Petronor E&P Asa

Hello, good morning. My name is Jens Pace. I'm the CEO of Petronor. And it's my pleasure to be here in Oslo this morning to provide a bit more context to the report that we put out for our second quarter results earlier this morning. I have a few slides to run through to emphasize the things that I think are of particular importance. And then I'd like to put the meeting back over to you to ask questions, and I'll try to answer any questions that you have. So please do send them through. So first, a novel disclaimer, which I'll let you read at your leisure. This is how I plan to run through the slide today. We have an operational update. We'll give some highlights for the operational performance and then look at some of the financial results that I think are particularly significant. I'll give a brief overview of the portfolio to mention any changes that have happened in the last few months. And then, importantly also, I'll give an update on the investigation that we reported on the 13th of May. And this is important because it impacts our plans for shareholder distribution, and I'll explain why as we go through the meetings. Then I'll summarize and over to you for any questions and answers. Hello, good morning. My name is Jens Pace. I'm the CEO of Petronor. And it's my pleasure to be here in Oslo this morning to provide a bit more context to the report that we put out for our second quarter results earlier this morning. I have a few slides to run through to emphasize the things that I think are of particular importance. And then I'd like to put the meeting back over to you to ask questions and I'll try to answer any questions that you have. So please do send them through. So first, a novel disclaimer, which I'll let you read at your leisure. This is how I plan to run through the slides today. We have an operational update. We'll give some highlights for the operational performance and then look at some of the financial results that I think are particularly significant. I'll give a brief overview of the portfolio to mention any changes that have happened in the last few months. And then importantly, also, I'll give an update on the investigation that we reported on the 13th of May. And this is important because it impacts our plans for shareholder distribution. And I'll explain why as we go through the meetings. Then I'll summarize and over to you for any questions and answers. So starting with the operational update here, we've seen strong sales of oil during the first half of the year. And in Q2, we sold 584,000 barrels of oil of entitlement production. And so this brings our total up for the years to date of about 914,000 barrels of sales, which is a good robust number. We've seen a – this operation was done with our – Our broker in Adnock, so these operations were done by the company rather than previously we were lifting all of our crude using the Geno terminal operators. But since we've had approval from the government to manage our own liftings, these were done separately. And that seems to be working well. Looking at production itself on a working interest basis, we've drifted below the 5,000 barrels of oil per day in the last quarter that we've become used to after the success of the infill drilling program. And there's a couple of reasons for that related to infrastructure instability, third-party infrastructure mainly, and also a reduction in well availability because of a workover backlog I guess the important point to mention here, though, is that we see both of those situations improving. I'll give you some more details about that later. And so we think that these issues will be resolved during the rest of this year. Going on to our financial delivery here, the cash at the end of the quarter was $65.8 million, an increase over the beginning of the year, where it was $46 million. The highlights here are revenue of $110 million, an EBITDA of $62 million, and cash flow from operations of $35 million. Some good numbers there, but they don't really tell the whole story because we had a significant receivable. In fact, the payment for that second lifting that happened in the second quarter didn't hit our account until the first week of July. I think it was the 3rd of July we actually got it into our account. So it didn't make the closing of our books. But that's a significant cash input of $48. $4 million, which means that the cash on the balance sheet is somewhat understated. You can see from the pattern of liftings on the graph there that we're just under a million barrels lifted so far this year. By the end of the year, we'll see an inventory we estimate will be over 400,000 barrels, 450,000 barrels. So there is an opportunity for another lifting in the fourth quarter, and we'll work to deliver that. It might slip into the beginning of 2025, but it's significant to note that we have a sizable inventory building up. So this is the use of cash, if you like. We started the year with $46 million. The net cash from operations, once we've paid our taxes and OPEX and working capital movements, was $35.2 million. We've continued to invest, particularly in the Congo. And so we've got capex of about $10 million, and this is for the drilling program that we had during the beginning of the year and the installation and commissioning of the new infrastructure that is being put in place. So continued investment through the first half of the year into production. We also chose to pay back our existing working capital facilities. So we've had a loan repayment of about $6 million. So the company is completely debt-free now. And that gives us the cash as of 30th of June of about $66 million. So the trade receivable of $48.4 million means that as we entered the third quarter, we had a balance of $114 million, which I think is very robust for a company of our size. Just an overview of the portfolio. And apologies for those who follow Petronor and so are familiar with this. But I think it's worth just having a refresh here. We're essentially focused on West Africa and Central Africa. Our production base is in Congo Brazzaville. And that's a gross field production of around 30,000 barrels of oil per day from PNGF Sud. High margin production. Our OPEX runs at around $11 a barrel. Our operator there is Perenco, and our working interest for Petronor is 16.83%. moving to nigeria this is a development opportunity in oml113 we've been focusing on consolidating our license position there via acquisitions and and you know we're hoping that that will clear the path to a redevelopment plan which would be of the order of 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day. It's mainly a gas field, gas condensate field. And gas is important in the area. It's considered a transition fuel for Africa. And we're well located just offshore Lagos in an active market. And we've tested that with inquiries to potential buyers. And so we know that there's a strong market there. And then finally, exploration. Now, obviously, we have exploration prospects in the previous two assets in Congo, as we proved with the discovery of a deeper reservoir underneath the existing production recently, which was also successfully appraised this year. We have... untapped exploration prospects in Nigeria as well. But in terms of pure exploration, we look to the Gambia in our position there in the A4 license. We have prospects mapped there, which we're quite excited about. They're in a proven basin and they're on trend with discoveries and production. So we're looking to build a partnership to explore that area. The headline numbers for those two I'd pick out here is the 17.2 million barrels of 2p reserves. So this is a long-lived position. We've got a significant amount of reserves. And then it's even more legs in the portfolio in terms of the 2C resources of 36, 37 million barrels of oil equivalent. And that shows this is a portfolio that has opportunities to sustain itself. Looking at the Congo in a little bit more detail here, the field complex in PNGF Sud was put on production by Total in the 1980s. It's been on production since 1987. But it's a sizable resource, 2 billion barrels of in-place oil, we estimate. And to date, only about a quarter of that has been produced. And we see that if... recovery factors can be brought up to the norms that we see elsewhere in similar reservoirs, then we have about as much oil to produce as has already been produced. So it's some long-lived production here that goes out for the next few decades. There is a track record of successfully adding production via both workovers of existing well stock, but also infill drilling to add new well capacity. And you can see from the production curve here that we started an infill program a couple of years ago, and it's been extremely successful in nearly doubling the production from the field. And we peaked at around 35,000 barrels a day. And we're hoping to get back to those kind of levels once we've addressed some of the efficiency issues that we're dealing with at the moment. Our infill drilling program was scheduled to be 18 wells. We have drilled, we've actually drilled 12. There's a slight typo in the slide here. We drilled another one this year as the follow-up to the Vangie discovery in March. the Chubuela area. But of those 12 that we've drilled, they've exceeded our expectations in terms of reservoir quality and production. So we're very pleased with the outcome here. The follow-up to the Vangie discovery was successful, and we have also been commissioning a new platform at Chendo, which is important for two reasons. One, it has power generation capacity. That's been commissioned and is working. But we are awaiting a new import line of gas from elsewhere in the field so that it can become fully operational. And that will give us independence for power generation on the field. We've been reliant on third-party power generation, and that's proved to be unstable. So we're looking forward to getting that up and running fully. But the other reason that the platform is important is that it has 14 new well slots, six of which we plan to use in 2025 to do infill drilling on the Chendo field. So that'll be the next phase of drilling. And it's awaiting some heavy lift equipment to get that organized. And we expect that to happen in the coming year. I'll just mention here in yellow on the map, you'll see PNGF BIS. This is a licence that we have been awarded by the Council of Ministers at the end of last year. We are expecting an award of a production sharing agreement sometime this year. The discussions with the government over that are held by us. our operator Parenko. So we await news of that. These things can often take a while and we've been patient. But in the meantime, we've been gathering data on that reservoir in the Vangie. There are undeveloped discoveries in PNGF abyss in the Vangie reservoir. And so the recent success we've had nearby has been useful in understanding what the potential for that area is. I need to mention production efficiency because it has been below historic levels. Over 2023, our production efficiency as a measure of what the field is capable of, if everything's working, averaged about 92%, which is high. It's dropped because of the issues that I've mentioned during 2024 to about 82%. It's improving, but it's still below where it has been historically. And this is for a couple of reasons. The work over activity has kind of lagged because of other priorities offshore, which has used a lot of the operators' capacity and space limitations for people. So it is something that we hope to return to in the third and fourth quarters to get that backlog down and improve well availability through that effort. And, you know, there's also the stability of production generally, I think, with third party shutdowns kind of regularly or infrequently, but, you know, unpredictably happening during the pandemic. The end of last year and going into the beginning of this year, we had production interruptions. And the systems and the well stock don't like that. We rely on electrical pumps to lift our oil from most of these wells. And they like to run and not be switched on and off. And so that obviously there's lost production when they're switched off, but there's also an instability as a result of that interruption that means that often we have more failures in the subsurface and have to go in and intervene. So it adds to the work over backlog. So it's a combination of effects and we're expecting efficiency to increase during Q4. And just to give you an indication, a 10% improvement from 82 to 92, for instance, would be an equivalent of 3,000 barrels a day on a gross basis, which is 500 barrels on a working interest basis to Petronil. Moving on to Nigeria now and look at the Aje redevelopment. Our focus has been on consolidating our interest in the partnership group. We have completed the transaction with the operator YFP to form a joint venture. called RJ Production AS. So that gives us a net in the current in the field of around 20% for the company. And through the acquisition of New Age's interests, we'll add another 30% roughly to that. So we would be at a working rate. interest of around 50% in the overall license through those two transactions. We've heard from the ministry, or rather New Age has heard from the ministry, that they have no objection to our acquisition of the interests. We still have some process to go through with the ministry there to complete that transaction process. And we expect meetings to be happening in September that will clear the path for that. So that's moving ahead on schedule. The plan for the redevelopment hasn't changed. We're looking at a new FPSO with gas processing capacity and drilling four or five new wells to produce gas and liquids. and process the gas through a gas pipeline from the FPSO to shore, a 30-kilometre pipeline to an onshore LPG plant, which would be right next to the... processing plant for the West African gas pipeline. So we have access to both local and regional markets through that arrangement. And so that makes the gas a valuable commodity in that area. We've been focusing on a couple of things over the last few months. First of all, the subsurface definition of the field has been improved by some detailed reprocessing and depth that we've been undertaking. We're still discussing with the partnership some more work on this, but we have identified a significant upside in the underlying oil reservoir, which is important. Economically, liquids are a key factor in the overall economic outcome. So this is something that we think has enhanced the value of the asset significantly, and we're looking to do some more definition on that to make sure that we have the appropriate development plan for that deeper reservoir. The other thing that we've done is we've purchased some land where we would locate the LPG plant onshore, and this is right next to the West African Gas Pipeline plant as well. And that is significant because it allows us to start the environmental and social impact assessment that is necessary to support the field development plan. And so we're looking to award that ESIA contract in the coming weeks and get that work started. It's a critical path item which will take some years to conduct with samples and monitoring over a couple of years. So it's important to get that started now to support the field development. So that's where we are with AGE. We don't envisage any major expenditures this year, but we will be looking to continue with our definition work and consolidation of the partnership with a view to picking this up in earnest in the coming year. Moving to our exploration portfolio on the Atlantic margin here. It's important to mention Guinea-Bissau. Although we are no longer in that license, we farmed down 100% of it. We're still exposed to a successful outcome here for the Atom 1X well, which we understand will be drilled in, spudded in September this year. So only a few weeks from this well being spudded. We have a defined outcome in a success case based on milestones that could total $60 million based on an approved field development plan and establishment of continuous production. So it's some years out in the future, but nonetheless, it would be good to see that project progressing well. The other reason why that's important to us is because it sits, the well sits on an identical play type to the play that we have in in the Gambia in our A4 license. And so, you know, a success in this margin on trend will help augment our views of the prospectivity of the A4 license, which sits between the Sangomar field and ATEM 1X. So I think we're well positioned for a successful outcome here. And we look forward to seeing how we can incorporate that in our our understanding of the prospectivity. We extended the licence with agreement from the government of the Gambia from June 2024. So we have 18 months of a technical work programme, mainly looking at the rock physics of the wells that have been drilled in the area that we've not had full access to before, with a view to reducing incorporating that information in our understanding of the prospectivity. So that work is progressing well. In parallel, we have a farm-out data room and we are maintaining a discussion with potential third parties under NDAs for future partnership. And we are looking to see if we can do a farm down in the Gambia much as we did in Guinea-Bissau. So moving on to the investigation, and the news on the 13th of May, which we announced it was that we've seen contagion from the investigation, which has been into allegations of corruption by individuals formerly associated with the company to the company itself, and that the company and a subsidiary, Helma Africa Holding, has been named as suspects in these investigations. So the grounds for suspicion include allegations of corruption as well as misleading investors through statements that were made in our prospectus, both during the reverse takeover of African Petroleum and since. So this means that we're now in a new and different relationship with the investigating authorities here. We've always been a cooperating company, but it's been more of a passive involvement. Now we have reasons for a more active conversation with them while maintaining a commitment to full cooperation. And we believe that's the very best and responsible strategy for the company in this situation. That means that we need to be mindful of moving funds from our Congo subsidiary while we're having those conversations. So we're relying on the liquidity from the Congo to support a shareholder distribution. And it's still our plan and very much the board commitment to executing on our dividend policy that was announced in the May AGM. But the timing of the first distribution needs to be sensitive to the conversations we're having with the authorities. And so we're working to resolve that situation and we would hope to be able to update the market in due course. We're hoping that certainly in the coming couple of months we will have a position that we can announce. The company has responded to the investigation and the board has adopted a strategy focused on the current portfolio in Congo, Nigeria and the Gambia with a tactical suspension of new business development efforts. We've in the past had quite a significant amount of effort on new opportunities. We're curtailing that for the time being and focusing on maximising the value of our existing portfolio. portfolio. The organization has been realigned with the objectives we've got now. So there's been a significant reduction in the staff numbers. My team has shrunk significantly. And we are also looking at other cost saving measures during the second half of this year. So the primary focus is to preserve cash. And the near-term priorities are obviously to maintain the governance and compliance program that we have that's part of our listing and the reporting obligations we have, as well as the policies that we've adopted for all of our business conduct in Africa. maximizing the value of the existing assets through the technical work that we're doing and the studies we're doing and the reinvestment in the Congo, as I've already alluded to. And focusing on cash generation, the relationship with ADNOC and other traders in terms of maintaining the lifting program we have from the Congo and building up the cash position so that we have that ready for shareholder distribution as soon as possible. And then finally, of course, there's the management of any potential corporate legal liabilities here. This is a significant effort. And we've assembled, I think, an outstanding team of legal advisors that are giving us advice both in the US and Norway on this with a couple of different work fronts. And, you know, as I mentioned before, we anticipate that there's going to be a different kind of level of engagement now that we are named as a suspect in the IRCA-Crim process. And this allows us to engage in a way that perhaps we haven't been invited to up to now. So to summarize here, I think we see continued strong development from the Congo assets. Good delivery of production. We still think it can improve, but it's a very respectable production delivery. And that's underpinned by regular liftings. And so we're selling our oil inventory and we're generating cash flow. Nigeria and the Gambia represent, I think, very valuable options, and we can progress them at modest cost in the near term. We're building a significant cash position with $114 million at the entry into Q3, and there's an opportunity to add to that before the end of the year that we'll be working on. We're... With this cash position, our focus is to return excess cash to shareholders in accordance with our dividend policy. But the full cooperation that we're doing with our investigating authorities here means that we need to delay that first distribution, and we're not sure when it will happen, but we're excited. committed to doing this as soon as possible. And so we're expecting to have meetings during 3Q with UrcaCrim and the DOJ that will provide more light on this and we will be able to update the market in the future. So that's what I planned to say and I'd be very happy to take any questions that you have and answer what I can.

Thank you, Jens. We do have a few questions coming in here. The first one, the dividend payment has been delayed. Does that mean that you are saving up cash for a possible fine?

No, that's not the case. We've had no discussions about fines with the authorities. Now, clearly, if the company is eventually charged, and that hasn't happened yet, and that's important to note, then it's in the range of potential outcomes. But we've made no provision for this, and we would have to if we expected to be fined, we would have to make a provision, and we have not done that. So the delay is not related to trying to keep money back for fines.

Thank you. You have decided to postpone dividend to shareholders. Was that a voluntary decision or did Öko Krim instruct you?

We've had no instructions. We've done this based on advice from our legal team. And we think it's a prudent decision, a responsible decision in the context of conversations that we're having with the authorities. But we have not been instructed to do this, no.

Thank you. And on the same topic, is it Congolese or Norwegian authorities that hinders you from withdrawing money from Congo?

This is related to our conversations with the DOJ and with Cochrane. This is not a Congolese issue now.

Employees can get bonuses while shareholders have to wait for dividends. How is that possible and where is the logic?

Well, you know, I think the operational performance of the company, which is largely what the employees are accountable for, is something that needs to be recognized and rewarded. You know, the transactions we have done, like the Guinea-Bissau deal and the continued management of our production and that sort of thing, I make no apologies for rewarding employees who have worked extremely hard to deliver all that. It remains our position that excess cash will be provided to shareholders via either a stock buyback, repayment of paid-in capital or a straightforward dividend. And we plan to do that as soon as possible. We were just waiting on the right situation in relation to the conversations that I've already told you about.

Is it any risk that the company must deliver back the Congo assets?

We don't see that as a potential outcome. Our legal analysis says that as long as we maintain the obligations that we have for the license, that it is ours for the license term. And so we don't see that as a potential outcome.

With the updated strategy to not pursue any new business, will the dividend policy still be 30% of net income or will the percentage increase?

Well, we've put a policy out there. We're happy with that for the time being. But as I've said, our strategy is to preserve cash. We are reducing the kind of running costs of the company with that in mind. So the board could always review that in the future, but I'm not proposing we do that immediately. I think our focus is on getting that first distribution done. and then we can talk about how the policy may be adapted going forward.

Moving on to another topic, when do you expect next lifting?

So, as I said, you know, there's always a problem with small companies in that, you know, you have production that gives you a lumpy lifting schedule that... means that you have to really pool with others to try and get any predictability on it. The parcel size of a cargo from the Congo is over 900,000 barrels. So if we wait until the company has completely filled that from its own entitlement production, we'll be waiting for... the best part of a year. So we've been managing our lifting schedule by pooling with others. And that means that we've been able to lift half that amount, 400,000 to 500,000 barrels in parallel with the contribution from other producers. We'll continue to have those conversations to see what is possible and work with ADNOC in the first instance to see whether that is something that they can accommodate in the schedule. So we're hoping for a lifting in the fourth quarter, but it does mean that we need to have a pooling arrangement to make that possible.

Thank you. Your recovery factor in Congo brass oil seems quite low given the field life. Why hasn't the oil in place been more aggressively developed in the past?

Well, I think it's a good observation that there is a huge potential for the field in front of us. And I think that any field goes for the easy targets first. And then there is a tail requiring reinvestment, as we have been doing with new platforms and new wealth stock. And so, you know, we're in the less easy to produce part of the field life. And that's entirely normal. But what we're demonstrating, I think, is that there are good opportunities within that. And we've been able to increase production and we plan to continue in the same vein. We're looking forward to the infill program on the Chendo field. This is an area of particularly low production to date, low recovery factor to date. And we see a big opportunity there in that reservoir. And that's why we have six wells planned in 2025 on that. It's fair to say that it is, you know... less attractive reservoir than some of those that have been produced from and are being produced from now. But we see a fantastic potential with new drilling technology and low angle wells through that reservoir to exploit it. And that's what we plan to do.

Will Petronor build and own the LPG plant?

Well, any plant or equipment will be owned by the partnership group, not just Petronor. And our plans for development include us buying a plant. an LPG plant. We have costed out the facilities and so we have some understanding of what would be involved in installing that. But that's the current plan. We have also been in discussion with third parties that might be interested in getting involved in that business. And so it's fair to say that Exactly how that ends up has not been finalized yet. So it could be something that is done in partnership with a downstream provider.

Thank you. There are no further questions. So I will now give the floor back to you, Jens, for your final remarks.

Thank you. Thank you for those questions. And I just in closing here, just reiterate a few points. So, you know, strong, strong production, good cash flow and regular liftings, I think, is giving us a fantastic cash position. The board is committed to distributing that to shareholders as soon as possible, and we await the right conditions to do that with the conversations we're having with.