Frontera Energy Q2 2024 Earnings Report

Frontera Energy EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -C$0.04
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Frontera Energy Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $285.90 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Frontera Energy Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2024
• Date: 8/7/2024
• Time: N/A
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, August 8, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Frontera Energy (TSE:FEC) Corp is a Canadian-based company engaged in the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas reserves in South America. It operates in five segments: Colombia, which includes all upstream business activities of exploration and production in Colombia; Peru; Ecuador & others, which includes all upstream business activities of exploration in Ecuador, the corporate office in Canada, and non-operating entities that have been aggregated; Guyana segment includes all offshore upstream business activities; and Midstream segment includes company's investments in pipelines, storage, port, and other facilities relating to the distribution and exportation of crude oil products in Colombia. The majority of its revenue is generated from the Colombia segment.

Frontera Energy Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Entered a 2-year water treatment contract with Ecopetrol at the Sara facility, targeting 250,000 bbl/d capacity by end-2024 to boost crude output by 1,000 bbl/d per 100,000 bbl treated.
• Broke ground on a bidirectional flow line to Reficar and formed an LPG import JV with Gasco at Puerto Bahía, projects expected to double liquids volumes and expand Colombia’s energy infrastructure.
• Q2 production rose 5% QoQ to 39,900 boe/d, driven by a 6% increase in heavy oil and a 22% jump in gas/NGLs, supported by new water handling and compression facilities.
• Reported operating EBITDA of $110 M and $150 M of cash flow from operations despite a $2.8 M net loss, while maintaining hedges on 40% of oil output at $75–78/bbl and 40% of peso exposure.
• Declared a quarterly dividend of CAD 0.625/share and announced a $30 M substantial issuer bid, adding to YTD returns of CAD 11.7 M in dividends, $6.6 M in share buybacks, and $3.5 M in bond repurchases for $51 M total.

Presentation

[Operator]

This is Joanna, and I will be your conference facilitator today. Welcome to Frontera Energy's second quarter 2024 operating and financial results conference call. All lines are currently on mute to prevent any background noise. I would like to remind you that this conference call is being recorded today and is also available through audio webcast on the company's website. Following the speaker's remarks, there will be time for questions. Analysts and investors are reminded that any additional questions can be directed to Frontera following today's call at ir@fronteraenergy.ca. This call contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws relating to activities, events, or developments the company believes or expects will or may occur in the future. Forward-looking information reflects the current expectations, assumption, and belief of the company based on information currently available to it.

[Operator]

Although the company believes the assumptions are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance. Forward-looking information is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information. The company's MD&A for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and the company's annual information form dated March 7, 2024, and other documents it files from time to time with securities regulatory authorities, describe the risks, uncertainties, material assumptions and other factors that could influence actual results. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information except as required by law. I would now turn the call over to Mr. Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of the Board of Frontera Energy. Mr. de Alba? Mr.

[Operator]

de Alba, you may begin.

[Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of the Board at Frontera Energy]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Frontera's second quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining me on today's call are Orlando Cabrales, Frontera's CEO; Rene Burgos, Frontera's CFO. Also joining us today and available to answer questions at the end of the call, we have Victor Vega, VP, Field Development, Reservoir Management, and Exploration; Alejandra Bonilla, General Counsel; Ivan Arevalo, VP, Operations; Maria Campuzano, VP, Marketing, Logistics, and Business Sustainability. Thank you for joining us. Frontera continues to execute on its strategic priorities in support of long-term growth and the sustainability of its business. During the quarter, Frontera and Ecopetrol enter into a 2-year contract to treat and dispose water from the Quifa Block at Frontera's SAARA Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment Facility. This agreement is set to increase crude oil production capacity at the Quifa Block.

[Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of the Board at Frontera Energy]

By the end of 2024, Frontera aims to increase processing capacity at Sara to 250,000 barrels per day. Every 100,000 barrels of water treated at Sara is expected to translate in 1,000 barrels of production net to Frontera. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, Frontera broke ground on the construction of the bidirectional hydrocarbon flow line connection between Puerto Bahía Liquid Terminal and Refinería de Cartagena, Reficar. The company expects the connection will drive significant volumes and shall become operational by year-end 2024. Frontera also announced that it executed an agreement with Gasco, a leading Latin American energy provider, that will see the companies develop the lowest cost liquefied petroleum gas, also known as LPG, import facilities for Colombia at Puerto Bahía.

[Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of the Board at Frontera Energy]

As part of the agreement, Puerto Bahía and Gasco will establish a joint venture to develop, construct, and operate a 20,400-ton LPG refrigerated storage facility at Puerto Bahía's port terminal in Cartagena. The project is expected to cost between $50 million and $60 million, which will be shared between Puerto Bahía and Gasco. Puerto Bahía's contributions are expected to be largely in kind. The collaboration is a significant step forward in meeting Colombia's growing energy needs, and demonstrates Puerto Bahía and Gasco's commitment to investing in the country's energy infrastructure. These are concrete actions Frontera is taking to create value. Today, Frontera's board declared a quarterly dividend of CAD 0.0625 per share. Year to date, the company has declared CAD 11.7 million in dividends.

[Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of the Board at Frontera Energy]

In addition to our quarterly dividend, the company announced its intention to commence a substantial issuer bid of $30 million, pursuant to which the company will offer to purchase for cancellation a portion of its common shares at a fixed price per share. The terms of the SAB, including pricing, shall be communicated in due course, and the company expects that the SAB will be completed in October 2024. Under the company's current NCIB, the company has purchased $6.6 million year to date. The company has also bought back $3.5 million of its 2028 unsecured notes. In total, the company is poised to return, so far, $51 million of capital to our stockholders.

[Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of the Board at Frontera Energy]

Frontera shall also continue to take actions to unlock value for its stakeholders, and remains committed to these efforts for the remaining of 2024 and beyond, including potential additional dividends, share buybacks, distributions, or bond buybacks based on the company's results, cash flow generation, and the company's strategic goals. Including our ongoing pursuit of strategic alternatives for interest in the Corentyne block in Guyana and our growing Colombian infrastructure business. I'd like now to turn the call over to Orlando Cabrales, Frontera's CEO, and Rene Burgos, Frontera's CFO, who will share their views on our second quarter results. Orlando?

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Thank you, Gabriel. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's call. Frontera's demonstrated solid second quarter and half year 2024 results. Production increased approximately 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis to 39,912 barrels per day. Production for June and July was on average 40,600 barrels per day. During the quarter, our heavy crude oil production grew 6% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, reaching approximately 24,800 barrels per day. The increase in heavy production was mainly driven by increased water disposal capacity from a new injector well in the Quifa block, the startup of the SAARA plant during the month of May, which is currently processing approximately 50,000 barrels of water per day.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Increased water handling capacity in CPE-6, where we are handling approximately 300,000 barrels of water per day at the moment, and where we are on track to increase to 360,000 barrels per day by the end of the year, as well as additional activities in the Sabaneta block. Frontera's conventional natural gas and natural gas liquids increased 22% and 9% respectively, quarter-over-quarter, due to increased production at La Llosa field as a result of the compression facility expansion and gas reinjection project, which increased processing capacity from 2,000 to 30,000 MCF per day in the VIM-1 block.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

The company's light and medium crude oil production was flat compared to the prior quarter, as we benefit from an increase in our Ecuador production from the Perico Norte six and Perico Centro two wells coming online, offset by natural declines in our Colombian light and medium crude oil fields. We continue to invest in workover and well service activities to maintain production, primarily in the light and medium blocks. In the second quarter, we completed 32 well workovers and currently have four workover rigs active on our blocks. In total, we drilled 30 wells at our Quifa, CP six, and Perico blocks during the quarter. We currently have three drilling rigs active on our Quifa and CP six blocks. On the exploration side, at the Hydra-1 exploration well, all pre-drill activities have been completed with rig mobilization and spotting of the well expected in the third quarter.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

In the Llanos 119 block, the company acquired 80 square kilometers of 3D seismic during the second quarter. In the Llanos 99 block, we continue pre-seismic and social and environmental studies. In Ecuador, following recent successes in the Perico block, the first well of the Espejo campaign, called Espejo Sur B3, has been completed, showing initial gross production of 500 barrels per day. The second well, Espejo Norte R1 A1, was spudded at the end of July, and drilling operations are ongoing. Despite some inflationary pressure on costs across the industry, we remain on track to achieve our 2024 capital production and EBITDA guidance.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

In our infrastructure business during the quarter, ODL paid the first dividend and return of capital of $31.3 million in April, or approximately 50% of the $62.8 million total dividend and capital returns payments the company expects to receive this year. Operationally, ODL continues to maintain strong operating and financial performance, with transported volumes increasing about 1% quarter-over-quarter and EBITDA reaching $68 million for the quarter. Puerto Bahía continues to move forward with its strategic agenda, breaking ground on the construction of the Reficar connection and achieving an important milestone with the start of horizontal drilling, directional drilling in the Canal del Dique in July. During the quarter, we also started up our SAARA water treatment plant, with a goal of reaching 250,000 barrels of water treated per day by the end of the year.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

During the month of June, the plant realized its first gross revenues associated with the water treatment collaboration agreement with Ecopetrol for the Quifa block. I would now like to turn the call over to Rene Burgos, Frontera's CFO.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

Thank you, Orlando. I'd like to take a moment to highlight a few key financial aspects of our second quarter results. For the second quarter, the company recorded a net loss of $2.8 million, or $0.03 per share. This quarter's net loss follows approximately $59 million in income from operations, plus share of income from associates, which includes $13 million of share of income from ODL, offset primarily by roughly $16 million in net finance costs, $8 million in losses related to risk management contracts, and approximately $33 million in income tax expenses, including almost $31 million in deferred income taxes, primarily due to the impact of nondeductible expenses and differences related to foreign currency fluctuations. During the quarter, the company assumed an income tax rate of 50%, inclusive of the 15% surtax associated with the 2022 Colombian tax reform.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

Operating EBITDA for the quarter was approximately $110 million. Compared to the prior quarter, our EBITDA benefited from higher production volumes and sales volumes, as well as higher oil prices, partially offset by mixed results on our cost side. From a financial standpoint, I'd like to take a moment to share the key indicators related to our realized prices and costs. During the quarter, we saw weighted average Brent sales prices for Frontera of $84.06, and an average Vasconia differential on our export sales of $4.10. This quarter, we also added a reconciliation of our purchased crude activities. This addition, we believe, will aid in understanding our operations and the impact of these operations activities on our operating netback. Our purchased crude net margin represents the difference between a purchased crude volume cost and the associated sales.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

These purchased crudes are used as part of our ongoing dilution needs, as well as to be refined domestically for use within our internal operating consumption and domestic sales. For the second quarter, the purchased crude net margin was $2.13, lower than $2.39 for the prior quarter. The quarter-over-quarter variance was a result of lower dilution needs. Taking a closer look at our operating costs, our production, energy, and transportation cost per barrel for the quarter totaled $10.79, $4.74, and $10.92, respectively. This compared with $10.21, $5.29, and $11.33 in the prior quarter.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

The increase in production costs quarter-over-quarter resulted primarily from higher well service activity, as well as the impact of FX rates and persistent inflationary pressures. On the energy front, as the dry season concludes, electricity prices in Colombia appear to be normalizing, and are also trending lower so far this quarter, helping reduce energy costs, yet partially offset by higher energy use during the quarter. For the second quarter, electricity costs accounted for 31% of our energy consumption and 46% of our total energy costs. On transportation, we saw cost decrease during the quarter due to an increase in local sales volumes, as well as improved routing for some of our heavy crude oil production. During the quarter, our operating netback was $46.40 per BOE, compared with $43.97 per BOE in the prior quarter.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

The increase was a result of higher oil prices during the quarter, lower transportation costs and energy costs, partially offset by higher production costs. Cash generation for the quarter remains strong, with cash flow from operations totaling $150 million, thanks in part to the strong Brent oil price environment, the reduction on withholding tax rates on export sales, receipt of dividend and capital payments from ODL, and short-term prepayments received from customers associated with crude sales. Capital expenditures for the quarter were roughly $80 million, primarily due to costs associated with drilling 31 wells, up from 21 the prior quarter at Quifa, Cajua, CPE-6, and Perico Blocks, for a total of $38 million. On the infrastructure side, adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 2024 was $27.8 million, compared with $25.7 million in the prior quarter.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

The quarter-over-quarter increase was due to improved performance at Puerto Bahía, driven by higher liquid volumes and cost optimizations, and greater sales volumes and revenues from ProAgrollanos, our palm oil plantation operation during the quarter. ODL volumes transported were 249,000 barrels per day during the second quarter of 2024, compared to 246,000 in the first quarter, mainly due to an increase in crude oil volumes received and transported from Caño Sur and Llanos 34 blocks. ODL's EBITDA for the second quarter was approximately $68 million, down 3% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, with inflationary pressures driving higher operating costs in G&A, partially offset by slightly higher volumes as compared to the third quarter.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

As of June 30, 2024, the company reported a total cash position of $215 million, including $181 million of unrestricted cash, of which $142 million are in the issuer and bond guarantors. Following the other quarter, the company received approximately $90 million in tax refund proceeds associated to its 2023 income tax return. Turning now to risk management. Our current risk management strategy continues to show how our hedging discipline supports our operations and planning. Frontera uses instruments to manage exposure to oil price and FX volatility, and on the oil side, the company entered into hedges, successfully securing a 40% hedging ratio until November 2024, protecting against a potential drop in oil prices at average strike of $75-$78 per barrel.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

Frontera has also entered into foreign exchange rate hedges totaling $90 million, covering 40% and 20% of our expected peso exposure for the third and fourth quarter, above the 4,000 COP rate, respectively. These hedges provide the company with stability and help mitigate impacts from future fluctuations, while allowing the business to deliver on its target, on its targets. Finally, I'd like to provide an update on our shareholder value initiatives. Under the company's current NCIB, which commenced on November 21, 2023, the company has repurchased approximately 1.4 million common shares, or just over 2% of our total common shares outstanding for cancellation, for approximately $8.2 million as of August 7.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

With respect to our quarterly dividend, on July 16th, Frontera paid approximately CAD 2.9 million, or CAD 0.0625 per share, up to the shareholders. Together with today's results announcement, the board declared a quarterly dividend of CAD 0.0625 per share, payable to shareholders of record as of October 2nd, 2024, on or around October 16th, 2024. Additionally, Frontera also announced its intention to commence a substantial issuer bid, through which the company will offer to purchase CAD 30 million of its common shares for cancellation at a fixed price per share. The terms of the SIB, including pricing, will be determined in due course, and the company expects that it will be completed in October 2024.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

The SIB will not be conditional upon any minimum number of shares being tendered and will be subject to conditions customary for transactions of this nature. As our Chairman said, this proposed distribution highlights the strong financial results of the first half of 2024, and the company believes this format, the SIB, is the most efficient means to distribute capital to all of our shareholders and looks forward to the launching of this process soon. Together with the proposed SIB, the company is poised to return so far this year over $51 million of capital to our stakeholders, including $11.7 million in dividends, $6.7 million of common share repurchases, and $3.5 million in buybacks of its 2028 unsecured notes.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

Frontera continues to take actions to unlock value for all of its stakeholders, and remains committed to its efforts for the remainder of 2024 and beyond, including the ongoing strategic review processes, as well as potential additional distributions. I would like to now turn the call back to Armando.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Thank you. Thank you, René. Before I wrap up today's call, I would like to highlight that during the quarter, Frontera achieved 48% of its sustainability goals for the year. During the second quarter, Frontera expanded its protection and preservation coverage activities to 168 hectares. The company invested $500,000 in projects in communities near our operation in Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana, and purchased 10.7% of our total goods and services from local suppliers. And finally, the joint venture and the government of Guyana have engaged in regular, constructive, and collaborative conversations throughout the joint venture's tenure on the Corentyne block, including discussions regarding the notice of potential commercial interest for the wave one discovery, timing, and conditions under which further activities could be performed in the Corentyne block.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

The JV looks forward to completing these discussions in an expeditious manner and will provide an update as soon as practical. Along with our active pursuit of strategic alternatives for our interest in the Corentyne Block in Guyana, which is still ongoing, and our recently announced strategic alternatives review for our growing Colombian infrastructure business, the company remains focused on unlocking value from the sum of its parts. With that, I would like to conclude by saying thank you to Gabriel and Rene for their comments, and thank you everyone for attending our call. I will now turn the call back to our operator, who will open up for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. And if you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Daria Lima at Bloomberg Intelligence. Please go ahead.

[Analyst]

Hi. Hello. Congrats on the great quarter. I just have a couple of questions. Hello? Can you hear me?

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Yes, we can, we can hear you. We can hear you, yes.

[Analyst]

Okay. Great. Thank you. So my first question is on the cost base. I noticed that your energy costs went down; however, your production costs have expanded. Could you please shed some light on that?

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

As we said earlier, there's two things happening. On the energy side, we continue to see a normalization of energy prices, particularly electricity costs, now that the dry season is over. And we actually do expect electricity costs to continue to trend lower for the remainder of the year. Today, for example, electricity costs account for 31% of our consumption, and yet they are still around close to 50% of our total cost. So we expect to continue to see some benefits there going forward. On the operation side, we have had, and we communicated this last quarter, we've included additional workover activity in some of our blocks to optimize our production. This is going to be a potentially CapEx, and that has increased our cost.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

However, we have also seen the impact of FX and persistent inflation driving some of these costs higher. We expect those to normalize, you know, over the rest of the year, but we are still kind of in the middle of that impact.

[Analyst]

Thank you. That's very clear. Just the second question on the Reficar connection. What do you estimate its EBITDA contribution would be, and what would be the timeline for that?

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

We are very excited about the, the Reficar connection. We expect it to become operational in December of this year, and we believe this is something that would help the economy in the region and support the significant investment made by Ecopetrol in the Reficar refinery. What we have guided to is, we believe a significant amount of volumes are gonna go through the port, potentially even doubling the volumes of the port, if you think about it as measured by the capacity of the pipe, but we have not yet indicated or guided on an EBITDA number. However, we do believe that the, the potential value or EBITDA driver here is significant. It measures it on a volume basis.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Just to give you some color, as you could see in the press release, we are handling. In the second quarter, we handled around 64,000 barrels of liquids in the port. The connection line that we are building, as we speak, and we expect to become operational by the end of the year, has the capacity to handle 84,000. So that is why Rene is saying that this has, I mean, this project has the capacity to double in terms of volumes, the handling of liquids in the port.

[Analyst]

I see. Thank you. And you expect to use this new pipeline to maximum capacity?

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

I think with what we said earlier, our agreement with Ecopetrol for the connection is a take-and-pay, so that's what we're guiding based on volumes. And we would expect... Look, we want to maximize the value, and I think there is a lot to be said about the benefits to Ecopetrol and Reficar by doing it.

[Analyst]

... Good. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question comes from Christian Farah at KNG Securities. Please go ahead.

[Analyst]

Hello, everyone. Thanks for the presentation, and congratulations for the results. So I have three questions. If you don't mind, I'd like to go one by one. The first question is regarding the tax situation. If you could provide us some color on that. Specifically, why did you receive this $90 million dollar refund? And what are the taxes that we should expect for the full year? Thanks.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

Ah, no, excellent. So thank you very much for your question, Christian. So two, your two questions, the second question I'll tackle first. We are in line with our guidance, as it relates to the net cash taxes to pay for the year. So I'll point you to that. I think that we said we expect to pay for the year net taxes or receive a net benefit of between $10 million and $20 million, so that is in line with that. As it relates to a tax situation, you need to remember that we pay taxes in primarily two ways. One is a withholding that we make, and we make a withholding based on 5.6% every year, every month, and that's on our crude sales.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

And then at the end of the year, when we actually file our tax declaration, then we pay up the difference. And hopefully this will help me answer the second question, or your first question. So on your first question, Frontera has carried significant deferred tax assets for years, and what has happened is, with the government increasing the tax rate to 50%, some of these dollars have now been accelerated, and what that $90 million recovery is the repayment of last year's withholding tax payments in excess of our actual tax bill, as offset by our DTA. That's effectively what it is. And the process to get a tax refund is one that started in March, and we were successfully concluded that in July. Does that make sense?

[Analyst]

Okay. Yeah, that's great. Thanks. My second question is regarding this repurchase program, the new repurchase program that you announced. So will this be contingent to the infrastructure business sale? And, if so, or if not, do you plan to use all these $30 million by 2024?

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

So look, this is a great question. And I wanna do two things. One, I will point people back in time. In June of 2022, we announced a SIB, and at that time we repurchased roughly $50 million worth of shares. At that time, we also used a modified Dutch auction process to perform that SIB. This time around, this process is one that is gonna be launched. We hope to be launching it over the next few weeks, and we expect to end it in October. So to answer your question, no, it's not contingent on any today transaction. It is just a matter of time for us to get our documentation ready and be able to launch it for shareholders to participate.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

The second thing that I would say to that is, as we analyze the different alternatives for us to distribute capital to shareholders, a SIB at a fixed price is the most attractive way, and the most efficient way, considering the jurisdiction and location of the different shareholders that support this company. So we hope the full participation of all of our investors, 'cause this, we believe, is the best way, cleanest and most efficient way to distribute this capital back.

[Analyst]

Okay, that means that by October, you should be using these $30 million to buy back the shares?

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

Yep.

[Analyst]

Okay. Thanks. And the third question is regarding your PIL loan. So I was wondering that in case you sell the ODL pipeline, your stake, will you need to repay this loan, or are you interested in doing so? Thanks.

[René Burgos, CFO at Frontera Energy]

Look, I, firstly, I would like to really thank the team at Macquarie and our other lenders. They have been very supportive of us, also providing us capital to build the Reficar connection. So we're very, very thankful, and we built a very strong relationship with them, so we appreciate their support. As part of a potential transaction, and monetizing some of our assets, the most clear path would be for us to repay that loan. And I think there are some covenants associated with that. And also it is. Look, it is an extensive loan from what we believe is the value of the underlying assets. So, our running assumption is, in the event of a potential monetization, that that facility gets repaid.

[Analyst]

Okay. That's great. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have any questions, please press star one. Our next question comes from Juan Cruz at Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Analyst]

Good morning, team Frontera, and congrats on the, on the nice results. Perhaps you can, you can help us, understand a little bit more what's happening with the, with the Guyana operation. There was, some confusion in the marketplace last week because, there was a statement made by the government about, some licenses, that CGX, and Frontera own in some of the blocks, that, there was a noise, some, some noise about whether or not they will be extended. And that caused some, some, sort of confusion in the marketplace. Maybe you can help us explain what, what that means for you and what that means, if it's in fact valid or, or if not at all.

[Analyst]

You know, what that means for the different blocks, either the Corentyne or if this affects in any way, shape, or form your efforts to farm down or to find partners for your operation in Guyana. That's all.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Thank you. Thank you, Juan. Thank you, Juan, for the question. As I mentioned earlier, the JV and the government of Guyana, we are continuing, I mean, we are continuing these on a regular, very constructive and collaborative conversations throughout the JV's tenure on the Corentyne block. Including discussions regarding conditions under which further activities could be performed by the JV in the block. So, I mean, we will continue with those conversations. We will continue with our efforts with Frontera and CGX to unlock value in the block. And we will certainly provide an update to the market as soon as practical.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

So that's the only thing that I can say at this point in time.

[Analyst]

Okay. So as far as we're concerned, the process continues normally?

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

That is correct, yes.

[Analyst]

Okay. All right, so no changes to your licenses, no potential, you know, return of any blocks for the time being?

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

No, no, no changes, and as I said, we will provide the update as soon as possible.

[Analyst]

Okay, fair enough. Thank you.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Thank you, Juan.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question from Daria Lima at Bloomberg Intelligence. Please go ahead.

[Analyst]

Hi, thank you. My question was just asked by Juan, so all good to hear. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question from Christine Guerrero at Octane Investments. Pardon me, this does conclude our Q&A session. I will turn the call back over for closing comments.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

I think you said that Christine was going to ask something?

[Operator]

Christine has no longer in queue. I apologize.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Sorry?

[Operator]

One moment, please.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

I think you, you mentioned that Christine was going to ask something, but-

[Analyst]

Here.

[Operator]

Yes, Christine, please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Analyst]

Yes, thank you. Thank you for taking my question. I was wondering why I was bumped out of the queue, but I'm, I've still been here. So kind of cycling back to the statements being made from the Vice President of Guyana in his weekly press conferences. He's recently stated that, you know, right now the Corentyne license appears to be in limbo because the extension hasn't been granted, as CGX did not supply the government sufficient information of their financial capabilities. But really, if you look at the state of CGX and Frontera, I mean, nothing has really changed with these two companies since they acquired the licenses.

[Analyst]

What I'm wondering is if for some reason the extension does not get granted, is there gonna be any legal recourse in order to recover the sunk cost from the government of Guyana, since they appear to be acting in bad faith?

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Christine, thank you. Thank you for your question. To be honest, I don't have anything else to add to what I previously said, responding to Juan's question. The conversations are regular. We believe are very constructive, and we will continue to have those conversations. So to be honest, nothing else to add.

[Analyst]

Okay. Yeah, I just, like I said, I was wondering about the legal point of it, but I think getting that made public is probably good enough. Because, like I said, this, it appears to be a bad faith issue on the part of the government if the JV has been fulfilling its requirements, and yet the license extension isn't forthcoming. Because that, you know, traditionally speaking, within the industry, that would have been a rubber stamp situation.

[Orlando Cabrales, CEO at Frontera Energy]

Thank you, Christine. Thank you for your, your question.

[Operator]

Thank you. We don't have any further questions. You may proceed with closing comments.

Participants

Executives

• Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of the Board
• Orlando Cabrales, CEO
• René Burgos, CFO

Analysts

• Analyst
• Analyst
• Analyst
• Analyst