Santos today reaffirmed its strategy to deliver long-term shareholder value, provide reliable, affordable energy for customers and achieve net-zero emissions (scope 1 and 2, equity share) by 2040.
Speaking at the company’s Investor Day in Sydney, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Gallagher said Santos’s purpose and strategy reflects the critical role of reliable, affordable energy in modern life as well as emphasising the need to meet the world’s climate goals.
“We are focused on delivering our strategy through backfilling and sustaining our upstream production and midstream infrastructure, decarbonising our assets and developing the low-carbon fuel opportunities the world needs. Santos is now able to generate compelling cash flows to drive shareholder returns, develop major energy and CCS projects whilst maintaining a strong balance sheet. This is against a backdrop of a volatile global environment which is driving further consolidation across the energy sector,” Mr Gallagher said.
“Energy security is a top priority for the giant energy-consuming economies in our region. We cannot turn off the taps on oil and gas before replacement technologies are technically feasible, affordable and available. “Oil and Gas will be required for many decades to come. Therefore, a meaningful decarbonisation strategy must include pathways to abate emissions from these fuels. Our strategy includes a strong focus on abatement through large-scale carbon capture and storage, and technologies such as direct air capture.”
While we seek to develop low-carbon fuels as customer demand and technology evolves, Santos is committed to supplying oil and gas, and abating our own and our customers emissions through carbon capture and storage, energy efficiency projects, utilising renewables in our operations and high-quality offsets.
The Santos portfolio is value accretive and resilient across a range of decarbonisation scenarios. Santos has a climate transition action plan that will continue to evolve as technology and markets change over time.
“Our tier one LNG portfolio is backed by long-term contracts with tier one buyers and flexible contract terms that allow us to manage LNG spot exposure to provide risked upside potential,” Mr Gallagher said.
“The proximity of our LNG projects to key Asian markets means not only are scope three emissions approximately two and a half times lower from our LNG shipments than our US peers, CO2 imports are more viable, offering customers and hard to abate industries a way to manage emissions by taking advantage of our large-scale carbon storage resources.
“Execution of our Alaska, Barossa and Moomba CCS projects continues. Alaska is now 29 per cent complete. We have a highly capable team in place, supportive stakeholders and partners, including our Indigenous communities. Alaska is a low-risk jurisdiction with world class environmental standards and values its resources sector.
“Barossa is 64 per cent complete. Despite the challenging approvals, regulatory and third-party litigation environment in Australia, we continue to progress work on our FPSO with the hull arriving in Singapore on November 15 for topside installation.
“Our Moomba CCS project is 75 per cent complete with first CO2 injection expected in the first half of 2024. Moomba CCS will be one of the world’s largest and lowest-cost CCS projects. On completion of Phase 1, Moomba CCS will be capable of permanently storing annual CO2 volumes of up to 1.7 million tonnes per annum, equivalent to more than 25 per cent of the total emissions reduction achieved in Australia’s electricity sector over the full year to March 2023.[i]
“We have a strong balance sheet supportive of disciplined growth with a business model, assets, infrastructure and team to generate strong shareholder returns through the global energy evolution.
“We are disappointed with recent share price performance and have been discussing this with shareholders. Santos remains focussed on delivering shareholder value, we continually review alternatives and are confident we can unlock value for shareholders through executing our strategy and priorities as outlined today.”
Guidance
2023 production guidance is maintained at 89 to 93 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) and sustaining capital expenditure guidance is slightly lowered to ~$1.1 billion dollars. Major projects capital expenditure in 2023 is maintained at $1.5-$1.6 billion dollars.
Production guidance for 2024 is expected to be in the range of 84 to 90 mmboe, influenced by the end of field life at Bayu-Undan and WA offshore field decline.
Sustaining capital expenditure, including decommissioning capex in 2024 is expected to be approximately $1.25 billion and major projects capital expenditure is expected to be approximately $1.6 billion (including the Barossa, Pikka Phase 1, Papua LNG and Moomba CCS projects).
Guidance for 2023 provided in this release and in the attached Investor Day presentation assumes Santos’ existing 42.5 per cent in PNG LNG. Guidance will be revised once the expected sell-down has completed.
Live Webcast
A live webcast of the 2023 Investor Day will be available on Santos website at www.Santos.com from 8.30am ACDT today.
[1] https://www.dcceew.gov.au/about/news/greenhouse-gas-emissions-march-update-2023
