VAALCO Energy, Inc.

Q2 2021 Earnings Conference Call

8/12/2021

spk01: Good morning and welcome to the Valco Energy second quarter earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by 0. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Al Petrie, Investor Relations Coordinator. Please go ahead.
spk00: Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Valco Energy's second quarter 2021 conference call. After I cover the forward-looking statements, George Maxwell, our CEO, will review key highlights along with operational results. Ron Bain, who is named CFO in June, will then provide a more in-depth financial review. George will then return for some closing comments before we take your questions. During our question and answer session, we ask you to limit your questions to one and a follow-up. You can always reenter the queue with additional questions. I would like to point out that we posted a Q2 2021 Supplemental Investor Deck on our website this morning that has additional financial analysis, comparisons, and guidance that should be helpful. With that, let me proceed with our forward-looking statement comments. During the course of this conference call, the company will be making forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and those actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Valco disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These and other risks are described in yesterday's press release, the presentation posted on our website, and in the reports we filed with the SEC, including the Form 10-Q that was filed yesterday. Please note that this conference call is recorded. Let me now turn the call over to George.
spk05: Thank you, Al. Good morning everyone and welcome to our second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Thus far 2021 has been an exciting year for Valco, where we have completed a very accretive acquisition opportunity that arose in late 2020. We closed the acquisition of Sasil's 27.8 working interest in Itami in February 2021 with cash on hand. The accretive nature of the deal are very apparent in our first half 2021 results, with significant increase to our production, adjusted EBITDAX and cash flow. In the second quarter, we produced an average of 8,018 net bars of oil per day, which was an increase of 55% over the first quarter, driven by the inclusion of all three months of the increased NRI production due to the sational acquisition. The second quarter also reflected stronger revenue due to higher realized pricing and strong sales. This helped to boost our adjusted EBITDAX to $21.9 million in Q2 2021. And we have now generated $40 million in adjusted EBITDAX for the first half of 2021, which is more than in either of the previous two full calendar years and over six times what we generated in the fourth quarter of 2020. We are happy with the ongoing strength of the oil price environment and with the significant increase in production, we wanted to lock in a meaningful portion of our free cash flow and adjusted EBITDAX to assure that we have the funds for our upcoming capital programme later this year and into 2022. Turning our attention to the future, our strategic vision is built on accretive growth through organic drilling opportunities and through acquisitions. As you saw in our Q2 results, we are generating significant cash flow in preparation for our 2021-2022 drilling campaign. Also during the second quarter, we accelerated the processing of our 3D seismic in order to maximise the impact to the upcoming drilling campaign. We continue to expect all the data will be fully processed and analyzed by the fourth quarter, and we are using the seismic to optimize our drilling locations for the drilling campaign. Additionally, we are de-risking future drilling locations and potentially identifying new drilling locations with the 3D processing. In June, we secured a contract with Bore Drilling Limited to drill two development wells and two appraisal well bores with options to drill additional wells. Depending on commitments related to the rig, we believe that we can begin drilling as early as December of this year. If the four-well programme is successful, the estimated increase in gross fuel production is 7,000 to 8,000 barrels of oil per day, or 3,500 to 4,100 net barrels of oil production per day to Valco when the drilling campaign is completed in 2022. Hand in hand with the production increase will be the margin expansion and per barrel cost reductions. About 90% of our production costs are fixed and as production increases, our per barrel costs will decrease dramatically. Every new barrel we bring online is more economic because of the low variable costs. So as we grow production, we are also growing our margin per barrel and reducing our costs per barrel. From a capital standpoint, the estimated cost of the programme is between $115 and $125 million gross or $73 to $79 million net to Valco. The upcoming drilling campaign has the potential to generate significant additional free cash flow, especially when you combine the sustained higher oil prices with our low-cost operating structure. Our strategy is to utilise the additional free cash flow to fund organic and potentially inorganic accretive growth opportunities in the future. In line with our strategy to be a low-cost operator, we are constantly looking at ways to minimize costs and improve margins. From an operating cost standpoint, our current FPSO costs are about 40% of our total production expense. The non-binding LOI, which Valco announced in April of this year, expired without any mutually agreeable contract being reached. We are in advanced talks to finalise a binding agreement with other parties that will reduce our costs and meet our schedule in line with what we previously announced. We expect to update the market at the earliest opportunity and we still expect that the project will be fully operational before our FPSO contract ends. This will dramatically improve our margin per barrel and we will be able to deliver more free cash flow to fund our future growth opportunities. Looking at the second half of 2021, we have several operational events coming up. We're now planning on completing two workovers during the third quarter, when we initially had planned to do just one in the second half of 2021. We believe there is significant cost savings associated with performing the two workovers sequentially. One of the workovers is expected to provide potential production uplift, while the second is to install an updated ESP design on a well where the existing ESP is showing signs of potential failure. As a result, our guidance for workover costs is slightly higher than before. But given the cost savings benefit of doing two workovers sequentially, our expected costs are not going to double when compared to the cost of completing just one. We're also planning our annual seven-day field maintenance turnaround, which is expected to take place in September and be completed by the end of the quarter. As always, our annual production guidance included that planned turnaround. Unfortunately, the FPSO will not be able to perform its full annual maintenance turnaround at the same time due to safety protocols. As a result, we have to schedule an additional six-day turnaround in the fourth quarter to accommodate the additional FPSO maintenance. Taking into account the planned and unplanned turnarounds, potential uplift from the workovers and natural decline, we expect production in the second half of 2021 to average between 7,000 and 7,800 net barrels of oil per day. This is just a bit lower than we had estimated earlier this year for the second half of the year before we knew of the additional quarter four FPSO maintenance event. Our annual guidance hasn't changed and we still expect to be within the range of 6,800 to 7,400 barrels of oil per day. Without the unplanned second maintenance event, we believe we would have been well above the midpoint of our 2021 full year guidance. As a reminder, since our 2021-2022 drilling campaign doesn't begin until late this year, we are not currently forecasting any material production uplift from that drilling campaign in 2021, but we should see significant uplift in 2022. For sales volumes, we haven't changed our annual guidance of 7,100 to 8,000 barrels of oil per day. We expect third quarter sales to be in the range of 7,800 to 8,500 bars of oil per day. As we have discussed before, sales volumes do not always equal production volumes due to the timing and size of liftings. Going forward, we plan to continue to provide sales volumes guidance on an annual and quarterly basis. If we expect a material change in our actual sales volume compared to guidance, we will inform the market. As a result, going forward, we will no longer post monthly liftings on our website. We arrange the timing and size of liftings to optimize revenue, which means that we will not always have three liftings per quarter, and the size can change somewhat from lifting to lifting. Posting liftings is not a common occurrence in the industry, and we believe our investors will be better served with us giving quarterly sales guidance with material updates provided by us as needed. I would now like to give you a quick update on some exciting new developments in Equatorial Guinea. We have a substantial working interest in Block P and we are evaluating several development, step out and exploration opportunities in our acreage. We are excited about the opportunities on the block and believe it makes sense to move this project forward with a more definable timeline and potential development. We have recently completed our drilling feasibility study for the standalone development of the Venus Discovery in Block P and we are moving forward now with a field development concept. As we work through the development, we will provide more details about potential timing, capital costs and reserves and production estimates. We are committed to profitably exploiting the resource potential of our assets and Equatorial Guinea could become a significant operational asset moving forward. In summary, our outstanding employees continue to operate and execute on Valco's strategy of accretive growth and free cash flow generation through cost, effectively maintaining core production. We have a strong balance sheet and with our increased production base and new hedges, we have locked in sufficient cash flow to fund our upcoming capital obligations whilst maintaining upside. As you can see, we are firmly focused on maximising shareholder return opportunities and operating with the highest regards towards ESG, while we progress our strategic objectives focused on accretive growth. I would now like to introduce Ron Bain, our new Chief Financial Officer. I have known and worked with Ron for many years and his guidance has been an integral part of our success in the past. His leadership of large geographically diverse financial teams listed in both the US and UK and strong ties to the London investment and banking communities make him an important addition to Valco. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Ron to share our financial results.
spk03: Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin by saying I'm very pleased to have recently joined the Valco management team. Like George, I knew Valco well from my days working with him at Eland and see the significant potential we have at Valco in both Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. I look forward to getting to know our shareholders and analysts over the coming months. Turning to our financials, adjusted EBIT DAX totaled 21.9 million in the second quarter of 2021, compared with 18 million in the prior quarter, and more than double the 10.1 million in the same period of 2020. Adjusted EBIT DAX for the second quarter of 2021 was higher than both prior periods, primarily due to the increased sales volumes and higher realized prices. Our adjusted net income for the second quarter of 2021 totalled £8.4 million, or 14 cents per diluted share, as compared to an adjusted net income of £8.7 million, or 15 cents per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2021. Higher sales and realised pricing were offset by higher DD&A due to the bargain purchase price accounting associated with the Sasol acquisition and one-time servants' costs. In the second quarter of 2020, Valco reported 5.3 million in adjusted net income or 9 cents per deleted share. Additionally, we reported strong net income of 5.9 million or 10 cents per deleted share in the second quarter of 2021, which included a 10 million loss in derivative instruments, of which 5.7 million was an unrealized loss. As George mentioned, the second quarter reflected significant increases in sales and continued strong realized pricing. Turning to production, so production for the second quarter of 8,080 net barrels of oil per day increased 55% from 5,180 net barrels of oil per day in the first quarter of 2021, driven by the SASL acquisition volumes being included and the company's results for all three months of Q2 compared to only about one month in Q1. Second quarter 2021 production was up 48% from the second quarter of 2020. Sales volumes in Q2 2021 were up 4% from the first quarter and up 2% compared to the same period in 2020. The increase in volumes is primarily due to the additional SASL interest. Our crude oil price realisation increased 14% to $69.61 per barrel in the second quarter of 2021 versus $61.31 per barrel in the first quarter of 2021 and was up 146% compared to the $28.31 per barrel in the second quarter of 2020. Our hedging strategy for 2021 has been to lock in a majority of our 2021 production volumes to protect cash flows and assure funding of our capital programme in 2021 and 2022, but still allow for some additional upside. In January 2021, we entered into a crude oil commodity swap arrangement for a total of 709,262 barrels at a dated Brent weighted average price of $53.10 per barrel for the period from and including February 2021 through January 2022. These swaps settle on a monthly basis. In May, we added more crude oil swaps of 672,533 barrels at a dated Brent weighted average price of $66.51 per barrel for the period from and including May 2021 through October 2021. And last week, We entered into an additional commodity swap, a dated Brent weighted average of 67.70 per barrel for the period from and including November 2021 through February 2022 for a quantity of 314,420 barrels. After entering into this latest hedge, Valco now has 70% of its production hedge through October 2021. and 50% of its production hedge from November 2021 through February 2022. We took similar actions in 2019 before we began our 2019-2020 programme and will continue to assess our needs to mitigate price risk and protect cash flow in the future as we consider any additional future derivative contracts. Turning to our expenses, production expense excluding workovers for the second quarter of 2021 was 16.1 million, which was flat with the first quarter of 2021 despite the higher sales and 3.9 million higher than in the second quarter of 2020 due to higher sales and the increase in working interests associated with the SASL acquisition. The per unit production expense excluding workover of $25.02 per barrel in the second quarter of 2021 decreased as compared to $26.02 per barrel in the first quarter of 2021 and $19.31 in Q2 2020. The per unit production expense excluding workovers decreased 4% as compared to the first quarter of 2021 due to the increased sales but flat actual cost. The per unit rate in the second quarter of 2021 increased 30% from the rate in the year ago quarter primarily due to the increase in work and interest costs associated with the Sasol acquisition, but sales were nearly flat year over year. The second quarter of 2020 included four liftings that increased sales. Included in total production expense are COVID-19 related costs incurred to protect the health and safety of the company's employees, which totaled approximately $800,000 in the second quarter of 2021. Production expense for the third quarter of 2021, excluding workovers, is projected to be between $20 million and $22 million, or $27 to $30 per barrel of oil sales. Keep in mind that Q3 2021 has an increase in absolute and per barrel costs compared to the second quarter of 2021 due to the seven-day planned maintenance turnaround. As George mentioned, we are now planning on completing two workovers during the third quarter, when we initially had planned to do just one in the second half of 2021. We've adjusted our guidance for workover costs to $8 million to $10 million net to Valco, from $5 million to $6 million previously. We do get the benefit of doing the two workovers in succession, so our expected costs are not double the cost of just completing one. DD&A for the second quarter of 2021 was $5.8 million or $9.05 per net barrel of oil sales compared to $4.1 million or $6.70 per barrel in the first quarter of 2021 and $2.8 million or $4.44 per barrel in the second quarter of 2020. DD&A was higher comparable to the prior periods due to the higher depletable costs associated with the SASL acquisition. Our asset base for the SASL acquisition was valued at fair market value in a stronger pricing environment than which we negotiated the deal price. General administrative expense for the second quarter of 2021, excluding stock-based compensation expense, was $4.2 million, compared with $3 million in the first quarter of 2021 and $2.3 million in the second quarter of 2020. The increase in Q2 2021 compared to Q1 2021 was a result of additional severance costs associated with changes in key personnel. The per unit G&A rate, excluding stock-based compensation, in the second quarter of 2021 of $6.57 per barrel of oil sales was higher than both the first quarter 2021 and the second quarter of 2020 due to higher severance costs with relatively small changes in sales. For the third quarter, we are forecasting G&A, excluding stock-based compensation, to be between £2 million and £3 million, which is more consistent with our expected run rate without these one-time costs. Non-cash stock-based compensation expense was impacted by the change in the SAR's liability as a result of changes in the company's stock price during the quarter. For the second quarter of 2021, the stock-based compensation expense related to SAR's was an expense of 400,000 compared to an expense of 1.2 million for the first quarter of 2021. For the second quarter of 2020, there was expense of 700,000 related to SARS. Turning now to taxes, income tax expense for the three months ended June 30th, 2021 was $2.8 million. This is comprised of a 3.3 million of a deferred tax benefit and a current tax expense of 6.1 million. The income 2.2 million income tax benefit for the three months ended June 30th, 2020 included a 3.4 million deferred tax benefit and a current tax expense of 1.2 million. For both Q2 2021 and 2020, Valco's overall effective tax rate was impacted by non-deductible items associated with operations and deducting foreign taxes rather than crediting them for United States tax purposes. At June 30th, 2021, we had an unrestricted cash balance of $22.9 million, which included $2 million in net joint venture owner advances. Working capital at June 30th, 2021 was negative 9 million compared with the negative 15.8 million at March 31st, 2021. While adjusted working capital at June 30th, 2021 turned positive to 4.3 million compared to negative 2.7 million at March 31st, 2021. For the second quarter of 2021, net capital expenditures excluding acquisitions totaled £3.1 million on a cash basis and £1.8 million on an accrual basis. These expenditures were primarily related to the purchase of a mobile work over unit, equipment and enhancements, as well as early costs associated with the 2021-2022 drilling programme. As has been the case since the second quarter of 2018, we are cutting no debt. And with that, I'll now turn the call back over to George.
spk05: Thanks, Ron. As we look at 2021 and beyond, this is a very exciting time for Valco. I believe it is paramount that businesses are sustainable in order to provide benefits to all stakeholders with a focus on growth and investor returns. With that in mind. I am pleased to announce that we have completed our second ESG report that was primarily developed in close alignment with the recommendations of SASB, as we significantly enhanced our disclosures and related discussions. The core values outlined in our report are a part of our culture and provides a solid foundation that assures our success as a trusted operator, a generous partner to the communities where we operate, and as good stewards to the environment. We have a strong asset base in the TAMI that is generating meaningful free cash flow and adjusted EBITDAX in the current pricing environment, which is evident in our first half 2021 results. The $40 million that we have generated in adjusted EBITDAX in the first half of 2021 is more than VALCO generated in either of the full years 2019 or 2020. Sustained operational excellence and robust financial performance at Itami serves as the foundation for growing Valco through organic drilling and future accretive acquisition opportunities in line with our strategy. In April, we also purchased a hydraulic workover unit that we have used in the past for less than $2 million in total consideration. This unit is in Gabon and is being deployed in the third quarter to perform two workovers that should increase production. Having a workover unit in country will allow us to respond to any well-done time issue quickly and will save us significant time, production and cash flow when addressing workover requirement if an ESP unit goes down. But we are not simply looking to maintain production in Gabon, there are meaningful development opportunities across our assets. We have completed the feasibility study for the standalone development of the Venus Discovery and Block P in Equatorial Guinea, and we are moving forward now with our field development concept. The TAMI and potentially now Block P can enhance our business and provide a strong platform for organic growth and increased future cash flow. As we continue to generate significant cash flows to fund our capital expenditures, we continue to evaluate ways to return some of that free cash flow to our shareholders. Valco has adopted share repurchase programmes in the past and we will consider similar programmes in the future to complement our growth strategy. In the fourth quarter, we will begin another drilling campaign at Itami and with our recent additional hedges, we have locked in sufficient cash flow generation from operations to fund this programme and desensitise the risk of oil price movements. As you can see, we are firmly focused on maximizing shareholder return opportunities and operating with the highest regards towards ESG while we progress or refresh strategic objectives focused on accretive growth. Thank you with that, operator, and we are now ready to take questions.
spk01: I'll begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. First question will be from John White of Roth Capital.
spk09: Good morning, George.
spk06: Good morning, John.
spk09: Mr. Bain, congratulations again on your recent appointment.
spk06: Thank you.
spk09: Well, congratulations on the quarter. Looks like everything went a little better than planned. So very, very nice to see that, and thanks for the detailed operations update. I'm excited about Equatorial Guinea, the announcement there, and Block P. That was Devon Discovery, I believe. Is that correct?
spk06: That's correct. I mean, we're currently in a position within our Nav and SIL CPR report on a 2C basis of around 16 million bottles on the Discovery.
spk09: Thanks for that. And would you want to say who are your partners in Block P?
spk06: In Block P, we've got G-Patrol and Atlas are the partners.
spk09: All right. And the anticipated depth of the target zone?
spk06: Well, that's a good question. I think we're sitting at, this is the target zone subsurface of where we're planning to drill from on the surface. True vertical depth. Two vertical depths. I believe it's around about 3,000 meters.
spk09: Thank you. And sandstone, limestone, could you talk a little bit about the lithology?
spk06: We don't have that detail at hand at the moment. I think it is a sandstone plate, but I can come back to you on that one, John.
spk09: Okay, no. Thank you. Is it too early to talk about timing of a potential well getting started?
spk06: Yeah. Well, I think the key work that we performed in Q2 was, as we mentioned, the drilling feasibility. So we had to try and determine was it possible to reach the targeted zones from the shelf as opposed to trying to drill in a deeper water location. That was really paramount in order to assess whether we could get an economic development around that level of oil accumulations at 16 million barrels. Having established that that was possible and well trajectories and angles were sufficient with coming in from a jack-up, we're now looking at how we can have an efficient field development concept, again, from the shelf. fetching into the deeper water locations where costs, as you know, ramp up very, very quickly. I'm hoping to be in a position towards year end to have a much firmer outline on a timetable and a much firmer technical presentation on how we would plan to evacuate that oil.
spk09: Okay, very good. It's exciting and I'm looking forward to learning more I'll turn it back to the operator now.
spk06: Thank you.
spk01: The next question will be from Bill DeZellum of Teton Capital. Please go ahead.
spk08: Thank you. Would you please, first of all, continuing on EG, update us with the production sharing contract update and what's going on with the ministry. Is that now complete or are there still more steps that you are waiting for?
spk06: It's more or less complete. I mean, what was happening there, Bill, was we had one partner basically coming out through defaulting. So those amendments were taking place, and we got them complete towards the beginning of Q2, and that was kind of good to go. But then we have one more amendment with another partner exiting with a small percentage. Those amendments are going through now. We don't have any issues around those amendments. purely just an administrative process. And in the discussions we've had with the EG authorities, we're seeing it in a positive aspect.
spk08: And so we're now, as soon as those contracts are inked, you'll then have 25 years. Is that correct? Is that when the clock begins?
spk06: Well, we're currently in an exploration position. So we have to look at, and as you know, we have an obligation for an exploration well. And what we're looking to do is get into the discussions around the Venus development and that Venus development fulfilling that obligation. And once we get that position agreed, at that point, the tenor of the PSC will be extended. All right.
spk08: Thank you. And then relative to your comment in the release that you're accelerating the seismic processing, Would you discuss what it is that you are doing more quickly and what that will actually do for you, given that it doesn't sound like the rig will be coming on any sooner than originally discussed?
spk06: Yeah, what we do there is basically we're pulling forward what we call the hot package, so the package of seismic interpretation that we have around our drilling locations so we can get better clarity around where our subsurface well targets are. And what we want to do is basically make sure we have the same imaging, sorry, better imaging from what we had previously to just confirm bottom hole locations for the targeted drilling. So the reason we pull that forward is basically to add a de-risking to the drilling program, remove some uncertainty so we're not chasing our tails closer to execution.
spk08: Great. Thank you.
spk01: Once again, if you have a question, you can press star, then 1. The next question comes from Charlie Sharp of Canaccord.
spk04: Yes, thank you very much for taking my question. Good morning, gentlemen. Just a couple of questions, firstly around the workover and then the forthcoming drilling, and then a bit of a follow-up on the FPSO, if I may. Firstly, in terms of the workover, the extra workover, that you have in the Q3, should I assume that that's the Iburi 2H workover that I think had originally been planned as part of the drilling program? And secondly, on the drilling, given the extra work that you're putting into the new 3D seismic, what's your position at the moment in terms of possibly adding an additional fifth well to the program? And then on the FPSO, I understand that maybe it's too soon to disclose details, but would you expect to see the same sort of annual reduction in operating costs that you cited before using the Omni proposed FSO with whatever it is that you plan to use instead? Thank you.
spk06: Thank you, Charlie. I'm working from memory, so I don't have my notes here on this one, but the second worker I believe is 12H. And the reason we've had to come into that second workover is due to the failure of the lower ESP. The well's still performing at the moment, but it's performing on the upper ESP. And we don't want to take the risk of being there with the workover unit doing 2H and then all of a sudden leaving the workover with a workover unit and 12H upper ESP fails. So that's really just to make sure we have returned to the redundancy that we have on these wells with two ESPs Like I said, we're seeing slight fluctuations in 12 rates, but we're not seeing a complete failure on the well yet, but as a result of the lower ESP failing, we've got that scheduled in in Q3. With regard to the drilling program, as you know, we continually will be looking at the options. We've got an additional five options on the drilling program, and that will be subject to you know, the exciting target locations that we have, availability of long lead items, and obviously making sure we can get it into our existing cash forecast. But yes, we are continuing to evaluate a fifth well opportunity, and that's beside me. Russell will be in a position to clear him up on these evaluations towards the beginning or middle of Q4. With regard to the change out of the FPSO to the FSO, yes, when we've been looking at this opportunity and we've expanded the reach of potential suppliers on an FSO concept, we've kept two things in mind when we've been looking at it. The first is schedule. It's absolutely critical that any contract we enter into, we have high confidence levels have been able to hit the delivery schedule well ahead of the contract end date of September 2022 for the existing FPSO. And secondly, we're looking at the cost opportunity and saying, can we, in this additional expanded view of suppliers, maintain the indicative cost savings that we expect mentioned in June of this year, and the answer to both of those is yes. Schedule is the priority. We cannot miss it, and we will not miss it, but we are also on track for those indicative cost savings.
spk01: Next question will be from Richard Durnley of Longport Partners.
spk07: Good morning. The question about the feasibility of reaching the zone from the shelf, I take it that means you expect that you'll be able to reach it from the shelf, or what are the odds of the feasibility study being positive?
spk06: The feasibility study has been completed. The drilling team looked at various options as to what it would take to reach the targeted zones. The key aspects there are how high risk the well is and the angle of attack that the well design is taking to get to the targeted subsurface location. We went through a number of aspects including the well design, whether we had to do a rotating casing program which of course is a higher risk position. And the results of those based on starting the drilling We looked at three water depths. We looked between 120 and 140 meters. The deeper we go, the shallower the angle of attack for the well, and the shallower we go, the higher the angle of attack. We've come to the conclusion that for the plant producing wells, we're well within the spectrum on the angle of attack to get these wells completed. there's not really a significant drilling risk. I think from memory, again, we're looking at the well angles down in the 40s, 50-degree positions.
spk07: I see. Thank you. And then the accelerated 3D, the acceleration of the 3D program, did that have a meaningful cost impact in the second quarter?
spk10: It was certainly more than we had put in our guidance, but it's about $600,000 in total that was expensed. I would suggest that Q3 will be similar to Q2.
spk07: I see. Thank you.
spk02: Okay, George. I was emailed two questions from Stefan Fouchard with Octus. If you get through, he's having trouble with his phone line. So the first one, what is the latest of the FPSO contract with Omni?
spk06: Okay, well, as I mentioned earlier in one of the questions I answered, we expanded the supplier base that we contacted to really have a much better review of our options. Specifically with the discussions around Omni, we failed to reach a commercially acceptable settlement in which we could go forward and contract. We're still in discussions with a number of providers, and I would anticipate within the next two weeks we'll be able to come to market and advise them exactly about contracting position.
spk02: Okay, great. George and Ron, this one's more for you. What would be good guidance for the future or future years for workover yearly expense? He said he noticed that there's $8 million to $10 million that we set for the third quarter.
spk10: Yeah, I believe we generally look at one to two workovers a year. Now that we own the CUD unit, that guidance would generally be in the region of about five, 10 million. We certainly look at that as the year progresses, bearing in mind that the one plan work over we have for 2022, it's been accelerated into 2021. I would think 2022 will be more. It will be at the 5 million range. But that's something that we'll take a look at in our budgeting process, which we're reviewing through now in August.
spk02: Okay. Thank you, Ron. Operator, any other questions?
spk01: There are no other questions at this time. I'll turn it back to George Maxwell for any closing remarks.
spk06: I'd like to thank the audience for listening to our Q2 and first half results. I think the positions that we're presenting for the company going forward in 2021 are very exciting. We have the opportunity of potentially opening a significant second leg of production opportunities in Equatorial Guinea. We have an expansive drilling program to try and fill the knowledge of processing positions we have in Gabon and all of that being self-funded inside the company. So I think it's the outlook for second half 2021, albeit we do have a second unplanned shutdown for safety reasons in Q4. I still think it looks like a very exciting second half. And that leads us into the position for 2022, where the continuation of the drilling program and further enhancement of production will give us very positive aspects towards the cash flow generation and profitability of the company in going forward. And I'd like to thank you very much for everyone who has listened in.
Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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