Genel Energy (LSE:GENL) — Trading and Operations Update

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the GENEL ENERGY PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the q and a tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. Company may not be in a position to answer every question it received in the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand you over to Paul Weir, CEO. Good morning to you, sir.

0:32 Good morning. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. My name is Paul Weir, and I'm the CEO of GENEL ENERGY, and I'm here with my friend and colleague, Luke Clements, our CFO. We are going to run through a short presentation and then answer any questions that you may have. Thanks to everyone who's already submitted questions. Should anyone have any others as we walk through these slides, then please submit them in the box, which as you've just heard is on the right hand side of your screen. Now for those of you who don't know us, we are GENEL ENERGY. We have a robust production business in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and exploration licenses in Somaliland and Morocco. Our production has been consistently over 30,000 barrels of oil a day for the last few years largely driven by the Tawke PSC.

1:21 Tawke is a high quality license with two producing fields, Tawke and Peshkabir. We have a 25% interest, and our partner is DNL who hold the remaining equity and operate. They do a terrific job. It's a highly cash generative asset, and it supports our material and predictable dividend. Our production is bolstered by Taktak, where we're a JV partner, and Sarta, where we operate. Appraisal is ongoing at Sarta. We have produced 12 we've appraised, but production from SATA hasn't quite been what we want it to be. Despite that, once we've finished appraisal, we'll take stock and optimize a field development plan to be implemented in 2023 and beyond to deliver a cash generative producing field.

2:07 Again, for those who don't know, following years attempting to take the Bina Bawi and Moran gas fields to production and having made a very significant investment, we had little choice but to enter interpretation proceedings with the Kurdistan regional government. That process is underway, and the trial is scheduled for 2024. We then have exploration licenses in Somaliland and Morocco. We have very recently, within the last few days, in fact, launched a farm out process on the Morocco license. The Lake Zira block is a large offshore license with a proven petroleum system. New place have been identified. We've identified 18 prospects, in fact, and a billion barrel resource potential. Somaliland has more progressed. It's a very exciting opportunity, and I'll talk more about that in a minute.

2:56 On this next slide, you will note that Somaliland, along with arbitration, is one of the potentially very high impact but less immediate events that form part of our investment case. While worthy of mention, I don't want to focus on these issues. Instead, today, we have a very strong business that supports a material and committed dividend. Our dividend program has returned over a $175,000,000 to shareholders since 2019, and our focus is on continuing this delivery for many years to come. Following a year of exceptional cash generation, we have the financial strength to add new assets to the portfolio and deliver that aim. We want your company to become known for its focus on creating value for shareholders, investing prudently, and then returning material and growing amounts of money to its shareholders.

3:46 For GENEL, the right acquisition could reset market expectations overnight. At present, our cash is not seen to have all its value, and to convert that into something that demonstrates real returns could improve that situation significantly for shareholders. This is our focus. In terms of business priorities, we know exactly what we want to do to get there. We want to put our cash to work to bolster our organic portfolio production and add the right assets with the right profile with cash generation that will allow investors to see a clear route to long term progressive returns. We have a fully aligned board and management team with a dedicated and focused team actively screening and working business development opportunities. It's a challenging market, but we have very good people looking at these opportunities.

4:35 And, of course, we also expect to have $500,000,000 of liquidity by the end of the year. Now this certainly doesn't mean that we'll lose our business focus on mitigating downside risk. Absolutely not. Any m and a transactions under consideration will be looked at very firmly and carefully through the lens of supporting the dividend. The first question we ask ourselves is, how does this opportunity help us provide our shareholders, you, with returns? As to our organic portfolio, well, it's about utilizing our cash to maximize high margin production and develop opportunities for material value creation, which brings us back to Somaliland. This is a tremendous opportunity, a highly prospective block with multiple prospects and over 5,000,000,000 barrels of prospective resource identified already.

5:26 We've agreed our first well location, which is targeting stacked Mesozoic reservoir objectives with individual prospective resource estimates ranging between one hundred and two hundred million barrels each. But this is frontier exploration in a fairly remote location, and there are a lot of activities to get through before we actually start drilling. Drilling is scheduled for the end of twenty twenty three or early twenty twenty four. You can see here listed some of the key activities lifted from our schedule that we'll be working through over the next twelve months or so. Things are progressing nicely. We have a terrific team in place, and we can't wait to get going.

6:02 So with that, I'm gonna pass over to Luke now who's gonna talk about how we fund our plans. Thank you, Paul. Our balance sheet is in good shape to support investment. As mentioned, our cash position is expected to go over 500,000,000 by the end of the year, and our debt doesn't mature until q four twenty twenty five. The reported net cash of $1.08 1,000,000 at the end of q three does not include the proceeds due in September for July's... For June sales, which we received after month end. You If add those late receipts on, then net cash gets to 240,000,000. You'll see that our debt at $2.07 4,000,000 is down a bit from the half year. The 6,000,000 decrease is because we made a small opportunistic move to buy back some bonds that became available at a good price. But buying back bonds isn't the focus for our use of cash. Our cash is available to invest to enhance this business by adding assets.

6:52 That balance of $500,000,000 represents all potential upside. If we can invest some of... Some or all of our available cash, maybe together with some debt, in a double digit IRR project, which means a project delivering returns above our cost of debt, there will be a significant impact on the returns and value outlook of this business. As we look to invest that cash, those bottom four bullet points are the frame we use to think about capital allocations and new assets, maintain a strong balance sheet, preserve the resilience of our cash flows, maximize returns, and support long term funding of the dividend program. The dividend program is our key frame, so let me provide a reminder of what that program has been in the past and reconfirm what it is today. We set up the dividend pro... Dividend program in 2019 to be material, meaning big enough to be interesting to investors when compared to similar investment opportunities they may have. Sustainable, meaning the quantum is supported by the business for the foreseeable future. It is repeatable, and it doesn't reduce.

7:52 And progressive, meaning that over time, the dividend amount increases following the shape of the business. So far, we've delivered on that plan and paid around a 175,000,000 in dividends over four years. But the look forward is more important than the look back. So we repeat the same outline of the dividend program. It is material, currently representing a yield of over 10%. We are committed to it, and we repeat our commitment to progressing it when supported by the underlying business profitability as was the case in both 2021 and 2022. The dividend amount that we pay now is rock solid for the medium term with our focus and energy now on building a portfolio that supports extension of this program well into the long term. And I'll repeat myself. The dividend program provides the key frame for our business.

8:39 This also applies to assessment of potential new assets. This slide sets out what we want those new asset characteristics to look like. On a high level, we want the assets to support our established business model, resilient, cash generative, supportive of our ESG goals with mitigated downside risk. We are definitely not assuming current oil and gas prices last forever, Paying the right amount within the right structure for any new assets will be key to any investment decision we take.

9:08 Geographically, our press... Preference is for The Middle East and Africa, but we'll potentially look further afield for the right opportunity. Our focus is on investment returns above all else. We currently have a long list and a short list of opportunities. We're progressing these through our review process, and I'm hopeful that over time, we'll be taking one or two of these to the board for approval. If we can get the portfolio moving in the right direction, and I believe we will, we will then look at getting the right capital structure around it and see what impact that progress has on our outlook and consequently our dividend story and how it next progresses. A decent size and importantly good m and a deal will have a significant impact on this business. Our cash balance is very large compared to our market value. It's not what we want, but this brings real opportunity to transform this company. Thank you very much, Luke.

10:02 ESG is something that we've long been focused on. We're very proud of our ESG performance, and I dodge everyone listening to view our sustainability report. You can actually access that on our website. This year, we're celebrating twenty years in Kurdistan, and in all that time, we've honored very significant social commitments. For our latest initiative, which serves to recognize our twenty year track record, our most senior team members are traveling to Erbil next week, in fact, to make university scholarship awards to 20 students from all over Kurdistan who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and who otherwise would not have been able to afford a higher education.

10:41 We want to ensure that we make a real difference to society both through the revenues that we generate, the employment that we bring, and the social improvement that our investment funds. There are, of course, other aspects to our ESG effort, as you can imagine. We're also committed to minimizing our greenhouse gas emissions. A good example is the recent solar electrification of our SARTA one d well pad. That project alone

11:04 has already led to a reduction of 26 and a half tons of c o two emissions, and we're now looking at how we replicate that on a wider basis across other operations. To wrap up then from a business outlook point of view, this is where we are. We've had material cash generation this year. We have a rock solid dividend, and we have the chance to do something with our cash to really drive long term and progressive returns.

11:32 So that concludes our presentation. I'm gonna hand back to Andrew Benbow now, our head of comms, to run the q and a session. Please submit your questions. Andrew? Thank you very much, Paul, and I hope you can hear me okay. First of all, we'll run through the questions that were presubmitted, but I see thank you very much to those people who've also submitted during the presentation. So the first question is asking if we'll be making a special dividend in light of our very healthy financial position.

11:59 This is an issue we've obviously considered very carefully for some time. I'll I'll pass over to Luke to explain our rationale around special dividend. Thanks, Paul. I spent quite a lot of time talking about our dividend program and and how we think about it. We we developed it in... To be material, sustainable, progressive because we think that's the way you get best value for a dividend in the share price. It gives less market pricing in and and and then what what to expect from the dividend program. That is absolutely our preferred route to return capital to shareholders. So when you look at that, that's the way we wanna return the money. If you look at our cash balance today, I think we were pretty clear in the presentation what our priority is for the use of that cash.

12:46 Override ends this year. Deferred receivable ends this year. So although we've been highly cash generative this year, that cash flow generation reduces next year. And our absolute focus, and it's come across at the half year and it should

12:58 have come across in this presentation, is on buying new assets. And we wanna preserve our capital for buying new assets. And the more we can spend on buying new assets and and reshaping the returns delivery of this business, absolutely, the better. Is there any scenario in which you pay a special dividend?

13:16 So I... So I think in in... Think about our program, I guess, a special dividend would be kind of windfall. If if you get something windfall, then you might think about a special. So if I look at the next twelve, twenty four months, if we if we if we do well, if we do a good deal, how do we... How does that impact our dividend? Well, if the capital structure is right and the business outlook looks right, I think we'd have a strong preference to increase the ordinary, which would be committed to sustaining at a higher level then rather than a one off special. So we're we're we're pretty focused on the ordinary dividend that, hopefully, it came across in the presentation. It frames our thinking. It frames our capital allocation. It frames our choice of assets, and it frames the development plan we use to bring assets onto production. Thank you very much, Luke. And if we continue the theme of use of cash, given the interest received on our cash reserves versus the interest payable on the bonds, will a buyback of bonds be looked at?

14:10 So that's another one for you, Luke.

14:13 Good question. Good question. Sitting on debt paying 9.25% coupon is is is... And a and a big cash balance is kinda suboptimal. It's it's it's less suboptimal than it was because our, you know, interest rates have gone up recently, so our cash is earning more money than it was. So if look you at the net net burn annualized at the moment, it's about 17,000,000 rather than the the the full gross interest cost. So it's a bit better than it was, but it... It's still not it's still not optimal. Now you'll have seen we bought back a few bonds

14:47 recently, about $6,000,000 of them at a pretty good price. Do I wanna do a lot more of that? I don't wanna do more a of that because I want my money to go on new assets, and that's our absolute priority. But we go along, might we trim a little bit? We might trim a little bit if if if the price is right. But it's it's... In terms of capital allocation, we're not we're not launching a a debt reduction program, and we're not we're not we're not focusing on that use of capital. There's also been another question submitted today, which I think it's worth answering now because I suspect the answer may be along the same theme. But with our shares trading on low metrics at the moment, why we're not buying them in rather than looking for acquisitions? Yeah. Interesting question. I guess... So over over my time, you know, we've we've we've we've we've thought about this quite a lot. And I think the the evidence we've looked at is if you if you buy small amounts of your stock when it's at a low price, it doesn't...

15:44 It might have a short term impact on stock price and give you a bit of a jump, but it doesn't really help the long term share price. All you're really doing is giving a giving a nice exit price for people who who wanna leave. In in my mind, where does share buybacks really work? I think it's if you do a really material share buyback program. You know? So you are reducing the kind of size of the company so the returns gets magnified. So if you buy kind of 25 or 30% of your stock back, you're transforming the return relative to the value of your business. And in that way, I see I see how it helps the investment case for your business. But for us to go and Dabble. You know, spending spend a bit of money just to just to put a juice into... Put a juice into share price short term, I I don't see the value in that, to be honest.

16:32 Right. Changing tack now because we've had a couple of questions around arbitration and gas. First one is due to the changing environment around gas, is there any further discussions with the Kurdistan regional government or any prospects or renegotiation? And then while we're while we're staying on that theme, there's also... So I've been asking how long this process is expected to take and whether or not we can comment on the potential reward or materiality. I'll take that one.

17:00 The the the the gas assets that we did hold in Kurdistan are now firmly in the hands of the KRG. So it's really a question for the KRG as to what happens to them now. We're obviously focused on the arbitration process.

17:16 It's a private process, and there's not a great deal I can say about that other than the fact that, as I mentioned in the in the presentation, the trial's been scheduled for early twenty four. As to how long it's actually gonna take for the arbitration panel to deliberate and issue a judgment, it's very difficult for us to say. We we simply don't know. In in terms of quantum, again,

17:40 it's it's... We're not in a position today where we can see what we're gonna claim for and how much we anticipate getting. Far far too early for that kind of conversation. What we are focused on in Kurdistan at the moment, of course, is our remaining production business. It's a vibrant business. It's a profitable business. And by the consent of both parties, it's a it's a business that's entirely unaffected by the arbitration proceedings. So that's where our focus is just now, and we are quite happy to let that discrete arbitration process unfold somewhere else. Thanks very much, Paul. And now changing tack again onto Somaliland, which we had numerous questions submitted.

18:20 The main crux of the questions, I think, is why is the S L 10 B 13 block your focus, and what plans do we have for the other way in block? Well,

18:31 the S L 10 B 13 Block is our focus because, you know, following some prolonged and very rigorous scientific study, we we consider that block to be the one that holds by far the greatest geological potential. And we've got a drill ready prospect identified. We've got a we've got a surface location identified. And, again, as I said during the presentation, we're now working through a series of consecutive activities that allow us to spud that

19:00 well towards the end of next year or perhaps very early the following year. So we've we've elected to we've elected to simply go for the the most exciting opportunity on the on the land that we hold. The seismic on Odawaini wasn't nearly as compelling or or nearly as exciting. I think that some of our shareholders may well have seen a video circulating of oil or allegedly oil coming to the surface on the Odawain block from a water well. Has that changed our thinking in any way? But it hasn't, to be honest. We've seen that video, of course, and we've taken interest in it. But seeps to surface are evident all over Somaliland, and and it... And it's not an indication that there is anything of material value underneath those seeps. It doesn't change our view in terms of prospectivity, and it doesn't change our view in terms of what we plan to do in the coming year or two.

19:55 And one question we've had on the right as well, just to clarify, someone's asked if we'll spud some of our land without a farming partner. So I think it's worth just reminding of the farming deal that we announced. Yeah. But we have... We we we we have actually already farmed down. We have a 51% interest in that part. Just just just to add to that, I think it's an important demonstration how we think about capital risk. You know, we've sat on that prospect for a long time, been excited about it for a long time, and we wanted to explore it for a long time. We didn't wanna deal with a 100% equity. So so we've waited. The the commercial and asset team have done a great job to bring in a partner, and now we are delighted to have a very, very good partner and who are sharing the journey with us. So it's just it's just kind of a example of our business model in action and our and our patience.

20:41 Thank you very much. And moving on to M and A now, there's been, as you can imagine, this is a key focus of the presentation of the business. There have been a lot of questions about M and A. So I'll I'll try and distill a couple of them. In a high oil price environment, why is now the right time to make an acquisition? Do you think you can make one on reasonable terms?

20:58 And why not sweat our own assets first when you can get huge cash flow per share from doing that? Luke, you take the first part, and I'll take the second part. Sure. So we are very cognizant of where oil price is today. Know? I'm gonna say some obvious things. It's higher than it was a year ago, and it's much higher than it was two years ago. There are differing views on where it goes. It may be high next year. May be low next year. I think the key the key is how we approach a deal and how we approach evaluation and the structure of it. The dialogue we have had with some of the assets that we like to look off with the potential vendors has shown that some vendors are gonna just demand a high oil price for their... To to to encourage them to exit, and they don't wanna negotiate any on the structure.

21:50 But we've been pleasantly surprised that probably more vendors are actually kind of a bit more realistic about the way we think about oil price and recognize the need to structure it and think about a lower price deck and probably, you know, forward forward debt for the initial valuation, and then you structure some kind of deal. Now who knows where we might end up finally on it, but I think that's... I think it's encouraging. The vendors recognize that. It's encouraging. We've had good dialogue on it. I don't think current price means that doing a deal now is a bad deal. I think you've just gotta be very careful about how you structure it. We're we're pretty careful people. We'll think about the downside, not just on price, but on the technical and the development risk as well. And then we'll see where we get to.

22:35 But, ultimately, we'll have a multi scenario valuation and downside scenario and catastrophic case scenario model and work out if we're happy to put it... Happy to put our capital at risk on that basis. So... Yes. Listen. It's it's not an easy environment to do, m and a, but we've had enough encouragement to think we can do it. Under our view, we had. Yeah. And further on the on the geography where we're looking at the type of assets, someone's asked why not invest in the North Sea and then whether or not we'd be looking for renewables or if we're focused on hydrocarbons.

23:10 That's on the North on the North Sea, know, if you if you look at the the the history and experience of this business, I'll never say never, but I... But it's but it's hard to think exactly what value or extra benefit we bring to that kind of asset. And, also, it's hard to see how that fits our criteria. You know, if we're looking for resilient, low cost, low breakeven supporting a dividend that we sustain kind of whatever the weather, then, you know, North Sea is not the right profile for that, all else equal. So, you know, what probably means we'll... We're most likely to look onshore or or dip our toes in a bit of shallow water, but it's it's unlikely to be North Sea or, you know, or deep. Yeah.

23:58 It's probably onshore, low cost developing world kind of how we framed it. Yeah. Preference, MENA MENA, but but we'll go where the we'll go where the value is. Yeah.

24:11 It's worth bearing in mind that the the the North Sea in places like the North Sea offshore highly regulated environments don't fit our high margin criteria for consideration. I'd just like to come back to the to the issue of sweating our own assets, using our money to sweat our own assets, it's worth pointing out that we've had extraordinarily high activity levels at talking Peshkabir this year and are and are getting towards the end of a period of very, very high activity, particularly on the drilling front and on the facilities, project front. And, it looks like next year is shaping up to be another year of very high activity on those licenses. I made mention in the I made mention in the, in the presentation that we are getting towards the end of the initial appraisal phase for Sarta, but we've already begun work on development options for 2023 and beyond at at Sarta.

25:03 And we are resuming drilling at Taktak towards the end of this year, after a two year hiatus. So I think we can point to a number of things to illustrate that that activity levels remain high within our organic portfolio. I think a follow on question from that before we come back to m and a is what what should production expectations be for SATA in 2023?

25:30 It's a little difficult for us to say. Like I said, we we know that it's we know that it's gonna be disappointing in relation to some of the gains that we've provided in the past, but, but we really need to wait and see what SATA six well delivers. That that well's about to begin testing, and we anticipate results by the end of the year. We'll have a much better we'll have a much better picture about what SATA's gonna deliver next year and beyond once we see the results of Sarta six. And where do you currently sit on Caridad? What's the likelihood of of us giving up that license? It's possible that we'll we'll give up the Caridad license. The the current license period is due to expire very, very early next year. We are... We've... We are talking to the KRG about it. We've been talking to them about it for some time.

26:16 From a purely technical and operational point of view, it remains an exciting prospect, but but we're gonna need more time. And our our our technical people and our business development people are actively engaged with KRG on that now. Thank you very much, Paul. And one of the final questions, I think, on m and a is what size of deal are you looking at? And is it fair to assume that you won't be raising new equity as part of any deal given where the valuation of the shares currently is? Look. Right. So if you look at the cash balance of about $500,000,000 and you... And and let's assume we can get that, and then it kind of depends on the asset and the opportunity. But we'd like to put as much of that cash to work as possible, whether it's in one, two, or three or three deals.

27:02 You know? The the the dream is that you do one or two really, really good big ones, but let let... Let's see how we go. So, you know, hundreds rather than tens is is the simple focus and and and more material and the and the better the deal, the the the better for the returns as a business, obviously. With the share price where it is... And as as you'll know, it depends on the other side of the deal. Right? You did... Just because the share price is low doesn't mean you can't use equity if you... If you're if you're paying the right price for the for the other side of the deal. But it gets harder. Look. It's fair to say it gets harder, and, you know, our share... Shareholders will need to be... Will want to know that we're using equity well if we're using equity. And then... And so the bar is no doubt higher when your share price is low relative to value expectation, fundamental value expectation.

27:55 And is there any specific return rate that you look for when you judge m and a? Do you have anything in mind? No. No. Because it really depends on the opportunity. I mean, if you get if you get if you get scale and a high quality asset in the right postcode, then, obviously, your return requirement is gonna be lower than if you're... If if you see more risk in a project. So I don't I don't wanna give a indication. But I think from a company point of view, you know, if you look at our our, you know, our coupon on our debt is 9.25%, so that that tells you the cost of debt. Cost of equity is gonna be higher than that. Our our debt currently, if you wanna go and buy it, gives about a 12% return. So tells you the right return needs to be higher than that. So if that if that helps think about what the business should be trying do, then that's probably a a useful front. And thank you, Luke.

28:46 And and while you're on a roll, how should we see CapEx for next year and beyond? So this was a year of... You know, this was a this was a busy year on gross capital. So we... We've been we've been busy on on the SATA appraisal, you know, SATA one b in the early in the year, SATA five, SATA six. We've done SATA three recompletion and other work. So we've been quite quite busy on growth capital this year. With SATA appraisal finishing finishing around the end of the year, early next year, we've got some thinking to do about how we take that asset forward. So in terms of our capital investment on SARTA, it'll be expected to be lower. As for and and and kinda talked about it, the... You know, the... We're gonna be busy on those again.

29:35 Remember, the payback on those is is three months. You pay the money, and and you get 75% of it back through through the PSC terms within three months. So the capital investment on those assets is is a is a different profile for the investment on on SaaS where it doesn't come back as quick because of where you are in the the the life of the asset, and you've got loaded back costs, which are very valuable when they come through, but I mean you don't get quick cost recovery. Hopefully, that kind of answers your question. So that's... Down a down a down a bit on SaaS, technical growth growth cap. Thank you. And then and then the final question is, what's our relationship like at the moment with our major shareholders? I'll take that one. Our relationship's good, I think, it's fair to say, with our major shareholders.

30:23 There are... Those of you who have studied GENEL's history will will know that there have been periods of tension and things have been rather fraught. But I think I can honestly say we have a new and reinvigorated management team, and and we have a we have a smaller board. And I think the dynamic certainly around the the the boardroom and with the wider major shareholder community is is very good. We we work hard and are improving at communicating with these people. And... But then the feedback from them has been very supportive of what we're trying to do. So with that, Paul, thank you everyone very much for taking the time and submitting questions. It's it's much appreciated. Should anyone have any other questions at any point, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us. We do answer each and every question that we receive. We're very happy to answer every question that we receive, and we always prefer to be able to get in touch with the company directly than to speculate on anything. Hope you'll find us very open and approachable.

31:19 And with that, I'll just hand back over to Paul before rounding up. Thank you very much, Andrew, and thanks again to everybody for joining us this morning. I've got very little to add in the way of closing remarks. I hope you can all sense the excitement that the GENEL ENERGY PLC enjoys around the prospects and the journey ahead, and we look forward to talking to you more as the as the as the journey unfolds. Thank you very much. Paul, Luke, Andrew, thank you very much for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of GENEL ENERGY PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.