Weekly news, topics & discussion

This week, Vår Energi reported Q1 results very much in line with expectations. The company also reaffirmed its 2025 guidance and maintained its dividend. Also, OKEA reported a solid Q1, with production and prices slightly above our estimates. While a technical goodwill impairment reduces its dividend basket for 2025, we view this as non-material, as we do not expect any dividends before 2027. Meanwhile, we are 5% below consensus on Q1e EBIT ahead of Equinor’s Q1 results on 30 April (07:00 CET), ...

Solid execution on margin improvement

Bufab (Hold, TP: SEK420.00) - Time to bolt in

Q1 sales rose by 2% YOY (Bloomberg consensus +1%), with flat organic growth, EBIT 7% above consensus and EPS 13% above, partly due to strength in Asia-Pacific and stability in Americas. The group EBITA margin was 13.1% (Q4 2024 12.1%) and the adj. EBITA margin 12.7% (12.1%). We have raised our 2025e EBITA by 4% on better-than-expected results in China and North & East, and made minor adjustments to our 2026e. We reiterate our HOLD but have lowered our target price to SEK420 (430) on continued ge...

Slight beat vs. cons. driven by gross margin

Solid NCS production in March

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate’s (NOD) preliminary NCS figures for March showed liquids production of 1,972kboed (1.6% above its forecast) and gas production of 351mcm/d (0.4% above its forecast). Overall, production was 4.18mmboed (1.1% above its forecast), flat MOM, but down 4.9% YOY. Company-wise, the February production figures should be well known as most companies have already reported their production figures for Q1.

Heads-up for report 24 April

Valuation update

In this note, we show updated valuation statistics for the E&P sector.

Energy Morning - 22 April 2025

AUCTUS ON FRIDAY - 18/04/2025

AUCTUS PUBLICATIONS ________________________________________ Panoro Energy (PEN NO)C; Target price of NOK47 per share: High production in Gabon – BW Energy reported gross production in Gabon of 39.3 mbbl/d. This equates to 6.9 mbbl/d net to Panoro’s 17.5% WI. IN OTHER NEWS ________________________________________ AMERICAS Galp Energia (GALP LI): 1Q25 update – 1Q25 production in Brazil was 104 mboe/d. Pantheon Resources (PNR LN): Disappointing well test results in Alaska – The Megrez-1 well fl...

Energy Morning - 15 April 2025

Stress testing

We have stress-tested our coverage universe at a USD60/bbl oil price, concluding that most names remain dependent on rising oil prices to warrant upside potential from current share prices. Moreover, unless oil prices move higher, we see increasing risk of cuts in shareholder distributions for Vår Energi and Equinor, while the risk appears lower for Aker BP. Overall, we remain cautious as macro risks remain tilted to the downside. We continue to prefer Aker BP as it screens best on valuation and...

Weekly news, topics & discussion

This week, Equinor, Aker BP, and Vår Energi released their Q1 trading updates. Equinor’s realised liquids prices were broadly in line with consensus across all segments. Aker BP reported a modest production beat, 2% above consensus, with realised liquids and gas prices largely as expected. Vår Energi’s Q1 production was 2% below our estimate and consensus, while realised liquids prices met expectations and gas prices exceeded them by 4–11%.

Valuation update

In this note, we show updated valuation statistics for the E&P sector.

Weekly news, topics & discussion

This week, we published previews for most of our coverage universe. For Aker BP, we estimate solid Q1 production of 450kboed, with our EBITDA forecast 12% above consensus, ahead of the trading update on 7 April. For Vår Energi, we expect a slow start to the year, with Q1e production of 277kboed, leaving our EBITDA c7% below consensus, ahead of the trading update on 11 April. In other news, Johan Castberg reached first oil this week, with ramp-up expected through Q2 2025.

BW Energy (Buy, TP: NOK33.00) - Still awaiting Maromba FID

Ahead of BW Energy’s Q1 trading update (due at c07:00 CET on 16 April), we forecast net production of ~35kboed (no reliable consensus). With Maromba still awaiting a final investment decision (FID), contributing to meaningful capex in the coming years, alongside an appraisal campaign at Kudu in H2e, we estimate muted FCF until Maromba production commences in 2028e. Still, the valuation screens attractively at a ~40% discount to our NAV. We reiterate our BUY and NOK33 target price.

Bufab (Hold, TP: SEK430.00) - A component for every challenge

We forecast Q1 sales of SEK2.1bn (flat organic growth YOY), EBITA of SEK246m, an EBITA margin of 11.6%, and EBIT of SEK231m, c9% below Bloomberg consensus. We have reduced our 2025–2026e EBITA by 3–5% due to updated FX and our adjusted underlying estimates. We reiterate our HOLD and our target price of SEK430.