Tethys Oil AB (publ)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to yet another quarterly earnings call with Tethys, one that could possibly be our last in the public environment. We've had quite an exciting quarter, possibly one of the most exciting quarters since the company turned public in 2004. We've drilled an exploration well that we have been waiting for for a long time to get off the ground. We are hopefully very close to getting an FTP for our Operated Block 56. And we have received a public offer from Rock Oil of Australia for all the outstanding shares of Tethys. Not bad for a third quarter, I'd say. So this could very well, if the ROC offer is accepted by shareholders, and I believe the first date for the acceptance period to end has been advised to be in the second of December, this could very well mean that this is our final quarterly report as a public company. But of course, we don't know what our shareholders are going to do. And while we continue to be a public company, we of course strive to create value for all our stakeholders including all our current investors. So let's get down to the details of what we've actually achieved during Q3. Well, Block 58, the Canoes I Exploration Well, started in August, drilling completed in early November, I think, no, sorry, in October. A little bit after the quarter left, we will get into the details, but testing operations are ongoing of that well. Block 56, FTP for Block 56 and commerciality declaration. We've filed a FTP with the Ministry of Energy and Minerals in Oman in June, and we have been talking back and forth about the best way of optimizing that. before we actually get off to start developing the block. 49, we still have the block. We're in the second period, and we are looking at various ways of getting some sensible data out of the Thamine I well. On the non-operated side, the production from 3 and 4 actually increased during the third quarter compared to the second quarter. A very good sign, I must say. I think it's the first time we've actually, in years, we've actually seen an increase quarter by quarter rather than a decrease. So we are quite optimistic that Operator CCD has now managed to stabilize things and possibly turn them around a bit on the production side. That gave us a revenue and other income of $30.8 million, suspiciously close to what we had in the second quarter, which was also $30.8 million. EBITDA a little bit down from the previous quarter. PETA, our CFO, will give you all the details behind these numbers. Cash flow from operations, 15.4, down from 19.9, and cash down a little bit from 18.1 for the last quarter to 16.4. Again, back to PETA on that one. Then, of course, on September the 13th, Rock Oil announced their intention to acquire all the shares of Tethys for a cash price of $58.70 per share. At the time, an almost 90% premium to the share price close on the stocking exchange on the 12th of September. And as I said, the acceptance period is up and running. But let's turn on. So, production, Blocks 3 and 4. We saw a slight increase compared to second quarter. Of course, as you may remember, second quarter was impacted by some weather events. Had a lot of rain in the early parts of the second quarter, which brought some operational shut-ins. It took a while to sort that out, but we are now seeing both that new wells drilled deliver nicely on oil, and also that some of the wells shut in because of the rain have actually come back on. So we are seeing a general stabilization at round levels, and we expect production to continue to increase for the fourth quarter. And we stand by our guidance of 2024 year production to be somewhere in the range of 7,800 to 8,000 barrels of oil per day, narrowing our range a little bit now as we are actually well into the fourth quarter. 3.4 continues to deliver good production, and now hopefully in a more stable manner than we've seen over the last couple of years. Appraisal wells of the near field areas in the Farha and Sahad continue. And whereas we've seen the new Farha wells produce well, there's been a little bit more uncertainty around Sahad wells. But all in all, we are seeing a stabilization of the production also from new production wells and appraisal wells drilled. Picking up on certain of the exploration prospects, both near-field ones, but in particular maybe the Barrick, which is a known reservoir of a tight sandstone formation, where various fracking designs have been tried, and we are hopeful we are going to see some continuation of that as we move into about the fourth quarter and on to next year. We'll also do some work on the heavy oils that are also well known in the area. A lot of heavy oil is known to exist in particular in Block 4. However, the possibility of producing that has been uncertain to say the least, but there is now some work from the operator CCD to ascertain if there are any good ways of actually bringing that oil also to surface. And then we are at the very end of the seismic acquisition program, where we now are about to have a complete coverage of all the interesting areas of block three and four, which will be subject to ongoing interpretation probably for the next couple of years to see what can be unearthed of additional prospectivity in those blocks. Leaving the non-operated producing 3 and 4 and move to 56 where we are eager to get the field development plan approved so we can get on with getting commercial production from this field, or these fields I should say. The development plan for the block was submitted in June. We are primarily focusing on the Aljun discovery where we had a long-term production test last year. The SAFHA and the MENA discoveries, the MENA one was made earlier this year. And then there is a very good exploration upside with a number of prospects and leads identified and a lot of seismic here to be interpreted. We've had a good dialogue with the Ministry of Energy and Minerals. I hope we are in the concluding phases of that dialogue. We have been focusing a bit on the exploration strategy going forward as part of the FTP for the, not only for the known discoveries, but also for the prospects and leads and the potential of the block. And we would expect the FTP to be approved in the fourth quarter, so within the next weeks, we are hopeful. 58 is more of an immediate event. The Canoes Well was started, as I said, in August. We had three targets, the Birba and Bua Carbonates and the Hufai slightly deeper carbonate. We drilled the well to a total depth of 3,923 meters, true vertical depth. We drilled through all the reservoirs. And here we had some interesting events occurring. One of the main uncertainties on the well was reservoir quality of the carbonates, both the Arabirba and the Hufai. We produce, as you may recall, from the Buha and Hufai in Block 4, and we know from experience there that reservoir qualities can be quite fickle. You can have a good well with good productivity, and you can have a well just a slight distance away from there that is much worse. The reservoir in these carbonates is quite important. What we also learned from Block 4 is that fractures, not only the matrix porosity of the carbonates, but also that fractures have been created as secondary porosity, can be quite important for productivity. And what we found when we drilled canoes was fractures galore. We had so many much fractures in the Ara Birba section that we had to resort to drilling blind. No drilling fluid back to surface, no cuttings. We have absolutely no idea what we drilled through, but there is carbonates. We believe, and logs have confirmed, that we also got into the, if you look at the map here, And I should say this is not to scale. This is just an illustration of where we are. So we got into the Arabirba, lost circulation immediately, continued a little bit, were not able to cure the flows, so switched over to water-based mud and drilled blind through the Arabirba, the Buha, into the Shuram Shale, and into the Hufa, and TD'd in what we believe to be the Masirah Bay as we come out of the Hufa. Logs confirm the tops of the various horizons and confirms the presence of the Shuram and the Hufai below. However, the whole quality of the Hufai and also with massive fractures and the difficulties of drilling water-based through the Shuram shale made it unclear what we actually would be able to get out of the Hufai. So we decided to plug above the and not do any further testings of that at this stage. But in the Bir Babuwa, we have more than 500 meters of fractured covenants that we have now completed for testing. And since we really have no idea what's in the reservoir, we decided not to case the hole, but to do an open hole test, just like you did in the old days. and see what comes up. So within the next couple of weeks, we will open up the well. And we will flow the well and see what comes to the surface. We should bear in mind that while drilling, a lot of drilling fluid, water-based, was lost into the fracture system. So we may first have the well clean up and get part or all of that water back. And then we'll see if we also get some oil. And obviously, we are hopeful that the multiple fractures will be filled not with saltwater but with oil. But the only way to find out is to flow the well and see what comes to surface. So do stay tuned. We should have an idea of what's in this reservoir over the next two to three weeks.

So yeah.

I think we can move straight on to financial highlights, actually. And there I believe Petter is much better placed to explain the intricate details about financials than I am. So, Petter, please.