• Total operating revenues of $106.6 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $74.5 million, up 12% and 30% YoY respectively
• Signed 1-year shipping time charter at approximately $100,000/day
• Secured up to $682m in new financing facilities, securing refinancing of the convertible bond on favorable terms and balance sheet liquidity improvement
• Growing customer interest for new FLNG projects
• Golar positioned to capitalize on macro tailwinds, benefiting from operating and financial leverage going into 2022+

FLNG Hilli achieved another quarter of 100% commercial uptime. Capitalizing on record gas prices, Golar recently hedged half of its Q1 2022 Dutch Title Transfer Facility ("TTF") exposure from the 0.2mtpa of additional 2022 production at a TTF price of $28/MMBtu, implying additional earnings to Golar for the quarter of $21.2 million (for each $1.00/MMBtu change in TTF, earnings realized by Golar will move by $0.4 million for unhedged volumes during Q1 2022). This implies a gross tolling fee of $11.4/MMBtu for the incremental production. The TTF linked production will, together with the Brent linked fees from trains one and two, see significant increased earnings from Hilli during 2022, with no further capital expenditure required by Golar. The strong commodity price backdrop has also incentivized the current customer of FLNG Hilli to expand its ongoing drilling program, which if successful will allow it to take advantage of its option to increase production by up to 0.4mtpa from 2023-2026.

FLNG Gimi is 75% technically complete. The unit is now around two years from the scheduled start-up date for the 20-year lease and operate agreement with BP that will unlock around $3.0 billion of earnings backlog¹ to Golar.

We expect Adjusted EBITDA generation from our FLNG segment to quadruple from current levels over the next 2-3 years on the back of contracted earnings from Gimi and increased earnings from our commodity exposure on Hilli.

The current strength of LNG prices and favorable price outlook further increases the attractiveness of our FLNG solutions. This is driving momentum for potential new FLNG projects. We are continuing constructive discussions with an existing customer for use of a five-million-ton Golar Mark III newbuild design and rapid progress is being made on potential integrated projects. Our portfolio of prospective FLNG customers across different geographies increased during the quarter.

Shipping Q3 2021 average daily Time Charter Equivalent¹ ("TCE") earnings of $49,500/day, up 27% on Q3 2020, will continue to increase as the shipping fleet is re-contracted at higher expected rates. Golar recently announced a new 12-month time charter with a gross hire rate of approximately $100,000/day. Increasing exposure to higher freight rates over the course of 2022, rising asset values, tighter environmental regulations that reduce effective vessel supply and deleveraging of Golar's LNG carriers are all contributing to expectations of a significant increase in cash generation from our shipping segment and increase the attractiveness of potential further group simplification by separating our shipping business, potentially deconsolidating approximately $990 million of associated contractual debt.

Golar expects to see a significant increase in Adjusted EBITDA generation over the next 2-3 years, benefiting from operating and financial leverage from its existing asset portfolio in shipping and FLNG. This includes start-up of earnings from Golar's current $540 million of pro-rata capital invested in Gimi (per Q3 2021) in around 2 years. Furthermore, we are well positioned to capitalize on LNG macro tailwinds through an attractive FLNG growth pipeline, with ~$600 million of value in marketable securities (NFE and Avenir), that can be redeployed to significantly higher cash yielding projects.

Financial Summary

Q3 Highlights and recent events

Financial and corporate:

• Profitability: Net loss attributable to Golar of $91.0 million, and Adjusted EBITDA¹ of $74.5 million for the quarter, including:
  • $157.5 million non-cash mark to market loss recognized on New Fortress Energy Inc. ("NFE") shares based on September 30, 2021 discounted carrying value of $27.75 per share.
  • $64.1 million non-cash gain recognized on Hilli Brent oil and TTF natural gas linked derivative instruments.
  • $8.9 million realized gain on Hilli Brent oil derivative. This is expected to increase to around $13.0 million in Q4 2021.
• Hedges: Entered into swap arrangements to hedge part of incremental TTF linked production for Q1 2022 at a TTF price of $28/MMbtu.

Financing facilities:

• Unsecured Bond: Successfully placed USD $300.0 million Norwegian Bonds.
• Convertible Bond: As of November 8, 2021 $85.2 million of the February 2022 maturing $402.5 million 2.75% Convertible Bonds had been redeemed. Current net outstanding balance under the Convertible Bonds is now $317.3 million.
• Credit Facility: $200.0 million 3-year Revolving Credit Facility ("RCF") in executable form to replace existing $100.0 million December 2021 maturing RCF.
• Loan: $158.0 million 5-year Golar Tundra facility that can be increased to $182.0 million in final stages of documentation, replacing current $104.4 million June 2022 maturing facility.
• Lender credit approval received to extend January 2022 maturing Golar Seal debt facility by 3-years.

FLNG:

• Utilization: Industry leading operations maintained with 100% commercial uptime by FLNG Hilli.
• Agreed 0.2mtpa TTF linked increase in 2022 capacity utilization of Hilli and a one-time option for up to 0.4mtpa of additional capacity utilization from 2023.
• Construction: FLNG Gimi conversion project 75% technically complete. Over 13 million man hours worked.
• Commercial: Significant progress made on new tolling based and integrated FLNG projects. Increasing portfolio of prospective FLNG customers across different geographies developed during the quarter.

Shipping:

• Shipping Rates: Q3 2021 TCE¹ of $49,500 for the fleet, up 13% on Q2 2021 and 27% on Q3 2020. Q4 2021 TCE¹ of around $53,500 expected.
• LTM TCE¹ for the fleet was $50,900.
• Utilization: Fleet utilization at 98%, in line with Q2 2021 and up on the 80% realized in Q3 2020.
• Time Charter: Fixed an LNG carrier on a 12-month charter at approximately $100,000 per day in October.
• Revenue Backlog¹: increased to $267 million as of September 30, 2021.
• Outlook: Increasing number of requests for medium and long-term charters at higher rates.

Financial Review

Business Performance:

(2) The line item "Realized and unrealized gain/(loss) on oil and gas derivative instruments" in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations relating to income from the Hilli Liquefaction Tolling Agreement ("LTA") and natural gas derivative is split into: "Realized gains on oil derivative instrument" and "Unrealized gain/(loss) on oil and gas derivative instrument". The unrealized component represents a mark-to-market gain of $64.1 million (June 30, 2021: $70.6 million gain and September 30, 2020: $0.2 million gain) on the embedded oil and gas derivative, which represents the estimate of expected receipts under the remainder of the Brent oil linked clause and 2022 contracted capacity increase clause of the Hilli LTA. The realized component amounts to $8.9 million (June 30, 2021: $3.0 million and September 30, 2020: $nil) and represents the income in relation to the Hilli LTA receivable in cash.

We report today a Q3 net loss of $91.0 million attributable to Golar, and Adjusted EBITDA¹ of $74.5 million, compared to Q2 net income attributable to Golar of $471.4 million, and Adjusted EBITDA¹ of $67.0 million.

Total operating revenues increased from $104.3 million in Q2 to $106.6 million in Q3 and were further supported by a decrease in voyage, charter hire and commission expenses, down from $2.2 million in Q2 to $1.4 million in Q3. The increase in total operating revenues and decrease in voyage expenses was attributable to a seasonally improving shipping performance.

Revenue from shipping, net of voyage, charter hire and commission expenses was $44.6 million and increased by $4.8 million from $39.8 million in Q2. The quarter began with quoted TFDE¹ carrier headline spot rates at around $68,000 per day and ended with rates at around $71,000 per day. Full fleet TCE¹ earnings increased from $43,700 in Q2 to $49,500 in Q3 2021.

Total operating revenues from FLNG Hilli including base tolling fees and amortization of pre-acceptance amounts recognized normalized at $54.5 million in Q3, against $55.7 million in Q2 which benefited from some overproduction during the quarter.

Scheduled repairs to a damaged motor on one of the carriers contributed to a $0.5 million increase in vessel operating expenses, up from $31.4 million in Q2 to $31.9 million in Q3. Administrative expenses decreased by $1.5 million from $10.1 million in Q2 to $8.6 million in Q3, Q2 having been impacted by redundancy costs from an overhead streamlining exercise. FLNG front end engineering and design costs and business development expenses for new FLNG projects accounted for the $1.3 million of Q3 project development expenses.

The Brent oil linked component of Hilli's fees generates additional annual operating cash flows of approximately $3.1 million for every dollar increase in Brent Crude prices between $60.00 per barrel and the contractual ceiling. Billing of this component is based on a three-month look-back at average Brent Crude prices. As a result of rising prices, an $8.9 million realized gain on the oil derivative instrument (Golar share equivalent to $7.9 million) was recorded in Q3, up on the $3.0 million realized in Q2.

An ongoing loss of hire claim in respect of the recently repaired motor that failed on board the carrier referred to above accounts for the shipping related Other operating income of $2.3 million and $2.8 million in Q3 and Q2 2021 respectively.

Depreciation and amortization, at $26.5 million was in line with the prior quarter.

The mark-to-market fair value of the Hilli Brent oil linked derivative asset increased by $27.3 million during the quarter, with a corresponding unrealized gain of the same amount recognized in the income statement. The fair value increase was driven by an upward movement in the expected future market price for Brent oil. The spot price for Brent oil increased from $75.13 per barrel on June 30, 2021 to $78.52 on September 30, 2021.

After entering into agreement with the customer in July 2021 to increase Hilli production by 0.2 million tons in 2022, a derivative asset of $28.3 million, representing the fair value of the estimated discounted cash flows of payments due as a result of the TTF natural gas price linked additional 2022 production, was recognized on July 22, 2021. Like the Brent oil derivative above, the TTF derivative asset is adjusted to fair value at each balance sheet date and, on September 30, 2021, the value of this asset increased to $65.1 million. This resulted in the recognition of an unrealized TTF natural gas fair value gain of $36.8 million in the Q3 income statement. Together with the $27.3 million unrealized gain on the Brent oil derivative, a $64.1 million Unrealized gain on oil and gas derivative instruments was reported in Q3.

A decline in the NFE share price between July 1 and September 30 and discounting for the 15-day balance of the six-month holding period restriction resulted in the recognition of a Q3 unrealized loss of $157.5 million for the fair value adjustment on Golar's 18.6 million NFE shares. The carrying value of these shares was $27.75 per share as of September 30, 2021. Netted against this was $1.9 million of dividend income from NFE following its dividend declaration on August 4, 2021. Together these accounted for most of the $153.8 million of Other non-operating losses during the quarter.

As a result of the agreed $60.0 million aggregate prepayment in respect of four sale and leaseback financed LNG carriers in July, interest expense decreased by $0.7 million from $14.5 million in Q2 to $13.8 million in Q3. An increase in swap rates contributed to a $0.6 million gain on derivative instruments in Q3, compared to a $6.9 million loss in Q2.

Equity in net losses of affiliates of $0.7 million is comprised of Golar's 23% investment in small-scale services provider Avenir LNG and 50% stake in Egyptian affiliate, ECGS.

Net losses attributable to non-controlling interests relate to the Hilli, the Gimi and the finance lease lessor VIEs.

Financing and Liquidity:

Our cash position as at September 30, 2021 was $268.2 million. This was made up of $123.7 million of unrestricted cash¹ and $144.5 million of restricted cash. Restricted cash includes $65.1 million relating to lessor-owned VIEs and $60.7 million relating to the Hilli Letter of Credit.

Inclusive of $10.4 million of capitalized interest, $19.1 million was invested in FLNG Gimi during the quarter, taking the total Gimi Asset under development balance as at September 30, 2021 to $850.6 million. Of this, $410.0 million had been drawn against the $700 million debt facility. Both the investment and debt drawn to date are reported on a 100% basis.

Included within the $1.2 billion current portion of long-term debt and short-term debt as at September 30, 2021, is the December 2021 maturing $100.0 million RCF, $310.9 million in respect of the Convertible Bond, and $802.3 million relating to lessor-owned VIE subsidiaries that Golar is required to consolidate in connection with nine sale and leaseback financed vessels, including the Hilli.

Corporate and Other Matters:

As at September 30, 2021, there were 108.2 million shares outstanding. There were also 2.2 million outstanding stock options with an average price of $19.26 and 0.6 million unvested restricted stock units awarded. Of the initial $50.0 million approved share buyback scheme, $25.5 million remains available for further repurchases. 

Golar's Annual General Meeting was held on August 10, 2021 in Bermuda.

Non-GAAP measures

In addition to disclosing financial results in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (US GAAP), this earnings release and the associated investor presentation contains references to the non-GAAP financial measures which are included in the table below. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures provide investors with useful supplemental information about the financial performance of our business, enable comparison of financial results between periods where certain items may vary independent of business performance, and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in operating our business and measuring our performance.

These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP, and the financial results calculated in accordance with GAAP. Non-GAAP measures are not uniformly defined by all companies, and may not be comparable with similarly titled measures and disclosures used by other companies. The reconciliations from these results should be carefully evaluated.

Reconciliations - Performance Measures (Average Daily TCE Rate)

Reconciliations - Liquidity Measures (Contractual Debt)

Please see Appendix A for a capital repayment profile for Golar's contractual debt.

Reconciliations - Liquidity Measures (Total Golar Cash)

Non-US GAAP Measures Used in Forecasting
Revenue Backlog: Revenue backlog is defined as the minimum contracted daily charter rate for each vessel multiplied by the number of scheduled hire days for the remaining contract term. Revenue backlog is not intended to represent EBITDA or future cashflows that will be generated from these contracts. This measure should be seen as a supplement and not a substitute for our US GAAP measures of performance.

Earnings Backlog: Earnings backlog represents the share of contracted fee income for executed contracts less forecasted operating expenses for these contracts. In calculating forecasted operating expenditure, management has assumed that where there is an Operating Services Agreement the amount receivable under the services agreement will cover the associated operating costs, therefore revenue from operating services agreements is excluded.

Definitions
TFDE: Tri-fuel Diesel Electric engine
FSRU: Floating Storage Regasification Unit
Unrestricted cash: Unrestricted cash refers to our cash and cash equivalents

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements (as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended) which reflects management's current expectations, estimates and projections about its operations. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, that address activities and events that will, should, could or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Words such as "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "estimate," "forecast," "project," "plan," "potential," "will," "may," "should," "expect," "may," "could," "would," "predict," "propose," "continue," or the negative of these terms and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond our control and are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in such forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Unless legally required, Golar undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are:

• our inability and that of our counterparty to meet our respective obligations under the Lease and Operate Agreement entered into in connection with the BP Greater Tortue / Ahmeyim Project ("Gimi GTA Project");
• continuing uncertainty resulting from potential future claims from our counterparties of purported force majeure under contractual arrangements, including but not limited to our construction projects (including the Gimi GTA Project) and other contracts to which we are a party;
• our ability to formalize a settlement agreement with authorities regarding tax benefits previously obtained under certain of our leasing agreements;
• claims made or losses incurred in connection with our continuing obligations with regard to Hygo Energy Transition Ltd ("Hygo") and Golar LNG Partners LP ("Golar Partners");
• the ability of Hygo, Golar Partners and NFE to meet their respective obligations to us, including indemnification obligations;
• changes to rules and regulations applicable to LNG carriers, FSRUs, FLNGs or other parts of the LNG supply chain;
• changes in our ability to retrofit vessels as floating storage and regasification units ("FSRUs") or floating liquefaction natural gas vessels ("FLNGs") and in our ability to obtain financing for such conversions on acceptable terms or at all;
• changes in our ability to obtain additional financing on acceptable terms or at all;
• the length and severity of outbreaks of pandemics, including the worldwide outbreak of the novel coronavirus ("COVID-19") and its impact on demand for liquefied natural gas ("LNG") and natural gas, the timing of completion of our conversion projects, the operations of our charterers, our global operations and our business in general;
• failure of our contract counterparties to comply with their agreements with us or other key project stakeholders;
• changes in LNG carrier, FSRU, or FLNG charter rates, vessel values or technological advancements;
• our vessel values and any future impairment charges we may incur;
• our ability to close potential future sales of additional equity interests in our vessels, including the Hilli and Gimi or to monetize our interest in NFE on a timely basis or at all;
• our ability to contract the full utilization of the Hilli or other vessels;
• changes in the supply of or demand for LNG carriers, FSRUs or FLNGs;
• a material decline or prolonged weakness in rates for LNG carriers, FSRUs or FLNGs;
• changes in the performance of the pool in which certain of our vessels operate;
• changes in trading patterns that affect the opportunities for the profitable operation of LNG carriers, FSRUs or FLNGs;
• changes in the supply of or demand for LNG or LNG carried by sea;
• continuing volatility of commodity prices;
• changes in the supply of or demand for natural gas generally or in particular regions;
• changes in our relationships with our counterparties, including our major chartering parties;
• changes in our relationship with our affiliates and the sustainability of any distributions they pay to us;
• a decline or continuing volatility in the global financial markets, specifically with respect to our equity holding in NFE;
• changes in general domestic and international political conditions, particularly where we operate;
• changes in the availability of vessels to purchase and in the time it takes to construct new vessels;
• failure of shipyards to comply with delivery schedules or performance specifications on a timely basis or at all;
• our inability to achieve successful utilization of our fleet or inability to expand beyond the carriage of LNG and provision of FSRU and FLNGs, particularly through our innovative FLNG strategy;
• actions taken by regulatory authorities that may prohibit the access of LNG carriers, FSRUs and FLNGs to various ports;
• increases in costs, including, among other things, wages, insurance, provisions, repairs and maintenance; and
• other factors listed from time to time in registration statements, reports, or other materials that we have filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the Commission, including our most recent annual report on Form 20-F.

As a result, you are cautioned not to rely on any forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise unless required by law.

November 9, 2021
The Board of Directors
Golar LNG Limited
Hamilton, Bermuda
Investor Questions: +44 207 063 7900
Karl Fredrik Staubo - CEO
Eduardo Maranhão - CFO

Stuart Buchanan - Head of Investor Relations