Valeura Energy Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 13, 2023

There are 3 speakers on the call.

Operator

Everyone. Thank you for joining us for this Valeura Energy webcast, where we'll discuss our Q3 2023 results, which we released earlier today. I'm Robin Martin, Vice President, Communications and Investor Relations. And on the call with me are Sean Guest, our President and CEO and Yacine Ben Mariam, CFO. This event is being streamed live and is being recorded today, November 15, 2023.

Operator

A replay will be made available through our website later today. So, in a moment, I'll hand over to Sean and Yacine who will speak to a slide presentation that will be shown on the screen if you're joining us through MS Teams or it can be downloaded from our website, which you're joining by dial in. After the prepared remarks, we'll do a Q and A session. Questions can be submitted through the Teams app at any time by clicking on Q and A at the top of your window or you can email them to us using irvaluraenergy .com. Before I hand over to Sean, I'd like to draw your attention to Slide 2 in the presentation, which are our disclaimers about the material we'll share today.

Operator

In particular, please note the cautionary language around forward looking information. So with that, I will ask that Sean unmute your line and you can go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you very much, Robin. And thank you all for joining us here today with Yousseen and I in London currently. So good afternoon to those in London and good morning to those back in Canada. So just before I talk about the quarter, I just wanted to really point to the transformation that we've seen in the company over the past 1.5 years. The beginning of last year, we were just a cash shell, but with the two deals that we've done, both in Thailand, we've really delivered now over a 700 percent shareholder growth since the start of 'twenty two.

Speaker 1

We were number 2 out of more than 120 companies on the Energy companies on the TSX and TSXV, and this year, we're still performing at the top of the range. But importantly, it was a transformation that took us into a cash flow generative portfolio. Now having production, if we look at the 1st 9 months of this year, Producing 20,800 barrels a day. And the important thing is we're realizing Brent pricing on that. So that's leading to a reasonable cash flow.

Speaker 1

It's helping us pay off debt and then look to build cash as we go into the future. And the final point is having demonstrated that we could do these Deals in Thailand, we still see very good market for doing further deals in Southeast Asia and we have the team poised to do that. So that's really an overall summary of where we've got to since the beginning of last year. Now looking at this quarter, There were some lows and some high points. And I think Wassana field itself is one that kind of maps that out the best, which is On the low point, we knew that we had to shut in production there in the beginning of July.

Speaker 1

That was disappointing because it took out about 10% of our Production, which then flows through into our financials, but it was required to maintain safe operations. And we just have to show That we need our contractors to perform at the level that they're supposed to or we're going to have to make changes. So it's disappointing to shut in the Wassana field, but we do have plans in place to get that going still now in Q4, Right. But the highlight associated with the sauna was the appraisal drilling that we did in the quarter, which demonstrated that there is a lot more oil in Ground then has currently been recognized as being able to capture through the small production facility that we have there now. And we're looking to take that field into a redevelopment.

Speaker 1

Other positive points are we drilled 3 wells on Menorah, All successful. And that's likely going to push the abandonment of that field further than 2025. In the quarter, and while actually subsequent to the quarter, we also paid off all of our debts so that we are currently debt free. And really the last highlight I'll note is that from the beginning of Q3, we've now to date have more than doubled our current share price. So we're still seeing the market catching up with our share price and the cash flow generative capability.

Speaker 1

Next slide, Robin. So I won't go into the details of the transformation that we've taken the company on from the beginning of 'twenty two through to where we're at today. But we can see since really the beginning of September that we've started to get an increase in share price. That's been supported by increases in Brent pricing, But also, we've really been able to undertake a marketing effort during this period to try and make sure we're telling the story correctly to people, and we still see that support coming in. But focusing on the bottom corner, the capital markets data, what's interesting is we've had extremely high volume During this period since September and our 30 day average is trading about 1,800,000 shares a day, which relative to only 100,000,000 shares outstanding is very significant.

Speaker 1

But what we've seen in our shareholder base is There's been lots of concerns when we had that high volume that Baillie Gifford were actually a seller, whereas what's actually happened is they've increased their holdings in the company. And we also welcome a new significant investor into the company, which is Thorson Thai Agencies, which is an investment company out of Thailand That we've been talking to for a while, but are very aware of what we're doing in Thailand. And they're coming in just because they're seeing the support for the story there And looking to move into oil and gas within Thailand. So it's really good to see that strong support coming in with more significant shareholders into the company. Thanks, Robin.

Speaker 1

Just the next slide. And just a bit of a summary on the assets Before I hand over to Yacine to really talk about the financials, the top 3 are the fields that we bought from Mubadala. Menorah, as we said, was the late life field, but we've continued to push out the abandonment on this field. 3 wells were drilled last year, which pushed the abandonment from 22 to 25. And now this quarter, we've completed the drilling of 3 other wells, all which found oil.

Speaker 1

And that's likely going to push the abandonment out even further once we complete our reserves and are able to fill that information. We do see potential also for further wells there, which we're looking at drilling around the end of 'twenty four or into 'twenty five. The Jasmine field, which is really has been our largest field, we've done 2 sets of drilling Activity on that at the beginning of the year, and then we've just now completed another phase of drilling there. And it's about maintaining that field, it's sort of Moderate decline. So we see that field on average declining about 10% a year, but we're continuing the activity there just to support that development to continue to bring in the cash from that field.

Speaker 1

Now the fields that are growing are Nong Yao and Wissana. And while we've done some infill drilling on Nong Miao and in fact, the rig is going there to do some further drilling on the existing platforms, We're also in the midst of expanding that with the new platform. So in the quarter, the pipeline was laid Over to the new where the new facility will be. That facility is due to be towed out of the yards in China in probably early January. So we'll see starting the drilling on Nong Yaowi development in Q1 And we should see that complete sometime in Q2.

Speaker 1

And looking to increase production from this field from the order of 7,000 barrels a day now to probably 11,000 barrels a day once we get all those wells on. We're also looking at in Yong Yao area, Looking at a further exploration target, which we see would form the basis for the next stage of development, would be Nongyao D. And then on Wassana, as I mentioned before, we shut in the production At the beginning of July, so really in the quarter, we saw almost no production from Wassana. We have now Working identified a new operator for the storage vessel. We're working on getting the agreements in place, and we do anticipate Starting that field up within the next month there.

Speaker 1

But the exciting thing about Wassana was the gap that we then had allowed the technical team to go back and really look at the whole field and the data without the constraint of that small production facility that exists. Robin, maybe go to the next slide. And the conclusion that they came up with was that The amount of oil that's been identified in the ground would mean that you're going to only get an 8% recovery by using that small facility and that you should actually be redeveloping the field to actually capture much higher volumes and much higher production. So on the back of that, we drilled 2 appraisal wells in the quarter, both of which discovered oil. They pushed the down deeper to say there's more oil in the field and we're now going into a concept selection for a redevelopment year.

Speaker 1

But we see this field being like you've seen in jasmine or Nong Yao, where the moment we start to develop that increase reserves and increase the production, there's likely going to be more oil that's going to extend out to the north and to the south. There are already discovered fields to the north and south, which were deemed as being marginally or uneconomic with only the small production facility. With the new facility, we see it's quite likely that as we get into the 2030s, we'll be able to expand out and capture that oil. So that for us is very exciting. We look at a new project there and we'll anticipate taking an FID on that project next year.

Speaker 1

And at that time, I'll just hand over now to Yassine just to talk through the financials of the quarter. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Sean. Hello, Ivan. As far as the result for this quarter, we'll start first from operationally. As you Our working interest production for the quarter came in just short of 20,000 barrels a day. Again, it highlights this highlights the point of how much optionality we do have in the portfolio despite the fact that we have had Wasson suspended in, during the quarter, The portfolio for the optionality will actually maintain that production, which you can see is within the guidance that we provided for the year.

Speaker 2

I'll come back to this point later. As far as lifted, we lifted around 1,700,000 barrels. Mathematically, this is slightly lower than our production. It's worth highlighting once again that as an offshore operator, sometimes there is a mismatch between our lifting and our production. Those lifting were done at an average realized price of $87.8 per barrel, again slightly higher than Brent on this occasion.

Speaker 2

As far as the lifting itself, it's worth highlighting that just at the end of the period, just after the period, 10 days after the period, We lifted another 300,000 barrels, which obviously will get recorded for the following period in Q4. On the OpEx side, on expense side, you can see that our OpEx came in at 62,000,000 during the quarter. This is a quarter that It has been in the plan to be quite heavy in terms of spending on OpEx. It is still within plan and still with our guidance. Just worth highlighting that although for this quarter, the OpEx per barrel came in at around $34 for the 9 months period, we are still at around $26 $27 per barrel.

Speaker 2

And CapEx similar to the last quarter around $37,000,000 Obviously, with the lower lifting And higher so with the lower lifting, having missed those 2 lifting in the tail end of the quarter, our revenue came in at around $150,000,000 The combination of lower lifting and also higher spending on CapEx resulted in the 34 cash flow from operations. However, as you can see, the EBITDAX, which The calculation is linked with more production and lifting. You can see it's still strong at around close to $70,000,000 there. Turning to the balance sheet. I think a lot of these numbers have been already provided during our last update to the market.

Speaker 2

I think the new point, as Sean has mentioned, is that we have repaid the debt during the subsequent period. So now we are in a position to start using that cash for the next 4 hour in terms of training our strategy, which is more on the growth. Next slide. Turning to productions, as you can see, Having Wassana suspended has impacted the production. You can see the year 1600 production average for the last quarter This quarter, however, that was compensated by better performance from Manora.

Speaker 2

Slightly lower from Jasmine and Langya, but that's really reflected of some of the work that was done during those fields during this period. I think what's important here is really to look at more from a month to month basis, which in the bottom side graph, you can see how much of that as a diversified portfolio, it gives you that flexibility to actually lever some of the assets to compensate We'd like to think that like with Wassona returning back to productions, you'll see an uplift in those monthly productions as well going forward. Next slide, please, Robin, which brings us to the lifting. Again, As an offshore operator, our oil tend to be stored, produced and then stored on vessels. Now, the timing of lifting those vessels In our positions tend to match quite closely with productions.

Speaker 2

However, sometimes there might be some disconnect. And you can see that In the last quarter and this quarter, two sides of the different kind of say. Last quarter, we've reduced 2,000,000 yet we managed to sell lift 2,170,000. On this quarter, we produced 1,840,000 and the lifting during the quarter was 1.7 That leaves us with an inventory for around 900,000 barrels of which, as I mentioned, close to 300,000 barrels was lifted just in the 1st 10 days of October. Those 340,000 bottles have generated around €31,000,000 revenues, which will get recorded in Q4.

Speaker 2

As far as the pricing, the realized pricing, I think you've seen that this quarter Q3, you have seen us the market have seen an uplift in terms of prices, be it Brent or Dubai. And that kind of trickled to our realized price as well. What has been positive from our side is that Dubai, which is our core benchmark, to a certain extent, has actually traded at the both Brent. Our realized price for this period was around $1.3 above Brent. I think in terms of consensus, if you recall so in terms of guidance, if you recall, our guidance has been pointing towards more of a parity to Brent.

Speaker 2

So again, this is kind of like spillover into our revenues as well. Next slide, please, Robin. As far as spending, again, this was part of the plan and embedded in our guidance. Q3 It is a quarter that's quite elevated spending when it comes to OpEx. This is really due to the fact that this is the period where we And walkovers, maintenance and asset integrities as well.

Speaker 2

And I think at the bottom, you'll see the difference in terms of where the difference between Q2 and Q3 is split between both assets and activities. Turning to CapEx, it's more of in line effectively with the CapEx. However, on this quarter, we spent spending was more towards brownfield compared to the previous quarter, for example, rather than drilling. As far as for the 9 months period, we still as I mentioned earlier on, we have recorded our OpEx per barrel around 26 $0.4 per barrel, which is still below our guidance, which was around $30 per barrel. And both OpEx and CapEx are still within our guidance.

Speaker 2

I think when it comes to CapEx, we probably and you'll see later on, when it comes to CapEx, we're probably going to be coming at the bottom end of our guidance, which again, I'll walk you through it later in a few slides. Thanks, Robin. Now with the lower lifting and slightly heavier spend on OpEx, you can see here the bridge when it comes to cash flow from operations. Our net revenues, our revenue of NOK 140,000,000, you'll have a deduction for NOK 120,000,000 giving us a net oil revenue of Close to SEK 130,000,000 by deducting OpEx and SG and A as well, we end up with a pretax cash flow from operation of around SEK 659,000,000,000. Deducting those accrued taxes in the form of P and L and SRB, we end up with an adjusted cash flow from operation of around SEK 34,000,000 for this quarter.

Speaker 2

Now If you compare to the previous quarter where we recorded SEK70 1,000,000, as you can see there at the bottom side of about a half of the slide, It's the lifting, which I referred to earlier on in terms of missing lifting lower than the previous quarter. And however, you've seen an uplift as well in oil price during that period compared to the previous quarter. With the increase of $17,000,000 in OpEx And slight increase as well in SG and A. However, saving from Peter as well, you can see the bridge how we end up with 34 as well in this quarter. It's a story of predominantly Lower lifting, as I said, because we've missed those 2 lifting that occurred just straight after the end of the quarter closing and a slightly increase in OpEx, which is again within the guidance.

Speaker 2

Next slide, please, Robin. Which brings us to our cash bridge here. As a company that is pride in itself in terms of how much Cash generated from this portfolio and how much cash is important to us in terms of instead of executing our strategy. We have taken the decision this year, this quarter to repay all that debt, as you can see that, that's the €21,000,000 that got paid. Also during this quarter, we have actually made a payment of NOK 29,000,000 for PETA taxes.

Speaker 2

This is effectively the 2023 first half cost of taxes. As a reminder for the to our audience Within Thailand, taxes, the PTA tax is still to be paid 2 times a year. Adding to that another €4,000,000 for the payment and change in working capital of €45,000,000 We end up the quarter with €116,500,000 Again, when you look at it from a perspective of net cash, we are slightly higher than the last quarter, end of last quarter. Which brings us to next slide, please, Robin, which brings us to our guidance For the rest of the year, you've seen I'm sure you've seen in our announcement, we have we are maintaining our guidance that was provided in Q2. The production, as you can see there is 20,000 to 22, 9 months pro form a, those volumes are around 20,800 barrels a day.

Speaker 2

We and this is with Wassana being offline, we expect Wassana to add to this as well production in the last quarter. As far as OpEx, we're maintaining it for 9 months. As you can see there, it's around $150,000,000 and on an OpEx per barrel, we are at the 26.4 dollars per barrel versus the guidance of around $30,000,000 And on the CapEx side, as I mentioned earlier on, 9 month to date is around $105,000,000 Our CapEx guidance, $155,000,000 to $175,000,000 I think looking at the quarter, at this coming quarter, we will expect the overall CapEx for the year to be at the bottom end of that CapEx guidance, the $455,000,000 to $175,000,000 And with that, I turn back to Sean.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Youssaint. Yes, so really what we're seeing and want to emphasize is The portfolio we've acquired can deliver good cash flows into the company. And those cash flows are not just occurring this year and next year. We see the ability with the new oil we're discovering with the new reserves that we're adding to continue to push that Kind of plateau performance of 20,000 to 25,000 barrels a day out for another 4 years or more, Right. So it's that strong cash flow that we get in that period.

Speaker 1

And that's what we now have the team in Thailand very much focused on is the new developments and new drilling to yield that. The other part of our business, as we've talked about before, is still looking at other acquisitions in the area. While pricing has gone up, We do still see a number of very good opportunities in the region. And Valeura, with what we've done in the past 2 years, has really vaulted us to a level that we're a recognized significant independent player in the region. And there's a number of opportunities that we see we can progress in the near term.

Speaker 1

So it's really just a point to there is still a very good market here for M and A, and we're well positioned to take on that, and we see that we will be doing Another deal in 2024. The emphasis I always make is that, as an oil and gas company, everyone likes to talk about your barrels Per day and your targets in that end. But from our point of view, the primary thing that we look at in these assets is cash flow. These assets have to be accretive to the company, and they have to deliver good cash flow. So whether it's oil or gas or location It's less important.

Speaker 1

What is really important is about that cash flow. So again, the message to take away is we're still very active in the M and A space, But we're looking at deals that are fairly significant, and that's why they likely take a while to get concluded as they did with doing the Mubadala deal. So the next slide, please, Rob. And again, just to try and bring it around to conclusion, the end of sustainable operations is we have very good environmental performance from the team on-site. We do know that we are an oil company that's producing oil, Well, we've asked the team to come forward with proposals that can reduce the emissions.

Speaker 1

And they have actually come forward with 1 already, which we're approving at an executive level For them to go out to reduce emissions from Jasmine by using low BTU gas to generate power On the facility and that will allow you to reduce the amount of diesel you're using, but also reduce the amount of flaring that you're having to do on that. So very good project To see the team coming forward with, and they do have some others. I emphasize as well when I do talking about this is We have a Thai company here. Of the 178 people that we took on when we took over Mubadala's operation, There was only a handful of expats there. It's a top quality Thai team that we really rely on and have very good relations that way, both in the communities in which we operate and with the regulator in the government in country.

Speaker 1

So The company has been measuring all of its emissions. These are recorded on the government DMF website, and we will actually bring this story into our inaugural sustainability report in So just concluding, We've managed to do these two deals and really transformed the company. It's been a very exciting time for us. And we do see more of these deals. However, we're also doing these deals now on the back of strong cash flow, and we can be patient to make sure that we can get the deals that we want.

Speaker 1

So we're looking to maintain these assets, maintain the cash flow as we go forward and still look for other opportunities that can be accretive to our shareholders. And with that, I'll hand it back to Robin and we'll take any questions.

Operator

Thanks, Sean. Yes, we've got a bunch of questions coming. Just give me a moment to sort things out here. Okay. First question is on drilling.

Operator

Drilling results have been phenomenal this year. Are you able to guide on further extensions to the field life and or 2PADS? I presume this is in relation to Wassana.

Speaker 1

Yes. So If we ignore the drilling that went on in Wassana, which is going to make a very material difference, we do see that most of the drilling we've done Should come very close to replacing the reserves that we produced during the year. So that's been very good. The drilling on Nongyao, on jasmine, the menorah has all added volumes on those that should in sum total come very close to what was the production we've had for the year. Now Wassana is different because Wassana has really changed and there's a large we're going to have The new reserves number there, it will be significantly more than the market's seen.

Speaker 1

However, we now have to go through that Process with the reserves auditor and whether it gets into reserves or contingent resource will be related to how mature the project is at that time towards FID. So we'd really like to see all of that come into reserves, which would be a really nice uptick in the reserves. But it may actually require that we get closer to FID during 2024 to have that as full reserves. What we will produce though this year, which has not been something that the company has done in past, is we'll really document as well the contingent resource that exists in the company, Because a lot of that is the stuff that's being accessed now as we push these abandonments further out, you're bringing oil that was never going to be produced back into the reserves. So we want to make sure that that's accurately portrayed to the market.

Speaker 1

So we're working with NSAI on that, and we should have those results out likely in early March.

Operator

Okay, great. Related question here on that, given the success, do you We expect to accelerate appraisal drilling across the portfolio in order to further drive decommissioning further into the future.

Speaker 1

Yes. And appraisaleven a bit of near field exploration, we will next year, we're planning to kind of drill probably 3 wells that we would consider exploration. One of them, notionally, it would be in Wassana North to prove That you've got more oil between the discovery field and the Wassa field in that northern extent. We'll likely drill 1 riskier prospect in the Block where Jasmine is, just because any discovery up there looks like it would be very material And a game changer. And the last one that we're looking at is, as we mentioned before, Nongyao delocation, where there's more prospects in oil identified that's Very high probability of success.

Speaker 1

And that'll help guide us on where we're going to put a platform next. So we are trying to put a few of those wells in, In the sequence.

Operator

Okay. Changing gears just a little bit, question on rossican. And the question is any expectations on the financial contribution from Northern Gulf and Rossignan in 2023? Related question here, just asking for when do we expect production actually begins?

Speaker 1

Yeah, obviously that's within the hands of Northern Gulf Petroleum as to when they actually get that fully on production. What we can say is that they have they are very active on the field. We understand that they may even have some early production available as Speak, but we need to see how they come online. We haven't included any of that in our current budgeting. But if they find that they're actually producing As they say, they're doing 10,000 barrels a day, and we have 2% royalty on that.

Speaker 1

It does add relatively significant cash flow, A piece of cash flow into our business. So we'll be monitoring that closely, but hats off to them. They've worked very hard to get that development going, and it's been in the news quite a bit

Operator

Good. I'm going to let you rest your voice for just a moment. Question is, So as of today, there are 2 analysts covering Valeura. Is the company actively working to communicate the story to the brokerage community in order to begin broadening analyst coverage. And I can answer that for you, Sean.

Operator

Absolutely, we're more active than we've ever been at telling the story to the brokerage community, to the institutional community. And as Sean mentioned earlier, since early September, we've been out quite aggressively marketing. I think we covered 6 cities, all the things that we did remotely through Zoom and through Teams and whatnot. Included in that mix are sales deck presentations to at least 3 or 4 different banks and related groups. I do expect that we will be bringing additional analyst coverage to the market in fairly near term as well.

Operator

Question that I will have you answer, Sean, plans for Capital Market Day in 2024, Is this something that we would consider doing?

Speaker 1

Yes, that's a good question. And it is something that we are looking at, but we wanted to make sure that if we do a Capital Markets Day, it's on the back of something that's really quite new and material. And what we think might be appropriate then is once we've kind of got through that concept select phase and have our reserve numbers out, But the concept select on Wassana that, that could be a good time that we actually talk about that project more. So but when we look at it, given the timing of the work that's We would expect that to be around the end of Q1 next year, about the time we do our full year financials. But we think that could be a good Kind of focus element to go to a new capital market stake is we do believe that we really have to keep telling the story.

Speaker 1

The story is difficult at times for people to get because if they look just at the reserves and they say, well, there's only 3 to 5 years life here. But the history of the reserves is you just keep replacing them every year and extending that further out. So a Capital Markets Day would allow us It was on a redevelopment.

Operator

Okay. Let's shift to some more sort of financial oriented questions and maybe give you a sneak chance to speak a bit too quiet. Question is, what does the G and A look like as a forward run rate? And would $7,500,000 per quarter as reported in the adjusted cash flow be reasonable as a forward expectation?

Speaker 2

I would say so, Robin. I think this Effectively, this run rate represent the immediate run rate, I think the best way to describe it. I think when we did the During our last quarter, we did highlight that the fact that like we will be looking at some synergies going forward, especially when it comes to SG and A Because we do see the combination of the 3 sorry, the 2 entities in Thailand afford us to hopefully capture some of those synergies, Be it on the S side of SG and A or even on the A side, which is the administrative side, but we certainly see that going forward. Whether this is going to be the next quarter or the quarter after that, as you might imagine, this will take a little bit more time than we would like to. But yes, Long term run rate probably lower than that.

Operator

Okay. Another finance Oriented question, how much has actually been contributed so far for decommissioning? And where is the easiest place to see this in the financial? Is it part of the restricted cash?

Speaker 2

Yes. Effectively, that's where it is. And The decommissioning is really related to the Manora field because that's the only field that we had to submit the decommissioning placement for it. The rest of our portfolios is has yet to be has yet to require that placement.

Operator

Okay. Question is how has the competitive landscape for M and A assets changed since our first acquisition. And is there a preference for more greenfield type opportunities? Are we looking at tieback of discovered resources? Or is it necessary that we have existing production for an acquisition to rank highly for us?

Speaker 1

Yeah, maybe I'll answer that. So first off, if we're looking at assets in Thailand, We're really looking we're very comfortable as to whether they're producing assets, development assets and we probably would even look at exploration assets that are Proximal to our blocks, then we could have some synergies to tie back into our facilities. So we have a team in Thailand, we're all set up there and we're very much looking at Opportunities, they do tend to be more in the production and development phase, though, that we're looking at. When we look around the region at Different countries, whether you look at Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, in those, our real preference is for assets that are actually already cash flowing and producing, But then where you can see follow on deals to really grow in those countries further. So that's really the focus there.

Speaker 1

We're not really going to go out and do an

Operator

Okay?

Speaker 1

Did that kind of answer the question? Or did I miss an element of it?

Operator

I think you got it, Sean. It was a quick question. Yes. Question on the internal restructuring for tax purposes. And it's a general question from a couple of people, how is this progressing?

Speaker 2

Maybe I'll take this question. It's currently progressing as planned, Robin. The team is already working on I'm submitting the documentation to start this. As we mentioned before, this is a process that In terms of guidance to the market, we're probably going to be looking to close it hopefully successfully by the middle of next year. And that's the guidance we would look we can afford it At this point in time.

Speaker 2

But it's going up to plan. We haven't seen any issues, no source software at all.

Operator

Next question is on Wassana. How confident are you that it will restart in Q4? And are there any risks that this could be delayed further?

Speaker 1

Look, at this stage, we're very confident Of getting it up and producing within the next month. However, it has been a challenging contractor that we're dealing with. We've both agreed to a new operating company to come in and actually run the vessel, where The company that we actually originally had will remain the owner of the vessel. But the only thing that's kind of remaining now is some paperwork. But we'll just kind of see.

Speaker 1

We've had some challenges with that, obviously. But what we can say is we've now got 3 parties, The owner of the vessel, the new operator of the vessel and ourselves that have all largely agreed terms are really ready to move forward. The facility is the storage vessels back in the field, hooked up and really it's just about making sure we go through all the checks, The checks to make sure the safety procedures are all up to our standards. And of course, we'll bring the regulator along as well And get them to kind of view and make sure we're happy on that. But we're confident that we're going to get it going within the next month.

Operator

Final question is on hedging. And quite simply, what are your thoughts on hedging is the question?

Speaker 2

Look, I mean, we've been continuously keeping an eye on the market in terms of putting some sort of A protection to down a downside price scenario. I mean, obviously, from I think conceptually from our side, We don't want to put in position a structure that somehow kind of cap the upside. So as such, we've been looking at Good options to acquire to protect the downside. Now obviously, if you're talking about puts, then it's a question at what price does the economics kind of make sense or not. At this point in time, we haven't really taken we haven't taken and put we haven't purchased any put positions, but it's something that we keep an eye on.

Speaker 2

But as I said, conceptually, it's really we're not doing it to trade. We are doing it really to protect from the downside. Great.

Operator

Okay. I think that's all the questions that we've had come in online. I'll Just remind the audience that if there is anything you'd like to follow-up on or anything we didn't cover sufficiently for you in this Call, feel free to reach out to us. Our numbers are on the website on the presentation. And you can always reach us on irvaloraenergy.com as well.

Operator

And with that, I'll hand it back to you, Sean, just to close-up the call.

Speaker 1

Yes. Again, thank you very much for attending. It's obviously been an exciting journey that we've been on, and we're really looking forward to the next quarter and the next 12 months as what we can bring forward. So again, Thank you, and thank you for being shareholders.

Operator

Thanks, everyone. That ends the call.

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Earnings Conference Call
Valeura Energy Q3 2023
00:00 / 00:00