Public Joint Stock Company Gazprom Neft (SIBN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 25, 2020

Moscow Exchange RU Energy earnings 67 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Unknown Executive

executive
#1

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Please allow me to welcome you to our conference call, which today will be about our performance results for 2019. Please allow me to introduce the participants of this conference call. We will hear the comments about the financials by Alexei Yankevich, who is the member of the Management Board and Deputy General Director for Economics and Finance. We will have Igor Shkirov, who is telling us about E&P, he is the head of the Department for Efficiency Management -- Data management in E&P. And after that, we will hear from Alexey Urusov, Director for Economics and Corporate Planning about the sales and marketing. And during the Q&A, we will be joined by our different colleagues from various core functions. Before I begin this presentation, I would like to, again, remind us that all the comments within this presentation or the statements which may be made in the course of this conference call, may and will contain various forecasts about financial status and there is also Gazprom Neft business operations, without the exception of the stated actual facts, all of the statements should be considered as those of an outlook nature about future expectations and events, which are based upon the current environment and the management assumptions and may take into account known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may eventually lead that the actual results or the indicators may be substantially different from the ones which have been discussed or was stated in the course of this press conference. Thank you for your attention. Please let me pass the microphone over to Alexei Yankevich.

Alexey Yankevich

executive
#2

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, today, we are presenting to you the results of the company's operations, Gazprom Neft for 2019. The results can be described as good. Despite various adjustments in the oil prices in 2019 as opposed to 2018, there's a bit of a decline. The net profit of the company, nevertheless, has grown, setting another record RUB 400 billion, and the operational cash flow also grew, the operational income remained at the level of last year. I would like to separately mention our results in the ESG performance, which is the area of attention, which has become one of the main progress areas for the company's part of our new strategy. The efficiency, technological excellence, safety and environment and governance. So over the past 12 months, we've been able to increase the level of utilization, plus 11 percentage point year-on-year, which is the utilization of the petroleum -- associated petroleum gas, and that is the main environmental problem that the oil industry is generating and we're trying to do our best not to resolve it effectively. And as far as our refining is concerned, apart from it, as you may recall, in 2018, we launched unique treatment facility BIOSPHERE at our Moscow refinery, which is a unique project for the industry literally, which is the closed circuit type of a treatment, where the outcome would practically produce distilled kind of a water, without any detriment to the environment. So respectively, a similar kind of a project is currently being successfully worked on at our Omsk refinery. And this is against the backdrop of the fact that in this area, we're almost the pioneers because if you take a look at the overall Russian oil industry, such purification treatment is being done, following the old kind of open type treatment methodology. And whatever it is possible and whatever it is economically justifiable, we're trying to introduce the green energy elements. For example, in 2019, we've worked on a pilot project, successfully commissioning it in building the first ever in the region, solar power station with 1 megawatt capacity. And so this particular power station is currently operating, supplying power to the Omsk initiative requirements. So we've been able to identify such a possibility of having realized that the number of sunny days in Omsk region despite frosty weather is sufficient enough, and that has given us a possibility to put this to good use within this project. Now in -- as far as the main events are concerned, which I would like to draw your attention to in the first place. This is the enhancement of our resource base in E&P caused this year. We had more than 30 licenses, adding to our portfolio. We're starting to develop the Achimov formations at the Yamburgskoye, East-Messoyakha fields, which is a new class of reserves for us. We also started producing from the oil fringes, and we also began developing the neocom-jurassic formations at the Bovanenkovskoye and the Kharasaveyskoye field, which is also a new project to us jointly with our parent company. In the downstream, we are successfully continuing our modernization program of our refineries this year. According to plan, we're commissioning into operation 2 major projects from this series, which is a comprehensive oil treatment facility at the Moscow refinery, and a delayed cooking unit at our Pancevo refinery. Besides, we've been able to increase the petrochemical share at the Omsk petrochemical. So as a -- as well as started executing the project, where we are using the new bunkering fuel, keeping abreast with the new IMO regulation. With that this is it with me as far as the main events are concerned, traditionally, I would like to pass the microphone for a more detailed presentation by our streams. And the first one is Igor Shkirov, who is our E&P representative today.

Igor Shkirov

executive
#3

Yes. Good afternoon, please. Can we take a look at next slide. This is Slide #7. Our proven reserve is in hydrocarbons. And based on the results of 2019, we've reached 1,564 billion tonnes of oil equivalent, which is 1%, 2% above the results of 2018. The replacement ratio is 120%. So the proven reserves under the PRMS reserves is 10 years. This is Arcticgas and also including the exchange of various licenses that have between NOVATEK and Gazprom Neft for the development, and these are results -- have been confirmed by the independent consulting company. The next slide please, which is Slide 8. The implementation of the new project enabled us to increase our output. I mean, hydrocarbons within the group throughout 2019, which is 96.1 million tonnes of oil equivalent, which is the 3% growth compared to 2018. The production of oil and condensate within the group within 2019 was 63.3 million tonnes, which is 0.5% growth compared to 2018. Under those restrictions, we’ve been able to successfully manage our production, producing from mature fields with lower netback compared to the major project has gone down compared to 2018. But it has been compensated for -- by the high netback production from Novoport and that is -- so consequent to the main output of hydrocarbons has been the results of additional drilling and commissioning of the new infrastructure facilities of Novoportovskoye field, which provided us with this additional growth. The [ 0.29 ] million tonnes is an active drilling program at Messoyakha field, which has made a contribution and others come from Kuyumba and Arcticgas. Next slide, please. And as far as the new assets are concerned in 2019, we have signed an agreement for the purchase agreement for 50% of the share in the joint capital of Messoyakha oil and gas and having -- and setting up a joint venture on this basis. And this portfolio also includes the Tazovskoye, Samburgskoye and Sakhalinskiy. As far as the Tazovskoye gas field is concerned, here, we have drilled 5 high-tech wells, and we are currently constructing various facilities for the full field development. For the next year, basically, we have planned this commission into operation. And as far as the Novosamarksoye gas field is concerned, it is at an earlier stage of development as currently, we are putting together a hydrodynamic and a subsurface model. With respect to our traditional regions, where we are working the Noyabrskneftegaz region, is the remote copper field. And here, we have -- this project is running according to schedule. We have come up with 1.5 million tonnes of oil equivalent already in 2019. And this project is gradually ramping up to its plateau. One of the most successful projects in our portfolio is the Zima. This is in the Khanty-Mansiysk region where we have successfully achieved the early oil project, and we have commissioned to operation 12 wells and 9 directional wells. As a result of exploration, we have exceeded in drilling and our plan in terms of our reserves, and so the growth of the regional recoverable reserves is 81 million tonnes. Next slide, please. The OpEx in 2019, grew by 7.4%. And the key factor behind this growth was within our mature fields, but it is very important to know that this particular growth comes not rather from 2019, but with a low base of 2018, which is conditioned by a dramatic stoppage over the high watercut well-stock because of the OPEC+ restriction, so we have currently compensated for it. And so we are having firm plans in terms of the long term efficiency. As a result, the OpEx have come back to their original level. As opposed to 2017, this growth here is, as you can see on the chart, just 1.5%, which is below the level of the inflationary component. So the reduction of the OpEx is in major project comes from the growing output, particularly from Novoport and also this is the growing tariffs for power basically inflation. And in certain cases, the amount of liquids producing in terms of remote assets, the basic growth is basically because of the decline on the oil and the Badra field. Next slide, please. New format of our cooperation with Gazprom. This is long-term risky operatorship agreements, which allow the company to operate under the Gazprom's licenses under the terms and conditions, which are equal to our own, which makes it possible to consolidate our reserves. And this is the format that we're working on the fringes, specifically in the En-Yakhinskoye, where we have completed the operational drilling. And the amount of output of this particular licenses will be at about 2 million tonnes of oil equivalent a year besides the experience that we have within this particular assets will enable us to test new technologies as well as optimize the production fringes within this particular field. Also, Gazprom Neft has gone about active development of the Chayandinskoye gas condensate field. And so the industrial outflow from this first particular well was more than 150 tonnes of oil a day. Right now, they were all well stock at about [ 7 ]. And so we have launched now the oil treatment facility production in 2020 to be about 200 tonnes. Towards the end of 2021, Gazpromneft-Zapolyarye will complete the construction of its own pressure pipeline, which we labeled, the oil produced to be directly delivered into the trunk pipeline system of Transneft and complete the treatment facilities. In the beginning of 2020, we have entered into an agreement for the shipping from the Bovanenkovskoye and Harasaveyskoye. These 2 fields will make a big contribution because this is new times of reserves -- this is a deep oil, gas condensate with a very difficult subsurface, but with enormous potential in them. Next slide, please. The application of new technologies enables us to effectively develop our traditional reserves, and such example is Achimov formations in the Yamburgskoye fields specifically where we drilled in 2019 first 2 high-tech wells. This is a 5 column in very difficult subsurface condition. So more than 3,800 meters depth and abnormal pressure and other high-tech difficulties. And so respectively, the well has been successfully drilled, and so the next is in is where we are going to take in the second quarter of 2020 based on the results of the production of first 2 wells and the overall project performance. Also in the Noyabrskneftegas, we have applied a unique technology to increase the inflow, which is a hybrid, multi-frac technology. So the launching recovery was more than 300 tonnes a day, and the technological possibility was confirmed to create specific cracks within fracking technology, which is critically important to develop this particular formation, which would provide us with 3 and 5x more of the lift compared to traditional ones. So Messoyakhaneftegaz, we are introducing into operation a horizontal well with overall depth of 3,200 meters and they cover more than 435 tonnes a day. Bazhen technology project, which is run according to schedule or with a steady plan where we are approaching the start of an economic and a viable development of these horizons. The key performance indication, the drilling cost is currently is RUB 12,100 per tonne, which is very close to our target. Next slide, please. Yenisei, this is an unique project in terms of the amount of resource base under its -- effectively, this is a new exploration target. A key challenge here was for us to organize logistics in this very remote and difficult to access region. And respectively, to provide for a timely performance of our 2020 exploration programs, respectively, something that we have been able to successfully cope with because in the period of navigation, we have delivered more than 6,000 tonnes of cargo. And with the start of the winter season, our regional explorers went out. And so in May, we are planning to start drilling our first exploration well. This is it with me and thank you very much.

Alexey Urusov;Director for Economics and Corporate Planning

executive
#4

Yes. Good afternoon. I would like to introduce your attention to a review of the downstream operations in 2019. On Slide 15, on the left part of the chart, you can see that the Brent volatility throughout 2019 was less than the Brent volatility in 2018, in Q4, as you may see, there is a bit of a growth because of the very deep of the black curve as opposed to the third quarter, which led to a considerable netbacks growth for oil. Should have -- at least one can pay attention to a slight decline in refining netbacks in the fourth quarter, which is because of the crack spreads went down as applied to all of the refined product groups, and this particular effect in terms of the fuel oil because of the restrictions of the IMO for the sale of high sulfur product. On the right side of it, you can see the changing balance of oil. The biggest change, which is 12%. This is the exportable volume, particularly from Novoportovskoye and the East Messoyakhskoye field, which brought in a positive balance in terms of the oil price. And on the next slide, if you can take a look at the refining throughput. The overall, there is a big minus 3.4%, which is a result of the maintenance work that we mentioned at every quarterly conference call, which is the punch of Yaroslavsky in Moscow refinery and the Omsk refinery in the second half year. While, generally speaking, we believe that the work done definitely optimized the subsequent maintenance schedule, increasing the main time between the maintenance and that would positively provide us with an ability to offer one refined product to the market as well as raise the technical level of readiness. In the B2B segment, as you can see, we've got a very great growth in all of these segments. In jet fuel, we have grown our presence, where we already have 283 airports, which is plus 18 airports year-on-year. In bunkering, 2019 happened under the model of getting ready for the new IMO requirements as of 2020, and we starting from September already began selling low-sulfur fuel. As we've previously mentioned, in the oil and lubricants, you can see we've got an excellent growth, which is 3.2% year-on-year. We are developing sales through our own technical services stations under the G-Energy Service brand. The locations is currently in terms of number, we've got 210, which is 40 additional ones this year and the premium lubricants has been replenished with the new line that you possibly remember from our press releases, which is the Drill Flow. The Bitumen segment has demonstrated additional 20% growth year-on-year. And this is an excellent outcome because we're an invaluable leader in the market. We are the first ones amongst the market players who went about online e-commerce sales of our -- these materials. And thanks to our innovative technologies. We are also actively developing e-commerce sales abroad. On the next slide, which is 18. If we are to take a look at the growing demand for various environmentally safe bunkering fuel, as you may know, in all of the global ports of January 2020. There are legislative restrictions in terms of the sulfur content in the bunkering fuels and instead of the high sulfur fuels and high sulfur diesel and fuel and various derivatives, the compository fuel now with low sulfur content. And this particular definition also has the liquefied natural gas. So with kind of the new rules our company has prepared in advance at the Omsk refinery, we have established the production of ultra-low sulfur fuel of up -- below 0.5%. We also have various logistical facilities. I mean, the whole network in terms of the handling and shipping up to the very end user. So altogether, our production operational and refining capacity makes it possible to offer 1.5 million tonnes of this kind of fuel. We're also using in the bunkering, the liquefied natural gas and possibly, you've seen our press release in December, we have started building the shipyards, the first LNG bunker fuel. Next slide demonstrates the development of the R&D and our efforts to where we are producing the bitumen. Our company is one of the leading Russian bitumen suppliers our line of assortment is almost 200 bitumen materials and coke, where we delivered this almost to all the Russian region to the majority of the near abroad countries and 57 countries internationally. We produce BRIT innovative line of products, which don't have any other similar to them. And our own R&D center develops the recipes for the road construction by application of a special bitumen material, with the BRIT brand name as the hard fractions of this launch. And we have tested it at the Khanty-Mansiysk road construction projects, and we are planning to scale it out throughout all of the places where the company is abating. Similarly, Gazprom Neft and the R&D oil and gas construction institute have entered into an agreement to jointly work on the innovative development of similar materials, which would enable our company to maintain our leadership in this particular segment. On to Slide #20, I would like to briefly describe a new smart system of retail station monitoring. Because towards in the 2019, we started the piloting of this system. And this is key project of the Gazprom Neft data strategy for the equipment control and management within our retail network. Towards the end of 2019, 92 retail stations have been connected to this smart system. The data call in every second versus more than 100,000 signals and the machine learning models the analytics, which have been organized, do read the signals from various sensors. And in advance, in a preventive way, do notify whenever our retail stations requires any maintenance work. As a consequence, the human factor is being included in order to reduce the operational cost for maintenance of the equipment. And so we are raising the efficiency of the quality control. In 2020, we have a plan to connect with this monitoring center all of the equipment installed at different locations, which will be more than 500 of them.

Alexey Yankevich

executive
#5

Dear colleagues, that does conclude our presentation with a few more details about our financial performance. So the basic indicators in terms of data and analytic I've already commented, the net profit curve is about 6% upwards. The OpEx and operational cash flow, and operational income remained at approximately at a level of last year. I suppose the interesting slide is this next one, which is the factor analysis that affected our financials. And here, when we are analyzing the results of 2019 comparing it to with 2018. Here is the confirmation of what I've stated. We -- as the rest of the oil companies have to combat the negative price dynamics in the market. In the case of Gazprom Neft, the price factor produced about RUB 32 billion -- RUB 330 billion. So you can see that this whole considerable amount of money has been compensated by various internal drivers, such as efficiency improvements, being able -- our ability to utilize the additional production growth even against the backdrop of OPEC+ restriction, and so that all led to us being able to maintain our operational incremental level for the previous year. There was another objective factor, which was the refinery maintenance cycle, which was a bit of a hindrance. And so in this particularly schedule 2019 turned out to be a bit more loaded in terms of the maintenance effort compared to the previous year. But overall, we expect to been able to maintain the proper level. The next slide is the quarterly dynamics. Unfortunately, here. It was difficult to do something about it. First of all, the negative external price environment as well as the seasonality because you're all aware that Q4 traditionally, has always been worse, particularly in downstream compared to the third quarter because this is a seasonal factor, which manifested itself this time as well. Besides, there was a bit of an adjustment in production. And once again, we'd like to underscore that. Yes, we do live within the OPEC restrictions, we've been able to completely use the whole quarter that we had last year, plus certain additional opportunities. And this particular effect to management was quite dynamic. And it also was seasonal, not even quarter in, quarter out. So the third quarter was a bit of better than average, a bit better than we expected. And so the fourth quarter compared to the third one, it is not looking as good. The next slide, cash flows. Here, first of all, I would like to emphasize that the company has generated very good free cash flow, considering the results of 2019. And this enabled us also to pay good dividends as well as do an additional number of our investment projects like we have previously stated. Our strategy is -- and as far as the upsize are concerned in the cash flow area could be shared with the shareholders in the form of dividends as well as the future development of the company. And that's exactly the way we did based on the results of 2019, we've write the dividends. And you do see this considerable figure. I mean, in terms of dividends that were paid as well as we've been able to dedicate this to a number of investment projects. So the overall CapEx turned out to be a little bit higher than the guidance that we gave in the first half of the year. But overall, the cash flows turned out to be in a good balance. As a result, the net cash flow turned out to be slightly negative. But we basically worked with our credit portfolio and been able to repay more than we originally planned besides there appeared a number of exchange rate differences. So we're revaluating our cash balances. And we also put into deposit a little bit more than we took. And that is something that you can see in this queue. The other, minus RUB 34 billion which formerly takes the cash flow into the red. But again, I would like to emphasize, there is a big -- quite a substantial bit from the exchange rate differences. The next slide is the CapEx dynamics. Our capital investments generally have grown about 20%. In it, there's a bit of a future payment -- advance payment shares, which means going into the active stage of implementing our project at our refinery because we used to mention that this particular peak was coming. It was supposed to come a little bit earlier, but because of different objective factors, it specifically would be followed from 2020, 2021 and that in itself defines a little bit higher level of advanced payments, which we ended up having towards the end of 2019. Besides our investments in upstream also grew which must not surprise you because we're lean under OPEC+ restrictions, but at the same time, the oil industry is the kind of an industry, which is definitely not short-termist. It makes his plans and thinks longer term. So we're trying to optimize our portfolio and to do our best so that in this portfolio, one could find number of producing projects as well as long-term potential exploration projects, which could become new producing highly effective projects. Therefore, in 2019, we were quite active moving about developing our greenfield projects and the core drivers here were the oil fringes project as well as developing gas infrastructure at our novel profitable field, which would enable us to grow our gas production, monetize it and besides that we've done bundle of various restrictions that we have in terms of the gas utilization, that will enable us to further grow in oil production result. Apart from it, that is also a bit of a specificity in terms of classification because within our traditional fields and traditional regions, apart from classic brownfields. One finds also a number of small and medium-sized fields, which effectively are greenfields within the traditional assets, within the premiere of brownfields, which also defined as growing in dynamics. So whenever we take a look at the investments into the mature fields, this is far from being just investing into our brownfields. This also means investing in our small greenfields, which one day will become our new highly effective projects and would improve our average basket in terms of production. And as far as a better-looking services in Western Zemlya and in Khanty-Mansiysk region and this is also in number of other fields designs. There has been a bit of an adjustment, rather the recovery activities, which dramatically went down in our brownfields in 2018. Something that Igor Shkirov mentioned because that affected both our OpEx -- CapEx because in 2018 we had to dramatically reduce our level of activities in order to fit into the OPEC restrictions. So currently, we are managing in a more optimal way, defining this effective level of activity, which provide us with the ability to maximize our cash flows, but it defines also a little bit higher level of CapEx compared to 2018, which was abnormally low. But yet again, I would like to emphasize that the bigger part of the growth in our investments into the mid 2 fields, which is 18.9%, [indiscernible] that contains greenfields within brownfields. Additionally to that, we also invested into exploration projects, which includes the [ Chayandinsky ] projects that Igor Shkirov mentioned previously, this is also being classified as a greenfield, but effectively this is an exploration activity. And as far as refining is concerned, I mean, growth is quite straightforward to which is related to moving into a much more active phase of executing our major refining project. The next slide, it's about our financial stability. And the company has been able to update its own minimums in terms of its low debt burden and the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, which based on the results of 2019 was 0.7. So our good financial resilience is being acknowledged by the leading rating agencies, specifically during the past year. The Moody's has raised our rating up to Baa2 and with a stable outlook. And in August 2019 Fitch ratings similarly has raised our rating up to BBB with a stable outlook. So it all points to the fact that in terms of our financial stability, we are quite confident. And we also have a certain potential in the capacity in order to compensate for the external environment changes and the current volatility in order to be able to perform on our new projects by maintaining a similar token, a good dividend yield. And towards the end, I would like also to underscore that depart from this financial resilience stability, we also have a very good reputation as a borrower, and there are quite a few opportunities that we may resort to despite the various restrictions in North America and Europe. And as far as the domestic market is concerned, we are a top-notch borrower, and we've been able to very well optimize our credit portfolio in terms of the average interest rate last year, and we continue to issue more and more effective debt instruments. So specifically in November 2019, we have left out a 5-year bond or what we call option. In December 2019, we became one of the pioneers of -- in long-term debt instruments into domestic market, where we've placed 10-year maturity bonds worth RUB 20 billion. And so this year, you may already know that we've set yet another record for ourselves and as far as the low interest rate with the debt bonds with the coupon of 6.2%. So with that, I would like to finish my presentation, and I would like to summarize by saying that the company remains stable in a not so simple environment, in the external market the company has a very good financial resilience, acts as an effective and efficient borrower. And so that is why we are confident that all of our projects will be done, and our average yield would also remain at a good, nice level. Thank you very much for your attention. We're now ready to answer your questions.

Operator

operator
#6

[Foreign Language] [Operator Instructions] So the first question comes from Evgenia Dyshlyuk from Gazprombank.

Evgenia Dyshlyuk

analyst
#7

[Foreign Language] Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask this question. I've got 2 questions. The first one is about upstream and about your investment projects in upstream. Could you possibly tell us in terms of your priority ranking, what is your core CapEx driver right now in the immediate future? Is it all fringes or satellite greenfields? So as I be able to understand what will produce this additional growth from these different categories because you have quite a portfolio of assets? And so it would be great to understand what in that portfolio would constitute the growth platform in the short or immediate term? And within this context, could you also share with us your plans about the gas condensate, which currently has been excluded from the OPEC+ agreement? So that was my first question. My second question, what is about your plans in the Arctic. We would simply like to understand because we know that Rosneft is actively moving there, setting up the Vostok oil projects, simply because you also possess quite a huge resource in that region. It would be great to understand the extent to which you are ready to tell us something about it now?

Unknown Executive

executive
#8

[Foreign Language] Evgenia, thank you very much for your question. So your questions are quite fundamental, and I will rather try and give you more of a quality response in terms of the quantity, we will e-mail these to you so that you would find it more comfortable to understand the whole picture. So as far as our immediate priorities are concerned, and as far as the amount of our investment activity is concerned, basically speaking, these are all of our core greenfields that you are familiar with the Novoportovskoye. So first of all, it is -- we continue to drill it. Apart from it, we are setting up a gas infrastructure. We're building a pipeline in order to monetize and take out gas away from it. So this is also about fringes like you've mentioned that, as well as our new field, which we started developing in Yamal, which is Kharasaveyskoye, North Samburgskoye field as well as other projects, which we are working on following the management and operatorship, which is our new initiative to develop the neocom-jurassic formations, which are the big new gas deposits in Harasaveyskoye and Bovanenkovskoye. So these are our main priorities. And simultaneously, these are things which may require a considerable amount of investments. But in the same token, we'll make a considerable contribution into our future production. [Foreign Language] Evgenia also had another question about the Arctic. And it is difficult for me to comment on the plans of a different company. But the Arctic, principally speaking, is the kind of a definition, which is not very conventional and not very straightforward. But I can tell you that we really do not have anything that could surprise you out of any particular way because your question was a bit of a premise that I might come back with you with something really cool and know that we're going to go for. No, not at all. These are the projects that you are very well familiar with, you can consider the Arctic one, even the Novoportovskoye, the same like Tazovskoye in the North Samburgskoye as well as the Yenisei project that Igor Shkirov told us about. And principally speaking, the development of the neocom-jurassic formations in Bovanenkovskoye and Harasaveyskoye, is also about the northern region. So it all depends upon what you consider to be the Arctic.

Unknown Executive

executive
#9

[Foreign Language] And you also had a third question about the gas condensate. Well, the gas condensate, indeed, very high potential area for our future development. And principally speaking, we are already developing gas condensate to sales. In the meantime, the output is not so big, and you can see this in our report. So basically speaking, the kind of change, which has occurred in the OPEC+ structure is not something that may affect us strongly. But in the future, we do entertain plans amongst several things, to increase our gas condensate production, including the production of gas condensate, which is envisaged as part of the Bovanenkovskoye and Harasaveyskoye where there will be quite considerable volumes coming out of them.

Evgenia Dyshlyuk

analyst
#10

[Foreign Language] Thank you very much. It would be nice if you could possibly make up your mind and share with us what kind of the gas condensate output that you are trying to target? If it is not premature for now.

Unknown Executive

executive
#11

[Foreign Language] And as far as the future target for gas condensate, Evgenia. I would say that we would rather share with you certain figures because the projects are currently going through very early stages. I mean, the ones that are specifically tied up to the gas condensate in the future. And I would like to avoid to publicly state any plans right now. So if you are interested in that, we will be more than happy to forward to you certain figures.

Operator

operator
#12

[Foreign Language] [Operator Instructions]

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#13

[Foreign Language] Regarding 2 questions and they are more on the quantitative side of things because we are aware that there will be restrictions of OPEC+ this year. But could you possibly give us a guidance about your plans for the oil and gas production for 2020? And if at all possible because, specifically, you mentioned that with respect to the remote group, you expect 1.2 million tonnes of output, but how much of it's from the Zima and as well as Pestsovoye and En-Yakhinskoye fields, if it is possible for 2019 and 2020 comparisons? And another question, could you possibly identify and give us the information about the size of the dampening for the gasoline, diesel and the reverse excise for 2020?

Unknown Executive

executive
#14

[Foreign Language] Thank you very much for your questions. To try and as be specific about the future plans against the OPEC restrictions, it is a very ungrateful thing to do, but the restrictions are restrictions. And so we don't know what will be the general shape of the deal for this year. I can only tell you that we have opportunity to grow our output, but the extent to which we'll be able to make the most out of it taking into account the deal that we would eventually be witnessing, it's just difficult for me to say. Now and as far as the production from individual fields is concerned, then with respect to the remote group of fields, this is about 1.5 million tonnes, the annual output. Now in as far as the En-Yakhinskoye and the Pestsovoye fringes for 2020, it's going to be a little bit less than 1 million tonnes of oil equivalent, about 0.7 million, 0.8 million. The Sakhalin North field and the Western Zemlya won't be able to tell you off the cuff, I would rather send you the figures later on. And as far as the reverse exercise is concerned, it would also be sending you the statistics so as not to make any mistakes now.

Unknown Executive

executive
#15

[Foreign Language] And I overlooked to respond to one another point, which is in 2019 as far as Chayandinskoye field was concerned, we produced about 1 -- 0.5 million tonnes. And the peak of its production, which is going to be about 4 million tons. That will be somewhere around 2024, '25.

Operator

operator
#16

[Foreign Language]

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#17

[Foreign Language] I have several of them. The first one is a follow-up of a kind about the previous question about the condensate, the potential production growth for this year. You have mentioned a certain seasonality in your output. And there has been an understanding that you share a quota with Gazprom. So during the summer, as part of OPEC+, you could produce more. And then -- when the seasonal growth of condensate was growing in Gazprom, you were reducing your production. So condensate was excluded from OPEC+. And is there an optionality for you now to grow your production by a certain margin over the next few months, particularly since your production has been going down over the past 3 to 4 months? That is the first question. The second question is about CapEx. You mentioned that in 2019, your CapEx grew that you had free cash. And that is why you grew your CapEx a little bit, but I would like to understand, in November, when we had a conference call covering the third quarter results. At that point in time, the guidance stated RUB 400 billion, and it ended up being at about RUB 450 billion. So could you please tell us what specifically has changed since then? Which are the projects that you decided to invest additionally into? And because of that, I have additional question about the CapEx guidance, what you gave us during the Gazprom Investor Day, USD 7 billion to USD 7.5 billion. As far as I understand, this is little bit higher than the level of CapEx that you've been specifying over the past several years, which was coming out to be about RUB 400 billion to RUB 420 billion. Should we now understand this RUB 450 billion as your new target CapEx level? And my third question is about dividends. What kind of a payout one may expect for the second half of 2019, considering the fact that you are now aware of your final results because Gazprom is expecting that its subsidiaries will switch to a 50% payment this year? Or will this also be the fact for the second half year in your case?

Unknown Executive

executive
#18

[Foreign Language] So let me try and -- thank you very much, first of all, for your very elaborate questions. And I would dare and answer not in exactly the same order from the very last one, which is the simplest, about the dividends. Yes, it is true that we do have a decision to switch to 50%, which was passed in the resolution by one of the recent Board of Directors meeting, which respectively, means that all of our decisions that we're going to make about the dividend payment this year in 2020 will conform to the 50% target. And so consequently, we have already announced our dividends for the first half of 2019. Consequently, the second half of 2019 based on the profits of 2019 second half that will be 50%.

Unknown Executive

executive
#19

[Foreign Language] So answering your other question about the CapEx. Look, it is true. Generally speaking, we expected CapEx to be at about RUB 400-plus billion level. But it won't happen, first of all, and I mentioned it during the presentation, because in 2019 compared to 2018, our advanced payments grew, again, that was part of our agile monetary policy. It was all dependent upon the kind of liquidity, we would have at a certain point in time, whether we would make more down payments or less down payments, of course, that would define the price in our contracts, and that is also a consequence of our agility in cash management principles. And the kind of the schedule that our project execution, which we see per a specific date, primarily that applies to refining. So this RUB 15 billion is the down payment, altogether RUB 450 billion minus RUB 15 billion, you going to end up having RUB 435 billion. So that is the basic figure. Additional RUB 15 billion to RUB 20 billion, which is on top of it -- on top of what we've announced because you understand that with our volume of our RUB 115 billion is not a big value and in terms of being precise, it is impossible to pinpoint it all down to one OPEC and what we plan. And it is quite right that we've been able to implement a number, I should say, additional initiatives within our projects, in some cases, we would speed up. In some cases, we will bring in new additional projects, specifically, we've, again, very actively moving in our catalyst production facility because the catalyst production is part of our program in downstream because we've got an upgrading in modernization. And we also have the construction catalyst production as part of entering to new business because we've been promoting it everywhere. In this particular project, we have quite a few uncertainties. So nowadays, we are moving very actively in it. And that principally speaking, was one of our points of growth and one of the reasons behind the deviation that you are referring to. And to be more specific this, amongst other things, means moving and eliminating uncertainties in our oil fringe project because not always we've able to plan for our investments there because that was dependent upon eliminating subsurface risk and how, overall, we were moving in a project because we could stand still, move faster at the same time, depending upon how stage in, stage out we'll be able to eliminate subsurface uncertainties. So as to identify the next future step of the project in the similar token that applies to the [indiscernible] field, where the project is going through quite an early stage. So I suppose this is -- and as far as CapEx is concerned, this is it. And as far as the reasons. Now speaking about the new guidance. Well, again, it will all depend upon the multitude of factors amongst other things, how we're going to do well in the new projects, how we're going to eliminate the very same uncertainties because we've got a very complex and difficult portfolio and a lot of the projects are going through early stages. So I'm always sort of quoting, give or take a few. And so the figures that you've mentioned from the presentation that the you heard at the Gazprom Investor Day is, yes, it is a bit of a target, but again, there could be a bit of a movement there about depending upon the execution schedule, upon how we eliminate the uncertainties, upon the general environment and the macroeconomics. And depending upon how quick we are moving in these projects.

Operator

operator
#20

[Foreign Language]

Anna Sidorkina

executive
#21

[Foreign Language] Ladies and gentlemen, Anna Sidorkina speaking, Investor Relations. Thank you very much for participating in our conference call, and many thanks to the management of the company for such a thoroughly prepared presentation, for their answers to the question. So whatever we have promise to send you, we will send shortly. And in case you have any additional questions, we would always be happy to respond. Thank you very much, and see and hear you soon. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

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