195;rsted A/S Annual Report 2019: Strong Year With Continued Strategic Progress, Global Expansion And Very Satisfactory Finan...

TIDMORSTED

Today, Ørsted's Board of Directors approved the annual report for
2019. Operating profit (EBITDA), excluding new partnerships, increased
by 17% to DKK 17.5 billion, thus exceeding our expectations at the
beginning of the year as well as our most recent guidance of DKK 16-17
billion.

Earnings from offshore and onshore wind farms in operation increased by
30% to DKK 14.8 billion in 2019 driven by ramp-up of generation from new
offshore wind farms and a full year with contribution and ramp-up in our
onshore wind business. In addition, our year-on-year development was
positively impacted by higher earnings from our trading activities and
the reversal of a provision related to the Elsam competition case. This
was partly offset by the increase in provisions related to our LNG
activities, higher project development costs and a temporarily negative
effect from our gas at storage due to the substantial drop in gas prices
during 2019. In 2018, we also had a positive outcome of a gas sourcing
arbitration case which was not repeated in 2019.

The increase compared to our most recent guidance was mainly due to
strong offshore generation in December, better than expected performance
from our trading activities, less negative effect from the value of our
gas at storage and lower costs across the group. This was partly offset
by the provision related to our loss-making LNG activities, which we
signed an agreement to divest in December.

Net profit amounted to DKK 6.1 billion, and return on capital employed
(ROCE) came in at 10.6%.

Our credit metric, FFO/adjusted net debt, ended at 31%, in line with our
financial policy of being around 30%.

The Board of Directors recommends a dividend of DKK 10.5 per share (DKK
4.4 billion in total), up 7.7% and in line with our dividend policy.

The green share of our heat and power generation continued to increase
to a new high of 86%, following continued ramp-up of our offshore wind
capacity, new onshore capacity and lower heat and power generation based
on coal and gas.

Henrik Poulsen, CEO and President of Ørsted, says:

"2019 was a great year for Ørsted with continued strategic progress
and global expansion. We achieved a very satisfactory operating profit
(EBITDA), and the green share of our heat and power generation increased
to a new high of 86%.

We reached significant milestones by winning two large-scale offshore
projects in the US. We were awarded 1,100MW with our Ocean Wind project
in New Jersey and 880MW with our Sunrise Wind project in New York. With
these awards, we have secured a US offshore wind portfolio with a total
capacity of 2.9GW to be completed towards 2024. In addition, we have up
to 4.5GW of lease rights which can be developed for future offshore wind
projects in the US. The Sunrise Wind project will be constructed
together with our partner Eversource. For Ocean Wind, we are in
exclusive negotiations with the Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG)
regarding a joint venture agreement to acquire 25% of the project.

In the UK, we commissioned Hornsea 1, the world's largest offshore wind
farm with a capacity of 1,218MW. We passed further milestones when we
inaugurated phase two of Taiwan's first-ever offshore wind farm Formosa
1, and when we commissioned the onshore wind farm Lockett in Texas in
the US.

During 2019, we took final investment decision (FID) on a number of
projects. In Taiwan we decided to build the 900MW offshore wind farm
Greater Changhua 1 & 2a, and we decided to build the onshore wind farms
Sage Draw (338MW), Plum Creek (230MW) and Willow Creek (103MW) as well
as the combined solar (420MW) and storage (40MW) project Permian Energy
Center in the US.

We signed an agreement to divest our Danish power distribution (Radius),
residential customer and city light businesses to SEAS-NVE. The
agreement ensures an attractive transaction for Ørsted's
shareholders and provides a good future home for the customers and our
highly skilled employees. We will use the proceeds from the divestment
to continue our global investments in green energy. We expect that the
transaction will be closed in the first half of 2020.

To further focus our activities, we entered into an agreement to divest
our LNG activities to Glencore and initiated a process to divest the
majority of our B2B sales business.

We remain strongly committed to our vision of a world running entirely
on green energy and will continue to work hard to help limit global
warming and its impact on biodiversity and global living conditions for
current and future generations."

Financial key figures for Q4 and 2019:

DKK million Q4 2019 Q4 2018 % 2019 2018 %
----------------------- ------- -------- ------ -------- -------- ------
EBITDA 4,613 19,206 (76%) 17,484 30,029 (42%)
Profit (loss) for the
year from cont.
operations 925 15,160 (94%) 6,100 19,486 (69%)
Profit (loss) for the
year from discont.
operations (29) 34 n.a. (56) 10 n.a.
Profit (loss) for the
year 896 15,194 (94%) 6,044 19,496 (69%)
Cash flows from
operating activities 4,816 7,565 (36%) 13,079 10,343 26%
Gross investments (8,816) (14,916) (41%) (23,305) (24,481) (5%)
Divestments 402 18,749 (98%) 3,329 19,950 (83%)
Free cash flow (3,598) 11,398 n.a. (6,897) 5,812 n.a.
Net interest-bearing
debt 17,230 (2,219) n.a. 17,230 (2,219) n.a.
FFO/adjusted net debt 31% 69% (38%p) 31% 69% (38%p)
ROCE 11% 32% (22%p) 11% 32% (22%p)
----------------------- ------- -------- ------ -------- -------- ------

Outlook 2020

EBITDA (business performance), excluding new partnerships, is expected
to be DKK 15-16 billion in 2020 compared to DKK 17.5 billion in 2019.
The decline relates to earnings from existing offshore wind partnerships
which amounted to DKK 3.8 billion in 2019, but are expected to be very
limited in 2020.

Gross investments for 2020 are expected to amount to DKK 30-32 billion,
reflecting a high level of construction activity related to offshore and
onshore wind and solar PV projects.

For further information, please contact:

Media Relations Investor Relations
Martin Barlebo Allan Bødskov Andersen
+45 99 55 95 52 +45 99 55 79 96

Conference call

In connection with the presentation of the annual report, a conference
call for investors and analysts will be held on Thursday, 30 January
2020 at 14:00 CET.

Denmark: + 45 78 15 01 09

UK: + 44 33 33 00 92 70

US: + 1 833 526 8384

The conference call can be followed live at:

https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=8Z1HosVO80ZLizot6j3VVZax7NrzD7qF30KEjU9A_nNfm_0QBgtVtaj3qPcL6y9Hl9nxGz4flI1CT9hYHpLehB-MOt3gNC5zPTG5WUC2ufHMDyQfQjRqaRrf9j5oWd-bliRtpYxyKJuW6f5wquDF5RFmFutA-1NHVWRfintfWPA=
https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/v6offu8x

Presentation slides will be available prior to the conference call at:

https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=9pahK3JTqtdzVmO4mjwid3ArFVKivtQmzTV8weUD9WRQnwhhioDOj_PwIEY-5ZZ78hIqQ7rbaNHuRNcJ3yYc6WBsMCQ9lT6guAY89HdLJPPv0idRwK7zKdR9Moa_ulnr2YagkuHrBPoaekbALB4j4ky-qZJ8ARkDaMAgRUs84D7LcWV2vs3z0lFfXJ-q4PUdbQh9PaO3E3iEwwn7T204xA==
orsted.com/en/Financial-reports-and-presentations

The annual report is available for download at:

https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=9pahK3JTqtdzVmO4mjwid3ArFVKivtQmzTV8weUD9WRQnwhhioDOj_PwIEY-5ZZ76hRgb2RckdjkfiyExpjTKssp549yGMYmfDC9i9hmJ7JR-KmNkY7su6XlbIOq1CY70UNs5DqMuhNKW3-v6ZexTa30aH5lZlrpP6Fcdq61Tlb25q6OjACLExqGObklAZktC-ThmA95XZoz67o8nYbykw==
orsted.com/en/Financial-reports-and-presentations

The Ørsted vision is a world that runs entirely on green energy.
Ørsted develops, constructs and operates offshore and onshore wind
farms, solar farms, energy storage facilities, and bioenergy plants, and
provides energy products to its customers. Ørsted ranks #1 in
Corporate Knights' 2020 index of the Global 100 most sustainable
corporations in the world and is recognised on the CDP Climate Change A
List as a global leader on climate action. Headquartered in Denmark,
Ørsted employs 6,500 people. Ørsted's shares are listed on
Nasdaq Copenhagen (Orsted). In 2019, the group's revenue was DKK 67.8
billion (EUR 9.1 billion). Visit orsted.com or follow us on Facebook,
LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

Attachments

-- Ørsted-Annual-report-2019
https://ml-eu.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/898a0bd7-c711-45d1-82b1-cb30beac7890

-- 30JAN2020_Company announcement_Ørsted 2019 Full year
https://ml-eu.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/1ccb379a-827b-4416-9421-a11075e78449

-- Ørsted - Q4 2019 - investor presentation
https://ml-eu.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/564b6459-070e-4163-b14a-e9b3c3f0966b

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