active on buybacks, and repurchased and canceled a total of 3.6 million shares. I'll provide some further information on these in the next slide. Moving to slide 19, we continue to improve our balance sheet flexibility, and Q4 was a very active pattern in terms of transactions. In October, we issued off $500 million under our first US-rated five-year senior unsecured notes with a coupon of seven and a half percent and at that time we repaid 190 million dollars of our previous outstanding 2021 bonds in november we closed the new 1.2 billion dollar commercial bank facility for guinea equivalent to just over 5.6 times each annual contracted ibiza this allows us to release approximately 400 million dollars in liquidity nets to dollar Our cash position remains strong, with $1.2 billion of cash in hand at the year end. Our total gross debt stood at $2.7 billion, leaving us with a net debt position of $1.5 On a fully delivered basis in 2028, once all FLNGs are in operation in Argentina, our net debt to EBITDA ratio is set to reduce significantly to just over 3.4 times. When it comes to the Mark II, we continue to fund its CAPEX commitments, and so far we have spent just over $1.1 billion to date. All of that amount has been funded with equity. So, we continue to evaluate further debt optimization alternatives, which may include the refinancing of Hillish current facility and a new long-term debt facility backed by the Mark II. This would allow us to continue to release significant liquidity to continue to support our growth projects. Now moving to slide 20. We continue to focus on accretive growth while maintaining a sustainable quality of shareholder returns. Our plan is to allocate most of operating cash flow after that service to shareholders, while continue to recycle capital through asset-level financing and existing debt optimizations to fund growth. In 2025, we returned approximately $250 million in the form of dividends in buybacks, of which $103 million were paid in dividends over the course of the year and $144 million in buybacks as explained before. During that same period, we continued to grow and we invested over $750 million on CAPEX for our FLNG units. Moving to slide 21, we can see that our share count has been significantly reduced over the time, with a total of just over 101 million shares outstanding as of today. Over the course of last year, we bought back and subsequently canceled 3.6 million shares as I explained before. We currently have a remaining allowance of up to $190 million under our buyback program, and we plan to continue our active approach to accretive buybacks from time to time. Moving to slide 22. When our three FLNGs are in full operations in Argentina, we expect our EBITDA to grow to over $800 million before further commodity upside. This can grow even more, subject to further upside from LNG prices under the contract for Healy and Mark II. Based on that, our free cash flow generation could reach around $500 million per year or approximately $5 a share before commodity upside. This could represent the total increase of over five times our current dividend level of a dollar per share, which we were currently paying. Incremental free cash flow could also be resulting under the CESA contracts and can be estimated at approximately $100 million per year for every dollar per million BTU increase in FOB prices above $8. Moving to slide 23, I just wanted to recap that there are many ways that investors can get exposure to GOLO. We are listed in Nasdaq, and our market cap was just over $4.5 billion, with an average daily volume of over $50 million per day. We currently have $800 million on the two unsecured bonds issued in 2024 and 2025, and also an existing convertible bond of $575 million, which was issued last year. So there are many different ways that investors can gain exposure to the dollar, and this is a summary of how you can play that. I'll hand now the call back to you, Carl.
Thank you, Eduardo, and turning to slide 25 and a look ahead at our focus on continued value creation. Near term, we see increasing commodity prices that will boost the commodity-linked earnings for HILI until end of contract in July this year. Based on the strong performance of GIMI, we also expect to see increased capacity utilization that would somewhat improve the adjusted EBITDA from the unit. We believe one of the most or least understood parts of GOLAR is the commodity upside of our Argentina contracts. And within this quarter, we expect the commercial terms for the CEFTA offtake to be announced, and hopefully that can ease the market's understanding of that potential offtake. We've proven to do a creative buyback and cancellation of Gola shares, and we have more capacity under the existing buyback program. Through last year, and we'll continue to look for asset-level debt optimization, and there's plenty of opportunity to do so across Hidley and the Marksview that could release significant liquidity to fund a fourth FLNG unit and enhance equity returns. The start-up of the Healy and the Mark II contract in Argentina is always set changes in earnings growth as well. The commercial pipeline of new projects, new FL&D projects, remains under strong development and we see the terms in which we believe we can obtain to be highly accretive to our platform value. The commodity exposure on the SESA contracts will come into fruition as the two units become operational. As Eduardo just explained, the dividend capacity and the capacity to multiply increase that is evident once we're fully operational. We continue to see structural, strong LNG demand beyond 2030 onwards. And our focused FLNG strategy with proven FLNG conversion expertise and the recently reconfirmed price and delivery schedule from the conversion shipyards to further testimony to our business model. Another interesting thing to note is that the net present value of GOLAR is increasing daily until both FLNGs are operational in Argentina as a function of time. Turning to slide 26, GOLA remains the only proven service provider of FLMG globally. We have an adjusted EBITDA backlog of $17 billion before commodity upside and inflationary We remain with strong balance sheet flexibility of around 3.4 times net debt to EBITDA once fully delivered. This enables growth while still increasing shareholder returns. I'll now hand the call over to our chairman, Thor Olof-Train, for some closing remarks before we open up for Q&A. Please go ahead, Thor.
Yeah, thanks, Karl. First of all, I want to give some thanks to management for a good execution in the year we have behind us to effectively secure $14 billion in EBITDA backlog and do more than $2 billion in financing, pay more than $1 billion in debt in installment on the mark to and end the year with more than a billion in cash, it puts us in a very strong position to execute what we think should be an aggressive growth strategy, being the world's leading LFL&D player in the market. We see today significant more demand for products than we ever have seen, and it's more a question about concentrating our efforts into the projects we think can give the highest possible overall return. It's one of the board's mission to maximize the value of the company for all shareholders, both on a long and short-term basis. To have an effectively priced equity is a major condition for growing this business. The value of GoodArk today, as Karl alerted to, is linked to three things. It's the value of the existing contract. It's the value of the options agreement we have, which is a one-sided call on gas for the next 20 years, and it's effectively the value of the GULAR franchise. I know everybody's pretty good in calculating the value of the existing contracts. I don't think anybody really pay attention to the value of the options, but I'd like to focus a little bit about the third thing, the value of the GULAR franchise. It's 26 years since Fredrickson took over GULAR, and we effectively started a venture to build a massive L&D company. It's now 16 years since we effectively started the work on the FL&D activities, which started in 2010. In 2014, we ordered the first vessel. It was in operation in 2018, and we now have eight years of extremely successful operation. That franchise, I don't think anybody fully understands the value of it, but to illustrate a little bit, we have been approached by one of the largest oil companies in the world who effectively said, we cannot do this. Can you be your service arm to deliver FL&D activities going forward? I think that's a question. To take those kind of things is probably a limited return compared to a lot of the other things we can do, but I think in many ways to illustrate the value of the franchise we have built, which I think people are grossly estimating when they're trying to do the value. When it comes to the way we in the board look at the value, I think so far it's represented by the fact that we're buying back stocks, and that's a reflection of the fact that we don't think the value, we think that it's almost better to buy back your own stock at an undervaluation than to effectively do anything else. We have also decided to push out the vessel number four, and maybe also on vessel number five a little bit, not because of lack of progress, but we're going through two years in 26 and 27 where we have limited cash flow because the Mark II has not started and Healy is in for repair. So I think what we want to do is to push the investment phase closer to the period where we are effectively running with an 800 million EBITDA and are I was on the call in connection with the QN numbers, and I've said then that if an undervaluation compared to the real value exists over time, then the board will kind of start processes which try to take out part of that benefit. Even if the share price in the latter weeks have shown some signs of recovery, the board still feels that the value of this company, including the value drivers I just mentioned, particularly number two and number three, should mean that the share price should have been higher than where it is today. What we have seen in other situations in this industry is that the valuation typically comes when the cash is coming. It doesn't come when the contractor is signing. I'm referring to companies like Chenier, where you actually saw that the share price started to move when the cash finally came from the discussions. So in order to kind of look at what we can do in the meantime, we have to explore alternative ways to enhance the value for the period under the cash flow coming in 2028. We have, as the board, started a process where we're going to seek external advice to There are several ways to improve the value for our shareholders. This thing includes processes, which includes talk to shareholders, it includes talk to industrial and financial potential partners, which can help us in enhancing the value of the company on a more shorter-term basis. The market should be aware that we several years ago received unsolicited offers for the company, several ones. We structured that into process, and then all the offers were at that time significantly hard on the share price. The board decided, however, not to recommend the sale of the company, which I think in retrospect has been the right decision to see how we later have built the company. The board of Goulard today consists of board members, including myself, which represent significant capital invested in the company, and you should be sure that the board have no other consideration than to do what we believe is the best interest for all shareholders. There is no other agenda here. The outcome of such a strategic process, which kind of we are in the process of starting, combined with the board's internal discussion is too early to be expected, but will keep the market updated if these processes are likely to lead to material I hope this confirms the commitment I gave to the shareholders in connection with the Q1 report last year, where I said that we intend to do things if you don't see a material improvement of share price. We have seen some, but I think we still feel with $17 billion of EBITDA backlog and an industry-leading position, including the report, which is significant value, that there are rooms for improvement. And I genuinely hope that you all guys kind of give us some time to go through this process. And as I said, no outcome is given, but I can assure you that the commitment we gave a year ago to explore alternatives, way to extract value, is kind of on the agenda for the board. That's the only thing I want to say about this thing, and we will report back to the shareholders as we make progress on this thing. In the meantime, as Carl said, the value of the company should increase day by day as closer we get to the window in 2020. What I want to end with is that eventually we started 16 years ago, which was to effectively become a dominant FL&D player, Paceoff. I'm very proud of the performance of the Hilly contract. I'm equally improved that we know can deliver to BP and probably be the only part of the greater-to-two project, which have delivered on time and on budget, and effectively delivering more than they should, according to the contracts. So thanks. I hope that was enough to confirm that what we were saying in earlier calls are lived up to by the board. Thank you.
Thank you, Thor. So, operator, we are now ready for Q&A.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. There will be a limit of two questions per person on today's call. Following that, you may re-enter the queue. Our first question comes from the line of John McKay from Goldman Sachs & Co. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, everyone. Thank you for the time. I appreciate all the thoughts around this strategic review. I just want to, you know, drill into the details a little bit, understand it's kind of a multifaceted process. But can you walk us through what the specific process you're focused on right now looks What could timing be? Where are you watching to decide how to move forward and maybe to put a bow on it? You mentioned you were approached. Is one of the options on the table here a potential sale of the company?
I think in view of the discussion we have had in the board, how we want to orientate the market around this, I don't want to give any further comments than what I've effectively already said. I think hopefully the shareholders have some respect for the fact that these kind of processes kind of need to be kept a little bit close to the board and not effectively be a public process.
Okay, maybe asking a different way, you highlighted, you know, the current value of a company, your desire to push maybe some of the next vessels to the right a little bit to reallocate capital. Is the message here that the focus right now should be on further buybacks specifically? And I guess at what point do you decide to switch from maybe investing in the base business to buying effectively the base business to commercializing the next level?
So there's no change in our committed focus to develop attractive FL&D projects, and none of the actions taken today will pause the pace of the commercial involvement of the contract in discussion. That said, an FLNG project, if it's just to agree commercial terms with the counterpart, that would be fairly easy. These are very large infrastructure projects that require significant regulatory, governmental, tax and environmental approvals, including LNG export laws. And most of the or some of the countries we're in discussions for didn't export LNG before we started it. That's true for Cameroon, that's true for Mauritania, that's true for Senegal, and it's true for Argentina. So, there is absolutely no change whatsoever in GOLAR's committed focus for accretive FLNG growth. What we're saying is some of the projects in discussion have different vessel design requirements. Hence, instead of going on speculation, number one, because of the different requirements from the various commercial discussions, and number two, for the cash flow profile reasons mentioned by Tor, we've decided to not go on speculation as speculatively as we have previously done, and then continue to mature the commercial pipeline before we commit significant both because we believe that's right from a vessel design selection point of view, and also for the cash flow profile that Tora uses.
Let me add a little bit to that, Karl. I think kind of just have one thing in mind. The process which we're talking about now where we start seeking some external advice for what the kind of options is for the future of GULAR, is not in any way influencing the day-to-day business. What the board has given a clear mandate to management do is run the business as we run it to the best interest of things and don't let any kind of strategic discussions influence what we do in short term. I think any kind of strategic discussion will benefit from building, continue to building the company like we do. So I think that's the most important thing. this is business as usual and nothing else happening but i think we're looking at some other alternatives if there are cheaper access to capital for instance than than effectively we have today so i think that's important i think when the cards what card says about 27 and 28 is or 26 and 27 is that if you push the kind of cash back a little bit maybe half a year to a year we will be in a very different situation because in the end of the period when we have the heavy installments on tip four and potential five you will also meet that with a massive cash flow coming out from the business i think it's a it's a pretty sort of decision which i also know is supported by some of our major shareholders have given us the same input we have been through a history here in this company where we've done three billion dollars projects or more than a billion dollar project with a pretty tiny balance sheet that had put the balance sheet under stress in some of the cases i don't think we want that we want to have a very very strong and solid balance to execute on multi-billion dollar projects which we're talking about here okay guys i appreciate the time thank you thank you we'll now move on to our next question our next question comes from the line of chris robertson from deutsche bank securities inc please go ahead your line is open thank you
operator thank you uh for taking my questions guys um just given the strong operational performance of the GIMI over the last several months. It's producing slightly above nameplate, as you say here. How are the counterparties now thinking about the future of expansion at GTA? What other data points do they need to see or evaluate to make a decision around that? And what's the current thinking potentially around if an expansion would include a floating asset?
That question is probably a better place to BP and Kusmos, but the fact, what BP has consistently said is that they want 12 to 18 months of well data before a decision is made on expansion. It has to do with how the wells perform. Given that we're now producing above the contracted amount, it suggests that not only the FLMD, but the flow from the upstream and the other infrastructure is also working at least as expected if not better and that should help a decision for expansion and given that the incremental cost of expansion should be significantly lower than the initial phase any growth should be accretive to the project economics thanks for that carl my follow-up question here is carl you
mentioned uh getting quotes at the yards recently uh this is kind of a two-part question one what's the current thinking around the cost for hilly upgraded redeployment work has that range narrowed at all as we get kind of closer here to the summer months and then two uh could you clarify kind of where things are shaking out in terms of where you're getting quotes at in terms of a dollar per metric tonne um have we seen any cost inflation uh since the fuji project um any commentary around that would be helpful sure so on hilly the conversion budget when we say conversion budget that includes everything from disconnecting in cameroon towing the or
towing and bunkering the vessel from cameroon to singapore the yard stay and sailing back to argentina and connecting and commissioning opex training spares and upgrade work all in we estimate 350 million dollars including a certain level of contingencies we as we continue to to execute on the hilly redeployment as most of the equipment is now ordered we feel comfortable with that budget and we'll try not to eat into all of the contingencies built into the 350. But that's the budget. But it's important to highlight that that includes everything, not just the upgrade to the ship. And then the second part of the question, do we see price inflation? Yes, the price inflation is not so much on the argscope, it's more on the top side and in particular the long lead equipment on the top side. The primary driver of that cost inflation is competition for the equipment mainly from AI data centers. We're using the same gas turbines and some of the other critical components and the massive surge in such development has caused lead time to go out and prices for that equipment to go If we then look across an FL&D, we see a very limited cost inflation of the Mark II compared to where we ordered last time. We do see a higher cost inflation on the Mark I compared to where we ordered, but that's obviously a function also of it's a longer time since we ordered a Mark I. and the biggest cost inflation is without a doubt on the mark 3 and that for the mark 3 is also driven by competition at the shipyard namely samsung so that's that's how we see it but we still see that we can obtain a cost advantage compared to land-based of up to 40 percent lower tax performance for mark one and two not so much for mark three got it all right
that's helpful thank you carl thank you we will now move on to our next question our next question comes from the line of alexander bidwell from weather research and advisory please go ahead your line is open good afternoon i appreciate the time um with the performance thus far on Jimmy how should we think about production above contractual base going forward you had mentioned ambient temperature and gas composition are both key drivers are there any other factors such as maintenance which would impact production quarter over quarter sure so maintenance is built into the difference
between nameplate of 2.7 and the contractual amount of 2.4 so that's already taken into account schedule maintenance and when it comes to the ambient temperature effects you will see a level of seasonality over and above the 2.4 we don't expect to go under the 2.4 in the summer months and we expect to be meaningfully higher in the winter months so if you smooth it out on average we expect to be well above the contracted amount for in the In the case of Q4, that amount was 3%, but we're still undergoing optimizations, and we think more than 3% is fair to assume across the year, exactly the percentages we want to commit to right now as we are in the midst of these optimizations. To have this type of production this early in the project exceeds the expectation both of GOLAR and of the charter. all right thank you a great color there turning over to Argentina could you walk us through the startup in commission cadence for Haley and the mark to once the assets are actually on site and are there any lessons learned from Cameroon and GTA that you plan to apply for the deployments yes so when it comes to they will be slightly different because he has obviously operated for eight years while the mark ii will be and never operated so we expect the commission or commissioning process of hilly to be quicker than the mark ii and for simplicity we expect commissioning of hilly to be around three to four months and we expect up to six months for the mark ii simply because the equipment hasn't been running in the same way the actual process is that we arrive on site, we connect to the mooring system and then we start commissioning through gas, gas introduction. The key learning effect that we are debating with setup and are likely to adopt is that we do expect to arrive cold. What that means is that we will arrive or likely will arrive with some L&D on the tanks. That allows us to start commissioning before we are reliant on gas flowing through the the pipeline hence we can save any time that it would take to connect to the grid and secondly the cooldown process itself that has a slight cost but in the scheme of flg capex almost negligible but this can save significant time and it's the same as what we did both for hilly and gaming commission all right that that makes sense alternate back over thank you thank you we'll now move on to our next question our next question comes from
the line of Sharif El Mugrabi from BTIG please go ahead your line is open hey thanks for taking my questions maybe to start off sticking with the gimme our project partners given production has been surprised to the upside. Are project partners still interested in de-bottlenecking and what needs to happen to de-bottleneck, given the already capable of exceeding nameplate by a fair margin?
Again, it's a question for the upstream partners more than us, but it's in everybody's interest to de-bottleneck, provided you can do so and add, quote, CAPEX accretive to the CapEx per, to the unit economics of the project. And we do expect a search of the, I think, will be at a very meaningful accretion to unit economics and a search in the interest of all stakeholders, including more.
Okay. Thanks for that. And then turning to a fourth or fifth unit, can you elaborate on these Middle Eastern opportunities? That's not something that was on my radar, But it's interesting, and I'm wondering if that's linked to ramping unconventional gas production in the region.
You are right that that is a region that has, call it, saved up as more and more actively pursuing FL&D, and it's one of the regions where we like the pace of progress in our commercial or in the project development of a potential effluent difference so for that one you are right that's one we haven't spoken as much as about previously but what we are hopeful that we can continue to develop that pace thanks for taking my questions thank you we'll now move on to our next question
our next question comes from the line of Spiro Dunes from City please go ahead your line is open.
Thanks operator. Good morning team. I want to go back to demand. I think I heard you guys say several times that you're seeing more demand than ever before for this L&G infrastructure. I was just wondering if you could expand on that. Is that MAPRO related or is that specific to more of an FL&G solution or maybe both?
I think it's twofold. One of it is the increasing industry recognition of the efficiency of FLMD versus alternative imperfection solutions. The fact that you can construct this unit as up to 40% discount to land-based and the flexibility a movable FLMD provides versus land-based is one key driver. The other key driver is that the vast majority of incremental production of LMD will come out of the U.S., and all U.S. projects, or the vast majority of U.S. projects source at HenryHub. So the attraction is when you can find research that you can source, in addition to the capex saving, but significantly cheaper gas sourcing than HenryHub. That's the other component that draws the interest.
So for us it's the increasing industry recognition and the attraction of sourcing cheaper Mollinger's got a subtle color second one maybe for you Eduardo just you mentioned on this latest refinancing or financing that it sort of proves out the bankability of these structures you maybe expand on that as we think about the go forward here you obviously have a lot more financing to do does this latest one prove as a blueprint what lessons did you learn during this last go-around yeah that's a great point So, you're absolutely right when it comes to the data points that we had on the latest financing.
So, when we look at the GIMI deal that we closed in November, we raised $1.2 billion, which is just over 5.6 times GIMI's annual EBITDA. So, if we try to apply, and we are in discussions of potential similar transactions to that one, if we were to apply the same multiple to both Healy and or the Mark II, we could be looking to raise in excess of one and a half billion dollars for healing and over two billion dollars for the module so that really shows the whole potential of financing capacity that we have under these contracts these are long-term 20 year agreements and we really believe on the bankability of dish this contract that we have signed up I'll leave it there for today thank you gentlemen thank you thank you we'll now move on to our next question our next question
comes from the line of Liam Burke from B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, thank you. Carl, you talked about a lot of interest in potential negotiations for future FLNG projects. Does shipyard capacity ever come into the negotiation, or does that, I mean, Chris touched on cost, but shipyard capacity, does that ever come into future discussions?
Absolutely, yes. That is why it's been critical as part of this commercial pipeline development to have confirmed yard availability and updated yard pricing in continuing such discussions, because delivery is obviously a key part of this. What we see is that for the conversions mark one and two, we are still able to maintain a very, very competitive conversion period of somewhere between 36 and 40 months whether or not to go mark two or mark one what we see is that if you go bigger on the mark three it's meaning to be pushed out even since we have the offset with the shipyard six to nine months ago so on that one we see um the yard availability as a negative on the first two we still see it as attractive great and And then other FLNGs out there, mostly operated by the major energy companies, has there been
any potential competition on the FLNG as a service only from any other provider?
Nobody else in the world has done vessel conversions, FLNG vessel conversions. We think that the capex and delivery time is better obtained in the current yard and long lead situations for rental conversion than it is for new builds. As part of the updates we've had with the shipyards, we have also explored new builds on the smaller sizes that reconfirms that conversion is the cheapest and most efficient way to do but obviously comes with significant engineering complications that golar has built up over time so we do see that there are more and more measures going for this type of technology but there are significant advantages doing it with us as a service provider as opposed to replicating this through a new build because you can also bend the same benefit great thank you There are no further questions at this time, so I'll hand the call back to Carl for closing remarks. Thank you all for joining in and listening to the Q4 presentation. Have a great day.
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