Hello, welcome to this call, investor call for Maurel & Prom. Well, we've organized this day because we've received news about Venezuela. I'm Lefrancq, I'm in charge of investor relations. I'll hand over to Olivier de Langavant, the CEO of the group, who's going to talk you through this presentation, and then after this, we'll have a Q&A. You'll be able to ask your questions. Thank you, Olivier. The floor is yours. Good morning. Thank you for being with us. We're happy to have this call, because as you will see, we'll be talking about the release that we published recently after signing on Tuesday these agreements in Venezuela. They're very important agreements, you see, and I think it's a great opportunity to talk about the ins and outs, and then answer your questions, if any. And then we'll have a look at the performance of our group, as you have seen when we reported on the Q3 results, as you've seen. As I said, what we did is very much in keeping with our guidance. And then we'll be also talking about the other growth projects that we have. Now, in any case, what we can say about all this is that, for the time being or at present, we have very transformative events that have happened, and our group will be totally different in the years to come, in the near future, but in a positive way, as you've probably gathered. To start with, we'll talk about these agreements, the Venezuelan agreements, thanks to which we can do a number of things. Well, first, I can tell you that we didn't hatch that from the word go, when on the eighteenth of October, the sanctions were lifted to some extent by the Americans. So we had been working on that for a number of months. And with these agreements, we'll be able to redevelop our assets in Urdaneta Oeste, and we'll be able to reinvest so as to protect our assets, to guarantee security as well, which is what we did during the sanctions. And therefore, we preserved our infrastructure and assets, but we'll be able to do this and also increase production. That's very important. Thanks to these agreements as well, what we'll be able to do, which is essential, is that we'll be able to be involved even more, and we'll be able to control, de facto control, all of the operations, that is procurement, contracts, and that's something critical to us, and also sales, marketing for gross oil. And then there's finance. We'll have people appointed to each very important position, including the managing director for the mixed company. In addition to these, these agreements recognize the debt that's owed by PDVSA to M&P Iberoamerica. M&P Iberoamerica has 40% in the mixed company, and in this company, M&P Iberoamerica, we have an 80% stake. Therefore, the debt for PDVSA and M&P Iberoamerica was recognized to the tune of $914 million, which is a considerable amount of money. With these agreements, we'll be able also to define how the debt will be recovered over time. Well, as part of the revenues for the mixed company, but part of the revenues that will be earmarked so as to reimburse the debt. The repayment of the debt will be done in cash through sales, but also another possible alternative is that part of the debt might be also recovered through the extension of the exploration area. That is, Urdaneta Oeste, as you know, will continue its activities till 2041, with more than 400 million barrels, 422 million barrels, that have been approved for this development as of the end of 2022. So we'll be able to consider an extension beyond the 422 million barrels and cover another area, which will be more or less as important as Urdaneta Oeste. We can also recover the debt in an accelerated manner with a discount, that we might use this vehicle as well, but partially only. Then to say something about production potential, it's more or less 16,000-17,000 barrels of oil per day, 100%, and the objective is to increase production to reach 25,000 barrels per day as early as end of 2024. And then after this, we'll continue our ramp-up, production ramp-up, to reach 50,000 or 60,000 barrels per day. Let's say a few words about the backdrop. On the eighteenth of October, OFAC delivered a general license called GL 44, and thanks to this license, transactions are authorized in the oil and gas sector in Venezuela in a comprehensive manner. This follows a global political agreement that was signed the day before, that had been prepared for a while, between the government and the opposition, with a view to arranging the elections the following year. This license applies to anybody, companies or individuals, Americans or not, and with that, all transactions are possible for PDVSA or any other entity belonging to the Venezuelan government in the fields of oil and gas. That means all activities related to production lifting, sales or exports, as well as the payment of taxes, royalties, costs, fees, dividends and profits. The financial activities and banking activities connected to this sector, the payment of invoices and goods and services, the new investments in oil and gas industries, and the delivery of oil and gas to the creditors of the government, or PDVSA as a debt repayment. And there are other creditors as well who can do the same. Then, if we look at operations, well, these authorizations will come into force immediately, and they're valid for a period of six months, and therefore run until the eighteenth of April, 2024. The renewal that we've foreseen beyond this date, eighteenth of April, 2024, will be based on the correct unraveling of the democratic elections. And we have received a number of views on that, and this renewal might be likely or not likely, certain or uncertain. We can talk about this later on, if you want to. Now then, I'd like to talk about the mixed company. And so Urdaneta Oeste and PRDL, this is a huge field, 13 billion barrels. That's for STOOIP. And what we have in terms of oil in place has oils that are quite complicated, and therefore, the recovery rate is not very high. We'll never reach 30%, nor will we reach 40% out of 13 billion. The recovery rate today, at the end of 2022, is 2.5%, therefore quite low. More than 300 million barrels have been produced already, and as we speak, and until the end of the license, we were authorized to having 422 million barrels. Those are the additional reserves that we can recover in addition to the 332 that we already produce. The infrastructure, very good. They were built by Shell at the time. Capacity, 70,000 barrels per day. As I said, the potential is 16,000 barrels a day, and this will be restored in the years to come, and this is what we'll particularly focus on. A few words about the ownership structure. As you can see, bottom left, it's as usual, 60/40. That's usually what we have for mixed companies in Venezuela. 60% for PDVSA and 40% for what we call the B partner, that is the foreign partner. In this case, that's M&P Iberoamerica. They have a 40% stake, and these 40% are held 80%, so 32 for ourselves and 20% of these 40% for our partner, the Venezuelan partner. Well, on the right-hand side, as you can see, we have figures for gross production in the recent years and the dividends paid out that were recognized for M&P Iberoamerica during these years. Between 20 million barrels in 2020, when the prices were really low and production was low as well, up to amounts that reached 60 or 70 million barrels. Not barrels, but dollars, $70 million, with production reaching 15 thousand barrels a day, and that's good. Production is going up as planned. Now, the repayment of the debt. This is a considerable debt that has to be repaid. 914 million up to due to M&P Iberoamerica, 80% ourselves, and recovery will be done progressively with the allocation of a set of portion of revenue of the mixed company, part of the proceeds of the sales that is. This repayment will be our priority, will prevail over any other action. For instance, M&P Iberoamerica and PDVSA, and PDVSA will have no dividends until we've not fully repaid the debt, and therefore will be given priority to recover the money. Recovery will be done either fully in cash and also, and that's what we've envisaged and planned, it can be done partly to acquire, to acquire the Urdaneta Norte field for one third of the debt, for a field which is more or less as big as the first one, 400 million barrels that have been approved already, which would increase twofold our foothold over there. So that's another possibility to reimburse, to reimburse part of the debt. Well, this has to be approved, of course, as usual in Venezuela, which is usually the case for these types of acquisitions. And also, there's another possible acceleration if we buy and sell cargoes beyond the production amounts for Urdaneta. If this is done, then there'll be a penalty on the debt. So we might use this instrument, but only partly. On the following slide, what you have on the right-hand side is what the ramp-up could look like. That's for production, going from 16,000 today. Well, 16,500 average production in 2023 is at 14,000 expected. Average production for 2024 will be 25,000 barrels a day, and this will be obtained thanks to a number of operations or the quick-winning transactions, as I call them, on the existing wells. So we'll work on the wells, we'll work on the other surface structures as well, and a number of things have to be revamped. And quickly, we could go up to 25,000 barrels per day in 2024, and then after this, the ramp-up would be something like 10,000 barrels a day in addition, and this every single year. So a ramp-up, which is relatively quick. Then in the framework agreement, the priority will be to invest and protect our assets, to increase production, and we'll have the government on key people on key positions. As I said before, and there'll be posted workers there, and as usual, which is the case for each contract, we will manage things as best as we can. Then there's going to be a waterfall mechanism, thanks to which we can earmark specific percentages of the revenues to the payment of taxes and royalties. Then there will be costs, that is OpEx and capital expenditure, and then it's going to be used for debt repayment. And the minimum earmarked percentage will be earmarked to reimburse the debt. The potential, as I said before, is production potential will go up to the optimal level for these facilities. Then, as far as cash flow is concerned, there's part of it that's going to be earmarked for OpEx and CapEx, and that will be sufficient so that we can ensure there's a good production ramp-up. We don't need to inject even more cash into the whole system. Well, there we are. This, as you can see, was a quick overview. These are the most salient points in this agreement that we've signed. And finally, a final slide here for you, so that we can talk again about our numbers for Q3. I think that the most important message here is that we're fully in line with the guidance that we issued earlier on. We're overshooting, if you look at production numbers, and we're fully in line if you look at cash generation and also debt redemption. So we're going to continue and deleverage. We're going to give money back to the shareholders. In July, we paid out a dividend of EUR 0.23 per share. Therefore, a sharp increase versus the previous dividend, which means we paid out $50 million, more or less, in July. That's a good second step, now that we're paying out dividends again, which started last year. Apart from that, something very important, if you look at our foundations, is the ongoing acquisitions in Gabon. During the Q&A, we can talk about Gabon, if you want to. In Gabon, at present, well, there are discussions with the authorities so as to receive the authorizations from the Gabon authorities. We hope we're going to receive these authorizations soon. And then there's the approval from the antitrust authorities for CEMAC that we're going to get, later on. We'll probably get them in January. Let's hope so, and therefore, we'll be able to have our closing, as planned. Then the second example of acquisition is Tanzania. Our transaction has not yet been approved. A number of questions have been asked by TPDC, the national company, and they would like to have pre-emption rights, on this acquisition. So we're currently discussing with them. We hope we can arrive at some type of agreement. The end date is coming quickly, as you can see on the slide, so we'll keep you posted on that as well. I think this is it. I've talked you through the main messages, I think. I think the most important thing now will be probably to answer your questions, if you have any questions. Do you have any questions, Matthieu? Yes, we have received some questions. Thank you, Olivier. Now we'll continue with the Q&A. I'll start with questions from Jean-Luc Romain, an analyst at CIC Market Solutions. Number one, production ramp up that you mentioned. Your release says a quick production ramp up with at 25,000 barrels a day and more after this. What's your target? 50,000, which is what Shell produced, or nominal capacity that you have on the fields, that is 70,000. Could you perhaps give us some color on that, your objectives and what you think in terms of the attainment of these objectives and your ambitions? I gave you numbers before. That's some answer. Next year, the average will be 25 grand, and then we'll have a ramp up that will be continual and quite sustained as well, to reach a level that will be more or less 70,000 barrels per day. That is a bit more than Shell, not exactly the same capacities, but this will be clarified soon. We've been working on that for something like 4 years, even though at present we can't act, but we have lots of studies on that field. 400 million barrels, 13 billion barrels, that's for STOOIP, and there's no limit. This is not a limiting factor to produce 70,000 barrels per day, so we are quite confident. The whole point is to be able to deploy our resources quickly, and we'll have to restart drilling, we'll have to work on the wells, and today we have more than 80 wells. Only 25 are up and running, and therefore, they have to be restarted, completely restarted, the other ones. The ones that have been stopped will have to be restarted, possibly, and then we'll probably have to drill new wells, but we trust that we can meet the 70,000 objective, and this in 3 or 4 years max. So a quick ramp up. And this, by the way, doesn't include the extension that we talked about, that is Urdaneta Norte, and that we could acquire with part of the debt, which represents the same amount. So with the northern field, we could increase the numbers twofold, which means something quite nice, quite considerable. As you've seen with the SPA that we've signed for Assala, we're going to enter a new world, change our mentions, and with these Venezuelan agreements, it's even better on the basis of the very first positive news. Thank you, Olivier. A second question from Jean-Luc Romain. On the waterfall mechanism, the revenues that will be earmarked for the repayment of the debt. Could you tell us how much time will be necessary to recover the biggest part of the EUR 914 million that you mentioned before? Well, the waterfall mechanism, in a general way, when it works well, is that there's part of this that's for tax reimbursement, part for investment and part for the redemption of the debt. I can't give you the exact percentages as we speak, because PDVSA is currently talking perhaps about other agreements with other companies, and therefore, they didn't want us to talk about those. But in any case, what I can tell you, which perhaps is what you were aiming at, is to rather than having the exact numbers for these three elements, is, in the waterfall mechanism, is perhaps how quickly we can repay the debt. Well, to be reasonable, I'd say that the full debt will be repaid or recovered in five to six years. Therefore... Well, and also perhaps faster, one or two years more quickly, if we can acquire the northern field, Urdaneta Norte. And this, as I said, would increase all the numbers twofold. And by that, I think with this, you have a good idea of what we can do. The debt is high. Recovering it in 5-6 years would be very good. Well, you know, how this impacts our cash position and the possibility of, having a better payout of dividends, and the possibility also to grow, which would be a good thing. Thank you very much. Two other questions. What's going to happen after the eighteenth of April? Do you have plans for the following day? And also, what about the elections, not in Venezuela, but in America, at the end of 2024? What do you think you're going to do then? Well, let's start with the license. The license has been given for six months. That's to keep pressure on the authorities in the country, in Venezuela. Of course, everybody has ideas about the elections and how they're going to be organized, and everybody has ideas and views about the fact that the lifting of the sanctions could continue and be extended to another period of time. That's the whole idea of GL 44. It's probably going to be extended and will cover more than 6 months. The people with whom I talked recently, in the recent weeks and days are saying that we'll get an extension after the 18th of April. There's no certainty, though. I think it would be very complicated after lifting the sanctions to send other sanctions again, to impose more sanctions. It would be very difficult afterwards to lift them again. So that's why many people think that there's going to be an extension, a time extension after the 18th of April. Well, that's our base scenario, and that's probably connected also to the American elections. I think that it's useful for the Biden administration to say that they're doing their utmost to get their supplies on the American market, but also the global market, thanks to crude oil from Venezuela, so that the price of gasoline doesn't go up at the petrol station. Everybody has views on that. We're quite optimistic. That's our base scenario, you see, but what's for sure is that what we're going to do in the six months to come is a series of things. Well, we'll focus on the cash generated by our operations to start with, and the payout or the return will be quick. We're not very much concerned, I'd say. What's more, we are having discussions with the Department of State and OFAC to negotiate a specific license, thanks to which we would have more visibility that would go beyond GL 44. Thank you, Olivier. Finally, the final question, still from Jean-Luc Romain. Some papers we saw in the press mention discussions that you're having in Venezuela. You might be involved in a flaring project to reduce flaring in the country. That's what the Venezuelan mentioned when they talked about the Maurel & Prom, the communications or releases. Would you like to talk about this? Reducing flaring. It's not in your release. Of course, certainly, and now, for more than a year, we've been working on this idea that was quite appealing in many respects. And the objective... By the way, and that's what we're discussing with the Venezuelan authorities, the objective would be to altogether get rid of massive flaring, which is what is happening in the eastern part of Venezuela. There are many oil fields, and the gas is flared massively. And the whole point in this project, for which we started discussing with our partners, is to recover the associated gas, to recover as well the other liquids that are flared with the gas. There are many condensates that go up in the air with the gas, so we'd like to recover all of that. After recovering the liquids, we would export gas to Trinidad, where they have LNG terminals or liquefaction terminals. The EU has looked into the project, and they said that this project is interesting, and they even suggested they could fund it when there was the July meeting in Brussels between CELAC and the authorities in Brussels. We were the ones who initiated the whole project. There are two other companies that have joined us, Eni and Repsol. The oil minister, with whom we've signed these agreements on Tuesday, well, recalled that he was supporting the project. He said, "Maybe that's the next agreement we're going to sign with them." There are three companies, three European companies on the project. It's important for the country to have three European groups, and it's important for Europe as well to have three French, Italian, and Spanish companies that would join. And we're working on that, and it'll take time. It'll take time, but it's a very important project. It's going to be very important for us. It'll be another pillar in Venezuela, in addition to Urdaneta West and probably the northern one. It'll be a third pillar, and it'll also be very important because the objective will be to reduce greenhouse gases as well, which is something essential as well. So that means that the project is very interesting, and we are working on that with quite a lot of interest. We have a project leader that was appointed in Paris. He's in charge of keeping an eye on this. It's been the case for a couple of months, and we hope that we can make progress on this. Thank you very much, Olivier. Thank you very much, Olivier. A question from Anish Kapadia. It's about the cash flow generation, how this money will be used. Would that be used for dividends or for further acquisitions? Well, that's a tricky one. Well, first of all, let me tell you that, well, this kind of money is always welcome, and it will probably help us accelerate the repayment of the debt that we will take out with the acquisition of Assala. ...As we've said, we've not acquired Assala yet. We need to close the deal first. We do hope that it will happen soon, but, but, it's a, it's a deal that will be easily repaid for, in, in a comfortable fashion somehow. So we, we don't actually need the Venezuelan agreement to repay this, this project, but it will accelerate repayment, and it will afford us some leeway. And I think that at the same time, it will allow us to raise dividends. So I think that part of these revenues will help us raise dividends. It, it does make sense, doesn't it? But then, it will be for the board of directors to issue a recommendation to the general meeting, who will vote on this. But let's wait and see. Let's wait and see what happens between now and May 2024. And of course, there will be other operations, other deals to generate growth. But certainly in the coming year, we'll have to take the time to absorb this first transformative acquisition, Assala. It's quite essential. We're going to increase our output by a 2.5 factor. And we've just signed this deal in Venezuela, and that means that in the coming weeks and months, there's going to be a major operational rollout. So we need to absorb all this. But clearly, this is going to create some leeway, some room for maneuver for us, so we can go further and seek new growth drivers. But, for the time being, in the next 6-12 months, I want to focus on the present, because we'll have to deliver operationally, and we are getting ready for this. We are very, very concentrated. We have a number of working parties in-house. We have lots of members of staff and external resources, and also a number of Assala staff who are on board. But, yes, this is requiring a lot of energy. A question from Baptiste Lebacq about the restoration and the reestablishment of production in Venezuela. Aren't you afraid that there might be a lack of capacity of oil services companies, considering that some of them have left the country, and those that have stayed have seen their local footprint be reduced considerably? Yes, there might be some difficulties here. There might be some kind of an overheating. Chevron has already resumed operations there, and other companies are going to make a comeback locally. They will retain services companies that will be in high demand, I think. But we are quite optimistic, for example, about drilling. We've already identified the companies that can work with us. But you know, for the record, Urdaneta platforms require some specific services because they are quite high. The rigs are located quite high above sea level. We have contractors that already work for us, but I think that we'll work more with them. But we are going to make the necessary arrangements for this, but I don't think it will be a stumbling block. Thank you very much. A question following Baptiste Lebacq's question about the potential acquisition of Urdaneta Norte. What's left would you have to do to complete the deal? Is it for you to take steps or for the government to take steps to complete this? No, I don't think so. I've had discussions last week, and I think that PDVSA is really willing to complete this fairly soon. Of course, there's a number of formalities that we have to complete. We'll probably have to do some work to resume operations, unlike Urdaneta Oeste, where in the last years we've supported PDVSA. Because of the sanctions, so we could only provide support and to ensure safety, the integrity of assets, and also for critical maintenance. So we've maintained things in a good condition. I mean, not everything was perfect, but now we can do more important things, like, for example, replacing generators or turbines. For Urdaneta Norte, there will probably be more work required because assets have not been preserved in the same way. But we do expect authorities to move quite fast on this. Now, if things were to move more slowly, there's nothing to be... I think whether this happens in three, six months or 12 months from now, there is going to be a major ramp up of output, so. A shareholder is asking for clarification about the amount of the debt owed to M&P Iberoamerica. You've mentioned $914 million. So is that 100% of the debt or is it actually 80% of the debt? And one last question about the allocation of this debt. Which share could be used for growth in Venezuela, particularly for Urdaneta Norte? Do you already have an idea? Well, as for your first question, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you, and it's 100% of the $914 million, and so we only have 80%, but that's still more than $700 million in net, which remains considerable. Don't forget that our market cap was in the region of $500 million, 1 or 2 years ago, so we're talking about huge sums of money here. So $914 million is 100%. So, only, I would say, only in quotes, unquotes of only 80% of the debt is owed to us. Now, for Urdaneta Norte, that would be about one third of the debt. So that means one third of the debt that would be repaid later. For a 400 million barrel field, it's actually very interesting. Another question of Alexandra Kramer about the timeline for the sales for the sale of oil. Right, answer, the first sales should happen as soon as the next month or January. Things will be starting quite soon. There should probably an exceptional cargo to accelerate the repayment of debt. Then, well, there will be a cargo every two months, more or less, and then things will accelerate by the end of the year. In 2024, it will be about one cargo per month. Things are really coming into place very, very quickly indeed. Thank you. Another question by Anish Kapadia. Do you see any opportunities in Venezuela for with the redevelopment for Caroil for the redevelopment of assets? Answer: Well, I think the easiest for us would be to work with existing rigs. It's quite difficult to work in Venezuela. I'm afraid I don't see the upside for Caroil to set up a branch or a subsidiary there to provide us with services that we can get from Venezuelan companies that are already well organized, that already have the facilities, the machines that can provide us with services. So I think that Caroil will stick to its African scope of operations more specifically in Gabon. I think that the priority is to create value in Venezuela. The priority is the production of crude, which is much bigger than what we could do with services and the drilling operations. I think it's better to buy these services from providers who can offer it at the best price locally. I think we need to focus on what can generate a lot of value, something that a services company cannot really do. So my answer would rather be no. A question from a shareholder about the start of operations that are going to be resumed and about the status of Maurel & Prom staff, who could be seconded to the mixed company. Do you have any further details about the deal? And how will this allow Maurel & Prom to be much more involved in this entity? Well, we already have a number of secondees today within PRDL. We've had an entity, locally, since 2019 with the Venezuelan members of staff. And I think it's important to remind our listeners that there are very, very good skills, very, very skilled people with acute skills in Venezuela. So it's very easy to get by highly qualified staff in Venezuela, and we do have very, very able people in our entity there. Some people have already been seconded there. We will second other members of staff and also expats from, say, Maurel & Prom, France, or Maurel & Prom, Switzerland. So we will second these members of staff through a number of intermediaries. But also there is some PDVSA staff within PRDL, people who are very able and who are very much attached to this asset. So there will still be. I mean, there are still already 300 people who work there. So besides these employees, we are going to send managerial staff. So either more in from Venezuelan members of staff or others, or other employees. Well, thank you, Olivier. Are there any other questions? Right, maybe I can ask you one question. There are, there have been several questions about the progress of the Assala deal in Gabon. Also, there's been a number of stories in the press that refer to Gabon's government to potentially sell this asset. Would you share your thoughts on this? Well, it's good that you asked the question because, it's fair to say, which it's true to say that there's been a number of stories in the press that have reported, you know, the fact that the GOC, the national company or the government, would like to exercise their preemption rights. So the government, the state, does have a preemption right, but it is time-barred somehow. Now, the GOC, the national oil company, does also have a preemption right, so that will remain in force for a few weeks. It's fair to say that everything that's been said in the press is not false. The GOC is indeed considering exercising its preemption rights. There, there's a number of people within the Gabon, the Gabonese state or government who are looking at this option. Now, it doesn't mean that the GOC will do it, as you know, there's a number of stumbling blocks and question marks. So that's a legitimate question, a question which is currently being raised within the Gabonese state. But I don't think they will exercise their pre-emption right, and I'm quite confident indeed that the deal will be completed. Now, what I can tell you is that we already proposed to the authorities some time ago that, as part of our acquisition of Assala, well, there we could offer the state a partial stake. Today there are two companies, Assala Gabon and another company, and the state today owns 25% stake. So we've made proposal to raise the stake further. It's part of the terms that we've offered the state. We believe it's quite an attractive deal. The GOC could also raise its stake here in a number of fields where it has no presence today, like Atora and Toucan. So this could be part of the package that we want to offer the Gabonese state with this acquisition of Assala. We believe that this could make the deal quite interesting for them and also for us. I think it could allow us or help us secure the approval. Well, thank you, Olivier. We don't have any further questions, so I think, we can leave it there and end this conference call. Thank you very much, for your attention today. Thank you. Thank you to everybody.