Maha Energy AB (publ)

Hello and welcome to Investor Update, today with Maha Energy. Investor Update is produced by Investor Studios and is a collaboration between Investor Studios, Investor, Target, IR & Capital, Stockpicker and the company that presents today, Maha Energy. Those of you who are watching live can as usual ask questions to the management of the company. You do that on the chat page and we will handle the questions since there is time and we do that after the presentation. If you feel that you did not get the answer to your question, you are welcome to mail it to the management of the company and you will find the address on the website. I can say that at least. Nice to see you again, Karl.

Thank you.

Right. Well, it's another eventful quarter, so please take it away.

Okay. Thanks a lot for that, Carlo. And let me start with saying the obvious. This has been a difficult quarter. I know there is a lot of shareholders out there that are frustrated and has been unhappy with the development. And of course, we also don't like when the share price drops as it has done. That goes without saying. I think we'll go through the presentation quite quickly so that we have a bit more time for Q&A. But maybe I want to already now say the main statement. I have changed no opinion on our future. I have the same opinion about the merger between Enalta and 3R. I really believe this is going to be a fantastic transaction for 3R. what we have seen is a set of delays and we're going to go through this in more details as i go through the presentation and i'm very prepared to answer your questions which i'm sure also related to this later on but have faith in this i really believe this can turn out to be very good also for maha going forward so with this let's go through the presentation So on this page, not much to really add here. I think the most important thing that happened this quarter was the fact that we finally had the change of control approval from PDVSA, from the Venezuelan government. I also met with the vice president, Delsio Rodriguez, in Venezuela, she was ensuring me that they would focus on getting all the approvals in place and that we'll get the Chevron model to work with in Venezuela going forward. So that's happened and I think that was the most important thing in this quarter. So let's move on. Brava is essential this quarter. Let's go through exactly this page. Here, we're a bit of the background for what did you believe in? That is still here. I think there is a company with an enormous resource base, 700 million barrels of 2p reserves. There is a potential here to produce up to and more than 100,000 barrels per day. All of this is fully invested already. I know there's been concerns out there with the CapEx level and so on. That would be related to new projects to further increase. And what we come back to later on in our communication also is that this is not necessary in order to reach 100,000 barrels per day. The company should now focus on maintaining this production level and make sure that we generate a lot of cash. So this is there. It's a cash generating portfolio unless we decide to grow even more quickly. And that has been our message to the company that we should be careful with that going forward. I would also mention the more than $1 billion in synergies. that were taken out. So this company has a good balance of onshore and offshore. It has a very good balance sheet. And I'm really very firm in my belief that we can easily get to the 100,000 barrels per day production and maintain that for a long period. And it's going to generate significant cash flow going forward. So this, I think, is the name of the game. And then if you go to the next page, more explaining a bit what has happened, what did we pass through? And it has been a challenging quarter in the sense of delays for the Papatera to come back into production after having the planned maintenance stop as they did. This was also caused partly by the regulator having almost too much to do, I would say, also having internal work conflicts with strikes and so on. But also, there were some things on the FPSO, that was not meeting the standards. I would say, however, that the company did have an authorization from the Navy to have the number of board people that they had. But still, A&P, as the regulator, kind of overruled the permission given by the Navy. And this was, of course, unfortunate and unforeseen and caused further delay for the startup of the Papatera. But now we do expect, and I have been through this in as much detail as I can be, being the representative of the industrial largest owner in Brava, and I don't see any reason why this thing should not come back into production according to what the company is saying in December this year. Then I would also say that Atlanta, of course, maybe even more important was, of course, the delay in Atlanta. Atlanta has a production capacity of between 30 and maybe up to 50,000 barrels when it comes back on stream. And they have the new FSO, it's all linked up, all the wells are now connected. The only thing they basically need is again the final go ahead from the regulator. And this has again taken more time than what was foreseen. It's unfortunate, it's a delay, but it doesn't change anything of the fundamentals of the quality of the assets. So again, the regulator is now going to inspect this within a couple of weeks. The company and myself do expect that the production will then be coming on stream as normal, and we'll see a huge jump in the production. There could be all sorts of minor issues also when you start up the production, but this is basically, I think that we will see a very quick boost in the production from the Atlanta once it comes on stream. I think also the fact that during this delay, there was the closing of the transaction with Westlawn. I happened to have breakfast with the CEO in Westlawn the same day as they had closing. And I asked him, are you concerned? Because my shareholders are concerned. And he said, no, I'm really not concerned. We have done a very good due diligence. We know this FSO very well. We know it's going to come into production. And the guy put up a value equal $1.5 billion for this asset at the same day, knowing the delays, knowing everything, had the huge confidence it is. So he's like me. I have every confidence that this FSO will come on stream and will produce very well for the company going forward. so the last page next page of bravo please so here is more what our view is and as i said we are a well-respected shareholder the largest industrial owner in brava and we have a somewhat clear view about what should should happen here and i think Perhaps part of the issue over the last quarter has also been, I would say, some, perhaps I would phrase it as inexperienced or at least not super clear communication from the company about what's going to happen forward. This company has a lot of possibilities going forward. I think our message to the company now is less focus on growth, much more focus on harvest. There is a fantastic cash flow to be generated. Make sure that the shareholder benefit from it. I think also be willing to and actually actively look into management of the portfolio. I think there are assets here that are not necessarily best taken care of in the context of Brava, not because they don't have the people to do it, but it's just another sort of business. So I won't take the decision on their behalf on really what can be laid off or what can be partly outsourced to other companies. But I think the possibilities are there. And I think that that is something very natural to do after a huge period of very successful growth. Now it's focused to really make sure that we continue with the right assets. So this has been my message to Brava. And I think they are picking up on it. think that goes hand in hand with the capex optimization i think it is important that the company is really focused on on on maintaining the production and try to push you know the the further growth i think it's okay to wait for for growth we don't need as a shareholder to see 150 000 barrels here as soon as possible what we need is dividend So basically repaying debt, repaying the shareholders, paying dividend has been a super important message from us to the company. And what I do think has happened over this very challenging quarter is that I think there has been a significant alignment between the shareholders towards the board and towards the management on this issue. So now I think coming out of this challenging quarter with an alignment from shareholder to board and management, that this is the right path going forward. So I remain very optimistic on what's going to happen with Braava. Actually, I think it's realistic because they will get this production. I have no doubts about it. And I think the alignment would also generate kind of belief in the market that the significant amount of this cash that will be generated will actually be paid back to the investors. So let's go to the rest. Yeah, sorry, I almost forgot about this. This is maybe the most important thing. What do we actually believe in the cash flow generation here? So what we see over the next six years is that this company has the capacity to pay up to three times the current market cap. you know, $1.45 billion can be paid in dividend over this period. And I think our numbers are fairly modest, you know, looking at the production curve there that our estimate is, and I'll underline this is our estimate, and compared to what the company has communicated as their 1p reserves. So this is not us trying to boost the numbers by being unrealistically high on the production curve or anything like this. This is super, super realistic numbers. And I think this will generate an incredible cash flow and generate the fantastic dividend capacity. And with the new alignment, I'm very sure that also the Maash elders will benefit from this once we get there. Let's move on to the next. I think this is the main part of my presentation here. I think Illinois is continuing to grow. We have drilled three good wells this year. We are now going to analyze properly how these last six, seven wells have behaved. in order to see what will be our next steps in this region before we take any more decisions. So no more news here. Things are going fine. I'm very happy to also say that the guys in Illinois, two guys are running the whole show. We have had no incidents whatsoever on HSE. I'm very proud of the guys working in Illinois. On Venezuela, I think also not very much to say here. We have the approval, as I already mentioned. We are continuing with our plan. We are waiting for the final negotiations on the contract terms, getting the Chevron model in the contracts with Venezuela. And of course, we need the OFAC license. And I would say, goes without saying that we have two elections now, one in Venezuela, one in the US, that at least for some people had a bit surprising outcome. And I think that has caused, you know, I think it's a reasonable assumption, assuming that this could cause some delays. But I'm not really great concerned. I know this will come up on the question, so I'll wait with some of my obvious statements when we get there. But I still believe that we have a fantastic project in Venezuela. I believe it's in the interest of the Venezuelan government, for sure, to keep us there. And I actually do believe that the US government, also the new administration, will see that they are better fit with having companies like Maha operating there than not having that. So with that, I think I hand it over to you, Roberto, to go through quickly the numbers and then we can take some more questions.

Thank you, Giaccio. Good afternoon to everybody. It's a pleasure to be here again with you. So, starting about the production and revenue. So, as you can see, we have been increasing the production quarter over quarter after we finished this and put on screen all these new wells that Giaccio was mentioning. And we increase from last quarter, third quarter last year, around 50%. And as we speak, by the end of October, we already reached productions around 400 barrels related to Illinois basing asset. And this, of course, as consequence, have also increased our revenues. And even though we have this decline on oil price environment, we also have this increase when compared to last year, third quarter. So, going through the next page. Here, we present you the OPEX and net back performances. It's important to note, we have been increasing our efficiency, as Jethro also mentioned. So, basically, we slightly increase our costs in the quarter, but we also have a substantial reduction on the OPEX per barrel units. So if you look, we decrease around 23% if you compare to last year third quarter. And this of course will have a better and higher net back in total amount and also in terms of net back per barrel. So going to the next slide, And now talking about the whole company, I think it's important to show that we have been working hard to reduce our G&A expenses across the last quarters. And now we are showing also the discontinuated operations cost because that was related to the other operations that we're going to sell or sold in the past quarters. And also, it's important to note, we have been facing several no recurring expenses mainly related to these projects in Venezuela and looking for other good opportunities for generating value for our shareholders. And by the end of this quarter, we end up with a negative $1.5 million EBITDA of the continuous operations. So going through the next slide, Here, I think it's important to show and talk about the net financial result, which is basically related to Brava share price volatility, which we're going to be exposed to the next quarters moving forward. We face a loss, unrealized loss of around $40 million because of the Brava share price has been declining. But also related to roll-up, we also recognize $18 million gain approximately, classified as not continued operation, but that was reducing the negative impact of the triage share price on the final net result of the quarter. So going through the next page, I think this is an important update as well. So basically in November, Going back to August, I don't know if you remember, but we issued a banked margin loan debt with a Brazilian bank where we provided Brava's shares as collateral. And as the price has been declining, we have to grant additional cash collateral to cover these margin calls. And this would result in higher cost of debt and less flexibility in terms of available cash. So then we decided to not transfer these additional cash collaterals, and the bank made the early termination because of this default. And then we decided to go through this early amortization, and basically we have now a debt-free balance sheet going after November. And here, just to summarize our main highlights from the balance sheet, basically, we end up in September with $25.6 million in cash and equivalents and also $77 million of liquid investments, which are basically Brava shares and also our 3R offshore debenture, ending up with a total amount of net cash plus liquid investments of around $88 million. So, going through the next slide, Here, I think it's important to remember our cash balance update. So, we started the quarter with around $78 million of cash plus liquid investments, and we end up the quarter with $88 million approximately of net cash plus liquid investments, mainly of a result of the Brava shares roll-up and also the unrealized loss regarding Brava shares price decline. So going through the next slide and as closing remarks, so we ended up with $88 million in net clash plus liquid investments. And mainly because we also considered it as subsequent event, this repayment of our marginal of Safra to avoid having this implied higher cost of debt. And we have now a solid capital structure with debt-free balance sheet going forward. And looking for the future, we are also working with OFAC license and other approvals so we can start up as soon as possible our project in Venezuela. We are also working with Brava shareholders so the company can focus on the existing portfolio, the existing core business and the leverage and thinking on dividends for the shareholders. And also, of course, we also continue to keep working and looking for other creative opportunities, mainly focused on Latin America, so we can bring other good deals and projects to Marra. So that now, I think we close here the closing remarks. We can go through the Q&A section. Thank you, everyone.

Well, Kjetil and Roberto, thank you for that snappy, despite a very eventful quarter. And as always, we received a couple of questions or a lot, I should say, ahead of this presentation. I think you have touched upon them. So there will be a little bit of a repetition on those. But if we look at Venezuela, and Kjartil, you gave us your point of view here, where you are more or less, well, I would say, I mean, the new government in, well, the new old government in Venezuela will probably be on track for you as it's concerned. And if I understood you correctly, you don't really expect any major changes from the US new administration. Was that a correct take?

Yeah, I think so. But by all means, I mean, I'm not a US policy expert. But I think the main things I would underline is like, this is not just kind of Yes Works and on my behalf sitting in Rio, we've had a lot of meetings with the State Department. We also met with the representatives of the Republicans. We met with people that are fairly close to the new president-elect. So I feel like my basis for saying what I'm saying is is kind of more profound. So I think it is, of course, a certain uncertainty on how soon things will happen and what actually will happen. But I think we have a president-elect that everybody assumes you know it's a deal that one as a guy that wants to cut deals so i think he wants to you know there could be there could be times here where he would push and press and so on but i think bane may basically i expect that that's the feedback that he would he would love to to cut a deal and i think that there is very little logic in in basically just stopping the production from from venezuela i i don't see that as a very logic response so so i remain kind of cautious i think it could take some more time but i think that the direction i would i would basically expect that it would be a similar type of direction with perhaps a bit more bumpy rides to get there.

So your target for an increase of 1000 barrels a day up to 20 is still intact? Yes. It's just a timeline where you are slightly out of control, which is fair, given the fact that you're neither running Venezuela nor the US.

Thank God. Let me just underline one point in this, and that is important in a way, that we have not started applying a lot of capital into Venezuela now. So basically, our situation now is still a bit like we are preparing and all the work we're now doing is necessary to be done anyway. But we are still not in a phase where we could just turn on the switch and invest 10, 15, 20 million dollars into Venezuela. We would anyway need to build our models to make sure that when we are getting all the approvals, that we actually invest the money in the right way. So right now we are really not losing anything. We are maybe losing, in people's mind, some time, and perhaps we could have spent more money on pushing this to start up earlier. But really, we're not spending money. We're not losing money here. We have delays in starting up, if anything.

So you're committing capital on back of actual facts rather than speculation here, which seems to be a sound strategy here. If Venezuela doesn't play out the way you strongly believe, and I'm just reading the question here, how do you see value creation going forward? And maybe another way to look at it, do you look elsewhere for opportunistic investments?

I would first say that I think Venezuela is going to play out. So I don't accept the premises of the question, so to speak. But of course, the question is fair. And yes, we are also looking into other opportunities. And I always said, you know, we know Brazil better than anyone. We think we know quite a lot of opportunities in Latin America in general. So yes, rest assured, there is not a lack of opportunities that will not stop us.

And you mentioned Latin America and Brazil, but how should we regard the US assets, Illinois here? Expand or sale or just have it pumping and giving you a cash flow?

No, for the time being, I think we're very pleased with what we have seen in the US. It's not a very big operation, but it's been very profitable and been giving a good return to us as we speak. Very pleased with the operations, as I said, without any incidents and whatsoever in operating all the assets. I'm very happy to continue doing investments in Illinois, but there's no company maker project in Illinois. It's basically a business that gives us a nice return and keeps us busy operating in the region. What I mentioned, and I will underline again, is that we're going to go through this. I'm going there now in the beginning of December, and then we're going to go through, okay, what are the results now how can we potentially improve what what can be done and then kind of evaluate the whole situation in the region whether we're going to grow more and then look at yeah basically look at all the alternatives but i'm very impressed with the guys working there i must say

Cool. And we obviously have received a lot of questions regarding Braava. And I think you had a fairly extended explanation to it. But if I may and see whether I can summarize it here. I mean, basically, your fundamentals hasn't changed in Braava. It's just the timeline that had been pushed further out. Is that the way you would like to communicate to the market here?

It is. I think it's a I can understand that it's kind of can be perceived as an easy answer and so on. But well, there isn't so much more to say. I think that the FPSOs, they're basically two big platforms here that we are talking about. And of course, the production capacity of these two platforms is something like, you know, 50 60 maybe more thousand barrels per day so of course it's vital for for the company that these two machines if you like are working properly so so uh i've been on board on the papatera I've seen it myself. And I know people working on the Papatera. I know people working with the Atlanta. We have been through it. We have seen the investor, West Lawn, came in. I'm very comfortable that these problems, these things happen. We are in an industry where where delays happen, where accidents happen, where you have to basically stop for a longer period of time to fix some of these things that actually popped up on the Papatera and are being delayed in Atlanta. These things happen from time to time. That both of these two things happened just after the merger, I think was very unfortunate because I think it created some doubts about what's happening here and so on. I don't think there is much happening. I think this is basically how it is. And I'm very confident that these two platforms will come back on stream and they will produce the oil that we all are expecting to come. And that's it, really. Quite boring story, but that's how I see it.

And if I recall your slides correctly, you haven't really changed your estimates regarding barrels per day for 2025. So you're at, what, 100,000 and... Yeah, sorry.

yes i think that that's uh and i think it's actually i think it's a modest number i think that it could of course again you can have further delays which i do not expect i do expect these two fsos to come back on stream in december So I think there are lots of things that can happen. But I think the expectation is that I would actually not be surprised if we end up producing 110,000 barrels next year and not 100. I think it's a modest number. But it's fair. I don't want to also... create an expectation that it's going to be much more. But I think as an optimist or as a cautious optimist, I would say that I think the production rather will be higher than lower than 100,000 barrels next year.

Your largest owner has now acquired over 25% over this period where you had your problems with the deliverance from Brava, I may add. So they have increased their holding in you. How do they, well, obviously it's difficult for you to comment on owners here, but how do they see themselves as owner in the long term? What's the discussions like when they meet you or you meet them?

Yeah, no, first of all, I would underline that. I think we've said that on several occasions, that the collaboration between myself and the investors that I have been working with in DBO and Starboard is exceptionally good. So we have been working very close together since we started up 3R and we made the first investment there together. So this is a very, very strong and good relationship. We are discussing all the time how to move forward. I think we are very aligned on the strategy. And I'm very happy that we have an owner that basically now also steps up when there is a lot of doubt about, you know, well, in the market. And they step up and say, well, we believe in this. They show it by adding more money into the company. So I'm super pleased with the way Starboard is reacting. I'm very comfortable with their targets and approach. I think they are... They have now a significant stake also for them as investor into the company. So, you know, I think we as all shareholders should be super happy to have a shareholder like Starboard backing the company also in times of concern, in times of doubt. and so on. I think they are living up to the expectation of a majority owner that basically demonstrates that it believes in the assets, believes in the company, and that's very good. I'm super happy with it.

So, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why people will sell, but there's probably only one when they will buy and they put the money where the mouth is. Repayment of debt, walk us through the thinking here and the pause in the share buyback.

Roberto, do you want to have a go at the repayment maybe?

Yeah, sure. So basically, when we were passing through the slides, we show a little bit, but basically in August, we issued this margin loan of $50 million. And as collateral, we gave them BravaShares. So by the end of this quarter and going forward in October and now November, BravaShares price has been declining, and the bank request Maha to deploy additional cash collaterals. So in that case, we would have less cash to use, and also the same interest on top of the $15 million debt. So basically, we have an implied higher cost of debt going forward. So we decided not to transfer these additional cash calls, and we need to repay the debt so we can be not in default anymore. So the purpose of this was not to have this additional cost of debt and less flexibility of the resources. Approved the financial movement. Yeah. Do you want to talk about the buybacks, Gertrud?

Yeah, yeah, I can do that. I think I can generalize it a bit of saying, well, first of all, I think what Roberto has demonstrated is, of course, in spite of also then deciding that we want to repay this debt. which was kind of a fairly easy decision for us because it was just getting expensive. And we had it in the first place in order to have more flexibility on also with the expectation that perhaps if Venezuela all of a sudden turned around and would develop very quickly, that we would be ready to move quickly onto it. Now our call is like we just talked about. I think things could take more time. So basically we felt like we don't need this extra cash. But I also think that when it comes to the buyback, of course, in a time where we have had all these question marks and so on. I understand the board that they, you know, we are not, we haven't stopped the program. We want to continue the program. We'd like to share buyback program, but I think let's get more, how can I say, sail into more calm waters before we really start up perhaps again. I think that's maybe their main concern. And I think being cautious on the liquidity and all this makes a lot of sense. But I would underline immediately that we have more than enough capital to all our commitments. We can start up in Venezuela. We have all this capital that we need. But still, let's be cautious and see when we can start up again. We haven't stopped the program, but I think the board wants to consider all these movements, to put it that way, before they actively start up again the program.

So this is not a sign for you planning a rise issue or a capital injection for the market. It's the other way around, one could argue.

Yeah. I mean, for me personally, as a big shareholder, I have all my wealth in this. I have no interest in having a share issue at these levels.

And when do you need to pay your second installment to Novoro in order to keep exclusivity in Petroduranenta? And I apologize for my pronunciation of the company name there.

Yeah, it's not very good. You are excused. No, so the next payment there is basically in a year from now, November in 25. I think this has been somewhat unclear before, so I do apologize for that. But basically, all our contractual rights are secured until November next year, where we then are expected to pay another $5 million. What we are also doing, I would say, is that we're of course negotiating now. We want to take the whole 100%. so basically we are trying to to to negotiate with the with nova nord also on how we could move forward with the hundred percent of this uh this and not having them as a partner at all that's our ambition and i think that's i would rather say that i would expect that to happen before we pay the five million dollars as mentioned

Right, I'll have two final questions here. And the first one is, you're still planning on being listing on the Swedish Stock Exchange?

Yeah, we don't have any plans to do anything about that now. I think If that were to happen, and this is not an active discussion, but I think the fact is, of course, that there are not so many oil companies at the Swedish Stock Exchange. And one other company was recently bought by an Australian, Chinese-owned company. and probably will not be listed anymore so i understand correctly so of course we can feel a bit lonely but there are also complications in in delisting it's it's not an actual thing being discussed right now i think it would If something like this happened, it would happen in a larger context where it would be linked to our business. I don't think we want to spend time on delisting just because we are unhappy. I quite enjoy going to Stockholm and I think we have some very engaged shareholders in Stockholm. which they ask challenging questions and they do send me a lot of emails but i actually like it i like the engagement and i think you're always welcome to to send me for obvious reasons i cannot respond to everything but but i i actually like the engagement and i look forward to going there in in january where we are planning a longer session and the full day with basically opening up for informal dialogue and questions and so on so i hope to see a lot of uc elders at in january

Thank you for that, Kjartil, because that would be my next question. And I think you already jumped into that. The next news flow, basically, apart from the press releases, if there is any development, would be you or the management turning up here in mid-January for a shareholder meeting open for anyone who is interested or just the shareholders?

No, I think, well, let's come back to that in details. I'll discuss that with the OIR. But like I said, I think this dialogue with the shareholders is very good. I think I have understood that there is a lot of frustration. I think that let's see how things are moving forward. I remain very optimistic. very confident about the decisions we have taken i remain very confident about brava i remain very confident about the development in venezuela of course we all have to the proof is in the eating so so to speak so let's let's get there and then and then we can of course talk more about it but i'm looking forward to go to stockholm yes

Excellent. Well, Kjetil, Roberto, it's been a pleasure. It's been informative and interesting. And we'll watch this place and we'll see you later. So thank you, guys.

Thanks a lot to you. Thanks a lot, Carlo.

And we thank you for watching. And we will thank everyone who's watched and those who asked questions during and before. And see you later. Bye-bye.