00:00Well, it was quite the investor madness yesterday. So many announcements to go through. And of course, the big one was that the six listed companies, including Edna Drilling, are going to be increasing the dividend payout over the course of the next few years, you know, a longer outlook all the way up to 2030. I guess this is a reflection of the financials and the fact that you and I have spoken the last couple of months about the strong earnings outlook. But do you have that visibility all the way out to 2030?
00:26Morning. Thank you so much for having me. It was an incredible day indeed for the first time ever. Adnok holds an investor measure list. That's a combined capital markets day and more for all its six listed companies. We've had more than 500 investors from all over the world, research analysts attending. As you said, dividends, record dividends. Adnok drilling, we're paying at least a billion dollars of dividends this year, including a 66 million payment immediately after the measures. We're going to pay more than $6.8 billion of dividends over the next six years, at least until 2030. And to your point, we definitely have the visibility.
00:56We have 15 year contracts, which are take or pay that allow us to have full visibility to be able to fulfill these commitments and potentially go even higher. And even with the backdrop of slightly lower oil prices, if these types of prices continue comfortable, that we'll be able to deliver to deliver on those dividend payouts.
01:12That's the beauty of our business. It's basically fixed price contracts for the entire duration, which are completely insulated from oil prices, from market volatility, from any other fluctuations, plus a very strong balance sheet that has less than one time net debt to EBITDA.
01:24So allows us to really have that visibility and commitment to deliver both the dividends as well as a constant increase in share price or share price increase more than three times effectively since the IPO.
01:33And our target prices from analysts still have more upside than that. Yeah. And I guess, you know, one of the goals of this is to increase foreign interest in capital markets and Abu Dhabi bring money into some of the list of stocks that are already trading.
01:49But at the same time, it also allows for dividends to be returned back to the group as a whole to fund some of those expansion activities.
01:58Is that what you say is the twin purpose of this announcement yesterday?
02:02Today, more than 60 percent of our free float is international investors, all the big global key global investors, your Fidelity, your capital, your BlackRock are all in the stock and more.
02:14So today, effectively, that value that we're delivering dividends and growth and you're becoming a very key vehicle for FDI and investments into Abu Dhabi, into the UE, alongside the wider ADX.
02:23Yeah. I want to ask you about the line about the unconventional energy program, because also that, you know, that was really significant.
02:30Saying Adnock drilling is rapidly advancing the unconventional energy program, strong results from the wells. Talk to us. Talk us through about the visibility on those projects and what it means for you.
02:40So obviously, the UE is privileged with a massive amount of natural wealth. Now, not only the conventional resource, we're also unlocking the unconvention, the shale, the rock, oil and gas.
02:49We're using latest technologies and AI to be able to do that. That's why we now kind of amassed 140 patents under our technology platform, InnerSoil, to allow us to unlock things more efficiently.
02:59Unconvention wells that we started taking us 40 days to get that oil and gas out of the ground. We're now doing it in 13 days. And that basically contributes the overall gas self-sufficiency that the UE will achieve, as well as increasing gas exports by us unlocking more resources.
03:13Yeah. And do you have visibility on the timeline by which that production can come to market?
03:17Correct. So by 2030, we'll have up to one billion cubic feet of gas, which means we need to drill more than 300 incremental wells to put this into context.
03:24We're currently drilling around 800 wells a year. So that's more than 40 percent growth in our business.
03:29OK. OK. So could substantially make a big difference to the bottom line. And of course, Adnock drilling is involved in the testing, the exploration.
03:36Once the decision is made to go ahead with the production, how does the scope of your work change?
03:41Correct. We're basically a fully integrated kind of drilling and service company. We're the largest in the world by market value and the fastest growing.
03:47We're able to do everything end to end on the well. So for us, effectively, as that goes ahead, we're the main beneficiary as the exclusive driver of Abu Dhabi.
03:54Any growth that happens in Abu Dhabi, in Adnock, in the country via oil and gas and other natural resources, Adnock drilling is the unlocker of that.
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