Hej och välkomna till Investor Update idag med Maha Energy. Investor Update produceras av Investor Studios och är i samarbete mellan Investor Studios, Investor Target, IR & Capital, Stockpicker och det bolag som presenterar, och idag som sagt var Maha Energy. Ni som tittar live kan som vanligt ställa frågor till bolagsledningen, det gör ni i chatsidan, och vi kommer att hantera frågorna givet att det finns tid, och det gör vi efter presentationen. Känner du att du inte fick svar på din fråga så är du välkommen att ställa den eller mejla den till Mahas bolagsledning, och det du hittar adressen då på hemsidan. I den här sändningen kommer VD Kjetil Solbraekke och Roberto Marchiori, Finanschef, via länk från Rio och São Paulo presentera resultatet av aktuella händelser under det gångna kvartalet. Presentationen kommer att fortsätta på engelska. Kjetil, Roberto, nice to see you again. How are things in sunny Brazil? I can say that at least. Nice to see you again, Carlo, thank you. Right, well, it's another eventful quarter, so please take it away. Okay, thanks a lot for that, Carlo, and let me start with saying the obvious. This has been a difficult quarter. I know there are a lot of shareholders out there that are frustrated and have been unhappy with the development. And of course, we also don't like when the share price drops as it has done. That goes without saying. I think we'll go through the presentation quite quickly so that we have a bit more time for Q&A, but maybe I want to already now say the main statement. I have changed no opinion on our future. I have the same opinion about the merger between Enauta and 3R. I really believe this is going to be a fantastic transaction for 3R. What we have seen is a set of delays, and we're going to go through this in more details as I go through the presentation. I'm very prepared to answer your questions, which I'm sure also related to this later on. But have faith in this. I really believe this can turn out to be very good also for Maha going forward. So with this, let's go through the presentation. So on this page, not much to really add here. I think the most important thing that happened this quarter was the fact that we finally had the change of control approval from PDVSA, from the Venezuelan government. I also met with the Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, in Venezuela. She was ensuring me that they would focus on getting all the approvals in place and that we'll get the Chevron model to work with in Venezuela going forward. So that's happened, and I think that was the most important thing in Caracas in this quarter. So let's move on. Brava is essential this quarter. Let's go through exactly this page here where a bit of the background for what did we believe in. And that is still here. I think there is a company with an enormous resource base, 700 million barrels of 2P reserves. There is a potential here to produce up to and more than 100,000 barrels per day. All of this is fully invested already. I know there's been concerns out there with the CAPEX level and so on. That would be related to new projects to further increase. And what we come back to later on in our communication also is that this is not necessary in order to reach 100,000 barrels per day. And we believe the company should now focus on maintaining this production level and make sure that we generate a lot of cash. So this is there. It's a cash-generating portfolio unless we decide to grow even more quickly. And that has been our message to the company that we should be careful with that going forward. I would also mention the more than $1 billion in synergies that we are taking out. So this company has a good balance of onshore and offshore. It has a very good balance sheet. And I'm really very firm in my belief that we can easily get to the 100,000 barrels per day production and maintain that for a long period. And it's going to generate significant cash flow going forward. So this, I think, is the name of the game. And then if you go to the next page, more explaining a bit what has happened, what did we pass through. It has been a challenging quarter in the sense of delays for the Papa-Terra to come back into production after having the planned maintenance stop as they did. This was also caused partly by the regulator having almost too much to do, I would say, also having internal work conflicts with strikes and so on. There were also some things on the FPSO that was not meeting the standards. I would say, however, that the company did have an authorization from the Navy to have the number of aboard people that they had. Still, ANP, as the regulator, kind of overruled the permission given by the Navy. This was, of course, unfortunate and unforeseen and caused further delay for the startup of the Papa-Terra. But now we do expect, and I have been through this in as much detail as I can be, being the representative of the industrial largest owner in Brava. And I don't see any reason why this thing should not come back into production according to what the company is saying in December this year. Then I would also say that Atlanta, of course, maybe even more important was, of course, the delay in Atlanta. Atlanta has a production capacity of between 30 and maybe up to 50,000 barrels when it comes back on stream. And they have the new FPSO. It's all linked up. All the wells are now connected. The only thing they basically need is, again, the final go-ahead from the regulator. And this has, again, taken more time than what was foreseen. It's unfortunate. It's a delay, but it doesn't change anything of the fundamentals of the quality of the assets. So again, the regulator is now going to inspect this within a couple of weeks. The company and myself do expect that the production will then be coming on stream as normal, and we'll see a huge jump in the production. There could be all sorts of minor issues also when you start up the production, but this is basically, I think, that we will see a very quick boost in the production from Atlanta once it comes on stream. I think also the fact that during this delay, there was the closing of the transaction with Westlawn. I happened to have breakfast with the CEO in Westlawn the same day as they had closing. I asked him, "Are you concerned? Because my shareholders are concerned." And he said, "No, I'm really not concerned. We have done a very good due diligence. We know this FPSO very well. We know it's going to come into production. And the guy put up a value equal to $1.5 billion for this asset at the same day, knowing the delays, knowing everything, had huge confidence in this." So he's like me. I have every confidence that this FPSO will come on stream and will produce very well for the company going forward. So the last page, the next page on Brava, please. So here is more what our view is. And as I said, we are a well-respected shareholder, the largest industrial owner in Brava. And we have a somewhat clear view about what should happen here. I think perhaps part of the issue of the last quarter has also been, I would say, some perhaps I would phrase it as inexperienced or at least not super clear communication from the company about what's going to happen forward. This company has a lot of possibilities going forward. I think our message to the company now is less focus on growth, much more focus on harvest. There is a fantastic cash flow to be generated. Make sure that the shareholder benefits from it. I think also be willing to and actually actively look into management of the portfolio. I think there are assets here that are not necessarily best taken care of in the context of Brava, not because they don't have the people to do it, but it's just another sort of business. I won't take the decision on their behalf on really what can be laid off or what can be partly outsourced to other companies. But I think the possibilities are there. I think that that is something very natural to do after a huge period of very successful growth. Now it's focused to really make sure that we continue with the right assets. This has been my message to Brava, and I think they are picking up on it. I think that goes hand in hand with the OPEX optimization. I think it is important that the company is really focused on maintaining the production and trying to push the further growth. I think it's okay to wait for growth. We don't need, as a shareholder, to see 150,000 barrels here as soon as possible. What we need is dividend. So basically repaying debt, repaying the shareholders, paying dividend has been a super important message from us to the company. And what I do think has happened over this very challenging quarter is that I think there has been a significant alignment between the shareholders towards the board and towards the management on this issue. So now I think coming out of this challenging quarter with an alignment from shareholder to board and management that this is the right path going forward. So I remain very optimistic on what's going to happen with Brava. Actually, I think it's realistic because they will get this production. I have no doubts about it. And I think the alignment will also generate kind of a belief in the market that a significant amount of this cash that will be generated will actually be paid back to the investors. So let's go to the rest. Yeah, sorry, I almost forgot about this. This is maybe the most important thing. What do we actually believe in the cash flow generation here? So what we see over the next six years is that this company has a capacity to pay up to three times the current market cap. $1.45 billion can be paid in dividend over this period. And I think our numbers are fairly modest. Looking at the production curve there, that our estimate is, and I underline this is our estimate, and compared to what the company has communicated as the 1P reserves. So this is not us trying to boost the numbers by being unrealistically high on the production curve or anything like this. This is super, super realistic numbers. And I think this will generate an incredible cash flow and generate a fantastic dividend capacity. With the new alignment, I'm very sure that also the Maha shareholders will benefit from this once we get there. So let's move on to the next. I think this is the main part of my presentation here. I think Illinois is continuing to grow. We have drilled three good wells this year. We are now going to analyze properly how these last six, seven wells have behaved in order to see how will our further, what will be our next steps in this region before we take any more decisions. So no more news here. Things are going fine. I'm very happy to also say that the guys in Illinois, two guys are running the whole show. We have had no incidents whatsoever on HSE. I'm very proud of the guys working in Illinois. On Venezuela, I think also not very much to say here. We have the approval, as I already mentioned. We are continuing with our plan. We are waiting for the outcome of the final negotiations on the contract terms, getting the Chevron model in the contracts with Venezuela, and of course, we need the OFAC license. And I would say it goes without saying that we have two elections now, one in Venezuela, one in the U.S., that at least for some people had a bit surprising outcome, and I think that has cost. I think it's a reasonable assumption assuming that this could cause some delays, but I'm not really great concerned. I know this will come up on the question, so I'll wait with some of my obvious statements when we get there, but I still believe that we have a fantastic project in Venezuela. I believe it's in the interest of the Venezuelan government for sure to keep us there. And I actually do believe that the U.S. government, also the new administration, will see that they are better fit with having companies like Maha operating there than not having that. So with that, I think I hand it over to you, Roberto, to go through quickly the numbers, and then we can take some more questions. Okay, thank you, Kjetil. Good afternoon to everybody. It's a pleasure to be here again with you. So starting about the production and revenue. So as you can see, we have been increasing the production quarter over quarter after we finish this and put on stream all these new wells that Kjetil was mentioning. And we increased from last quarter, third quarter last year, around 50%. As we speak, by the end of October, we already reached productions around 400 barrels related to Illinois Basin asset. This, of course, as consequence, has also increased our revenues. Even though we have this decline on oil price environment, we also have this increase when compared to last year, third quarter. Going through the next page, here we present you the OPEX and netback performances. It is important to note we have been increasing our efficiency, as Kjetil also mentioned. Basically, we slightly increased our costs in the quarter, but we also have a substantial reduction on the OPEX per barrel unit. If you look, we decreased around 23% if you compare to last year, third quarter. This, of course, will have a better and higher netback in total amount and also in terms of netback per barrel. So going to the next slide, and now talking about the whole company, I think it's important to show that we have been working hard to reduce our G&A expenses across the last quarters. And now we are showing also the discontinued operations cost because that was related to the other operations that we're going to sell or sold in the past quarters. And also, it's important to note we have been facing several non-recurring expenses mainly related to these projects in Venezuela and looking for other good opportunities for generating value for our shareholders. And by the end of this quarter, we end up with a negative $1.5 million EBITDA of the continuing operations. So going through the next slide. Here, I think it's important to show and talk about the net financial result, which is basically related to Brava share price volatility, which we're going to be exposed to the next quarters moving forward. We face a loss, unrealized loss of around $40 million because of the Brava share price has been declining. But also related to roll-up, we also recognize $18 million gain approximately, classified as discontinued operation, but that was reducing the negative impact of the Brava share price on the final net result of the quarter. Going through the next page, I think this is an important update as well. Basically in November, going back to August, I don't know if you remember, but we issued a margin loan debt with a Brazilian bank where we provided Brava's shares as collateral. As the price has been declining, we have to grant additional cash collateral to cover these margin calls. This would result in higher cost of debt and less flexibility in terms of available cash. Then we decided to not transfer these additional cash collaterals, and the bank made the early termination because of this default. Then we decided to not go through this early amortization. Basically, we have now a debt-free balance sheet going after November. Here, just to summarize our main highlights from the balance sheet, basically we end up in September with $25.6 million in cash and equivalents and also $77 million of liquid investments, which are basically Brava shares and also our three-year offshore debenture, ending up with a total amount of net cash plus liquid investments of around $88 million. Going through the next slide, here, I think it's important to remember our cash balance update. We started the quarter with around $78 million of cash plus liquid investments, and we end up the quarter with $88 million approximately of net cash plus liquid investments, mainly as a result of the Brava shares roll-up and also the unrealized loss regarding Brava shares price decline. Going through the next slide and as closing remarks, we end up with $88 million in net cash plus liquid investments, mainly because we also considered as a subsequent event this repayment of our margin loan with Safra to avoid having this implied higher cost of debt. We have now a solid capital structure with a debt-free balance sheet going forward. And looking for the future, we are also working with OFAC license and other approvals so we can start up as soon as possible our project in Venezuela. We are also working with Brava shareholders so the company can focus on the existing portfolio, the existing core business, and the leverage and thinking on dividends for the shareholders. And also, of course, we also continually keep working and looking for other creative opportunities, mainly focused on Latin America so we can bring other good deals and projects to Maha. So that now I think we close here the closing remarks. We can go through the Q&A section. Thank you, everyone. Well, Kjetil and Roberto, thank you for that. Snappy despite a very eventful quarter. And as always, we received a couple of questions, or a lot, I should say, ahead of this presentation. I think you have touched upon them, so there will be a little bit of a repetition on those. But if we look at Venezuela and PetroUrdaneta, you gave us your point of view here where you are more or less, well, I would say, I mean, the new government in, well, the new old government in Venezuela will probably be on track for you as it’s concerned. And if I understood you correctly, you don’t really expect any major changes from the U.S. new administration. Was that a correct take? Yeah, I think so, but by all means. I mean, I’m not a U.S. policy expert. But I think the main things I would underline is like this is not just kind of guessworks on my behalf sitting in Rio. We’ve had a lot of meetings with the State Department. We also met with representatives of the Republicans. We met with people that are fairly close to the new president-elect. So I feel like my basis for saying what I'm saying is, yeah, kind of more profound. So I think it is, of course, a certain uncertainty on how soon things will happen and what actually will happen. But I think we have a president-elect that everybody assumes is a deal that wants, is a guy that wants to cut deals. So I think he wants to, there could be times here where he would push and press and so on. But I think basically, I expect that that's the feedback I get, that he would love to cut a deal. And I think that there is very little logic in basically just stopping the production from Venezuela. I don't see that as a very logical response. So I remain kind of cautious. I think it could take some more time, but I think that the direction, I would basically expect that it would be a similar type of direction with perhaps a bit more bumpy ride to get there. So I mean, your target for an increase of what, 1,000 barrels a day up to 20 is still intact? Yes. It's just a timeline where you are slightly out of control, which is fair given the fact that you're neither running Venezuela nor the U.S. Thank God. Let me just underline one point in this, and that is important in a way, that we have not started applying a lot of capital into Venezuela now. So basically, our situation now is still a bit like we are preparing, and all the work we're now doing is necessary to be done anyway. But we are still not in a phase where we could just turn on the switch and invest $10 million, $15 million, $20 million into Venezuela. We would anyway need to build our models to make sure that when we are getting all the approvals, that we actually invest the money in the right way. So right now, we are really not losing anything. We are maybe losing in people's mind some time, and perhaps we could have spent more money and pushing this to start up earlier. But really, we're not spending money. We're not losing money here. We have delays in starting up, if anything. So you're committing capital on back of actual facts rather than speculation here, which seems to be a sound strategy here. If Venezuela doesn't play out the way you strongly believe, I'm just reading the question here, how do you see value creation going forward? And maybe another way to look at it, do you look elsewhere for opportunistic investments? Oh, I would first say that I think Venezuela is going to play out. So I don't accept the premises of the question, so to speak. But of course, the question is fair. And yes, we are also looking into other opportunities. And I always said we know Brazil better than anyone. We think we know quite a lot of opportunities in Latin America in general. So yes, rest assured, there is not a lack of opportunities that will not stop us. And you mentioned Latin America and Brazil, but how should we regard the U.S. assets, Illinois here? Expand or sell or just have it pumping and giving you a cash flow? No, for the time being, I think we're very pleased with what we have seen in the U.S. It's not a very big operation, but it's been very profitable and been giving a good return to us as we speak. Very pleased with the operations, as I said, without any incidents whatsoever in operating all the assets. So I'm very happy to continue doing investments in Illinois, but it's not going to, there is no game-changer project in Illinois. It's basically a business that gives us a nice return and keeps us busy operating in the region. What I mentioned, and I will underline again, is that we're going to go through this. I'm going there now in the beginning of December, and then we're going to go through, okay, what are the results now? How can we potentially improve? What can be done? And then kind of evaluate the whole situation in the region, whether we're going to grow more and then look at, yeah, basically look at all the alternatives. But I'm very impressed with the guys working there, I must say. Cool. And we obviously have received a lot of questions regarding Brava, and I think you had a fairly extended explanation to it. But if I may and see whether I can summarize it here, I mean, basically, your fundamentals hasn't changed in Brava. It's just the timeline that had been pushed further out. Is that the way you would like to communicate to the market here? It is. I can understand that it's kind of can be perceived as an easy answer and so on, but well, there isn't so much more to say. I think that the FPSOs, they're basically two big platforms here that we are talking about, and of course, the production capacity on these two platforms is something like 50-60, maybe more thousand barrels per day, so of course, it's vital for the company that these two machines, if you like, are working properly, so I've been on board the Papa-Terra. I've seen it myself, and I know people working on the Papa-Terra. I know people working with the Atlanta. We have been through it. We have seen the investor Westlawn came in. I'm very comfortable that these problems, these things happen. We are in an industry where delays happen, where accidents happen, yeah, where you have to basically stop for a longer period of time to fix some of these things that actually popped up on the Papa-Terra and are being delayed in Atlanta. These things happen from time to time. That both of these two things happened just after the merger, I think was very unfortunate because I think it created some doubts about what's happening here and so on. I don't think there is much happening. I think this is basically how it is. I'm very confident that these two platforms will come back on stream and they will produce the oil that we all are expecting to come. That's it, really. Quite a boring story, but that's how I see it. If I recall your slides correctly here, you haven't really changed your estimate regarding barrels per day for 2025. You're at what, 100,000? Yeah, sorry. Yes, I think that's, and I think it's actually a modest number. I think that it could, of course, again, you can have further delays, which I do not expect. I do expect these two FPSOs to come back on stream in December. I think there could be. There are lots of things that can happen, but I think the expectation is that I would actually not be surprised if we end up producing 110,000 barrels next year and not 100. I think it's a modest number, but it's fair. I don't want to also create an expectation that it's going to be much more. But I think it's, as an optimist or as a cautious optimist, I would say that I think the production rather will be higher than lower than 100,000 barrels next year. Okay. Your largest owner has now acquired over 25%. Over this period where you had your problems with delivery from Brava, I may add. But they have, so they have increased their holding in you. How do they, well, obviously it's difficult for you to comment on owners here, but how do they see themselves as owner in the long term? What's the discussions like when they meet you or you meet them? Yeah, no, first of all, I would underline that I think we've said that on several occasions, that the collaboration between myself and the investors that I have been working with in DBO and Starboard is exceptionally good. So we have been working very close together since we started up the 3R and we made the first investment there together. So this is a very, very strong and good relationship. We are discussing all the time how to move forward. I think we are very aligned on the strategy. And I'm very happy that we have an owner that basically now also steps up when there is a lot of doubts about, well, in the market. And they step up and say, well, we believe in this. They show it by adding more money into the company. So I'm super pleased with the way Starboard is reacting. I'm very comfortable with their targets and approach. I think they have now a significant stake also for them as investor into the company. So I think we as, or all shareholders should be super happy to have a shareholder like Starboard backing the company also in times of concern, in times of doubts and so on. I think they are living up to the expectation of a majority owner that basically demonstrates that it believes in the assets, believes in the company. And that's very good. I'm super happy with it. So I mean, there's a lot of reasons why people will sell, but there's probably only one when they will buy and they put the money where their mouth is. Repayment of debt, walk us through the thinking here and the pause in the share buyback. Yeah, Roberto, do you want to have a go at repayment maybe? Yeah, sure. So basically, when we were passing through the slides, we show a little bit, but basically in August, we issued this margin loan of $15 million. And as collateral, we gave them Brava's shares. So by the end of this quarter and going forward in October, now November, Brava's share price has been declining and the bank requests Maha to deploy additional cash collaterals. So in that case, we would have less cash to use and also the same interest on top of the $15 million debt. So basically, we have an implied higher cost of debt going forward. So we decided not to transfer this additional cash cost and we need to repay the debt so we can be not in default anymore. So the purpose of this was not to have this additional cost of debt and less flexibility of the resources. Approved the financial movement. Yeah. Do you want to talk about the buybacks, Kjetil? Yeah, yeah, I can do that. I think I can generalize it a bit of saying, well, first of all, I think what Roberto has demonstrated is, of course, in spite of also then deciding that we want to repay this debt, which was kind of a fairly easy decision for us because it was just getting expensive. And we had it in the first place in order to have more flexibility also with the expectation that perhaps if Venezuela all of a sudden turned around and would develop very quickly, that we would be ready to move quickly onto it. Now our call is like we just talked about. I think things could take more time. So basically, we felt like we don't need this extra cash. But I also think that when it comes to the buyback, of course, in a time where we have had all these question marks and so on, I understand the board that we haven't stopped the program. We want to continue the program. We'd like to share buyback program, but I think let's get a more, how can I say, sail into more calm waters before we really start up perhaps again. I think that's maybe their main concern. And I think it's being precautious, being cautious on the liquidity and all this makes a lot of sense. But I would underline immediately that we have more than enough capital to all our commitments. We can start up in Venezuela. We have all this capital that we need. But still, let's be cautious and see when we can start up again. We haven't stopped the program, but we want to. I think the board wants to consider all these movements, so put it that way, before they actively start up again the program. So this is not a sign for you planning a rights issue or a capital injection for the market. It's the other way around, one could argue. Yeah. I mean, for me personally, as a big shareholder, I have all my wealth in this. I have no interest in having a share issue at these levels. And when do you need to pay your second installment to Novonor in order to keep exclusivity in PetroUrdaneta? And I apologize for my pronunciation of the company name there. Yeah, it's not very good. You are excused. No, so the PetroUrdaneta next payment there is basically in a year from now, November 2025. I think this has been somewhat unclear before, so I do apologize for that. But basically, all our contractual rights are secured until November next year, where we then are expected to pay another $5 million. What we are also doing, I would say, is that we're of course negotiating now. We want to take the whole 100%. So basically, we are trying to negotiate with Novonor also on how we could move forward with the 100% of this and not having them as a partner at all. That's our ambition. And I think that's, I would rather say that I would expect that to happen before we pay the $5 million, as mentioned. Right. I'll have two final questions here. And the first one is, you're still planning on being listed on the Swedish stock exchange? Y eah, we don't have any plans to do anything about that now. I think if that were to happen, and this is not an active discussion, but I think the fact is, of course, that there are not so many oil companies at the Swedish stock exchange. One other company was recently bought by an Australian Chinese-owned company and probably will not be listed anymore, if I understand correctly. So of course, we can feel a bit lonely, but there are also complications in delisting. It's not an actual thing being discussed right now. I think if something like this happened, it would happen, I think, in a larger context where it would be linked to our business. I don't think we want to spend time on delisting just because we are unhappy. I quite enjoy going to Stockholm, and I think we have some very engaged shareholders in Stockholm, which they ask challenging questions, and they do send me a lot of emails. But I actually like it. I like the engagement, and I think you're always welcome to send me. For obvious reasons, I cannot respond to everything, but I actually like the engagement, and I look forward to going there in January, where we are planning a longer session and a full day with basically opening up for informal dialogue and questions and so on. So I hope to see a lot of new shareholders in January. Thank you for that, Kjetil, because that would be my next question, and I think you already jumped into that. The next news flow, basically apart from the press releases, if there is any development, would be you or the management turning up here in mid-January for a shareholder meeting open for anyone who's interested or just the shareholders? No, I think, well, let's come back to that in details. I'll discuss that with the IR. But like I said, I think that this dialogue with the shareholders is very good. I think I have understood that there's a lot of frustration. I think that let's see how things are moving forward. I remain very confident about the decisions we have taken. I remain very confident about Brava. I remain very confident about the development in Venezuela. Of course, we all have to, the proof is in the eating, so to speak. So let's get there, and then we can, of course, talk more about it. But I'm looking forward to going to Stockholm, yes. Excellent. Well, Kjetil, Roberto, it's been a pleasure. It's been informative and interesting, and we'll watch this place, and we'll see you later. So thank you, guys. Thanks a lot to you. Thanks a lot, Carlo. Och vi tackar som har tittat, and we will thank everyone who's watched and those who asked questions during and before, and see you later. Hej hej.