Ladies and gentlemen, I am really pleased to welcome you to the presentation of Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results and our Capital Markets Update. We would preferred of course we would have done this in-person, but that has not been possible this time, so we’ll try to make it as real as we can live with you from here in Oslo. We’ll have presentations from Anders Opedal, our Chief Executive Officer; and Ulrica Fearn, our Chief Financial Officer of around 20 to 25 minutes each, then we’ll have a question-and-answer session of around 45 minutes with Anders and Ulrica, but also all of the EVPs who are here with us in the room today. And also, some of those who leading the breakout sessions afterwards, for those of you who have signed up. We expect to close the call around 1:45 Norwegian time. We've got a lot to get through, so let me please pass over through to Anders Opedal. Thank you, Anders.

Thank you very much Peter. And good morning, everyone. And welcome. I really look forward to presenting our strong results and capital markets update together with my team today. I will focus on three main topics: first and foremost, we report earnings at record level due to our strong operational performance and the high prices. This is also the basis for our increased capital distribution. I will come back to that. Second, we continue in you to progress on our three strategic priorities. We turn ambitions into actions for optimized oil and gas, high value growth in renewables and developing new market opportunities in low carbon solutions. Third and finally, we announce our step in our climate ambitions. By 2030, we aim to reduce our group-wide net emissions by 50% while maintaining high-value creation and growing returns. Let me start with our strong results for 2021. Last year we saw continue impacts from the pandemic, and unstable and increasing energy prices. We focused on protecting our people, safe and reliable operations, and cost and capital discipline. I am incredible proud of our people and partners delivering very strong results, both operational and financial during a pandemic that has impacted our lives. Safety is my most important responsibility. This serious incident frequency has a positive trend and we have achieved our best result to date. We will continue the collaboration with our employees and safety delegates, partners and suppliers to improve our shared safety results. Our goal always safely home from work every day. Our strong operational performance lay the foundation for our financial results in 2021, both for earnings after tax and cashflow are very strong. We reduced the unplanned losses on our producing assets by almost 30% compared to the five-year average. In eight months, last year, Johan Sverdrup…

Thank you, Anders, and thank you all for joining us today on the call today. It's always good to be able to present to our stakeholders even if it is still via video, and I hope that will change soon. I started at Equinor just after the Capital Markets Day in June. And I have, after that spent time rapidly learning and bringing to execution the strategy that was presented then. And today, it's an opportunity to show how we are delivering on this strategy and our ambitions as we clearly demonstrated then, and we've demonstrated it again by our fourth quarter and our full year results. So let me first focus on these results, but also in the context of the strategy provide you some further details on our portfolio and our financial framework. What we will show today is that we're able to capture high prices and thereby, report record adjusted earnings after tax for the quarter. Oil prices are high and in the second half of 2021, we saw record gas prices in Europe with an average realized price of $28.8 per MMBtu compared to $5 a year ago. We have actively responded to the tight market and increased our gas production in Norway by 16.5% in the fourth quarter and by 5% for the full year to provide much-needed additional supply to industries and consumers in Europe. And the record gas prices, combined with our focus on optimizing gas volume, paid dividends quite literally. Meanwhile, underlying upstream unit production costs was stable, and we delivered organic CapEx in line with our reduced guidance at $8 billion in 2021. And these factors all contributed to record cash flow from operations in the quarter of $11.3 billion after tax. And to put this into context, this cash flow…

Thanks, Ulrica. So, I pass over through to the operator who'll just remind you how to poll for a question. We have some on screen already.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]

Okay. Thanks. So, we've got number of questions coming in. So first one is from Biraj Borkhataria at RBC.

Hi there. Thanks for taking my question. The first one is on shareholder distribution. This year's free cash flow is obviously very high given where oil and gas prices are and then you have the lagged tax effect. I'm just trying to understand that given where the balance sheet is also, and that you're likely to deleverage further in the short-term. Going forward, should we assume that shareholder distribution should be sort of equal to free cash flow or even potentially greater than free cash flow? I'm just trying to see how you balance that kind of framework. And with your gearing target of 15% to 30%, you'll be way below that even with the buyback and the special dividend? And then the second question is on low carbon. Your CapEx framework still points to a rising CapEx profile in that space. I was probably a little bit surprised not to see your name in the ScotWind. So maybe you could give a bit more color on competitive dynamics in that space. You did touch on it, but whether anything is changing your view there both in terms of the opportunity set and also the intensity of the competition? Thank you.

Yes. Thank you very much for the question. And I know that also for the final question regarding ScotWind, Pål also would like to chip in a little bit. But let me start first with the capital distribution. The way we think around this is that we, as I alluded to you earlier, we grow the cash dividend in line with long-term underlying earnings. And with the capital framework we provided to you during the Capital Market Day, we said there is flexibility to grow this further for the share buyback with the criteria given. I think you have seen that we have demonstrated now in the third quarter and now also for the third quarter that we're using that flexibility based on the earnings and the outlook. So, we will continue to look at the outlook, the underlying earnings and come back to the different announcement at different quarters. You want to allude a little more to the cash?

I can add a little bit to the comment around the delayed tax payments, and that's absolutely correct. The earnings this year will have – will trigger large tax payments next year. Of course, we're taking the long-term view into consideration when we look at the capital distribution. So that's what our capital framework allows us to do is to step back, look at it a bit more longer term and say, here's what the holistic environment looks like, both the commodity prices and the macroeconomic environment and our outlook, taking into account the cash flows that we're expecting and then we make the decision from that. But yes, absolutely, next year we will see the impact from those larger tax payments, and that's been taken into account.

And for the competition in the renewables, yes, there is higher competition. But also, I want to remind you of the very, very good portfolio we already do have in execution. And we're focusing very much on delivering that portfolio now. We're focusing on also bringing some of these projects that are – we have taken concept selection on, like Empire Wind and bring that up to final investment decision. But we're also looking into access more acreage, and this is a competitive area. And Pål, please add. Pål Eitrheim: Yes. So, to your question, I think the competition was confirming something that we've already seen in quite a few auctions recently. And I think more than 70 companies were actually competing for ScotWind. So yes, obviously, I was – I don't like losing, so I was a bit disappointed that we didn't follow through. I think our people delivered a really good bid. But it doesn't really change the pathway that we're on. We are saying today that we have accessed around two-thirds of the pipeline that we need to deliver on the ambition. And I think we can actually – we have a pipeline now that I think gives us the privilege of being quite disciplined and that we can actually afford to be disciplined. But we are going to compete fiercely going forward. We haven't got a formal debrief from the Scottish authorities yet and we would like to see that to understand why we didn't – why we were not successful in that round and then use that with the aim to improve.

Thank you, Pål. And also, for the visibility for the extraordinary dividend, this is now declared for the – for next quarter.

Thanks, Biraj. Next question is from Oswald Clint at Bernstein.

Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps just a simple one on again on distributions. Could you just talk about why you selected the extraordinary dividend this time? You've given us a full suite of distribution options, so why the special dividend? And obviously, could have been funded through the buyback and the balance sheet? Anyway, so that's the first one. And then secondly, it's a good strong message Anders about customers, which I hear from you today, and also talking around your carbon capture, your transport, your hydrogen. The 15 million to 30 million tonnes per annum by 2035 is still the same as last summer. So, is that just giving you confidence in rolling out that type of business? Could we start to see more developments or even more CapEx going into that particular direction? And perhaps in your response, just remind us, I guess, of the revenue model, some of the assumptions you're taking here to make the economics work around this transport carbon business. I see your comment here about customers receiving subsidy. So that would be great to hear your thoughts? Thank you.

Yes. Thank you very much for your question there. We want to – we are investing our cash in a very profitable portfolio, but we also want to distribute competitive dividend to our shareholders. And we to have optimizing our capital structure, we have found a balance between both a cash dividend and share buybacks. And we – there are different choice and options from the different investors and kind of preferences. So, we have looked into both the long-term underlying earnings and grow that annually as we always do and announced in the fourth quarter. We have increased our share buyback. But we also saw that there are room for more capital distribution this year for optimizing our capital structure, and we decided to propose for the next four quarter a $0.20 extraordinary dividend. You're right, the customers are more and more interested to talk to us about carbon capture or the transport and storage that we are mostly in. And this is, of course, because of the increasing ETFs and the CO2 tax that we have seen lately. I would like Irene to allude a little bit more on the kind of the options that we have built since the last time we discussed this at the Capital Market Day. But the higher CO2 taxes, the customers moving into more and more finding solutions for reducing their CO2 they are emitting, make me more and more confident about the target and ambition we set on the Capital Market Day. So, Irene, if you allude a little bit more on the projects and how this is developing.

Well, happy to do that. As Anders said, there is a significant increase in interest from customers, two types of customers particularly. I think industrial customers like steel companies, ammonia, fertilizer and all of that, they all commit to net zero in 2050. They don't really have alternatives other than carbon capture and storage as of the day. The other customers we're seeing are power plants. I think the whole energy crunch we've seen in Europe these days means that we need more dispatchable power. And CCGTs with carbon capture and storage is coming up as the savior in this picture. And we have a lot of incoming calls. And as Anders alluded to CO2 prices, we offer a way for these customers to basically hedge their CO2 price by paying off for storing and transporting it. So, it's exciting right now, a lot of pull from. And you also asked about the economic assumptions. And I think we said at the Capital Markets Day that come 2030, we should be able to capture, transport and store CO2 below €100 per tonne. And we also said then that we expect the ETS price to be in that range, but we're seeing hitting those kind of marks already today so.

Thanks, Irene. And thanks, Oswald. Next question is from Anders Holte of Kepler.

Thanks guys. Thanks for taking my question and congrats for the recent quarter, we have to say. My other simple one is directed to Pål in terms of – it’s related to offshore wind. You touched upon the increased competition in ScotWind. It was quite fierce. I think we all saw that. But I guess just on a broader sense, like how do you view the outlook for offshore wind projects that you haven't sanctioned in light of the cost increase we've seen in, more or less all parts of the supply chain? One thing is projects where you have a signed contract for turbines and foundations. But in terms of projects that are not yet FIDs, like where do you expect the returns stand up? And what's the impact on the cost increases on the overall project returns? Thank you. Pål Eitrheim: So, as you said, it's a difference between the projects we have sanctioned and where we have kind of inflation behind us, and we have locked in that risk. So that's not sort of a major concern. And Dogger Bank A and B, for example, is in that category. When it comes to inflation, so as Anders said in his speech today, clearly, it is a concern and we're monitoring it very, very carefully. And especially in the renewable area that have slimmer margins than other parts of our business that is a key point. On the other hand, we could also see the effects more widely in this industry in terms of potentially taking tempering some of the heat on the competitiveness that we are seeing in the market. And that's a market where, I think, the strong balance sheet of Equinor is actually a big competitive advantage. When it comes to the pre-FID projects, it's a bit early to say the impact of inflation. So clearly, we are monitoring that. And we're seeing prices in some segments coming up. We are trying to very carefully manage this through our procurement strategies and the timing for when we set contracts and also managing this together with the suppliers that we are taking. But we are not seeing a fundamental change to the business cases because of inflation yet. And obviously, we don't know how sticky this is going to be. And in quite a few of these projects, we have still a lot of the procurement ahead of us. So, it's a bit of a long answer and not being specific. But it is an uncertainty that we need to manage going forward, and we need to do it on a portfolio level.

And then what we also focus on here is, as Pål said, really how we work with the projects and using the toolbox that we developed in the step project, simplifying and optimizing the projects. And this is exactly what Pål is doing together with Sigve in renewable projects, and we do that in all other oil and gas projects as well.

Anders the next question is from Lydia Rainforth at Barclays.

Thanks, and good afternoon, everyone. So, two questions, if I could. Just in terms of the Renewables business and the idea of wind versus hydrogen and CCS, how do you think about the pace of both of those, so in terms of end up splitting it equally between them? And then secondly, just on the reserve side. And I know it's unusual now to ask questions on the reserve side. But could you just ask why the so you saw reserve replacement numbers, but the resource number actually came down, I think. So, I was just wondering why that was. Thanks.

Are you talking about the RRR are coming down? Is that your question?

Yes. So, in terms of, if I look at the slides, I think, the RRR was actually 113%, I think, for the year. But then the resource number seems to have fallen relative to last year. So, I was just wondering why that was.

Well, from last year, we have increased this number. So, this is a strong number, 113%. And also, the ROP has also increased during this year. When it comes to the pace of renewables and low-carbon solutions, we have guided that on the – in 2025, we will see that the gross CapEx will be above 30%, and then it moved to 50% of the totality in 2030. But we will see the renewables CapEx ahead of the low-carbon solution CapEx. Irene is now developing a very long and interesting project portfolio. Not all of them will probably progress to a final FID. But many of them are very interesting. That will probably start coming more in FID in 2024, 2025, we'll see, maybe before, some of them. But the majority of hydrogen and CCS will come a little bit later than the renewable business.

Great, thank you.

Thanks, Lydia. Next question from Teodor Sveen-Nilsen at SpareBank Global Markets.

Good afternoon. And thanks for taking my questions. And also, congrats from very strong results. Two questions from me if I may. First, on the gas strategy. Have you been tempted to sell more gas as spot to the forward compared to your stable strategy of selling 70% spot? Second question is on tax payments. Ulrica, you said that you expect cash tax payments to come up this year, of course. Are you in a position to guide specifically on the cash tax payments over the next few quarters, that would be useful? Thanks.

Okay. Thank you, Teodor. So maybe Irene, you can elaborate a little bit on the gas strategy and how we think of that. But I also have to underline the operational excellence in the gas enabled us to capture really the prices. And then also the gas strategy is an important part of how we capture prices.

You might recall that pre-2019, we actually sold our gas on a mix of short-term and long-term indices. But we highlighted that we expect more volatility going forward and change that strategy to 70% [ph] day ahead and 30% months ahead. So, I guess your question is, should we go 100% day ahead? I think 100% is probably not possible logistically. And also, the month ahead prices capture more of the spikes then our had prices as well. So, I think if you compare our realized prices to the day ahead NVP, we're pretty close, but not perfectly there. So, I think we're quite happy where we ended up. And if you look at the last two years, I think, we've actually made several billion dollars by introducing this new strategy compared to where we would have been with the pre-2019 strategy.

Thank you, Irene. Ulrica?

Yes. Very short answer to that. Referring to 2021, just to remind us that we've got the full year Norwegian krona tax is NOK 177 million of which we've got – which is what I referred to before, which we've got about NOK 110 million left to pay in the first half of next year. And of course, when it comes to 2022, we won't go into those taxes now.

Hopefully more.

Exactly. It's a good thing. It's a good thing, this problem. It's the lag that make it a little bit more difficult to calculate. But it's pretty straightforward, six months delay on big earnings, and that's what we're paying for in this half we're in now.

Yes. And just a reminder on that one, we'll pay one third of that NOK 110 million in the first quarter and two thirds of that NOK 110 million [ph] in the second quarter. Next question. And thanks, Teodor. Next question is from Mehdi Ennebati at Bank of America.

Hi, all. And first, I would like to congratulate for the extremely strong results. Two questions, please, on my side. First one regarding your balance sheet. So now that you have a very strong – what prevents you from clearly accelerating your energy transition? So, you highlighted that you don't want to overpay. I understand this. But what prevents you as well from acquiring a renewable energy company? Is it just a matter of valuation? If those renewable energy company valuation keeps falling, you might be looking at it. Or do you think that you would rather prefer to develop your own project even though this will take much more time, realizing an acquisition. And the other question is about your free cash flow estimates, the one that you provide for 2022 and 2023. So, there is a slide where you show what will be that free cash flow generation at $80 Brent. And on the other slide, I can see for 2022, you expect European gas to be [indiscernible]. Am I right there? Because during the presentation, I also heard [indiscernible] which could be the average for 2022 and 2023. So, are you expecting $30 [indiscernible] in 2022, meaning even above the forward curve? And what makes you so, let's say, optimistic on gas price for 2022?

So, look, I’ll take the second question. And yes, we have a very strong balance sheet. But we also have a very strong project portfolio, both in oil and gas and renewables. We have accelerated the investment in renewables already organically. We do not have any strategic gap in our portfolio. We'll, of course, be opportunistic in any kind of M&A activity. But at the same time, we will focus on same as we focus on value in our organic portfolio. We will also do that for any inorganic moves as well. So, we are quite comfortable with the portfolio we have today and also the kind of how strong this portfolio already is.

And I'm not sure 100% I understood the question. If it was what our gas assumptions were in the $80 case, then in 2022 was $30 as you said, 2023, $18 and thereafter $12. But did I understand that question?

That's right. And in the $65, which is the central case, it's 2022.

Yes.

And going down to…

12 and then 7.

Correct, yes.

Yes.

Yes. So, these scenarios, they're not necessarily forecast.

Okay understood that’s fair, yes. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thanks Mehdi. Next question is from John Olaisen at ABG.

Yes, good afternoon, everybody. A question on 2022 production guidance. May I ask what are your assumptions for Norwegian gas production? Just want if prices remain high, are you in a position to produce more gas in the summer of 2022 than you did in the summer of 2021?

At the moment, we are producing for everything we can of gas. The production in the summer is something that will be based on the prices we will see. We have a strong outlook for the prices for the summer. But what we guide on is a 2% production increase of the total portfolio for 2022.

Yes. But again, I was just wondering if it is possible to give us some more information or indication of what kind of gas production this summer that 2% assumes?

Well, we are not guiding on a summer gas production as such. we will, of course, ensure that we are producing, such we are capturing the market and the prices we see in the market.

But is it wrong to say that there could be a big swing factor, the production this year you could have a big swing factor due to gas production in summer Q2 and Q3?

Now I don't think you should assume anything like that. What I said, what we are guiding on is a 2% production increase in 2022.

Okay. And a very quick question at the end. I just wondering for how long can you continue to focus on near-field exploration? I guess at some point, the potential for near-field exploration is slowly slowing down?

Yes. We see that we are not only focusing on near-field production, but most of our exploration wells so far is focused on this on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. But we do have also exploration well outside or not that close to existing infrastructure. And internationally, particularly very excited well in a new basin in Argentina as well. But most of it will be near field, but also some outside the near field. So, there will be a combination of those two. You see the prospectivity around our existing field. So, we have quite a longevity there. And Chertin [ph] might you also say a few words of the prospectivity for us in on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. And if you Al could add a little bit on the exploration for international?

I could do so, Anders. And as we said, in 2021, we clearly saw the attractiveness of the near field exploration, eight discoveries in 2021. So, what you have said that during this decade, our plan is to drill between 20 and 30 wells on an annual basis. We've also said that around 80% of that will be near-field exploration and 20% will be more step out. And I think that's what we are trying to do in these decades. And as we saw last year, this strategy has been quite attractive up to now, and that's what we are sticking to.

Al, if you want to international exploration?

Sure. So, I think it's a very good point on the volume of near field and infrastructure-led exploration that we can expect to be successful in finding. Actually, we're growing more optimistic that with the increases in technology that we're seeing that we can actually maintain a lot of the production that we've seen from the fields by doing this kind of thing. I could draw your attention to a couple of areas where we're particularly interested going forward. The first is around our Brazilian portfolio and particularly around the Roncador field where we drilled an appraisal well last year into a carbonate reservoir. That showed some really interesting results, 1.5 billion barrels of oil in place there. So, we'll be looking for more opportunities in that oil field, for example. A second example is in Canada around Bay du Nord project where we're going to be drilling a couple of wells this year which, if they're successful, will be tie backs to the broader Bay du Nord project. So, we do see the opportunities that you talk about. And as we bring more focus on those, we expect that can offset production decline.

Thank you.

Thanks, Al. Thanks, John. Next question is from Christyan Malek at JPMorgan.

Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me well?

We can.

Yes, thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations, first of all, on a very strong result. Two questions, first of all, just back to the capital [indiscernible] around it. I want to understand in terms of decision-making process why is that not to go back to your sort of pre-COVID dividend of $0.27 a share, just based on the fact that it is a record cash flow. And just to understand your vision around what the progressive underlying dividend of the business should be particularly in context of the micro volatility and to synthesis this about volatility. I just want to understand in terms of just the decision-making process of a progressive versus special, whether we should be thinking about this as much more of a variable framework going forward or is this potentially sort of a hallmark to raising the base dividend higher? And the second question just comes to the opposite frame in the context of your balance sheet. And what we're seeing is potentially call it aggressive inflation in the Renewables business, very commoditized environment with more competition. And so, to that end, particularly with your net cash position, I just want to understand both the industrial and financial logic of buy versus build in the Renewables business given your lead in it. Thank you.

Christyan, although we said we could hear you very clearly, I think, I lied a little bit on that one at the start. So, I think I understood it. So, I'll just try and translate the question.

Thank would be great, thank you.

And if I get it wrong, Christyan, then step up, so I don't try and slip in an easier one on purpose. So, I think the question was looking at the dividends, what about the potential to step up the ordinary dividend towards what we said in terms of the $0.27 that we used to have and how that compares against the share buybacks and the extraordinary dividend?

Yes. So, as you remember, for the Capital Market Day, we provided then our capital distribution framework where we started from $0.18 and said we will grow this annually by $0.01 to $0.02 based on the long-term underlying earnings. And we also said that we will grow from $0.18 at that point, but also adding an annual share buyback program on top of this, given the requirements that we set for. We felt this was a better way to have a transparent and very clear and predictable capital distribution framework that are resilient through the cycles and the commodity cycles, but also through the energy transition. So, we will continue to grow the cash dividend from $0.20 annually based on our view on the long-term underlying earnings. And as we have demonstrated in the quarters, both the third quarter and the fourth quarter, we're using the flexibility in the share buyback based on the commodity prices, based on the outlook, based on the strength of the balance sheet to also increase this based on our view of this strength. And to ensure that we have a competitive capital distribution, based on the very strong earnings in 2021 and the good outlook, we decided to have an extraordinary dividend for four quarters of $0.20. By this, you see that we are using the flexibility based on the earnings and the outlooks of the commodity prices. And I'm not sure if I heard the second question.

Christyan, just in case I didn't ask the question properly. So let me just sort of go through. Just as a reminder here is what Christyan, so you're talking around the $0.27. At the Capital Markets Day, we talked about the return to that one. That was from the $0.18 in the cash dividend. That $0.18 has gone to $0.20. It was around $0.09 per share equivalent on the share buyback. That has gone to $0.40 with the announcements today. And also, nothing on at that point on the extraordinary dividend that is $0.20. You add those up, it's not $0.27, it's $0.80 per share. Then the second question was around the...

Just trying to – sorry, I was just trying to refer to the basis or the financial cases to why not raise the underlying dividend versus special. And it's more just in terms of just what the – and then clearly, you're saying that the macro is clearly volatile, and therefore, you'd rather take a measured approach through a special versus an underlying base increase? Is that just, to be clear, how to see it?

That’s great. As I said, this is a way to have a pretty predictable framework, but also a framework that is flexible in terms of changes in the commodity prices. But as Peter said, when we announced the $0.18 cash dividend, we added $1.2 billion in the share buyback, which adds up to the $0.09 back to the $0.27.

Sure. That's fair. And the second question, sorry, I need to get to the airport. Maybe that's my next time [indiscernible]. But I wanted to just ask around the industrial logic around build versus buy in the renewable space. And I think down the road, we could see major inflation, cost overruns and obviously, with a very commoditized price environment given $2 trillion is trying to find a home in this space. So, with that sort of backdrop, assuming maybe I'm wrong, but fast forward two or three years, I mean, you're in that cash position. I know this was asked already, but I just want to understand what is the industrial logic to build versus buy? If that scenario were to play out, would you consider revising how you think about your pipeline? I know you talked about value. But equally, we could see a very different picture in terms of returns if we see [indiscernible] it ultimately becomes diluted?

Okay. Yes. Hopefully, I heard your question right. Just also a reminder, we were very early out in the renewable space, being able to capture a lot of space early at very favorable prices. And these projects are now in execution. Of course, we have seen, as Pål alluded to earlier in a question, that there is much more competition now. We see much higher prices. And of course, we have noted the change in valuation for equities in this space as well. But as I said, we have a very strong portfolio. We don't have any strategic gap. We are focusing on delivering our projects organically in this space now. And we will always focus on value, both on the inorganic and the organic development of the renewable portfolio. But as you saw some time ago, we bought Vento in Poland, a solar company that is now developing very well under Pål's leadership.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Christian. Next question from Peter Low at Redburn.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. The first one is another one on the European gas market. I was interested in how you do see it evolving this year. And I think you mentioned in the presentation, you do expect greater volatility going forward. What could Equinor do to benefit more from that? And then just kind of linked to that, on the higher gas production you achieved in 4Q, how long can you sustain output at that higher level in theory? Now I appreciate in practice, it will depend on price, but are there any technical constraints on maintaining it at that level? Thanks.

Yes. When in, Irene will also present in a breakout session a little bit the outlook on the European gas, but maybe you can also do that here now as well. But before that, we are producing at very high level of gas. We are producing at max capacity. It's now about making sure that we have high production efficiency, keeping the production up and we have developed a Troll Phase 3, which gives us a lot of flexibility to ensure that we can keep the production stable for a long time. So, but the first and then chat a little bit also on your gas production capabilities. I know you're eager – all of you to answer, but...

I'll limit myself to the gas market. We are actually quite bullish near term. It's basically all about Russia these days. They're not sending the volumes we expected. And there's lots of nervousness in the market than North Stream to Ukraine, crisis, et cetera. We've seen some LNG being freed up from Asia as we sort of demand disruption, and that softened the prices a little bit. But notably, nothing of that LNG that came in here went into storage. So, when you look at the storage today, there are 34-ish percent of normal levels, which means that we need to inject 80 bcm approximately in the summer. That's twice our production actually. So, it's a big number. So that will keep up prices over the summer and well into the winter and probably also into 2023. You also asked how can we capitalize on this. I think we've had record high gas trading results this year. We have that flexibility in our pipeline infrastructure. So, we use that to trade around, and its generated significant value. We also see the volatility in the power market, which is also reflected in the gas market that Danske Commodity, as Ulrica alluded to; have a record high result that actually the result this year is half the value of the original or more than half the value of the original acquisition price. So, I think our trading capability is worth pointing to in this setting.

Yes. And I think as Anders alluded to, we are producing now more or less at max capacity of the facilities that we have. Of course, there are always small optimization that we are looking into, but I think that's, that's where we are and that's also the plans within this year. However, during the summer months, there will be turnarounds. Oseberg will have a turnaround. So, during the turnaround, it will be less, but our plan is to produce to the capacity that we're currently doing, and then we have the turnarounds.

Okay. Thank you, we're getting close to 45 minutes. We have another couple of questions. But I think, one of which has just dropped off. So, I'll pass to the operator to call on whoever is next. Do we have a call?

My apologies. Our next question is from Anders Rosenlund of SEB. Anders, your line is now open.

Thank you. I do have two questions. My first question is on the group-wide emission target, down 50%, that's different from the way you communicated these targets previously. And I presume it's more ambitious than the previous six kilos a barrel as indicated in the CMU last summer. Could you help us quantify or clarify how much more ambitious this target is? And then I have a follow-up afterwards.

Yes. Thank you. As you said, there are two different targets and the six kilo per barrel you referred to, that was new projects coming on-stream up to 2030. Our current carbon intensity is seven kilo per barrel. But the new group-wide net 50% reduction of scope 1 and 2 is more ambitious. This is where we aim to have 90% of this as absolutely reduction. So basically, we have taken our emissions that we had in 2015 and we say until 2030 the net reduction should be 50%. This will put us in line with the Paris Agreement and also in line with the target of limiting the global warning to 1.5 degree. We can do this because we have a lot of projects on the Norwegian continental shelf where we are able to use power from shore, like Oseberg, like Troll, where we electrify those fields with power from shore, taking down the absolute emissions from these fields. And we will continue with other fields as well. In addition, in our international business for instance in Bacalhau, we're able to use CCTGs that normally used onshore to put that offshore, meaning that we are able to really have lower emission from our also new production as well. And this enabled us to take a 50% net reduction of our emissions, the scope 1 and 2 emissions. Of course, in addition to the power from shore, there will be some consolidation or removal of assets up to 2030. And we're also working on energy efficiency, we're working on new technology that can take down this emission that we have. So, it's an ambition targets, but we have started a long time ago. We have very good projects, a project organization that are really good executing on this type of projects. And we have a culture in the offshore and onshore organization, both internationally and in Norway to really find ways to reduce the use of energy producing oil and gas.

Excellent. My second question, EPN natural gas was 40% of your production volumes in Q4. What share of adjusted operating income in Q4 was from EPA Natural gas roughly?

Over to you, Ulrica.

We don't split that in the revenue. You've got the volumes, and we can apply it to that.

Okay. So, if I suggest 70%, that will be – that wouldn't be too far off?

If you look at your assessed volumes, you'll get a good number from that.

Okay. Next question is from Martijn Rats at Morgan Stanley.

Hi. Hello. Only one question for me, I was wondering if you could split out the production guidance of 2% growth. As I can imagine, that could be quite different for oil versus gas given the ramp-up of gas production recently. Is it 2% for both oil and for gas? Or does that differ offload that's basically my question?

This 2% increase is for barrels of oil equivalent. So, it includes both the oil and gas.

Yes, I get that. But I would imagine, I don't know, it might be oil up 5% and gas down 4%. I'm sort of trying to figure out what the underlying components are?

We are not splitting that and guiding on the split.

Okay. Thank you.

Sorry, about that, Martijn. Next question and final question, is from Jason Kenney at Santander.

Thanks very much. Couple of quick ones, actually. Just looking for guidance on tax for upstream USA in 2022 and perhaps medium term. And then also tax on the international ex-USA, which has bounced around quite a lot actually over the last few quarters? Any guidance on tax would be great.

Any guidance on tax is good, yes. If I got – I mean we do guide on international tax between 30% and 45% and where we don't see anything that we shouldn't be within that range now as well. And in the U.S., as you will be aware, we have a special situation where we're also basically zero on tax or close to. So those are the guidance that we got there, and we're remaining with them.

Okay. Is there an expectation when you might pay tax in the U.S.?

We have some years to go.

Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Thanks, everybody. That completes the questions. That completes the Q&A session. Thanks for all of you joining. Thank you for the team here today. Now I pass over to Anders to close.

Yes. Thank you very much for all of you that joined this call, really appreciate it. And as you have heard, we're accelerating the transition. We're growing cash flow and returns, and we also provided you with a competitive capital distribution. Thank you very much, and goodbye.