Equinor ASA (EQNR) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

May 4, 2023 5:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Welcome to the Equinor Analyst Call First Quarter 2023 Results. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And finally, I would like to advise all participants, this call is being recorded. Thank you.

I'd now like to welcome Bård Glad Pedersen to begin the conference. Bård, over to you.

Bård Glad Pedersen

Thank you, Gavin, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to welcome you all to Equinor’s analyst call for our first quarter results for 2023. As it was said, my name is Bård Glad Pedersen, and I am Head of Investor Relations. As usual, our CFO, Torgrim Reitan will present the results before we open for questions. And we know it's a busy day, so we will aim to keep this session within an hour. Also on the call today, we have [indiscernible], our SVP for Performance Management, and we have [indiscernible], our SVP for Accounting.

So with that, I hand it over to you, Torgrim, to present our results.

Torgrim Reitan

Okay. Thank you very much, Bård, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. So this quarter, we are delivering strong results across the business. But with lower prices than the historic height we saw last year. A mild winter in Europe has helped bring energy prices down, and this is good for Europe, and we continue to be a reliable supplier.

But the gas market is still vulnerable. And looking ahead to next winter, storage levels will again depend on whether demand across Europe and China and LNG capacity. So these factors can easily put pressure on prices in a tight market and small changes can lead to significant fluctuations.

We continue to be a stable supplier of energy to Europe and the world. Therefore, I'm happy to see solid operational performance and we are on track to deliver 3% production growth in 2023.

We are still in uncertain times, and we need to ensure that we steer safely through volatility. And our strategy remains firm, and we aim to be a leading company in the energy transition, while offering energy security and delivering strong cash flow, creating value for our shareholders as we change. Our balance sheet is very strong and our cash flow expectations continues to be high, positioning us well to transition in an investor friendly way.